personal political

strangers

How do you talk to children about 'stranger danger' without frightening them?

beliefs

I drove Olle and Tilly to and from a birthday party on the weekend and enjoyed eavesdropping on (and occasionally participating in) their conversation.

child rights

The Same Sex Miscellaneous Bill was passed on Tuesday night in the NSW state parliament. It reformed 57 Acts and made important changes to legislation in relation to lesbian mothers and their children. As a result of this act, co-parent can be added to Olle's birth certificate and her name can be added as his parent whenever he fills out official forms throughout his lifetime, including passport forms. This makes us all very happy!

 

Over the fold is the text of the speech made during the parliamentary debate by (non-biological) lesbian mother Penny Sharpe who is a member of the Upper House.

too much information

I was chatting to a (straight) friend the other day whose offspring were also conceived via ART.

modern girls

We often walk to school with a girl in Olle's class, Tilly. Yesterday as we walked, Olle with great passion was telling her a story, which involved lots of rocket sounds and big hand movements as things got blown up.

We stopped to wait for the lights and I smiled at Tilly and said, "Boys like explosions".

She replied, with complete sang froid, "I like the occasional explosion too... ".

milks

Milk in small bottles which had curdled in the sun is a strong memory from my early school years. It put me off drinking plain milk for good, from about age six. Two of my siblings would pour themselves glasses of milk after school, but I stuck to water. 

easily pleased

He has a new teacher this term, who sent home a reading log two weeks ago. They're to record each book they read and give it a rating out of 10. The log was on the kitchen table and I had a quick look - he had listed six books and rated every one 10 out of 10.

sleeping over

This was a big week for us and a big week for Olle - he spent a night away from us both, for the first time ever (not counting the first month of his life in hospital).

children

When I first heard about this (and whenever I hear news of other accidents involving groups of young people), I breathed a sigh of relief that my own child isn't old enough to be out in the world on his own. It is indeed "every parent's worst nightmare".

boys today

In an article about IQ, I came across this:

Another study by the British psychologist Michael Shayer, of King's College, University of London, that looked at tests concerned with volume and heaviness, showed a marked reversal in geometric reasoning. In 2003 children of almost 12 years did as well as eight- or nine-year-olds in 1976. The biggest drop was in the performance of boys.

Shayer believes that boys today are less inclined to develop the 'differential play patterns' that previously accounted for their advantage over girls. In short, they have grown less prepared to explore further afield, to go beyond the comfort zone of their controlled environments. 'Presumably,' says Shayer, 'because they were looking at bloody computer games.'

Flynn thinks that computers can help with abstract cognitive skills, but, he warns, there is a price. 'They don't read, the little bastards,' he says of young people today. 'And I don't consider someone educated unless they can read Tolstoy or Plato.'