1. In her blog post for the Huffington Post, Alanis Morissette explains why she’s an attachment parent: “If a child’s needs during this stage of development are not met, he or she will be staving off a haunting sense of cellular disconnection and loneliness for a lifetime.” Make sense to you?
2. We love Brave producer Katherine Sarafia even more after reading her interview with Geekdad. Between the first research trip to Scotland and the final edit of the film, she met her husband, got married, and had two kids. That’s some creative inspiration we can get behind.
3. Want to see more same sex-family featuring ads like JCPenny’s Feather’s Day one? Show your support by shouting out this link on your Facebook or Twitter. Take that, One Million Moms. Read more...
1. Jezebel accused Wired magazine of alienating women with their June cover, which shows a dad with a robot costume-clad kid, and “How to be a Geek Dad” in big font. Do you find the cover alienating?
2. A study on students’ book choices takes a critical look at the top 40 books read by kids in grades 1 – 12. The study also confirms that Green Eggs and Ham still rules. We could have told you that one.
3. Engineers say the best way to find out if your kid is destined for a lucrative career in engineering is to stock their toy trunks with building toys like Lego and blocks. Then see what happens when you let their imaginations run wild. Looks like all those kids inspired by Caine’s Arcade have a good shot at paying off their university debt. Read more...
Keep all the drawings without all the clutter with a digital gallery
GeekDad Nathan Barry wouldn’t never dream of discouraging his daughter’s creativity, but their home does seem to acquire an awful lot of her drawings and sculptures. How do you keep all these precious creations without building an addition onto your house just so you have have more wall space? Barry says digitize!
“In an effort to try to curb the art overload and also make it much easier to actually admire them, I’ve embarked upon a grand digitization of everything I can. If it’s letter/A4 sized, then on the scanner it goes – with a resolution of at least 300dpi. If it’s bigger than the scanner, then a photo will do nicely. I always use the DSLR, at it highest quality settings as you can’t get those pixels back later. Sculptures of all kinds are filmed from all angles in HD.” Read more...
Our parenting expert tells you what you need to know
There were some great discussions at our Social Media Week panel that featured Alyson Schafer, teacher Royan Lee and blogger Brad Moon. Our panelists didn’t always agree on everything, but brought different experiences with teaching kids how to work in the digital space.
1. Deciding when and how to get your kid on Facebook
2. What the deal with gaming, is it good for your kid? Harmful to your kid?
3. And with everything going increasingly mobile, how do parents control what their kids consume media-wise?
What Schafer, Lee and Moon came up with was:
1. Re: Facebook — If you’re nervous about your kid getting on the social network, start off slow with a family profile. With your family profile, friend only aunts, uncles and cousins. Read more...
Yesterday, we hosted a Social Media Week panel that was a bit of a continuation of last year’s Social Family discussion. Specifically, we were interested in talking about how within 12 short months, our families’ relationships with social media, especially on mobile platforms, has changed so drastically. We invited back our favourite parenting expert, Alyson Schafer and brought in innovative educator Royan Lee and a blogger from one of our favourite sites, GeekDad’s Brad Moon.
Here are some highlights, captured by our audience via Twitter:
@elanamatic: “Teaching kids about tech and social media is part of parenting today” @alysonschafer, which follows
@elanamatic “it’s important to create a safe environment for kids to share what is happening in their online life” @alysonschafer
What if you’re not digitally savvy yourself? Alyson Schafer says tough! It’s just another thing we have to do with our kids now. Read more...
But she’ll have to wait a few years before she enjoys the scarier ones
Last week we asked some parents whether they thought Harry Potter is for their kids’ generation as Star Wars was for theirs. But as GeekDad Ken Denmead pointed out, Star Wars is more popular than ever with young kids discovering the goings on of a galaxy far, far, away everyday. Perhaps the most well known of this new generation of Star Wars fans is Katie.
When Katie’s mom, blogger Carrie Goldman, found out her sweet first grader was being bullied for her awesome Star Wars water bottle, Goldman simply asked if any female Star Wars fans happened to read her blog, could they please comment so she could show Katie that Star Wars is not just for boys. Indeed. Goldman and Katie ended up with oodles of supportive comments, an entry in the Official Star Wars blog and a Twitter hashtag (#MayTheForceBeWithKatie). We figured Goldman was the right mom to ask about what Star Wars and Harry Potter means for kids today. Here’s what she said: Read more...
2. Should you raise your kids to be nerdy? CNN’s LZ Granderson says society places too much importance on athletics and people are taught to look down on the smart kids. Instead, Granderson says we need to take academics a little more seriously.
1. Hooray for vegetables! Encourage your kids’ (and/or partner’s) love of vegetables with these six excellent sounding recipes starring Brussels sprouts, okra and squash. (On Slate)
Seriously, what’s sweeter than a dad expressing love for his family? Because we were so thrilled with the love letters we got last Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, we’ve once again asked some culturatti dads to chime in on what makes their partners great.
We’re big GeekDad fans. These dads (and now moms) are all about sharing their love of comic books, Star Wars, technology and science with their kids. We asked GeekDad contributor Jonathan Liu what makes his wife special:
Sarah Buttenwieser at the Huffington Post says she “inhaled” Peggy Orenstein’s book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter. So Buttenwieser wanted to weigh in on raising her kids without gender stereotypes. While her first son eschewed sports for ballet, her daughter plays with diplo blocks while wearing her tutu.
