Perfecting Parenthood

Create a Carved Pumpkin Model in Blender

Dad — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:03:29 +0000

Yesterday I posted a tutorial for creating a very basic witches hat scene in the 3D modelling software blender. This tutorial is a little more advanced, for creating a 3D carved pumpkin model. It isn't 100% complete because the software crashed on me right near the end and I didn't save in the meantime (SAVE OFTEN!) but I did want to get it up because today is halloween. I'll do a better one for next year, but in the meantime enjoy. If you are coming across this one first and want to know how to get Blender and a few of the basic commands, then do look at the Witch Hat one first, at least for a minute or two.

Perfect Activity: Make Halloween Witches' Hats Using Blender

Dad — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 15:19:56 +0000

I created a youtube tutorial for how to use the free 3D modelling software Blender to create a witches hat model, and then a little scene with hats tumbling around.

This is very easy to do and my child could do something like this since he was 5 years old. Blender is fantastic, like a painting tool, but for creating 3D objects and scenes. It is so powerful that you can make movies like Toy Story or Transformers with it, video games, or just static pictures. And it is freely available.

I really recommend getting kids who have good imaginations and are interested in technical things involved with Blender. It is a little complex at first, but I will post a few tutorials if people seem to like it. Once the child catches on it is quite simple to use.

This scene can be created in about 3 minutes or less once you've done it once, though the tutorial is about 15 minutes long because it explains everything.

Anyway, please leave me a comment or some sort of feedback if you think that a few of these targeted at kids is something that would be valuable.

Download Blender from here (for every major operating system).

Have a look at the follow up, making a carved pumpkin in Blender.

Bad Advice You've Probably Read on Tantrums and Meltdowns.

Dad — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 16:24:16 +0000

You've probably come to the same realization as I did, reading the common tantrum advice out there. Some of them don't know kids. They certainly don't know my kids!

My kids are smart. Too smart to be fooled and manipulated anyway. Handled by concepts like "firmness" and "limits", whatever those are or "just ignore it". I don't want to quote anyone, but just look for tantrums on Google and you'll find countless stories and recommendations about dealing with tantrums. Mostly, the best way to deal with tantrums is the exact opposite of what's in these advisories, plus maybe a little prevention. Let's look at a couple of crazy but common examples of handling tantrums that I was able to dig up on the Internet.

Tantrum Advice Case Study One I Found on the Internet:

The Situation: A mom was injured by her boy in a tantrum. Mom had promised the child a playdate at his friend's house, but later changed the plan because another family member desperately needed something. The child lashed out at Mom, hitting and scatching her and calling her a liar.

The Internet Advice: Mom should recognize the child's feelings of loss, since the child was excited to go but then had the plans change. Mom should explore these feelings, bring them up to the forefront, then cuddle the child to bring them to a place of comfort, explaining that she was very sorry about the change of plans but they were for a good reason. They should "talk it out". From there, Mom should tell the child that there is absolutely no excuse for hitting and scratching, people should use words instead of violence because, after all, she doesn't hit the child. The child will nod and family bliss is restored.

Yeah right.

Here is what is wrong with that: The child sees right through it Conciously or subconciously the child learns:

#1 Mom is a liar: Mom said "You can play at your friend's house" but then changed that. Of course that makes Mom a liar. Every liar has a good reason to lie, the reason doesn't matter. Even if Mom says that grandma is in the hospital she still promised one thing and did another and that's called lying.

#2 Kids have no power: Mom dictates everything and kids decide nothing. She alters the kid's life at will but if kiddie wields any real power then somehow the kid is still in the wrong.

The right way to handle it:

Mom should recognize the promise and the problem caused by the relative who needs help. She should talk with the child BEFORE unilaterally cancelling the playdate, saying that now the family has this problem that a relative needs help tonight. Work and negotiate with the child to solve the problem. If indeed the only solution is to cancel the kid's playdate then it will come up and the kid will be a part of that solution. Mom is no liar. There is no injury. Child's self respect is preserved and even increased by going to him with the problems that impact him.

Tantrum Advice Case Study Two I Found on the Internet:

The Situation: A mother and child are in a store when the child sees candy that they want. The child asks for the candy and when mom says no, the child falls to the ground and starts screaming.

The Internet Advice: The best way to deal with a tantrum is to ignore it. If you can't ignore it, such as in a public place, then remove the child from the scene and let them scream out of sight like in the car. But really, you should "head the tantrum off at the pass" like if you're in a store and the child wants candy and you know that saying no might trigger a tantrum then compromise by saying "No candy now, but a big bowl of pudding at home."

TWEET:Ignoring a tantrum is BAD ADVICE!.

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Umm ... ignore a tantrum? The right answer is to help the child learn a better way. Throwing a tantrum is a child's bad idea (especially for the parent, which is one reason why children do it!), but unfortunately, the child doesn't know a better one. UNTIL YOU TEACH THEM! Whatever the issue is that the tantrum is trying to solve, the parents' role, as someone who actually tries to understand their child, is to show them the right way. If they can't get the top off the ketchup bottle then explain that asking someone bigger to take it off will get it done way better than going nuts.

Although practically everyone says that yelling back is a huge no-no, you can and should do it if you intend to follow it up with a lesson. Just interrupt the child's yelling with your own. If the child can't get the top off a ketchup bottle and starts freaking then it's perfectly fine to blast:

"HEY! You won't get the top off that way, you'll just make everyone around you feel bad. <normal voice> If you want to get the top off then the easiest way is to ask for help. Now, do you want to get the top off the ketchup? Yes? Then just ask me."

Of course, this only works if the parent doesn't chronically ignore the child's civilized requests like some parents do. It wouldn't occur to a child that asking might work if every time they ask mom or dad, mom or dad are too busy with something else.

As far as part two with the candy and the pudding, again, the child sees right through it. Really, no candy now but pudding later? That makes so much sense to a 3 year old... NOT! Why no candy now? Why pudding later? Why not both? Do they always get pudding if they ask for candy? What do they get if they ask for pudding? Seriously, your child can understand. Just tell them the real reason they can't have candy now. If it's because you have no candy, or you don't have the money to buy candy, or because the child doesn't brush well enough and gets cavities, or whatever the real reason is. If there is no good reason then BUY THE CANDY! Again, you reinforce self esteem, that you care, and that he has a role important enough to participate in decisions and provide ideas. Also, if sometimes you do buy the candy and the reasons for it make sense then the child will begin to understand and think about how the world works.

Here is the real reason kids throw tantrums: It's the best idea they have. They want something that they can't get because of lack of skills or because the parents ruled it so or laid down a limit or whatever. They want something they can't get. That's it. Just show them a better way to solve whatever problem they have. And if you're the problem as a parent, making your child impotent, well then empower your child!

How to Eliminate Tantrums

First: Make sure you're not the problem. Be fair with your children. Pay attention to your children so they don't need to destroy things to get you to listen. Keep promises and let them have as much control over their own lives as they can handle. Most of all, make sure you don't regularly throw big people tantrums yourself. This will take you most of the way to experiencing few tantrums.

Second: Don't tolerate the tantrum, but don't try to squash it with punishment or cave in. Instead, give the child a better option.

If they need help, then tell them to ask for help (because you're listening right!).
If they find something frustrating ask them to think about whether the tantrum helped them achieve their goals and made them happy, or whether instead they should think of a better way.
If they are throwing a tantrum because of a disagreement with someone else then here is your big chance to teach them the grown-up skill of negotiation and self-control.

What do you think? Are tantrums easily handled or am I out to lunch?

The Benefits of Skipping a Grade

Dad — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 23:24:59 +0000

We already learned about the concept of the traditional factory school and why that model will always result in underachieving children; because it is designed to create identical results regardless of potential or capacity. We also learned that skipping a grade has scientifically proven benefits even though some people argue that it creates social or self-esteem issues or places undue stress on children. Let's talk more about the benefits.

As I mentioned in the previous article: Evidence shows that children who skip grades achieve more than the children they left behind, and surpisingly, even more than the older children they join. Of children who have the same IQ and same age before the skip, those who do skip dominate in achievement tests over those who don't -- a permanent increase in IQ, which is normally thought to be fixed. Students who skip also rate better socially and emotionally than those who don't and have higher self-esteem.

What causes these benefits? Here are five causes.

They gain ambition and motivation. Children who skip grades are much more likely to join advanced programs in later school years and pursue higher education, along with all the increased earnings and career benefits. Most importantly for their character, they realize that success is not easy. Studies show that children who earn good grades with relative ease become conditioned to success. They slip into a mindset that can last a lifetime; a mindset of doubt in their real-world abilities to solve problems they haven't seen before. People with this afflication play-it-safe, avoiding challenge and learning opportunities, preferring to stick to their stengths and guaranteed success but living a fearful and stagnant life at the same time (Dweck 2000, 2006, 2012).
They stop wasting time. If your child is getting straight A's with minimal effort then they are wasting practically all their time every day. They are learning nothing. Nothing, that is, except that they should expect to get outstanding results without effort, which causes those huge mindset problems later on. Consider that if your child skips a grade then they literally get an extra year of life. In the meantime, they spend all those other years learning more.

Consider also, that the child is learning to slow themselves down and procrastinate. When they get a boring sheet of math problems or other make-work assignment that's due at the end of class but takes only a few minutes to complete then the child settles into some other activity. I'm lucky because my child reads or draws, but he could just as easily become a disruption as his idle brain struggles to entertain itself. However, even though my child reads which is a good thing and gives him enjoyment, he is now optimizing his fun by creating more reading time. As a result, he doesn't check his work or even take any pride in it. He either rushes through beforehand or reads first and them leaves himself just enough time to slam down answers. The silly case of the smart kid performing worse!
They actually get smarter. IQ is thought to be an objective measure of intelligence that doesn’t change. It's scaled to the age of the child. As a simple example: If the average child only learns to add at age 5, but your child knows this at age 4, then your child has an IQ of at least 125 (5 is 1.25 of 4) in adding.

Studies show that children who skip a grade quickly fill in all their knowledge gaps as they adapt into the new grade. On IQ tests they score at least as well, and often higher, than others in their new grade. This is a permanent increase in IQ as if the child were one year older than they are. This effect is not seen when children are not skipped because the factory school model whittles away potential rather than realizing it (Wells 2009).
They benefit from the Pygmalion and Halo effects. One famous early study by Roesnthal and Jacobsen included an experiment in which teachers were told that a group of randomly selected individuals were smarter than average when they were not. After the school year finished, IQ testing determined that those previously average children had indeed gained in IQ as a result of subconcious teacher expectations improving the interactions (Rosenthal, 1964, 1973). Halo effect is another bias in which people subconciously apply information to other areas, such as percieving children who they expect to be smart as being better behaved even if there is no difference in actual behavior.

Both of these effects confer real advantages to students that teachers know have skipped grades. Get your child those advantages.
They benefit socially and have higher self-esteem. The most common objection to skipping grades is the worry that the child is not ready to engage with older children or won't be able to handle the stress of the new grade. In reality none of it matters. By the time they become adults children who skip and those who don't are both equally happy and well adjusted. When asked if they regretted skipping a grade most regretted not skipping more. It does make a difference at the time though. Children who have just skipped do indeed experience some stress as they adapt into the new grade, but improved self esteem quickly replaces stress because the child has proven to themselves that they are more capable than their peers.

Most articles that talk about grade skipping say it's for "gifted" kids. I don't believe it. First of all, I believe that any young child can easily be coached into testing at a gifted level by caring parents. Second I think that skipping grades is so beneficial that any “average” child should try it. See the next article for my plan on how to do it.

Sources:

Dweck, Carolyn. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2007) or Self-theories : Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development (Essays in Social Psychology) (2000)

Wells, Ryan. What Factors Are Associated With Grade Acceleration? (2009)

Rosenthal, Pygmalion in the classroom: teacher expectation and pupils’ intellectual development. (1964, 1992 update) [A brief and update].

Interview at Below Zero to Hero

Dad — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 16:17:48 +0000

Tal Gur, at Below Zero to Hero, just posted an interview of me and my wife. Tal is a very insightful man with great questions. He covered our two main parenting and education blogs: Perfecting Parenthood and my wife's main blog, Nucleus Learning. Tal's site is all about finding interesting and inspiring people, then sharing thair insights with the world. I'm honoured to have been found by him.

If you're coming from Tal's site then I encourage you to have a look at some of the popular posts, on the right. This is mainly a parenting blog but I share many Tal's views on achievement and living life.

Five of my favorite articles:

My Five Year Old Failed In Front Of Hundreds: How Cool Is That?

I've Thrown Every Parenting Technique In The Book At Them: Why Won't They Learn?!?!

Does Your Child Believe? Make Your Child KNOW They Can Be Smart.

Canoing Disaster: A Fun Way to End A Marriage!

Happiness is a Handful of Dirty Cheerios: An Antidote to the Miserable Family

And if you're not here from Below Zero to Hero:

I encourage to read Tal's story and subscribe to his content -- it is truly inspiring and he does a great job of coming up with great interviews.

Thanks Tal!

Skipping Grades: Why Your Child Should Do It

Dad — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 19:26:34 +0000

If you live in North America then I believe that your child is under-achieving, even if they’re getting straight As. I believe this is true even if you love the teachers, your kid is happy, and it’s the best school in the area. Read on to find out why this must be so, just based on the design and goals of mass schools. The next article I’ll cover some studies showing that skipping a grade, especially in the early years, is one of the best things you can do for your child, contrary to some of the opinions out there. Finally I’ll take you through how to get your child skipped whether they’ve hit school or not.

Why Your Child is Under-Achieving, Especially if they get straight As.

Think about how a school works. School is a system designed to create a standard in many human children, like a factory reliably pumping out identical widgets. The factory doesn't know your child, doesn't much care about your child, merely promises to download a set of skills into humans.

The factory school works by hiring workers, specially trained to download this information and skills into large groups of humans. Good factories have tight processes that are measured and improved, with managers to drive efficiency. A school is just like this. Note, as you read further, that I’m not complaining about teachers or administration. They are focused on the goal of educating many many people, which is wonderful and important. It is just that such a goal is a bit different from your goal as a parent, which is to maximize your specific child’s potential.

A school's processes revolve around a curriculum. This is the WHAT in "What does a school do?" The curriculum is the standard and if your child passes tests on the curriculum then the school was successful in imprinting or downloading that curriculum into your child.

But guess what? Since factories produce identical results then the school factory school will try to download the same curriculum into each child (more or less -- optional courses and streams do something but in a limited way). Each child will be put on the same timeline for the download. When your child is five then they will learn counting forwards and backwards. When your child is six then they will learn about butterflies. When your child is seven then they will learn about Egypt.

A chair factory does the same thing. You feed wood into a chair factory. The factory doesn't care about the wood, it will take every piece and turn it into an identical chair. The wood could be some marvelously shaped beauty, or a straight and strong piece capable of supporting a house, or a wise old tree alive since 300 years. The factory doesn't care. Each one becomes a chair no matter what else it could have been.

TWEET: School strips away potential. Find out why!

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Also notice that the standard is minimum. All of the wood that goes into a chair factory is at least good enough to make a chair. In fact, a chair could be considered the least that the wood could become. Almost every piece of wood entering the factory could have become something other than it did, more beautiful or more important. The factory takes away potential, it does not increase potential.

It’s easy to think that the school is improving children, getting them closer to their full potential, but this isn’t really true. After all, children do learn new things every day don’t they? Well, yes they do learn new things, but they learn the minimum amount. The minimum amount that the school can guarantee for everyone. Anyone who can learn more than the minimum is not being enriched, they are being held back, abandoned in a way. Their potential is being lost.

To me, this loss of potential is a bit of a tragedy. The greatest tragedy is if your child is the best in the class -- then they're getting almost nothing and being held back the most. Remember, traditional factory schools operate mostly by cutting away potential.

TWEET: Children underachieve in school even if they get straight As!

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A psychologist name Kazimierz Dabrowski, who died before he could fully explore and comment on American education, called the education system (indeed the entire American lifestyle) a quest for unilevel mediocrity. He lamented that the school system does not encourage children to explore their unique abilities or build deeper character, which comes from challenge, contemplation, and struggle. This is insightful! I will delve in Dabrowski's research on character and development of potential in a future article, but the point is that struggle drives it while complacency prevents it.

So, besides taking children out of school or switching to a mastery learning school, what can you do? I recommend skipping an early grade even if you think your child isn't obviously "gifted", so they can benefit more from the services of the education system. There are many other beneficial side effects as well!

Evidence shows that children who skip grades achieve more than the children they left behind, and surpisingly, even more than the older children they join. Of children who have the same IQ and same age before the skip, those who do skip dominate in achievement tests over those who don't -- a permanent increase in IQ, which is normally thought to be fixed. Students who skip also rate better socially and emotionally than those who don't. They end up having higher self-esteem.

These might be considered benefits, but really they're only signs of the true benefits. Check out the next installment for what the real benefits are and the studies that support them.

Teaching Your Child to be Bilingual

Mom — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:48:48 +0000

All my children are multilingual. My first born, now seven years old, speaks, reads, writes (all fluently) in three languages (Polish, English, and French). My second is not far behind, he can speak both Polish and English and is now in French immersion kindergarten learning French. My third is just learning to speak, but he knows both Polish and English.

I am Polish, born in Poland. When we came to Canada, I was only six years old. I didn't know how to speak English, and my grade one teachers thought I was mute, because I didn't say a word that whole first year. Finally, I broke my silence in grade two, and by grade five I had no accent in my English Language. "Kids learn languages very easily." - that's what most people think. In my case, this was true. By grade seven, my parents realized that it wasn't too late for me to learn yet another language, so they sent me to French Immersion. Again, learning French in Grade 7 was easy - I was operational by Christmas, and by the end of grade 7 I was fluent.
This is a pretty typical scenario for immigrant children. The only difference is that most of them lose their first language very soon after they arrive in their new home. Their parents don't keep a watchful eye and the language is lost.

A lot of my polish friends, like me, didn't know how to speak English when they came to Canada. But after just a few years, they lost all the Polish they knew when they came. "If you don't use it you lose it!" NOT ME. My parents were very keen on speaking Polish at home. For them, it was a very big deal to keep the language (and the Polish culture) alive. I remember that my parents would make us pay 10 cents for every English word we spoke at home. My brother and I would get in trouble if we spoke English to each other. And even when my Polish friends spoke English to me, I felt obliged to talk Polish back to them.
This idea, of the importance of language, was therefore ingrained in me since childhood. And even in my early adulthood, I found myself taking Spanish and French courses, just for the fun of it. So when it was time to have kids, it was understood that my kids would learn Polish and English at the minimum. But how would I approach this? There was a few different approaches, as I found out:

1. Learn one language first. After the child is a master at this first language, introduce the next language. (This is how I learned.)

2. Learn both languages simultaneously: one parent speaks one language to the child, and the other parent speaks the other language.

After doing a bit of research on the subject, I decided to go with the second approach. I would talk only Polish to my kids and my husband would only speak English to them. From what I read, children could learn two languages at once only with minimal language delays. I didn't care about this at the time, and I knew that only by immersion could children truly learn a language. Also, I knew that once I started talking with my child in one language it would be hard to switch later on in life.
For my first child, this method worked like a charm. I think he did have a slight delay in language. I remember that some of my friends' kids were already saying simple sentences by two, but not my son - he was just starting to say words. But it didn't take him long to catch up. By three years old he talked to me (and my Polish family) in beautiful complex Polish sentences. To my husband (and other English speakers) he spoke beautifully in English. He would even sometimes translate from Polish to English for my husband. But it was perfectly natural for him to speak one sentence to me in Polish and then follow that up with another to my husband in English. I loved it!

Then came our second child. This kid did not absorb language as fast as our first. He had trouble with speaking for a long time. I remember that at three years old he was hardly talking and we were concerned. His vocabulary was very small and he had a hard time remembering words, in Polish or English. And on top of it all, his pronunciation was so bad that it was hard to understand him. He understood everything in both languages, that was at least comforting. But because of the language developmental problems, we asked our doctor for advice. He referred us to both a hearing test and a speech pathologist. And then he said that we should stop speaking to him in two languages, and just keep the one (presumably English, since my husband didn't speak Polish). I couldn't believe my ears! My favorite doctor was giving me this TERRIBLE advice. How does he not know the importance of language - multiple languages. On top of it, if I was not going to speak Polish to my one son, then my second son would also lose it. This would have been a huge loss for my kids. So in the end, after doing a little bit of research on the matter, I ignored the advice. As for the hearing test, there was a three month waiting period, so I ignored that as well. When I called the speech pathologist, she told me that given my child was learning two languages at once, that he was still within the normal range of learning to speak. She also eased my fears by letting me know that children can be different, and just because one of my sons learned to speak nicely early on, doesn't mean that all of my children will be the same. She recommended that I wait a few more months and then decide whether to proceed to see her. I liked that option, and as it turns out, she was right. My son was showing remarkable improvements. Now, he is fluent in Polish and English and is learning his third language, French. He is definitely not as good at language as my first son. Even now, he mixes the two languages, especially when talking to me. Recently he even puts in French into the mix - it's pretty funny to listen to. I'm sure he'll get out of that habit if I'm consistent in correcting him though.

This advice given by my doctor, to speak in only one language, is pretty common, as I talk to other parents. For instance, my Italian friend had the exact same problem with her second child: he was slow at picking up both English and Italian. And just like my doctor, her doctor told her to just talk to her son in English. Instead of being stubborn like me, she decided to follow her doctor's advice. But this changed her whole life. Now, all her children don't know Italian, and now instead of talking Italian at home, the language was English. Her children can't talk to their grandparents because the grandparents don't know how to speak English. Now the Italian culture is gone from that family. Language really is the gateway to culture.
Lastly I wanted to point to the many studies showing the benefits of bilingualism (or multilingualism). Bilingual people are smarter, healthier, and live longer:

This article was originally posted on my educational blog Nucleus Learning.

Video: How My Kids Argue

Dad — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:26:54 +0000

This is a fun chase/action video that my kids and I made last weekend. Hope you like it. Happy holidays! Hope they're less stressful than my eldest's :)

The kids helped with the special effects, and of course they were the stars.

Perfect Dad Interviewed on Right This Minute

Dad — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:19:32 +0000

I just finished an interview with Right This Minute, who found me by my last video where me and the boys are causing a little mayhem at the grocery store with a shopping cart. The interview was my first, and a lot of fun, but I didn't look quite as cool as I thought I would. Not enough animation! I'll be giving a speech early next year that may be televised so it was great experience!

If you're here because you saw me on the show then please have a look around, check out the top posts on the right, scroll down to learn how to escape from a maze and do black-belt tickling, leave a comment or two, and subscribe to my feed.

By the way, when they asked me if it was hard to raise four kids I forgot to mention that my wife is the real reason that they get raised so well. Thanks Perfect Mom!

Perfect Dad Thrills Kids With Only A Shopping Cart

Dad — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:27:40 +0000

Who would have thought a family could have more fun waiting for mom outside a grocery store than going to Disneyworld? Me and the kids make a ride out of a shopping cart and they are LOVING IT!