Showing posts with label holywood parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holywood parenting. Show all posts

Saturday, April 16, 2011

THIS FAMILY IS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

This Kitchen Is Under New Management
Daily Inspiration
John H. Sklare, Ed.D
Published December 13, 2005

For those of you who are working to create a healthier life and fitter body, the challenges are many. But the challenge becomes even more difficult if you happen to live in a house where you are also the one who is responsible for preparing the meals. Particularly if you happen to be a parent and your family doesn’t share your desire for low-fat cooking and healthier living. So, if you are looking for a healthier lifestyle for you and you want to bring your family along for the ride, I have a suggestion that will help you put them on notice!

Sit them all down and tell them that you are going to be changing a few things around here. Let them know that you are going to be cooking healthy foods for them because you love them and care about the entire family’s health. And, since you are in charge of preparing meals, you are going to start taking the responsibility more seriously. Put a sign in your kitchen that reads, “This Kitchen Is Under New Management,” and start taking charge in your house when it comes to healthy living. Show them the way today and they will all thank you later!

Wishing You Great Health!
Dr. John H. Sklare

MY THOUGHTS

It's your kitchen. Your family. You have every right (and responsibility) to manage it. And manage it well. Maybe you should change the sign to "This Family is Under New Management".

Monday, December 20, 2010

Learn about Holywood Parenting

RIE: Is Hollywood's Latest Parenting Trend Wacky or Smart?
Jenna McCarthy ON Nov 2, 2010 at 12:36PM

There’s a new parenting trend in Hollywood, and for once it has nothing to do with giving your child a wacky name or parading her around town in a stroller that costs as much as a car. RIE, short for Resources for Infant Educarers and pronounced like "wry" (ironic!), is all about getting back to basics and creating an infant-oriented environment devoid of blinking, beeping, buzzing toys and parents who are inclined to swoop in at the first sign of tears. (Famous followers reportedly include Jamie Lee Curtis, Helen Hunt, Tobey Maguire and Felicity Huffman.) The RIE approach, proponents insist, helps raise children who are competent, confident, curious, cooperative, cheerful and aware.

Of course, RIE isn’t new. It was founded in the 1970s by an infant educator and a pediatric neurologist and, admittedly, lots of things about the parenting approach make sense. For instance, followers eschew fancy gadgets, pointing out that busy toys produce passive children who are destined to become tiny TV addicts. Instead, RIE-approved playthings include simple objects babies can use imaginatively in multiple ways, like stacking cups, empty water bottles and wooden spoons. Once the child is engaged, parents are taught to watch and respect the way he or she chooses to interact with a toy and not direct the play. Daily parenting duties -- think diapering, changing, feeding -- are viewed as opportunities to engage and instruct, not tedious roadblocks to playtime.

On the other hand, there are some aspects of RIE that could make it challenging to execute flawlessly. For instance, parents are encouraged not to immediately console a sobbing tot but to view a baby’s cries as intelligent, meaningful communication in need of deciphering. Which is all kinds of enlightened and fabulous in theory -- until you’ve got a career-making conference call or other children sleeping nearby. Similarly, while I agree that the RIE motto “never disturb a contented baby” makes a nice wall plaque, when you’ve got to get another kid to soccer practice, dinner is burning on the stove and the UPS guy is banging on the screen door demanding a signature, sometimes baby’s precious contentment is going to have to be disturbed.

There isn’t much opposition to RIE, save for a few claims that some advocates take the approach to extremes (No singing? No dancing? Didn’t these people see what happened when they tried to ban those in Footloose?), and that even in moderation, notions like “never disturb a contented baby” can be wildly inconvenient. Sort of like parenting in general.

MY THOUGHTS

anything extreme is bad. so, whether your a holywood parent or not, there are some RIE principles that should be taken seriously while some should be discarded.