Posts from the ‘Thinking Out Loud’ Category

Jan 26

Fictional Me

Written by Aviva Luria

One question that comes up often when writing a personal blog is just how personal to get. Before embarking on Old Mom, Young Child, I debated (for instance) whether to refer to my child by his real name, his first initial, or a pseudonym. I settled on the last, both in respect of his privacy and to offer him a little protection, because, well, you never know.

How much of my personal life should I share to make this blog “authentic”? I wonder about this regularly. On the one hand, I’d like to have the cajones to just lay it all on the table (so to speak), but on the other, that seems like a truly boneheaded thing to do. Especially in this day and age when you can’t take stuff back: You never know where in cyberspace your shit is floating around. Uh… so to speak.

A friend, whom I’ll call Sue Collins, left Facebook for privacy reasons. She was afraid the opinions and affiliations she disclosed might one day come back to haunt her. I told her, C’mon. Your name is Sue Collins. If one day somebody confronts you with something you wrote you can claim it was one of the other 63,452 Sue Collinses on Facebook.

Moi, last I checked I was the only Aviva Luria on Facebook. (There is an Aviv Luria, though. He’s a young Israeli.) Still, without being a complete moron about it (“Going on vacation. Door unlocked. I’m sure no one will steal the heirloom jewelry”) I make my posts available only to my Facebook friends and state my opinions pretty freely. I’m sure I piss even my friends off at times, but I truly consider airing my opinionated opinions on Facebook an expression of free speech. If someone decides not to hire me one day because I stated that Rick Perry is an ass (which is a fact, not an opinion), then they’ve saved me the misery of working for someone who doesn’t think Rick Perry is an ass. And that can only be a good thing.

But back to the question at hand, which is, in case you’re wondering, What is “authentic,” anyway? It’s not just an issue of what makes a blog, or a memoir, or novel, film or whatever else authentic, but what makes a person authentic? How can we tell if we, ourselves, are authentic in everyday life, or with our partners, or children? Read more

Jan 10

The Elements of Preschool Magic

Written by Mira from schoolHaven

It’s early January, and this time last year my husband and I were engaged in a feverish pursuit to find a preschool for our daughter. Even though we live in Hamden, we’re spending the year as a family out in Berkeley, California. In trying to conduct a long distance search for preschools, I came across the Berkeley Parents Network (http://parents.berkeley.edu/ ) which included parent reviews of area preschools which helped us whittle an overwhelming search down to four schools we wanted to visit. Why don’t we have this in New Haven? I thought. Hence, the idea for schoolHaven was born, and several months later, with the help of a group of dedicated parents and Kim’s support for incorporating us on kidHaven, we were live.

It’s great to have the freedom to choose your child’s school, but also overwhelming – you can’t possibly visit all of the options. So schoolHaven helps to give you the advance information to conduct a manageable search. I’ve visited enough preschools in the New Haven area and read amazing parent reviews on schoolHaven to know that there are many terrific options back home – one of which will hopefully be our base next year. But many good preschools remain unreviewed, so as the preschool calendar heats up for next year, I wanted to take a few moments to reflect on the elements that make my daughter’s current preschool an incredible experience for our family, and invite others in the kidHaven/schoolHaven community to do the same.

Intentional philosophy: One of the huge differences for me has been switching from a childcare setting to a preschool with an intentional educational philosophy. Our daughter’s current preschool, the Berkeley School, takes the best of the Montessori approach but adds in Reggio-Emilia, Howard Gardner, and other 20^th century educational innovations. Her school follows the Montessori structure of giving kids time to do independent work, and teaches them to respect and take care of a beautiful classroom. Kids and parents alike know that the large green carpet is for building, so we all walk around it on our way to the cubbies, and elaborate block constructions can stay up untouched for several days. For a kid whose mantra early on was “I do it myself!” Montessori is a great match. She is now eager to pour and cut on her own, she has learned how to push in her chair without scraping the floor, and she leads the family in saying a grace that her class says every day before having lunch at little tables with tablecloths and cloth napkins.

“Thank you precious Earth for this beautiful food which will nourish our bodies and help us grow. May people all over the world, and all living things, have good food to eat, a home to live in, and many reasons to be happy. Buon appetito. Namaste.” The grandparents go nuts when they hear this. Read more

Jan 4

Is My Child Too Sick To Go?

Written by Amanda Levitt, ND

To borrow from The Clash: “Should they stay or should they go?”

Ever walk into a classroom or playgroup and the first thing you spot is a child with thick green mucus dripping out of their nose as they reach for the crayons, and think to yourself…Oh great! That’s what we’re heading for next?! Kids and colds go hand in hand. If we quarantined our kids every time they sniffled, we’d be home bound, and at the end of our rope by the end of winter. Childhood is the time to build immunity. By exposure to pathogens, we build up our immune vocabulary, so that when we encounter these bacteria and viruses in the future, our body has an armamentarium of antibodies ready to deploy!

That said, there are many steps we take to keep our bodies healthy. Nutritious food, adequate sleep, and hand washing are just a few ways we avoid contracting the bug du jour.

We have all been there… incredibly busy day ahead, no childcare options, and your child wakes inconveniently with a fever. Well, they did eat a little breakfast, and they don’t look sooo bad, should they stay or should they go? A frequently asked question in my practice is: “How do I know when I need to keep my child home?” Read more

Dec 20

Is it stuttering? Is it stuttering?

Written by Alida Engel

“I, I, I, I, I, I, I have a decision,” announced our 3 year old granddaughter. This was not the first time that I’ve heard her stutter. In fact, she was repeating words, part of words, and phrases ever since she started talking at about 18 months. She is now three and a half, and unlike many of the children I work with speaks in long, complicated sentences.

Of course I wanted to know what decision “she had,” but being a speech pathologist who has helped many, many parents and children deal with speech and language issues for over 43 years, I find myself, at times, listening to how she talks rather than to what she is saying.

I know that it is important to hear the content of what a child says, but I also know that ignoring breakdowns in communication until a child is 5 or 6 is misguided. One percent of all children, worldwide, will grow up to be people who stutter. Ignoring the stutter and waiting to see if the child will “outgrow” the behavior is not advisable. Read more

Nov 28

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The Search for the Perfect Kindergarten

Written By Aviva Luria

We have begun, in earnest, the search for a kindergarten for Jonah, and I’ve been just a bit overwhelmed. The town in which we live, unfortunately, does not have a good reputation when it comes to schools and didn’t even before they laid off about 50 teachers last year. Stupid decision to buy a house in this town? Why, yes. But to explain ourselves a little, things weren’t looking rosy in the child-bearing department at the time so we didn’t give serious consideration to schools.

So here we are. Fortunately, we can apply to the New Haven magnet schools and plan to; there is one we are particularly interested in. But while I want to support public schools (I believe in public education and both my parents were public-school teachers), I harbor a few worries. First off, as we face more and more cutbacks in these financially treacherous times, will things considered extras, like the arts and recess, be eliminated, or reduced? Will classes become larger, necessitating greater emphasis on keeping kids under control? My little guy is a bright, curious, spirited dude with tremendous energy; he can’t always control it, either. Yes, he needs to learn how to take charge of his energy, but being in an environment in which he’s punished for his physical exuberance doesn’t sound like auspicious beginning to his academic career. Read more