little kids Archives - Page 9 of 9

Can Empathy Be Taught?

November 19, 2014 by Kelley Leave a Comment

One of my greatest memories of living in New York City as a new parent is a simple one. It was six years ago, and my oldest son was two. We were playing around a fountain at a neighboring apartment complex, and a little girl was sitting cross-legged on the pavement, sobbing. My son stopped his scooter, looked at her for a moment, and then walked over to the child and solemnly embraced her for a minute or two. He didn’t know her, but wanted to hug her. I remember thinking at that moment: my son is kind. And it filled me with warm feelings. (Feelings I try to return to, in “Calgon, take me away” fashion, when that same son is yelling at his younger brother for breathing on his Lego ship without permission.)

Turns out there’s a good reason why that moment impacted me so much. A recent study suggests that the ability to demonstrate empathy at a very young age is a surprisingly good predictor of later behavior. University of Michigan researchers collected data on 240 children at age 3, and took note if they demonstrated certain behavioral red-flags, and then studied the children again at age 6. Turns out that preschoolers whose parents thought they showed “callous or unemotional” behavior, notably a lack of empathy, were especially likely to have behavioral problems in first grade. This lack of empathy was an even more powerful predictor of later trouble than traits like inattentiveness and defiance.

The silver lining of this glum finding, say researchers, is that empathy, unlike some other personal characteristics, can be successfully nurtured, especially in little kids. Study co-author and University of Michigan psychology professor Luke Hyde singled out Parent Management Training, a treatment model used by many child psychologists who care for families of conduct-challenged kids, as a good starting point for parents who want to help their little ones be kinder and more aware of others’ feelings.

On its Facebook page, the Parent Management Training Institute posted a piece about helping children learn empathy. They offer these three useful tips, which I paraphrase here. I hope to practice all three with my kids—even, and perhaps especially, my three-year-old—in the coming months.

Model empathic behaviors whenever possible. Isn’t this the case with so many good parenting practices? Talk often about how others are feeling, and how you might be able to help them.

When your child says something negative about a peer, counter them with positivity. It’s common for children to focus on something a person is doing wrong. When they voice a negative observation out loud—”Tara is bad at basketball,” is the example used by the PMTI—don’t just say, “that’s not nice.” Prompt them to be more understanding in the future by offering insights into possible reasons the target of the observation is having trouble (“Tara just started the sport; remember when you did?”) or pointing out other ways in which the person shines.

Be a storyteller of kindness. Kids often respond to true stories about kind deeds and actions more than abstract reminders. Tell them about how you or someone they know has lent a helping hand, or relate an inspiring story from the news.

I’m going to add a final one: Do something selfless together. Next week, look for a post about simple ways even the littlest members of your family can give to others in need this holiday season.

Photo credit: Theloushe via Photo Pin, cc

It’s O.K. to Not Always Be O.K.

November 4, 2014 by Kelley Leave a Comment

Do you try to hide messy emotions from your kids? I know I do—mostly out of a belief that parents need to be strong and stoic in order for children to feel “secure.”

This came to mind recently, when I found out that a beloved uncle had unexpectedly passed away. I got the call on a Friday, and my children were lounging on the couch reading nearby. They immediately sensed from my tone on the phone that something was wrong. I had no time to make sense of the call and “smooth over” my grief before my eight- and six-year-olds were on top of me with questions. As I told them what happened, the tears spilled over. But instead of being perplexed and disturbed, the boys solemnly embraced me. “I’m so sorry, mom,” they said.

Cathy Cassani Adams, LCSW, one-half of the parenting duo that hosts my favorite podcast, Zen Parenting Radio, is a strong believer in emoting in front of children—and, sometimes even trickier, allowing them to do the same. She eloquently expands on this in a chapter of her just-released second book, Living What You Want Your Kids to Learn: The Power of Self-Aware Parenting. She’s shared an excerpt with HHK, below.

Why feeling emotion is essential for you and your kids

(an excerpt from Living What You Want Your Kids to Learn: The Power of Self-Aware Parenting, Be U publishing, 2014)

Wouldn’t it be great if we could just feel the good feelings? If we could bypass what makes us feel disappointed, sad, or uncomfortable?

While it would be wonderful to just feel love, joy, and a sense of peace, emotions are a package deal. We either feel them all, or it’s difficult to feel anything at all.

This doesn’t mean we have to suffer when painful feelings arise. To illustrate what I mean, we can acknowledge anxiety without becoming a worrier. We can feel the injustice of something without flying into a rage. Emotions don’t have to become a mode of being.

Too often we feel something, then push it away for fear of becoming angry, weak, or extremely sad. When we do so, we suppress the natural signals our body sends us to keep us aware.

Denying what we are feeling leads to a state of repression. Shoved out of sight, the emotion morphs into a state, such as constant anxiety, impatience, or a critical spirit. Such dysfunctional patterns of behavior become a hallmark of our personality. Consequently, we’re mad at everything, but we don’t know why; or sad much of the time, without anything in particular causing us sadness in the moment.

Emotions aren’t the problem. It’s our inability to fully feel our emotions that gets us in trouble. If we would just allow a feeling to come up, let the tears flow, face up to whatever it’s about—such as what’s making us angry—the emotion wouldn’t fester. Once acknowledged and felt, it can be released. Then we don’t waste our valuable energy pretending not to feel a certain way when we obviously do, or telling ourselves and others that things don’t bother us when everyone can see how bothered we are.

Distracting ourselves from what we are feeling—denying our emotions—is commonly referred to as numbing. This takes many forms, such as excessive use of alcohol, overeating, indulging in drugs or medicating ourselves, being a shopaholic, spending all our spare time with technology, and staying busy, which is the most socially acceptable form of numbing. How often do we keep ourselves busy so that we don’t have to deal with how we’re truly feeling? By being perpetually busy, we keep our focus away from what’s going on inside us, preferring anything to having to feel.

The really sad part about this is that anything going on inside us isn’t trying to harm us. It doesn’t come into our lives to hurt us. Rather, it’s trying to heal us, moving us toward greater wholeness. Its objective is to help us let go of something we no longer need in our lives, which enables us to return to a more peaceful way of being.

Children get this. They know how to have a good cry, and they know how to express disapproval or call out something that seems unjust. But what do we do when they express what they are feeling? We order them to “stop it.” We tell them they are being manipulative, too dramatic, or insensitive. In this way, we teach them their emotions aren’t desirable. So they learn to numb out and pretend.

What if we felt our feelings instead? What if we actually accepted our emotions, neither reacting to them nor suppressing them, but allowing them to pass through us?

To take this approach to our emotions is to appreciate our body’s natural ability to release what it doesn’t need. It also empowers us to teach our kids to do the same. We could share tools that would help them appropriately discuss and release whatever they may be feeling. In this way they learn to honor their feelings.

All of us—parents and children—need to embrace our emotions as normal, as an essential aspect of being human. Whether it’s a good feeling or not-so-good feeling, we all need to give ourselves and each other permission to feel it fully.

To read more of Cathy Cassani Adams’ newest book, buy it at Amazon, here.

Photo credits: Top: Sara Bjork, via Photo Pin, cc; bottom, Cathy Cassani Adams

Toddler Dining Solutions

October 8, 2014 by Kelley 13 Comments

There comes a time in every parent’s life when the whole family dinner thing starts to make sense. Your child steps up and tries the chili, and maybe even likes it. She answers a question or two about her day. She might even remember to clear her plate from the table without being asked. It’s a beautiful thing.

Until then, your child may be more apt to treat mealtime like a crime spree. He dumps his milk into the spaghetti bowl. He delicately picks up his peas, one at a time, and drops them to the floor. Every so often, he arches his back and screeches like a banshee, for no apparent reason at all. And finally, without warning, he shimmies down from his seat and makes his getaway, in search of a toy, book, or anything more interesting than you or his older siblings. Many a weary day, at least in our house, he isn’t likely to get an invitation back.

Luckily, there’s a growing number of clever tools that can make mealtime a little less painful for you and your toddler. We’ve chosen three of our favorites, below. And for a limited time: Pass along your own best tip or trick in the comments section and be automatically entered to win a Bambinos! Tidy Table Tray (see description below).

1. Tidy Table Tray (by Bambinos!). Plates and placemats might as well be Frisbees in the eye of a curious (or mischievous) toddler. And if you’ve ever tried to solve the problem with silicone mats and tableware that suction directly to the table, as I have over the years, you know they’re no match for a determined child. Enter the Bambinos! Tidy Table Tray. BPA and phthalate-free, it clips easily and securely to your table in seconds, and has an ingenious spill-catch lip that expands and ergonomically molds your child’s body to reduce the amount of food that finds its way into laps, chairs and floors. Additional inserts available in blue, pink and white. And it adjusts to suit kids ages 18 months to 5 years. Food safe and dishwasher safe.
Buy it: Bambinos! Tidy Table Tray, $34 on Amazon.

2. Dinner Winner Kids’ Plate (by Fred). This interactive Melamine plate eliminates the need for pleas for “just one more bite.” You can divide your child’s food into small portions that fit into each little box that marches across the plate; kids are encouraged with messages like “Keep it up!” and “Good job!” along the way. Feeding experts may frown at reward systems when it comes to food, but this plate is just plain fun.
Buy it: Fred Dinner Winner Kids’ Plate, $13 on Amazon.

3. Drawing paper roll dispenser. That’s right; a fat roll of paper that serves as a cheap alternative to drawing pads can double as the at-home equivalent of a restaurant kid’s meal placemat. When you can’t seem to keep your toddler at the table, pull out a placemat-sized length of paper, a couple crayons, and let your child go to town in between bites. Distraction technique? Maybe. But on challenging days, it might also be just the thing to keep a meal on track. Plus, there’s no need to wipe down a placemat or countertop afterwards; just tear and toss or recycle.
Buy it: Cra-Z-Art Wooden Paper Roll Dispenser, $9 on Amazon; or Melissa and Doug Tabletop Paper Roll Dispenser, $15 on Amazon.

What’s your secret for keeping mealtime fun and sane with a toddler? Describe it in COMMENTS section below for your chance to win a Bambinos! Tidy Table Tray.

Playing is Learning: Alphabet Tag

September 30, 2014 by Kelley Leave a Comment

Last night, as I rinsed the dinner dishes, I watched out of my window as my three boys played soccer in the backyard. Well, the 8-year-old and 6-year-old played soccer; the 2-year-old ran back and forth, always three steps behind both his brothers and the ball, shouting into the wind. His one attempt to get a kick in resulted in a Charlie-Brown-esque back-plant, at which point it was time to drag him inside for bath time, howling the whole way.

It’s hard to find games that all ages of children can play together, without the older ones getting bored and the little kids getting frustrated (or vice versa). An exception is tag, which most kids under 10 can get into, especially if you have some sort of wacky variation up your sleeve. A surprising crowd-pleaser is Alphabet Tag. You can vary the rules to suit children’s literacy level, but in the end, it gets everyone running, with a learning component to boot.

You need:

-Chalk. (You can’t beat Crayola’s, for its color selection and smooth-writing angled top):
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-A sizable and smooth asphalt or cement surface (like a driveway or blacktop)

How to play:

-Write letters A-Z, spacing them out and varying orientation and placement throughout the playing field
Big-kid variation: Encourage kids 5 and up to write the letters themselves.

-Designate a person who’s “it.” The person who’s “it” calls out a letter, and runs around the perimeter of the playing area once. The other players need to find the letter and try to beat whomever is “it” to the letter that was called. Big-kid variation: Choose a category for every round, such as fruit, countries, ice cream flavors, etc. The person who’s “it” calls out a word in that category, and runs around the perimeter of the playing field once. The other players find the first letter of the word and try to beat whomever is “it” to that letter.

-When a person is tagged before reaching the right letter, he or she becomes “it.”

If your children balk at the not-so-sly educational component of this particular game, remind them that you could, instead, be inside doing chores or paying bills while they figure out a game for themselves. I find that kids value pretty much any dedicated playtime with the busy grown-ups in their lives, and so I might as well engage them in something at least semi-enriching (as long as it’s fun, too, of course). And this is just the kind of game that can bring you right into the colder months of fall and even winter, as long as there’s no snow or ice to contend with.

Pediatricians’ Wish List

September 23, 2014 by Kelley Leave a Comment

photo credit: byLorena.com via photopin cc

This is the first in a “Wish List” series in which I ask experts in different kid-related fields—medicine, education, etc.—what they really want parents to know and do better. I’d love to hear suggestions for our next Wish List expert…Kindergarten teacher? Day care worker? Dentist? Environmentalist? The possibilities are endless. Please make a suggestion here.

THE PEDIATRICIANS

Julie Kardos, M.D. and Naline Lai, M.D. are pediatricians in a busy clinic affiliated with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. As fall and winter approach, and their offices fill up with sick and sniffling tykes, they share their top five wishes for patients and their families.

THEIR WISH LIST

1. Vaccinate fully, and on time. As more and more parents opt out of vaccinating or delay immunization appointments in certain pockets of the country, diseases like measles and whooping cough are cropping up again. Do your part for your kid and community by scheduling immunizations, including the flu shot or mist, on schedule. See and print out a complete schedule here.

2. Enforce bedtimes—for little kids and big kids. Too-little sleep leads to depressed kids, hyper kids, and weepy and emotional kids—regardless of their age and stage. Keep tabs and limits on media and even homework, and monitor bedtime, to make sure children get the daily sleep they need: 16-18 hours for babies, 11-12 hours for preschoolers, 10 hours for school-age children, and 9-10 hours for teens. For sleep guidelines and tips from the CDC, see here.

3. Trust yourself. Teachers, day care workers, and even doctors are all capable of “over-calling” or “under-calling” conditions in kids. You know your child best: If you think he is sick, push your physicians for answers; if she seems fine even though someone—the school, a grandparent—insists something is “wrong,” listen to your gut.

4. Teach your children to seek you for comfort. It’s tempting to shove an iPad or a lollipop in front of children when they are scared or uncomfortable, at a doctor’s office or elsewhere. Distraction when necessary—like pulling out a splinter—is okay, but after the deed is done, shower your child with the kisses, hugs, and words that only human interaction can provide.

5. Be careful about sending mixed messages. If you want your child to eat better, make sure you’re eating well. Same goes for exercise, fighting fair, hand washing, and any number of things. Kids notice more than you think; make sure you are role modeling the behavior you want to see in them.

Why a Walk May Beat Circle Time

September 16, 2014 by Kelley Leave a Comment

Any parent knows that getting a young child from point A to B swiftly can feel like an exercise in futility and battle of wills. You can almost see their little brains churning with ideas to escape the shackles of your hand and check out things that are far more interesting than the car, the house, or the Shop Rite: the filthy garbage can across the parking lot, say, or perhaps the thicket of poison ivy behind it. When this sort of thing happens with my curious 2-year-old, and it does constantly, I usually resort to picking him up and carrying him, which frustrates us both.

But do you know that children as young as 8 months old are actually programmed to explore? And that when they do, they actually use techniques that are the building blocks for scientific study: including developing hypotheses and testing them, making predictions, and inferring the causes of failed actions?

These are the findings of Alice Gopnik, Ph.D, a leading child psychology researcher and thinker who’s also a professor at University of California, Berkeley. She presented this research a couple years ago, and has since been a vocal supporter of giving kids more opportunity to interact freely with their surroundings, in a non-structured way. This, of course, is in stark opposition to the growing trend of enrolling younger and younger kids in classes and nursery school programs. (Not to mention parking them in front of “educational” apps. Guilty!) “What we need to do to encourage children to learn is not to put them in the equivalent of school, tell them things, give them reading drills or flash cards,” Dr. Gopnik has said. “We really need to put them in a safe, rich environment where the natural capacities for exploration, for testing, for science can get free rein.”

Obviously, parking lots (or even unfenced yards, for that matter) aren’t the best places to let a young child roam. But one of my goals of the fall is to give my youngest—who spends far more time in classes, car seats, and shopping carts than either of his older brothers ever did—more time “off the leash,” so to speak. I’ve found that something as short and sweet as a walk down the street, or a destination-less stroll around our local pond, seems to fill him delight. He almost always finds something I would have never noticed. Somedays, it’s an old gum wrapper. But the other day, it was some Queen Anne’s Lace and a lone baby carrot growing in a patch in our garden that I thought we’d fully harvested last month. (Inevitably, in these distraction-free outings, I wind up questioning and then discovering something as well; for instance, did you know that Queen Anne’s Lace is also known as “wild carrot?”)

While the act of exploring is, as Dr. Gopnik suggests, an end unto itself, I’ve found it fun with my kids to bring along a notebook or, in the case of little ones, a sheet of paper and a crayon with which we can record our findings; sort of a nature “I Spy.” They can circle or draw what they see, and be able to “report on” their discoveries with other family members later. Here’s a template of what I’ve been bringing along on our walks. Click on the image below and you can print it out for yourselves. It should be about 8 inches square when cut out, easy to fold up and tuck in a pocket.

Happy trails!

Make-Your-Own Trail Mix

September 7, 2014 by Kelley Leave a Comment

A lot of us came of age in the carbophile era: Indoctrinated by the idea that fat was the enemy, we stuffed our faces with rice cakes, plain bagels, and low-fat cookies, and sluggishly made our way from the dining hall to class, wondering why we felt so tired and bloated all the time. Snackwells? Perhaps never in human history have we collectively snacked so poorly.

Over the past decade, there’s been mounting research suggesting that fat is, in fact, our friend, and what we really should be avoiding are these so-called “simple carbs”: quickly digested starches and sugars, often found in pasta, rice, potatoes, and processed snacks. These foods can cause our blood sugar to spike and our energy, not long after, to plummet. If you’ve read or seen the news last week, you’ve probably come across the latest study showing that a diet that’s low in simple carbs is better than one that’s low in fat when it comes to weight control, heart function, and other health markers.

Now, this presents a real snacking conundrum. With things like olive oil, lean meats, eggs, and dairy, it’s fairly easy to work some more healthy fats into mealtime. But if you’re like us, your pantry is stuffed with questionable pouches of shelf-stable carbs: pretzels, chips, puffs, graham crackers, fish crackers, bunny crackers, and some round, unidentifiable crackers I’m quite sure no one has touched since I purchased them in July. These white, tan, and orange snacking staples have been in regular rotation since we gleefully presented our first child with finger foods, and it’s hard to break the habit. Kids like salty, filling, quick-to-digest snacks, and to be honest, I do too—they require no preparation, are easily transportable, and placate a growling belly quickly.

So, I’ve been thinking about ways to satisfy that crunchy-snack craving with some more healthy fats and protein, and landed upon one potentially satisfying solution, particularly for high-activity days when their bodies require a little extra energy: trail mix. But I didn’t present it to my kids in those exact terms. For many of us, “trail mix” conjures up visions of the dusty raisins and shriveled almonds wasting away in vending machines and airports. I rounded up and, in some, cases, purchased a variety of fresh nuts I know they liked, as well as dried fruit, semi-sweet chocolate chips, plain popcorn, and low-sugar cereals. In the spirit of the sundae bar, I lined up the ingredients in little bowls on the kitchen table, handed them some Ziploc bags, and let them go to town. I even sprung for a few airtight acrylic canisters and wrote my kids’ respective initials on my fave chalkboard labels so each child had their own special mix to draw from at snack time.

The possible combos are almost endless. A trip to Whole Foods or Trader Joes will give you a dozen ideas, many nut-free, as may be required in your family. Here are some potentially kid-friendly inclusions:

Nuts (peanuts, macadamia nuts and Marcona almonds tend to go over big in our house)

Seeds (sesame, pumpkin)

Dried fruit (golden raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries, dried apricots)

Coconut chips (we like the Dang brand; and dang, they are addictive)

Sweet chips (to sprinkle in judiciously: semi-sweet chocolate chips, yogurt chips, peanut butter chips, M&Ms)

Low-sugar cereal (Cheerios, Kashi Go Lean crunch)

Plain popcorn (it’s a whole grain, you know)

Bringing your child to the store to help you pick out ingredients can be part of the fun. My sister recently took her daughter shopping for trail mix ingredients in anticipation of a weekend soccer tournament. They came up with the sweet-and-salty combo below, and made individual bags for all of my niece’s teammates. Now, for a rainy Sunday on the couch, a calorie-dense mix like this might not be the best choice. But for a busy day of sports and other activities, it’s hard to beat.

Sophie's Soccer Mix

Ingredients

1 cup peanuts
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup low-sugar granola clusters
1/2 cup M&Ms

Instructions

Mix ingredients in a large bowl to help distribute salt from peanuts. Makes about six servings.

https://www.happyhealthykids.com/trail-mix-kids/

Coaching Your Kid’s Sports Team

September 4, 2014 by Kelley 1 Comment

If your child plays a sport, you or your spouse has probably coached, or at least considered coaching, his or her team. More than 85 percent of youth league coaches are moms or dads of players—because town coffers don’t typically support coaching salaries, but also because it seems, to a lot of us, like a really nice thing: time with your kid, doing something fun, active, and common-goal-oriented.

photo credit: D.Clow – Maryland via photopin cc

If only it were that simple. Coaching your own child has many obvious rewards, but some real challenges, too. Separating yourself from your everyday parent role to treat your child like “any other player” is easier said than done, and kids can sniff out the struggle. While the common assumption is that a parent coach may favor his child, interviews of youth soccer players by researchers at the University of Virginia and elsewhere reveal that kids of coaching parents often feel pressure and higher expectations, and a sense of being subject to a disproportionate amount of criticism. And no one likes being picked on by a coach, particularly one you have to sit down to dinner with later that evening.

Obviously, becoming your child’s youth team coach requires more than a basic knowledge about the sport. It necessitates some introspection to understand your own motivations to become a coach, as well as your child’s—and his teammates’—personality and learning style. For advice on this sticky topic, I turned to my friend Sara Whalen Hess, Psy.D., who’s also a World-Cup-gold-medal-winning former professional soccer player, and now a licensed clinical psychologist and mom of three. (Check out her practice’s website, here.) Dr. Hess started coaching her oldest son’s youth league soccer team when he was 4, and has continued to coach his team every year (he’s now 8). As a former elite athlete, practicing psychologist, and parent, she’s uniquely qualified to provide some advice for making a parent coaching experience a positive one. Here are some of her take-to-the-field tips.

1. Fight the urge to coach and instruct your own child all game long. The only way for a child to learn to play is through trying and failing—that’s a natural process for any athlete, says Dr. Hess: “Kids are so desperate to please their parents in general, but it’s important that children don’t feel like they need to impress us. My goal with my son was that he had fun, because if he’s having fun, he will want to work hard, and that’s how he will get better. As corny as that sounds, it’s absolutely true.”

2. If your child or his teammate is struggling, focus on the positive. Kids respond really well when they think you think they can be successful, Dr. Hess says. One of her favorite pieces of advice for parent clients in her practice—“catch your child being good”—works nicely for coaching, too. Be on the watch for a genuinely savvy move or team-building behavior from a lesser star, and give her effusive props for it when it occurs. “Kids who are a bit slower to catch on need more positive reinforcement to be motivated,” she notes.

3. Don’t neglect a successful player (yours or another’s). It’s tempting to leave a good player to his own devices while you tend to the child who’s studying the clover in right field. But your job as coach is to help your child and all of his teammates grow, regardless of where they fall on the skill chart. “Sometimes I will tell my son to use his left foot more, or try a certain, difficult skill during a game,” Dr. Hess says. “There’s a challenge out there for everyone, but it might not be the same for everybody.”

4. Early on, pay attention to the way different kids respond to different motivational techniques. Style doesn’t need to change based on skill level—however, it may need to change based on personality, Dr. Hess says. “There are always kids who need more direct feedback, and some who need a softer approach. I always get to know my players really well, so I can identify with them and know what they need to have fun and work hard.”

5. After the game, put your parenting hat back on. Postgame talks can be tricky for everyone, Dr. Hess notes, but particularly if you’ve played a role in your child’s win or loss. Try not to brood about your own coaching performance, or your child’s play that day. If the game was a tough one, focus on dialogue more than commentary. “Rule of thumb when you don’t know what to say to a kid: Find out what they’re thinking,” says Dr. Hess. “Ask them how they feel, if they had fun, what were the best or most difficult parts. And based on the research of (Stanford psychologist) Carol Dweck, always put the focus on effort and work put in, rather than stats. We need kids—ours and others—to relate their success to their hard work, so they aren’t afraid of failing.”

12 Best-Ever Outdoor Toys

September 1, 2014 by Kelley 3 Comments

As fall looms, retailers are trying to unload their outdoor gear to make way for school supplies and Halloween hoopla. Translation: deep discounts, making now, counterintuitively, a great time to stock up on outdoor playthings, many of which can be used indoors during colder weather, too.

Keeping a big bin or two well-stocked with interesting active toys is one of the best things you can do to get and keep your kids off the couch from season to season—and this may be especially true for girls, research suggests. So I asked Curt Hinson, Ph.D, a HHK advisory board member, what would be his top picks for age-spanning, gender-neutral toys that are least likely to collect dust in your garage, porch, or basement. As “Dr. Recess,” Dr. Hinson travels around the country to help kids get moving during free playtime, and sees firsthand what toys children in a variety of different neighborhoods are apt to return to again and again. The good news is, his picks aren’t pricey. In fact, the simplest toys often have the longest shelf-life, he says.

So, without further ado, here’s a list of must-have outdoor toys, with links to examples and descriptions below.

1. Sidewalk Chalk. Not just for doodles; create hopscotch game, ball or puck target, or an obstacle course for bikes or skateboards. BUY: Crayola 48-Count Sidewalk Chalk, $10

2. Frisbee/Flying Disc. Some fave uses: Tossing at targets (like trees) for points, or playing keep away. There are many variations to test out, but you can’t go wrong with a classic disc. Discraft has no less than 17 colors patterns, from “Ultra-Violet” to “Blue Orb.” BUY: Discraft 175 gram Ultra Star frisbee, $8-$18

3. Zoom Ball. A favorite of occupational therapists, ball on two ropes with handles, and you send it back and forth to each other. It’s fun to see how far you can make it travel. BUY: Zoom Ball Sliding Ball, $8

4. Wiffle Ball Set. Picnic table is first base, the oak tree is second base, neighbor’s vegetable patch is a home run (you get it). Once your child masters hitting a ball with a skinny wiffle ball bat, making contact with a classic baseball or softball bat will feel much easier. BUY: Wiffle Ball Bat and Ball Set, $6

5. Soccer ball. Kick it back and forth, play keep away, or try to hit targets in a backyard obstacle. Size guidelines: Buy 1 (mini) ball for toddlers, size 3 for 3-5 year olds, size 4 for 6-8 year olds, and size 5 for older kids. BUY: Vizari Astro Soccer Ball, $6-$20

6. Jump rope. Simple, cheap, and a great workout. Count how many times your child can jump without stepping on the rope. BUY: Green Toys Jump Rope, $10

7. Horseshoes. This traditional backyard game is loads of fun for kids. Try a rubberized version for safety’s sake. BUY: Champion Sports Rubber Horseshoe Set, $14

8. Skip Toy. There’s a lot of versions, from the Skip It to the Skipper. Like a jump rope, it’s simple, but even trickier (in a fun way) for bigger kids. BUY: Skipper, $7.

9. Hula Hoop. An addicting challenge, once you get the hang of it. Little ones can roll and chase them, or hop between them, across driveways or gyms. Buy a few and the game options grow. BUY: Wham-O Original Hula Hoop, Set of 3, $35

10. Lawn Darts. The plastic kind with rounded tips are safest. Try to toss them in opponents’ ring for to score points. BUY: Jarts, $16

11. Bubbles. Want to get a little kid running around? Blow some bubbles and challenge them to count how many they can pop. BUY: Super Miracle Bubbles, with Wand, $4

12. Balloons. See who can keep an inflated balloon up the longest using different body parts, or race across the yard, hitting the balloon as you go. Playing balloon “volleyball” over a line of couch cushions can keep kids of all ages busy during rainy or cold afternoon. Perhaps the king of all cheap, versatile toys, come to think of it. Fun Express Assorted Color Balloons, 144 for $7

Additional photo credits:

Hula Hoops: Elliot Mar

Zoom Ball: Unloveable

Frisbee: Annalisa

How Siblings Influence Kids’ Weight

August 15, 2014 by Kelley Leave a Comment

Lending new meaning to the term “big brother”: A recent study of more than 10,000 families finds that siblings are even more powerful than parents when it comes to predicting kids’ weight. Having an obese brother or sister makes a child about five times more likely to be very heavy too, say the study’s researchers, from Massachusetts General Hopsital, Cornell, and Duke University.

Photo by: Johan Sunin via Flickr

There are some obvious potential explanations: Siblings grab snacks out of the same pantry, and usually sit down to the same meals. They often play together, in either sporty or sedentary ways. But the data suggests that some psychological factors may also play a role. Younger siblings are most influenced by an older sibling’s weight if that big brother or sister is the same sex. Kids really do model themselves after the elders closest to them, in so many ways.

So if one child is gaining more weight than is healthy, what can you do to help him—and in turn, his impressionable brothers and sisters? Rather overhauling the heavier child’s diet, take a close look at what you’re feeding the whole family, says Suzanne Rostler, R.D., a nutrition specialist in the Optimal Weight For Life (OWL) clinic at Boston Children’s Hospital, and co-author of Ending the Food Fight. “All family members should be eating in a healthy way, regardless of where they fall on the weight scale,” she says. While sibs may be the focus in this study, she adds, the onus is really on parents, not children, to set family food trends, such as eating mostly fresh, whole foods and limiting highly processed snack foods. (A good rule of thumb: If a snack food has the shelf life of years, it probably isn’t good for your body, regardless of fat and calorie content, Rostler says.) “These habits will trickle down to the oldest child, which will trickle down to younger children,” says Rostler. “And the more you can model good habits, rather than talk about them, the better. A lot of kids we see feel ‘the more you tell me to do this, the less I want to do it.'”

And what if one child has developed a newfound interest in a healthy habit, like eating fruit salads or riding bikes? Excellent: Encourage her to let her sib join in. “Just make sure you don’t frame it as, you (or your sister or brother) need to do this to lose weight,” says Rostler. “Food is emotional, and a comfort for many kids and adults too. If a child is feeling bad because of weight, you risk making them turn to food to feel better, and the cycle continues.”