Articles: Toy Stories, Don't Help My Kids, Covering Eyes

Toy Stories

A photographer went around the world and shot photos of kids with their favorite toys. The result is a fascinating, artful (he helped to arrange the items) and insightful glimpse into the world of these children. He found many similarities across cultures in what kids played with, what the toys meant to them, and noted that toys haven't changed much in the past thirty years. However, he remarked that, Doing this, I learnt more about the parents than I did about the kids. I was very troubled and saddened by the kids with weapons of war.

Please Don't Help My Kids

A short, controversial blog post about allowing kids to learn from challenges and experience difficulties on their own. While I don't want to become a helicopter parent or let my son be spoiled rotten, I also want to set reasonable boundaries and protect him from self-inflicted harm. I think my guiding principle at the playground is to be age-appropriate: at Gabe's age (22 months), he just doesn't have the coordination to navigate everything safely, so I keep a watchful eye (or hand) on him. We do allow him to try things that might be a bit "scary" or "hard", and he often surprises us with his strength and courage!

Why do children hide by covering their eyes?

Survey of interesting research done with children, using a process of elimination to explain eye-covering behaviour. One of the comments is interesting too, pointing out that in many cultures, peekaboo is a game that is taught to young children, and may be a confounding variable in these experiments. Also, cultural differences in whether a child is expected to maintain eye contact or not, when speaking with an adult.