parenting, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Socially Prescribed Perfectionism

Wendy Winograd

As a parent, have you ever felt torn between feeling that you should push your kids toward higher levels of achievement, so that they can be successful in today’s world and feeling worried and concerned about the stress and anxiety that they are experiencing?  According to Peter Gray, Boston College psychology professor, many parents do. In his Substack blog, Play Makes Us Human, Gray discusses socially prescribed perfectionism, a kind of perfectionism that is marked by a concern about what others think. Gray argues that the primary issue in socially prescribed perfectionism is the concern that others will think you … Continue reading Socially Prescribed Perfectionism

parenting, play and mental health, play spaces, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Stepping Back From Intensive Parenting

Wendy Winograd

I have written in this column before about my concerns about the decline children’s opportunities for independent play. A September 2023 article published in the Journal of Pediatrics reviews research that indicates that in addition to those possible causes of the increase in childhood anxiety and depression is another significant factor: the decline in independent play.  They state, Our thesis is that a primary cause of the rise in mental disorders is a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults Here is … Continue reading Stepping Back From Intensive Parenting

emotional regulation, parenting, reviewsLeave a comment

What do you know about Marc Brackett’s Permission to Feel?

Wendy Winograd

In his book, Permission to Feel,” Marc Brackett, Founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, argues for the importance of privileging, understanding, and utilizing our emotions. He shows how regulating our emotions hinges on our ability to identify and name them and have them honored and understood by others. And he argues that our success in life is much more influenced by our ability to tolerate and manage all of our emotions than it is on our intelligence or knowledge. Indeed, if we are not well-regulated emotionally, our ability to capitalize on our skills and knowledge will be … Continue reading What do you know about Marc Brackett’s Permission to Feel?

parenting, play and mental health, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Decision-Making in a Pandemic

Wendy Winograd

Decision-making in the time of COVID can be, for many of us, overwhelming. Things we never had to consider before are now areas of concern. Should we go to a Broadway play or museum? Should we attend a sporting event indoors? Should we go to that concert, where people will sit shoulder to shoulder, even though it is outside? When it comes to children too young to be vaccinated, the calculus becomes even more complicated. It is clear that children need contact outside the family. In infancy and early childhood, they benefit greatly from contact with grandparents aunts, uncles, cousins. … Continue reading Decision-Making in a Pandemic

parenting, play and mental health, play spaces, play therapy, UncategorizedLeave a comment

5 Things to Do Under Quarantine

Wendy Winograd

As a result of the quarantine, new studies are starting to come out showing that being online all day can affect your health, make you anxious, give you headaches, affect your vision, and affect your sleep. Long before we were sheltering in place, Melissa Pandika in “The Unexpected Effects of all that Screen Time,” reported on symptoms shown by children, tweens, teens and adults as a result of too much screen time.  Although the internet can allow for community building and connection, Pandika, quoting Delaney Ruston, a physician and documentary filmmaker who produced Screenagers, warns that social development can be … Continue reading 5 Things to Do Under Quarantine

parenting, play and mental health, play spaces, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Play Under Quarantine

Wendy Winograd

It’s a challenging time for working parents with young children. If they are considered essential workers and must leave their homes, they may struggle with childcare needs that are difficult to meet. If they are fortunate enough to continue their jobs by working from home, they may struggle with the competing agendas of work while homeschooling and entertaining their children. Interestingly, with the cancelation of nearly all of children’s organized activities, children are being forced to occupy themselves, to learn to play independently without  being directed by an adult. In the New York Times, Kate Rope, author of Strong as … Continue reading Play Under Quarantine

parenting, play and mental health, UncategorizedLeave a comment

For Parents During COVID-19

Wendy Winograd

I want to say a few things about the effects of trauma and what you can do to help yourselves and your children through this difficult time. Children take their cues from parents, so it is vitally important that you take care of yourselves so that you can be optimally available, emotionally, to your children. In a Youtube video addressing COVID-19, Bessel van der Kolk, trauma expert and author of the book The Body Keeps the Score, says, Being in a situation where you cannot do what you always do, where you are basically rendered helpless, that’s the definition of … Continue reading For Parents During COVID-19

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A 7-Year Old I know Just Got Her First Cell Phone

Wendy Winograd

A 7 year old I know just told me that she got her first cell phone. She’s proud and happy, but the reality of a 7 year old with a phone gives me pause. I find myself wondering what she will be doing on this phone. Who will she text or call? What games will she be playing? How much will this phone take her away from direct contact with her friends?

I walk with my dog around a pond in my town. Sometimes I see kids there. They used to be fishing in the pond, skipping rocks, or just walking around and talking with one another. Now, I see 3 boys, probably around 12, sitting on a bench. Each is looking at his phone. They are not talking. They are not skipping rocks. They are not even looking at the beautiful pond or noticing the blue heron standing in the shallows on the far end. My dog sees all these things, even the boys on their phone. But the boys are watching their screens. Continue reading “A 7-Year Old I know Just Got Her First Cell Phone”