Kids and their technology

We think that the way we’re used to doing things must be the way things should be done.  We don’t tend to think “Is it possible that there might be some benefit or use to what kids are doing that we never did?” I’m reading Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected [...]

A good read on introversion

I’ve been reading Marti Olsen Laney’s Hidden Gifts of the Introverted Child, after coming across mention of it in this article from a few years ago. In general it’s my opinion that diagnoses and other labels are best used with extreme care, caution, and awareness of their limitations and potential for undermining our best intentions. [...]

Shy/present/economical/quiet

A friend of mine has a five year-old son who’s likely to wave, nod, or smile when you greet him, but not actually say anything.  It’s not because he can’t or doesn’t talk.  He just doesn’t tend to greet people with words.  This, as you can imagine, makes many people uncomfortable.  His mom told me [...]

Where the kids are

At some point when I was in college I decided to take all the classes I’d need to earn a teaching certificate, so I could work in a school.  I realized the other day that I didn’t make the decision because I wanted to be a teacher.  I made it because I wanted to work [...]

The friends basket

What if the process of social development weren’t so focused on kids making friends and instead on kids finding people? There are all kinds of relationships and experiences that develop social skills, so why put all the eggs in the friends basket, particularly given how narrowly the word gets defined?  What if it were just [...]

From scratch

What if we were to forget everything we know (and by that I mean everything we think we know) about socializing, about what it takes to make and have friends and a social life?  What if we set it all aside and built our ideas about it (and thus our actions on its behalf) from [...]