Slate Magazine - Family

Losing my son in the woods wasn't fun.

Emily Bazelon — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:11:31 EST

Before she went rogue, Sarah Palin got lost. She was stalking "majestic dall sheep with their thick curled horns," she writes in her new book, in Mount McKinley National Park. "I was only about eight years old, and for a couple of anxious hours of climbing hillsides and calling my name, no one could find me on the crags and snowpack." Her father played it cool, "but inside, he was pretty frantic." She was found, at last, asleep on a rocky slope in a white T-shirt that made her look like one of the sheep.

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The best preschool programming on TV is Nick Jr.'s Yo Gabba Gabba!

Bret Asbury — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:31:29 EST

If you have a young child—or even if you don't—you know that Sesame Street is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary. Weeks of gushing coverage of the preschool staple culminated last Tuesday with the airing of a much-hyped anniversary episode, featuring appearances by Cameron Diaz and Michelle Obama. But lost in the cascade of praise for the venerable show is the fact that Sesame Street, though still useful and at times charming, is no longer the most engaging television show geared toward preschoolers. That distinction now belongs to Nick Jr.'s Yo Gabba Gabba!

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Animal research and your child's behavior.

Alan E. Kazdin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:23:00 EST

Psychologists who work with children and families tend to avoid mentioning to parents that the treatments they use are often based on research done on animals. It's no secret that the widely used technique of the timeout was developed in studies on rats or that important early research leading to treatments for anxiety in humans was done on dogs, cats, and other species—but the subject doesn't come up a lot in conversation. We will confess to doing our bit to perpetuate this professional shyness about animal research by tiptoeing around it in our Slate pieces and in the book we wrote together. Why?

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Why do kids crave magic?

Emily Bazelon — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:59:23 EST

During Magic Dan's second trick in a show at our town library last weekend, the magician didn't pull off the sleight of hand he seemed to have planned. He was supposed to make a red scarf disappear into an egg, cupped in his hand. But when he displayed the egg to the crowd, he presented the side that showed the last bit of the scarf, poking out. "I made a mistake," he said, showing the egg with scarf to the kids sitting on the floor and in small chairs, next to their parents in larger ones. "Now let me teach you something about misdirection."

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What to do when all else has failed to change your kid's behavior.

Alan E. Kazdin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:17:43 EST

Let's say that there's something you really, really want your child to do: complete toilet training before starting preschool in a few weeks, or eat more than the three P-foods (pasta, pizza, potato chips) he's currently willing to eat, or take a bath without putting up a fight. Your expectation is reasonable, and you are being as positive, constructive, encouraging, patient, consistent, and gently firm as any parent could be. Well, OK, you lost it once or twice, which is only human, but for the most part you're doing everything right: diligently practicing the behavior with your child, enthusiastically praising any steps in the right direction and awarding stickers on a chart so masterfully designed that it belongs in a psychology textbook. You know your child is physically capable of doing what you're asking because he has done it on occasion, but he will not do it with any regularity. In fact, he actively opposes you. Your intense—OK, desperate—interest only seems to inspire more opposition. The more you need your child to do what you want, the less likely it is to happen. You're stuck and frustrated, and you don't know what to do.

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