Although I insist that I’m implacable every time Archie jumps out from behind the door, there are several situations that make me nervous. Long days of separating from a young toddler is one of them. Talking to my personal heroines is another. Mixing my professional life with my crazy parenting life is a third. Combine all of these and I say some bonehead things. Take the final day of the Institute for example.

One of the JBMTI directors started talking to me while I was reuniting with Matilda. I was so thrilled to speak with her that my brain left my body and I became one of those parents– the ones who say things like, “well I don’t know about tantrums, because we don’t have any because I breastfeed,” “my child won’t have any trouble ever because I cosleep,” or, “my child won’t play with superheros because we’re a nonviolent family.”

I’m not saying I’ve never been one of those parents– when Carter was a baby I distinctly recall thinking those 2-year-olds were monstrous creatures and wishing their parents would do something about their atrocious behavior. I haven’t been that parent for a long time though- until last summer.

Maureen commented that her grandchild’s favorite word was “no,” and wondered if it was also Matilda’s favorite word. My response?

“Why no, I don’t know why it would ever be her favorite word. I mean, she hardly ever hears it.”

I have one good friend who has pledged to kick me if I say anything that dumb again, but sadly, she was in another continent while I had this conversation. All I can do is offer up this 90 second montage.

Getting My Geek On
As a sometimes contributor to Wired‘s parenting blog, I’ve managed to publish nine articles this summer for the volunteer group blog, GeekDad:

• See Dick and Jane Bedoop
• Frye? … Frye? … Cameron is Moving and You Can Buy His House
• 10 Internet Memes You Can Share With Your Kids – And a Bunch You Can’t
• The 140 Project: Filmmakers Capture 140 Seconds of Home
• Happy 25th Birthday, PG-13
• Everything I Know About Parenting I Learned from Mythbusters
• Hey, Kid: Support Your Local Wiki
• Everything I Know About Parenting I Learned from Harry Potter
• Everything I Know About Parenting I Learned from the Apollo Program

The latter “Everything I Know” series has been a fun project to do with Amy. I may get the (unpaid) byline on Wired, but she’s the mastermind behind the actual parenting know-how. Maybe there will be a parenting book project in our future, if we can just get rid of these pesky kids.

To Meme the Impossible Meme

Oh, yeah … I wrote a book, too
You probably can’t tell from looking at this blog, but it has been a busy year. Last July, one of the professors at the School of Informatics passed my name along to a literary agent who was looking for someone to write a Twitter book. By August, I had a deal with O’Reilly Media. It wasn’t until this past March, however, that the book—Twitter API: Up and Running—was released. The effort was twice as long as estimated, both in time and content.

Although the technical descriptions and code in the book haven’t drawn complaints, it is the first chapter of which I am most proud. My original plan was to make that that book and just have a few chapters on the API. O’Reilly being a technical company, my “Twitter Culture” book will have to wait for a future manic period.

That bit of work, though, got me some invitations to do some talks (as well as some I couldn’t attend). The most interesting one happened last night, with a virtual trip to Googleplex for a Tweetup. (Google was smaller than I had imagined, in my little Skype window.) The event was organized by Sudha Jamthe, with help from others—especially Perrine Crampton and Shuchi Rana—and featured a panel of Twitter employees and developers.

The “talk” was pre-produced, to avoid any glitches with the online connection. I’m glad it worked out that way, because sound went in and out throughout the night. It was odd to listen to myself speak and occasionally hear a dog barking in the back of the audio track I made in my downstairs office that day. One happy outcome is that I finally created accounts in Vimeo and SlideShare to try out those services.

Maturation of the Twitter Ecosystem

Ready for Next
I’m at a bit of a crossroads at the moment, considering what my future is going to look like. The academic path I had expected looks less and less appealing by the day, and if it happens, I’m going to aim for a university program that values portfolio-based teaching. More likely, I’ll head back to industry, where I can apply whatever I learned at the School of Informatics to building things. I’ve had a couple projects this summer (one bust, one brilliant) and am spending more time with SociaLens (another place I may be blogging soon). With CHI 2010 deadlines in September, I need to make some decisions about where my priorities will be. It is not far-fetched to imagine taking a year off from the dissertation grind, before it starts in earnest, and play in industry a bit.

Wish me luck.

Shift to googling about “challenging” kids and most of the advice is the same as above, only with added emphasis. The message is clear- if your child is challenging, you need to be more consistent, swifter, perhaps adding more limits and more rewards.

There are several flawed assumption inherent in most of this advice. One such assumption is that if a child is explosive, having a hard time coping, that his parents aren’t working hard enough- perhaps they are inconsistent, confused or just plain lazy. Help the parents be clearer in their consequences and expectations and the child’s behavior will improve.

Another flawed assumption is that if something isn’t working, (rewards, consequences, increased limits) adding more of the same will help the situation. If rewards aren’t working, perhaps they need to be more accessible, more immediate, or more enticing. The consequences might be more effective if they were more immediate, more consistent, perhaps even harsher.

The missing piece of all these discipline systems is skill. None of them assess whether or not the children actually possess the skills they need to meet the expectations set before them. None of these reward charts actually teach problem-solving skills, emotional regulation or communication, so while they are possibly effective in the short-term, they are woefully lacking in the long term.

Ross Greene has been making these points in his books for a while now. His book, The Explosive Child opens the door to teaching chronically frustrated kids problem-solving skills, and introduces the essential underpinning of Collaborative Problem Solving, the premise that children do well if they can.

To learn more, you can listen to our Parenting for Humanity podcast either on itunes or at blogtalkradio. During last week’s podcast, we explored the ideas in Greene’s earlier books and laid the groundwork for our visit with Ross Greene about his newest book, Lost at School coming up on October 29!

If you’re in Bloomington, you can come to a workshop sponsored by St. Mark’s Nursery School on Wednesday, October 22 at 7:00 that introduces this empowering paradigm shift. If you’d rather experience it online, Lisa and Amy are conducting a free teleconference on Friday, October 24. Email Parentingforhumanity at gmail dot com to register, or find us on twitter and send us a message.

Carter and Archie: WA WAAA WAA He blah blah blah and He did this and that

Me: (reciting to self: I am calm, I am competent, I can help my kids solve this problem) Let’s get all our concerns on the table. Carter? What are you concerns?

Carter: He wants to use all the pillows for the pillow wall, and we need them for the pillow barrier. I told him, “be reasonable,” but he won’t.

Me: Okay. So Carter’s concern is that there won’t be enough firm pillows for the barrier. Archie? What are your concerns? (rinse and repeat several times, as Archie won’t stop crying, and Carter won’t stop talking)

Archie: I want to make a pillow wall. I need pillows.

Me: Archie is saying he wants to make the pillow wall now- what solutions can we generate here? Carter is concerned about the barrier and Archie wants to make the wall. (Thinking to self, any minute now boys will be working together to create solutions, bonding their friendship for life).

silence.

Archie: We could make the wall first.

Me: Archie has an idea. He suggests we should build the wall first. Carter? What do you think? Do you have any solutions?

silence

Me: Carter?

Carter: What? I’ve been plugging my ears if it’s not my turn to talk.

Eventually, I tire of the pillow debate and send them outside. After my own therapeutic flower-picking activity, I wander into the backyard.

Carter: Mom!! Watch this! (executes crazy-ass swing off of playset, slightly onto inflatable jumper, then onto ground)

Me: Wow. That doesn’t scare me at all.

Carter: Why should it scare you? I’ve only hit my head on the playset once doing this.

Yep, I’ve got some concerns today.

Carter’s overheard tweets cover the gamut of educational to just plain crazy. Here are a few of my favorites.

Scientific:

“But Archie, a mosquito is so small it’d be dead before it finished sucking all your blood. There’s really no reason to be afraid of it.”

Negotiating:

“Even though we’ve seceded, since we live so close could you help us out and hand us a couple of spoons?”

(In response to me telling him it’s time to come inside) “It can’t be! I haven’t seized the day yet!”

“Mom? Do we have any rat poison? We need it to add an element of death.”

“You could grant me $50 or alternatively you could be the subject of a comic strip called ‘mindless mama.”

Speculative:

“It’s not likely I’ll be a competitive world class swimmer or diver. Much more likely I’ll be a noted musician.”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if someone’s last words were ‘you have mustard on your chin?’”

Unusual declarations:

“I’m playing a blues oboe solo in honor of Dad. At least it’s a slightly sad oboe solo. I don’t really know how to play the blues yet.”

“Mom, don’t bake this, it’s got gunpowder in it.”

“I want to make a movie called ‘movies’ about a movie company that makes nc-17 movies targeted for 6 yr olds.”

Archie is younger, and his reflect a different developmental stage, although there are certainly similarities.

There are the painfully sweet:

“Mama, I’m still your sweet little man- only now I look bald.” (After a haircut)

“You’re so dumb mom,” (shocked silence) “I mean, funny dumb, Mom- the good kind.”

The unexpected:

(Speaking as his Bionicle) “You shall feel my BATH!!”

“Can I play with Yeltsin? He’s funny and his head comes off.”

“Mom? if we get a parrot, can we make a pirate ship?”

The “I’m developing people skills” category:

(In response to Carter calling me the MEANEST PERSON IN THE WORLD) “Actually, Dad is a little meaner.” (note: later that day he told Dad he was just saying that to make me feel better.)

“I feel like he punched me in the face. He punched me in the back, but it felt like being punched in the face.”

“He used to be my brother, but now he’s dead, and I don’t like dead people, so he’s not my brother now.”

We offer a look at some recent studies on use of the Internet by kids as well as a personal inventory of how techie our own boys have become.

Carter has a Facebook Profile

Children are at the vanguard
In an article on how parents monitor their kids’ use of social networks, author Mike Sachoff reports that one in four pre-teens are already account holders on MySpace, Facebook or Bebo. The lower limit for membership in those social networks is 13 or 14 years old.

Last June, Garlik—an online identity manager based in the UK who is also responsible for the QDOS identity ranking—commissioned the teen virtual world Dubit to survey 1000 UK children between ages 8 and 15. They supplemented this survey information with market research from 1030 UK parents. According to the findings, there are 750,000 underage members of the three large social networks, or about 23% of all UK children in that age range.

“Children are at the vanguard of the social networking phenomenon, using sites such as Facebook and Bebo in the same way other generations used the telephone.”
Tom Ilube, Garlik CEO

Their caretakers responded to that behavior. About a quarter of parents secretly log into their kid’s account to check online activity. A similar percentage admit to creating a second account for the purpose of spying on their children. Other findings from the commercial study include:

• 58% of parents claim they are more diligent now than they were a year ago
• 89% of parents have talked with their kids about the dangers posed by social networking sites
• Two-thirds of kids post personal information on their profile page, including current school and cell phone number
• 26% of kids aged 8-15 have strangers as friends
• 20% of kids have met strangers they previously only knew online

The Pew Internet and American Life project offers an additional longitudinal perspective on the growth of young kids online, as well as how parents participate in that exploration. A report released in April 2007 showed 55% of teens had a profile page and two-thirds of them restricted access to their information in some way. While the Garlik findings probably need better context to avoid coming off as fear mongering, safety is just one of the issues parent currently face raising kids in the Age of Web 2.0. Academic fraud, consumerism and cyberbullying are other areas of concern that confront parents as their introduce the next generation to technology.

Any dystopian fears about exposing kids to tech are countered by the more optimistic focus on benefits. Our (Western) world is so immersed in computers and mobile devices that not having early access to the Internet and Wiimotes may disadvantage children later in life. The creative and expressive tools available through computer, the ease of exploration, and the extended communities formed around niche topics of interest can help overcome limited resources or restricted educational policies in local schools.

An inventory of our kids’ technology
Our sons have a computer—a hand-me-down that only recently gave our eight-year-old Internet access. It sits in the main room of our house, in between the kitchen and Amy’s computer. The screens are visible, and we try to make consumption of the Web a social activity.

We have encountered two notable obstacles in this setup. The first is volume. Carter spends a lot of time on the Bionicle site, which features many movies with background music. He likes it loud. Our parents, regrettably speaking through us, don’t. Out come the earbuds, which addresses the noise but brings up a new issue of connectedness and shared experience.

The second obstacle is clicking on links. Many kids sites are self-contained webs within a larger web, with many clear warnings when you are about to leave the protection of their site. Facebook, YouTube and pretty much anything with site advertising offers no such indicators. We discuss the things he sees and explain our concerns, urging him not to explore YouTube on his own. At the same time, we want to demonstrate the freedom the Internet currently provides and how to discriminate between degrees of truth in its content.

Some precautions are taken. I do have to shield some of the YouTube content I might enjoy from the boys’ eyes and (mostly) ears while working from the living room couch. After a late-night screening when it was first released, however, the family enjoyed multiple viewings of Dr. Horrible. Carter and Amy play PackRat, and Archie loves watching Carter build things on Scratch and the LEGO Digital Designer.

Carter has accounts on a few social networks. We set them up, with a little guidance from him, and restricted who can view them. I am a big proponent of transparency and the ability for sharing to enhance your life, so use of these tools is encouraged. I am less comfortable gambling my son’s identity on emerging properties of an open system. A balance needs to be struck. He is currently working on creating a blog, and we have turned YouTube into a personal gallery for family projects.

After almost two decades of avoiding computer games, we are back in the mainstream with a Wii and plans to add Spore in the fall. I became sold on the Wii because of (a) it’s use of haptics and natural motion for input, and (b) the social nature of the games. Wiis are the new charades for family game nights. Not all of the games on the Wii have been as social as I would like (ahem, LEGO Star Wars) nor have the collaborative ones all captured the boys’ interest (ahem, Rockband).

Archie likes Wii Fit

Spore offers a different set of benefits. It is soaked in opportunities to educate on evolution, group dynamics, cultural capital, ethics, geology, and communication. Although it isn’t a social game, the stories of the evolution of creatures and the pair-programming style our sons typically employ to play computer games make it a communal activity.

In addition to his year-round campaign for Santa to bring a superpower machine, he is also hoping for his own laptop and cell phone come Christmas time. At age 4, Archie has been exposed to technology earlier than his older brother and has been able to experience its benefits in more meaningful ways because of a peer guide. Like his brother, Archie is practicing to read by selecting shows to watch from the TiVo now showing menu.

What is your philosophy on technology use by children?
We would love to hear your thoughts on when and how to introduce children to technology. If you are a parent, what are your plans and limits for your own kids? For non-parents, what kinds of strategies might you employ to address the issues of early adoption while still reaping the benefits?

Parenting for Humanity will be discussing these issues on their radio show this Thursday, August 14th at noon Eastern. Hosts Amy Makice and Lisa Stroyan invite you to participate in that discussion during the show, or post comments here.

This afternoon he nudged Kevin out of the way so he could show him a trick- he then ran as fast as he could through all the junk in our living room, around the pantry and out the back door, across the backyard and then jumped on our swingset—all while screaming unintelligible yet exciting sounds.

Carter, budding stuntman

Our neighbor was watching. He was less than impressed, and Carter was forced to up the ante. Searching for that stunt that would truly catch the attention of the neighborhood, Carter spent the rest of the afternoon hurling himself at the swing, face first.

After several attempts, he got the result he wanted—he missed the swing with his body, grabbing it instead with his neck, flipping himself backward onto the ground like a hapless victim of the Foot Fist Way. It was one of those accidents that gives every parent nightmares about head and neck injuries. From across the yard he looked like a tangled up Woody doll, arms and legs askew over crushed torso and head. If I had just a smidge more energy I would have raced across the yard to rescue him.

Carter: (standing a bit unsteadily, grinning) I’m OK!

Carter holds his hands out to calm the crowds.

Me: Really? That looked painful.

Carter: No! I’m great. It was fun.

Me: Carter, it looked like it really hurt. It was loud and your neck got caught.

Carter: No! That was possibly the best moment of my entire life!

Could be worse.

Keiki
This project uses a wiki to create a “free, complete and reliable parenting guide” authored by caretakers and those with interest in child development (like educators). It covers all stages of development, from conception to college.

WikiCity
Imagine a city as a real time control system, in which data is accrued and immediately affects the system. That is the idea behind placing sensors in Rome to track human activity with known events. A display provides the information to people who in turn change the display through their actions.

WikiInvest
This investment information wiki recently netted $25 million to help take it to the next level. As as competitor to the expert-driven investment advice resources, WikiInvest is a research portal where anyone can contribute information on companies, including expanding profiles or chart analysis.

WikiLeaks
This is a political project to provide an outlet for the safe release of mass document leaking and public analysis. Although potentially helpful everywhere information is controlled, WikiLeaks is targeting traditionally restrictive information cultures in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Members can reveal unethical behavior in government and corporations. One of the best things the site is doing is keeping tabs on its own press. The site uses a combination of open source and custom coding to protect document donors and the site content.