Let Your Child’s Imagination Run Wild

Published on by gwenborg1 Comment

Here’s my latest South China Morning Post “Between the Lines” column that was in today’s paper.  A copy of the unedited version is included below.  

http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1653162/young-imaginations-run-wild

Growing up in Pennsylvania on the edge of a wildlife preserve, I spent my childhood in the creek, building forts, swinging from vines and rolling down clover fields. I always imagined the same for my children. Instead, my kids have lived in urban metropolises their entire lives.   Suggesting to my son that he go outside and build a fort, he pointed to the tiny, well manicured back yard and said, “Mom, do you see any sticks out there? We have a gardener. There are NO sticks!” Sadly, he was right. There were no sticks to be found in our backyard. There are never any errant sticks.

Bill Plotkin in his book, Nature and the Human Soul, describes the stages of human ego development and explains that connecting with nature is an essential experience in transitioning from adolescence into adulthood. Those who fail to do so may remain stuck in egocentric adolescence, self-focused and unfulfilled. He says, “Imagination might very well be the single most important faculty to cultivate in adolescence.  Without this cultivation, true adulthood might never be reached.” Getting kids out into nature is essential, but often a challenge in busy, urban environments like Hong Kong. In some cases, children are so immersed in technology and indoor activities that they can’t even imagine going out in nature much less doing so independently.

Adolescent children must be able to imagine the world beyond their own current circumstance, and survival stories are a great way to introduce the concept. In most of these stories, fear and feelings of inadequacy are slowly replaced with competence, self-awareness and success as the reader watches as a capable, powerful, centered and loving young person emerges from previously unimaginable challenge.

Jean Craighead George is the most prolific and celebrated author of young adult fiction survival stories. Her classic tale, My Side of the Mountain, written in 1959, tells the story of Sam Gribley, a fifteen-year-old boy who leaves his crowded home in New York City to live on his own for a year in the Catskills mountains. The book is filled with realistic details about how and what food he foraged and caught, the intricate shelter he constructed by smoking out a dead tree stump, his protection, entertainment and emotions, and has intricate drawings to bring the descriptions to life. George wrote many other books including Julie of the Wolves, a similarly artful and detailed account of a girl who survives alone on the Alaskan tundra by communicating with wolves, and The Talking Earth about a Seminole girl who struggles to reconcile her tribe’s traditional legends with the destructive practices of the contemporary world. In each, the child protagonist demonstrates an upstanding character, resilience and calm, focused strength and determination.

Abel’s Island by Wallace Steig is a classic tale of an aristocratic mouse that gallantly chases the scarf of his betrothed only to find himself washed downstream alighting on an uninhabited island in the middle of a swiftly flowing river. Despondent at first and completely inept, Abel eventually learns to take care of himself, to find and catch food, create shelter, protect himself and slowly realizes the beauty and value in doing so. When he finally designs a way to get off the island and is reunited with his bride to be, he is a much more capable and resilient mouse.

Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, tells the story of a thirteen-year-old boy who survives a plane crash and his parents’ divorce, eventually finding his own inner strength as he struggles to survive alone in the wilderness until he is eventually rescued. In Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell, the heroine Karana lives alone for years on a pacific island, discovering her own strength and the natural beauty around her. These are just a few examples of dozens of survival books for children in the 8-13 age range that introduce the concept of solitude, discovery and competence to adolescent readers. By introducing the idea, kids find increased motivation to get outside and let their imaginations run wild.

Don’t confuse contemporary dystopian future scenarios whereby children are engaged in killing each other for sport or to survive a post-apocalyptic new world order with survival books. These popular series like The Hunger Games, Maze Runner and Divergent books are entertaining and feed the adrenaline-fueled culture our kids enjoy, but they are not the same thing.

Taking our kids out into the woods to experience nature first hand is the best thing we can do for them. Despite Hong Kong’s urban center, the periphery offers some great outdoor adventures for children. Consider hiking the Dragon’s Back to Big Wave Bay, or walking from Discovery Bay to Mui Wo for a celebratory lunch at Turkish restaurant, Bahce. You can kayak in Sai Kung or Stanley, wander the country parks, visit Kadoorie Farm to pet animals or pick organic strawberries in Fanling. These are a few good ways to get kids out in nature. When that’s not possible, the next best thing is to read about it and help plant the seed for them to nurture in themselves later on.

Be Patient With Your Reader

Published on by gwenborg1 Comment

The South China Morning Post published this article today in the Between the Lines column.  Here’s a link to the article directly, or you can read it below:

http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1631195/be-patient-if-your-child-slow-start-reading

When parents lament that their children are not yet reading and consider hiring tutors and pricy evaluations to find out what’s wrong with their six year olds, I tell them to be patient and to keep reading to their kids. In most cases, when a child’s ability catches up with his or her interest in the narrative, the life long reader is launched. Reframing the situation not as a problem, but as a sign that their child might just have high standards for what makes a good story helps to alleviate some of the underlying anxiety.

A mother of three children, two adolescent avid readers and one developing reader, the benefit of hindsight allows me small experiential insight, butressed by a growing body of research in the area of brain development and functional readiness to read.

Doctor Martha Denckla, director of the Developmental Cognitive Neurology Clinic at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and neuroscience researcher at Johns Hopkins University is a leading expert in brain development and reading readiness. Regarding the trend in schools of teaching reading earlier and earlier she says, “They are doing enormous harm by blithely disregarding neurological readiness to learn these skills.”

Books have been an integral part of our parenting since my son was born 14 years ago. When he was tiny and we lived in California, we made daily trips to the local library and lugged home stacks of picture books, delighted in bookstores and attended a weekly local story time. Our evening routine after brushing his teeth involved reading two picture books that he would carefully select to read together.

In addition to the picture books, I read chapter books far beyond his own reading ability to him as he fell asleep. Even when he didn’t understand everything on a practical level, he intuitively absorbed the melody of the well-crafted tale as his own thought process and language was forming. A good novel is as beautiful to hear as it is to read.

With our family focus on literature I was sure he would be an early reader, but he was not. At the end of kindergarten, he wasn’t yet reading. His teachers weren’t worried and neither was I. After first grade, he still wasn’t reading. Again they weren’t worried. I noted it, but I didn’t worry. When second grade came around and he still wasn’t reading I began to express concern, but his progressive school said, “Don’t worry, he will read.

Just before Christmas of that second grade year I read the first Harry Potter book to him. He was hooked. Over that holiday we relocated to London and he spent the entire first few weeks reading hundreds of pages a day, for hours at a time. He was launched as a reader, and he has never looked back.

We moved from London to Hong Kong when my daughter was five. By the middle of second grade she could plod her way through Magic Tree House books, but not with any enthusiasm. On a trip to New Zealand that spring, I took along Roald Dahl’s The Witches and that was the magic one for her. She proceeded to read three more Roald Dahl books that holiday and hasn’t been far from a book ever since.

To fall asleep in the evening she liked to listen to books on CD. After I read to her, I would put on a CD and the books would play, sometimes all night when I forgot to turn them off. Little Lord Fauntleroy, Paddington and Ballet Shoes are indelibly embedded in her subconscious.   Acting is her favorite activity now, and she can copy accents with surprising aptitude. I attribute both her love of great stories and her mimicry ability to those beautiful narratives that lulled her to sleep.

My son and daughter are now in 9th and 6th grades respectively, and place reading for pleasure at the top of their list of leisure activities. They never saw a flash card, had a tutor or strung together words they knew how to spell to write a story. Theirs is an intrinsically motivated love for books that I expect will stay with them the rest of their lives.

My third child is in second grade now and true to our family pattern is still not reliably reading. Technically he can do it, but he does not yet enjoy it. I continue to expose him to narratives as I did the other two, wondering which will be the one that launches him into the ranks of readers.

Reading is the gateway through which we discover the world, and loving to read makes that process all the more enjoyable. Anxiety, impatience and busyness are the obstacles that unintentionally inhibit the journey to raising life long readers. Patience is more than a virtue when it comes to nurturing readers, it’s good parenting.

Redefining safety for children in a technology-obsessed world. An interview with Cris Rowan

Published on by gwenborgLeave a comment

Last week I sat down with Cris Rowan, Occupational Therapist and CEO of Zone’in Programs Inc. to discuss the impact of technology on children.  A short article was published in the South China Morning Post today.   http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1610670/steer-children-adopt-healthy-tech-habits.

For the full interview, keep reading…

Q: Most families in Hong Kong live in apartments and have very limited access to outdoor space.   Add to that crowds and an air pollution index (API) that is currently at the maximum measurable level, and taking children outside to connect with nature and to move has its own challenges and dangers.  In urban areas like Hong Kong, the appeal of technology is partially situational.  How does a parent weigh potential dangers and determine what is truly harmful for their children?

ROWAN:  I appreciate the concerns about potential dangers out of doors and can’t speak to the harms of air pollution specifically, but I do know that the consequences of keeping children indoors, disconnected from nature and attached to video games and other technology is causing real problems in the physical and mental health of children. The ways in which we are raising and educating our children with technology are no longer sustainable. Parents have the illusion of safety when their children are inside, but if they inform themselves about the alarming increase in attention problems, poor academics, aggression, impaired sleep, developmental delays that are directly linked to sedentary indoor lifestyles, they will definitely reconsider how to define safety for their children.

Being in nature and physical movement are attention restorative, sensory calming, and essential to healthy growth and wellbeing. For example, the act of swinging is not only fun, but has real impact on core physical strength and the development of the vestibular, proprioceptive, tactile and attachment systems that are needed for paying attention, printing and reading. Urban children are three times as likely to present with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) as are rural kids.   The good news is that as little as 20 minutes a day of green space time, time spent outdoors in nature, can alleviate many of the symptoms of ADHD in children.

In some urban areas efforts are underway to create green spaces where children can play safely without traffic and congestion. In New York City, the High line park on a former rail line is now a popular attraction and well used park, and plans are underway to repurpose defunct subway tunnels into indoor low line green spaces with light and air circulation and beautiful plants and gardens. This is an example of an effort to carve out green space even in densely populated areas.

 Q: It seems intuitive that technology is having a negative effect on society in the ways you cite (behavior problems, obesity, depression, lack of attention etc), but are these hypotheses or is the research definitively linking cause and effect?  Which are the most compelling studies upon which you base your conclusions?

ROWAN:  The truth is that we don’t know what the health impact of technology will be, as it is still so new. Remember that three years ago, the ipad didn’t even exist yet. But the research is growing. I spend my time collating research from thousands of studies that are increasingly showing evidence of causal relationships. We can now say definitively that playing violent video games causes childhood aggression. Increases in acoustic neuromas and sperm DNA fragmentation linked to cell phone and laptop use are only the first compelling twenty-year studies, and sadly indicative of more to come.

Another scary area is video game addiction. I implore parents to regulate video game use by their children before it becomes an addiction. Avid video game players experience the same physiological response as sex and gambling addicts. Their heart rates race and blood pressure escalates as their bodies release high doses of cortisol and adrenaline in anticipation of, and during, play. After awhile they achieve a state of Hypothalamic-Pituitary Adrenal (HPA) fatigue and require more and more of the stimulus to get the same feeling. Online games that are competitive and social with high immersion and realistic graphics are particularly insidious as addicted players are sometimes so reluctant to take a break they would rather wet their pants then get up to use the toilet. Video game designers call this the “pee factor” and strive for it. Remediation of video game addiction is an arduous process with only a 50% success rate The US military is processing 400 recruits each month with video game and pornography addictions. China has more than 300 treatment centers throughout the country for youth with video game addiction.

 Q: What about other experts who claim emphatically that video games are not harmful and sometimes even good for certain skills development like sharpening focus, reasoning and decision making skills?  Do you completely discount their research, or think it’s a matter of age/circumstance?

ROWAN:  I don’t disagree that this kind of limited positive effect is possible, but it’s all in context of who, what, when, where and why of the child’s overall health. Factors like age, duration of play and the general overall mental and physical health of the child are key determinants in the likelihood of healthy technology use turning into a harmful addiction.

Q: How can you tell if behavior problems in children are the result of technology?  If you take it away, the behavior often gets even worse.

ROWAN:  As an occupational therapist for the past 27 years, I began to see significant changes in my clients about fifteen years ago.   Increasingly, children demonstrated alarming rates of aggression, depression, ADHD, obesity, impulsivity, poor self regulation, and declining function of ocular motor skills to name a few. As I considered what might be causing the shift, I turned to a growing body of research related to technology use and children. I identified two primary areas of concern, the addictive nature of video games and the impact of technology use on children’s health, behavior, and ability to learn.

Recently I was in a classroom observing a child. He had fixed, dilated pupils and was playing on an imaginary ipad. After asking him to help the other students clean up the room, he responded that he had his ear buds on and couldn’t hear me. I decided to play along, so I pretended to take away the ipad which resulted in a tantrum rage, kicking and screaming for me to return what didn’t really exist. A child like this is most definitely demonstrating symptoms of addiction directly linked to his technology, as well as a dissociated state.

 Q: In a perfect world, parents and children would interact without technology, but are there any instances that you think technology is better than nothing, like books on tape if a parent is not home to read to a child, for example?

ROWAN:  I do believe there are wonderful resources in some educational technology, but I caution parents and educators that “What they watch is who they become.” Pro-social media, where characters are nice to each other, can have a positive impact on children when limited to roughly one hour per day for an otherwise healthy child. On the other hand, anti-social media, where characters intentionally harm others, can cause anti-social behaviors. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends zero exposure to technology for ages 0-2, one hour for ages 2-5 and 2 hours for those 5-18.

Technology in schools has great potential, but the jury is still out on the effectiveness of learning without a teacher. For example, e-readers are effective in helping to create early readers, but once the “wow factor” wears off, children who have learned to read early on e-readers perform worse in school than those who learn to read with books. Furthermore, screen reading results in poorer concentration and memory than book reading. Teenagers are demonstrating a new level of impaired memory, concentration and a lesser ability to learn new information which is being coined “digital dementia.”  These are cautionary tales.

 Q: Do you think parents are as much a part of the problem as the technology itself?  

ROWAN:  Most definitely. We don’t have statistics on Asia, but we know that forty percent of North American adults are addicted to technology. Children watch parents and follow their lead. If we want to see any change at all, we have to change our own behavior around our kids. I suggest parents disconnect from technology, and reconnect with their children as a first step toward managing technology family over use.

 Q: Beyond the couch fort, can you offer any additional creative suggestions for what to do with children indoors that will engage their attention in the same way technology does?

ROWAN:  As a first step I suggest families start by reading one book per night, sharing one meal with the family per day, planning one game night and one family outing per week, and taking one technology-free holiday per year. Creating safe zones where there is no technology including the bedroom, bathroom, in the car and in restaurants is a good way to start creating boundaries to keep technology from taking over the household.

For further research and facts supporting this article, check out Cris Rowan’s excellent website http://www.zonein.ca.  

For a link to her presentation and photos from her visit to Hong Kong, check out http://lovetolearn.asia/en/english-disconnect-to-reconnect-technology-use-and-children-by-cris-rowan-22-sept-2014/.  

Fiction Story: Opalescent

Published on by gwenborg1 Comment

An NPR ‘Three Minute Fiction’ prompt, “a character finds something he or she has no intention of returning” inspired me to write a story… 

On the eve of her departure from Nairobi, Maeve sat on the nubby sofa as Theo awkwardly fished in his pocket and pulled out a small box.  Her stomach lurched in anticipation of the uncomfortable moment ahead.  Was he really about to propose after only six months of what she thought of as a fleeting romance?  He was beautiful, and their month-long safari had been a glimpse of an enviable life of adventure and passion, but marriage?   No, she wasn’t ready for that. Opening the box, Maeve was relieved to see a pair of lovely, gold-rimmed, opal stud earrings.  Theo held tightly to the box, removing one earring and looking her directly in the eye.

“Maeve,” he said longingly,  “I love you.  I know you feel the need to return to America now, but I want you to come back to me and to your home in Africa.  I bought these earrings for you, but you can’t have them yet.  For now I am going to keep one, and you take the other.  Come back and reunite the pair when you’re ready.  I will wait for you.”

With that, Theo kissed her gently and returned the box with the lone earring to his pocket.

At the airport the next morning, Maeve clutched the earring in her fist.  The post made a dent in her palm that hurt almost as much as the lump in her throat as she bid farewell to Theo and the life she had built in Kenya.   But there were weddings to attend, a job offer in LA and anyway, she was only 22 years old.  She couldn’t possibly just live in Africa, could she?

Maeve spent the summer at her family home in Delaware.  How strange it was to be back in the same house she grew up in after all she had experienced in war zones in Africa.  At the end of the summer, Maeve boarded a plane for Los Angeles with two suitcases. Single, idealistic and slightly pudgy, Maeve found Los Angeles to be harder than she expected and she longed for her adventurous and earnest life in Africa.  She almost called Theo.

Then, one evening out with her new friend Tessa at a beachside bar filled with cute guys in backward baseball caps, Maeve met Matt.  A world traveler as a child, Matt stood out from the crowd because he knew that Africa wasn’t a country and had even been to Nairobi. Maeve and Matt started dating and eventually married and built a life together.  The more years went by, the further Africa slipped from Maeve’s memory.

They were living in Prague when Maeve got the call that her father had died.  Maeve quickly gathered the children and returned to her family home in Delaware.  Maeve’s stepmother had loved the home she shared with Maeve’s father, but the memories of his illness weighed heavy on her and she decided to sell the house. 

Maeve’s room had been kept a shrine to her childhood, so as she sorted and discarded decades of various sundry mementos, Maeve reached in the bowels of her closet and uncovered a damp canvas tote.  Shoving her hand to the bottom, her finger was pricked by a pin.   She recoiled her hand and dumped the tote.  There on the carpet the little opal earring glinted in the sunshine for the first time in 15 years.  Maeve picked it up and, turning it over in her palm, she squeezed hard.  The pain of the stud in her flesh made her flinch, but not with regret, only gratitude for the love she had felt at the time that had prepared her for the life she now lived.   She knew that she had no intention of returning the earring to Theo, but she did wonder if he still held its mate?

Back on the Horse

Published on by gwenborg2 Comments

Hiatus is the cardinal sin of blogging.  Guilty as charged.  It’s not that I didn’t have anything to write about, it’s just that life got in the way.  Now there’s a backlog of topics I want to tackle and not enough reflective time to do so.  I’m in the home stretch of the farewells in Hong Kong for another year.  Fortunately a better blogger than I tackled the “Why Expats Hate June” topic (http://www.thecultureblend.com/?p=11), so I can check that one off my list, but suffice it to say, saying goodbye to twenty friends in a constant stream of dinners, cocktail parties and junk boat trips is emotionally draining and not good for my liver.  Hong Kong is strange in that way.  The longer you live here, the fewer people you know.

Since my last entry I have been to Vietnam, Paris and the Seychelles.  Each of these voyages deserves a post.  The Bhutan story continues and grows in interesting ways, and I am gearing up to spend the summer in Telluride, a town that’s rife with blogging fodder.  I’ll climb back on that blogging horse once I hit the wild west.  

In the meantime, I am pleased to report that later that day of the snail sighting I talked with Monique (sadly one of the twenty leaving this year) and she told me that on her return walk she passed the palm and found the snail making its way back up the frond!  It had somehow managed to turn around and save itself, crisis averted.  It feels a good reminder as we all feel slightly on the edge of keeping it all together this time of year, that we can always just turn around and head for home when we’ve reached the end of the path.  I guess that’s what those 20 friends are doing and what we will eventually do too.

I’ll leave you with a little Martha Stewartiness…  Here’s a salad I just made up that my teenage son now wants to eat everyday…

Baby kale leaves cut in ribbons (they eat more that way), carrots chopped in small cubes, 1 avocado, feta cheese crumbled, ¼ cup flax seeds, ¼ cup homemade multigrain breadcrumbs, ½ a lemon, ½ cup extra virgin olive oil, Malden salt, fresh ground pepper and a hefty sprinkle Korean gochugaru red pepper flakes.  Combine with whatever else you want to throw in and serve with Ryvita crackers (and some hummus would be great too).  I’ll be serving this all summer.  

 Image