As we read the paper we see stories of unemployment and people struggling.  It reminds us of two things:

    The most important gift in life is time we spend with family and friends.   Help your kids spend quality time this vacation - balance their screen time.

    The second is how important it is to share with others.  Organizations such as Toys for Tots and the Salvation Army are struggling to meet the demand.

One of the ways we talk about avoiding DDD (Discipline Deficit Disorder) is to think of others’ needs.  There’s a lot of people out there to think about this year.  Give your kids a gift and help them donate to help another child in need.

From everyone at the National Institute on Media and the Family:



Dr. Dave

Anyone who has read chapter 7 in my book, No: Why Kids – Of All Ages – Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It  will remember the Dairy Queen story.  I recently received an email from a principal in Michigan whose school had just completed a book read as part of the Michigan Say Yes to No Campaign.   One of the participating parents had their own “Dairy Queen” experience now called: “The Popcorn Story.”  Here is a summary:

“Max* has always been a picky eater.  When most children, at the age of 4 to 6 months, were eagerly slurping down their first spoon-fed, watered down rice cereal, Max was squirming and fussing, refusing to try….

It was early Fall.  School has just begun and the weather was still relatively warm and the nights were still long enough to play outside after supper.  And the Eskymos were playing on Friday night.  Some of Sally’s friends were participating in the “Little Cheer” that night and lots of our friends would be there in the stands.  What a great time to take two little kids to a football game – or so we thought. 

My husband and I happily announced at the dinner table that we were all going to the football that evening.  What joy!  The two children were very happy to hear this and Sally immediately started making detailed plans for the evening.  “Can we get popcorn at the game?” she asked.  “Sure we can, honey,” I replied, “but we all must eat a good supper first.”  … And, yes, there have been times that the entire family has forgone a treat so as not to rub it in the little guy’s face when he failed to eat well even though he was well aware of the potential for an after-dinner sweet.  However, this particular day was going be different.  It was going to be different because just that very afternoon I had read chapter seven in David Walsh’s No book that included the “Dairy Queen” story.  You know the one – the family had planned to go to Dairy Queen after supper and their younger son, having failed to eat his supper, was subsequently refused an ice cream cone and then a fantastic publicly displayed tantrum ensued.  And, the case in point was, of course, to say no and stick to it!  At this point, you’ve no doubt figured out where this story is going.  Max did not eat his supper that evening no matter how many times we told him that in order to get some popcorn he had to eat his supper.  We said it in countless different ways and Sally even devised a little sing song mantra,  “No supper, no popcorn, no supper, no popcorn…”  Believe me, the kid was fully and completely warned. 

As soon as we arrived, Sally reminded us of the popcorn that she was promised.  With a deep collective breath and a brief exchange of “brace yourself” glances with my husband, we made our way over to the concession stand.  We managed to find our friends and get nice and comfortable in our bleacher seat before the scene unfolded.  It actually pains me to relive it.  There he was, utterly inconsolable and crying at the top of his lungs as the rest of us tried to enjoy our popcorn….

Of course our friends understood.  They heard us quietly reminding Max that because he didn’t eat his supper, he couldn’t have any popcorn. They are like-minded and have children of their own. It was the rest of the crowd around us that wasn’t so kind (or so I perceived).  Oh, the looks!  The pouting lips!  The sighs!  I couldn’t take it anymore!  Not only was I feeling tortured by my child’s cries and painful wails, I was also feeling tortured by the neighboring adults that just couldn’t seem to restrain their judgment of our parenting style! 

So what did I do?  Did I give him some popcorn?  Did I get up and leave?  Did I cry?  NO!  I let it out!  I cupped my mouth and, leaning slightly to the left, made a sweeping motion over to my right and yelled at the top of my voice, “He didn’t eat any supper so he can’t have any popcorn and WE’RE NOT GOING TO CAVE!”

And we didn’t.  …..”

This parent went on to relate how they still entertained Max at the game – he’s two and a half – and have not had to repeat a scene of this magnitude since. And they haven’t caved in either.  Max, as young as he was, no doubt learned a lesson that day (and so did his older sister) – that when Mom and Dad said “no” they meant “no”, even when the ante is raised.   A hard, but so important, lesson to learn for sure – for both parents and kids.

Do you have a story to share?

Dr. Dave

Last week I shared my thoughts on Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers: The Story of Success.  Every time the results of the latest international exams of academic performance are published, a new round of theories are put forth to explain why U.S. kids generally score lower than many other countries, in science and math especially.   Theories abound around genetics, educational philosophy and textbooks.  Gladwell dug into the research and found that the key difference between high achieving Asian students and most U.S. students was persistence - a key character trait of the Say Yes to No Campaign.  How did he make this startling discovery?

The international test used to evaluate students is called the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study).   Before the kids take the test they fill out a very long survey composed of 120 questions asking all kinds of identifying information.   Gladwell noticed that not all students finished the survey, just as not all the kids finished the test.   What he did next gave him evidence for his ideas on persistence.  First, he made a list of all the countries whose students took the TIMSS in rank order of how they did on the test – the top country first on down to the last.  Then he made a list of countries according to the average number of questions their students actually answered on the survey.  Students who made it through the most questions were number one and so on.  Now he had two lists of countries, rank ordered.  What he found as he gazed down the lists was the big surprise: there was a perfect one-to-one correlation between the two lists.  The students who scored the highest on the TIMSS also answered the most questions on the survey.   What he has concluded is that countries whose students score high on the TIMSS aren’t smarter – they are more persistent.  They will keep at a task until they finish it.  He posits that math and science in particular require kids to stick with the problem until they solve it. 

Persistence is a key character trait that leads to success in many areas of life, not just academic.  Any of life’s challenges require a person to “stick with it” and not give up.  If one way doesn’t work, try another.  Parenting, for instance, requires that ability to get up each morning and enjoy the journey.    Lucky for us, persistence isn’t in the genes – it can be taught and learned.  Say Yes to No gives parents the tools they need to teach their kids persistence.

Can you share one way you’ve taught your kids persistence?

Dr. Dave

I was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers: The Story of Success recently and Chapter 8 just jumped out of the book at me.   I realized anew the importance of our Say Yes to No campaign.  In his book Gladwell digs into the research to determine why students in Asian countries have outperformed our American kids for the last 25 years.  The scores of these students are higher in every area and particularly in math and science.

Dismissing the usual explanations relating to genetics or educational philosophy, Gladwell found that the key to Asian students’ success is persistence.  As we’ve been saying in our Say Yes to No campaign persistence is one of the key ingredients for self discipline.   The ability to stay focused and complete a task is the major ingredient for their academic success.  This trait has nothing to with “smarts” and everything to do with character.

Self discipline is a learned behavior.  We are not born with it.  Children learn self discipline gradually over time from parents and adults who use the strategies of No.  In my next blog I’ll describe how Gladwell came to this startling conclusion.

Where do you see persistence paying off for your child? 

Dr. Dave

The Say Yes to No message has been embraced by so many parents.  Even though I talk many times about the need to be consistent with your children, especially when it comes to saying “no,” I am reminded often that the most important parenting skill is humor.

Here’s a story from a Michigan Say Yes to No champion that I thought you’d enjoy:

“So I take Macy (5 year old daughter) and Chad (11 year old son) to the hockey game last night. Macy started whining for a treat in the third period. I told her no because she already had a hot chocolate when we got there. She whines and cries for a little bit and I hold my ground being a good "Say Yes to No" advocate. Just as I get her to calm down she gets hit by a puck. I could not believe it. We are sitting in the middle of the stands and the puck shoots between two of the glass partitions and hits her in the right knee. She is a puddle of tears for 20 minutes. At one point she looks up at me with a face full of tears and says "Can I get a treat now?" I caved like a cheap suit. She got a shake on the way home. I am suing the athletic department for the cost of a shake.”
We always need to be flexible.  Do you have a Say Yes to No story?  Thanks and send it in.

Dr. Dave

That little, puffy, gooey treat – the marshmallow – has become a symbol in the Say Yes to No movement.   The story goes back to a research study conducted at Stanford University in the 1960s.  Four year old kids were given a choice: eat one marshmallow now or wait for fifteen minutes and get another marshmallow.  Each child was filmed while they waited.  You can imagine what happened – some kids ate the marshmallow before the researcher was out the door, others sang, danced, did whatever they could – they wanted that second marshmallow.  The researchers followed these kids for eighteen years and they found that the kids who could wait – who had self control – were more successful in school and work, had more friends and were generally happier.  That important character trait of Say Yes to No: self discipline, has a big impact in children’s lives.

Our local television station, WCCO, got intrigued with the story and asked if we could partner to try it again with a group of four year olds.  Now we are not following these kids further, but the WCCO film clip and story gives parents a snapshot of the importance of teaching self-discipline.

Kids can get the idea of waiting.  It’s not always easy…just watch these four year olds.  But they also experience the pride and self esteem of doing something that they know was hard.  Self discipline is the tool kids need to manage their behavior and reach their goal, whether it’s getting that second marshmallow or something more important, like…

What goals do you think self discipline would help your kids reach?

Dr. Dave

I often get asked at workshops if the increase of media screen time by children causes ADD/ADHD.  I answer this question with a “No, but.”  I am not aware of any brain or media research linking media consumption with ADD or ADHD.  The study that is often cited in this regard is Dimitri Kristakis' study which appeared in the journal Pediatrics several years ago. Kristakis, a University of Washington researcher, found a link between media use before the age of three with "attention problems" when these children reached school age. The attention problems were based on parent and teacher ratings. The media translated these findings into "media causes ADD and ADHD."  The study never made that claim.
 
My own view is that Kristakis' study supports the connection between early childhood media use and distraction. There is a difference between distracted kids and the clinical syndrome of ADD/ADHD. I believe there is abundant evidence that heavy media use is linked to attention problems but not ADD/ADHD.  Interestingly Ed Hallowell, one of the leading experts on ADD/ADHD (author of the best-selling book Driven to Distraction) agrees with this. He and I have presented together and he agrees that we are raising a generation of distracted kids.

Why?  We know that experience drives the neural wiring of children’s brains.  “The neurons that fire together, wire together.”  A brain that is exposed to heavy media use reinforces and wires the reactive attention centers in the brain, the part of the brain that pays attention to movement and sound.  The type of attention kids need for school, however, is focused attention.  This type must be learned and kids cannot learn focused attention from media use.  If kids arrive at school with an over-developed reactive attention center and an underdeveloped focused attention center, the result is a distracted kid.  They just can’t seem to focus on the task at hand and have difficulty staying on task.  

That’s a powerful reason to limit your child’s media use: no media for children under two, one hour a day for preschoolers, and two hours a day for older children.  Make media a fun, but healthy part of your child’s life.

Dr. Dave