San Francisco Bay Area Independent Learning Options

This post came about like most others; when I'm asked about a topic a LOT, it's time to park the answer here.

Taking kids out of school to learn at home used to be called "Homeschooling" but for me, and a lot of the people I know, that's an unfortunate misnomer.  We didn't leave school to recreate it at home, and anyway we're not home all that much.  There's too much to do, see and learn out in the world, close to home and further afield.

In the last decade since we left the Brick and Mortar school system a lot has changed.  The local scene is barely recognizable.  There are learning opportunities for all ages and all interest using a huge variety of formats and delivery/connection vehicles.

Educator, museums, entrepreneurs and business owners have increasingly discovered that we're an actual market.  That's right!  Parent will spend money on their kids learning.  Some of us will do so even if it doesn't directly increase their chances of getting into Harvard.

So, here's a collection of just a few of the wonderful options for a la carte, independent or direct-to-consumer learning offerings in the San Francisco Bay area.  Of course there are so many more if include all the after-school and extra-curricular activities but in order to narrow the focus I've included only those which are available to learners during the hours when most are in school.


Various Locations or Will Travel:

Beyond the Box Learning - Writing Coaching/Classes (Royd Hatta & Shu-Hsien Ho (Mountainview but travel): Language Arts Tutors and Teachers)

Quantum Camp (Piedmont, SF, Palo Alto): Pioneering the micro-school customizable model.  Offering small group classes to independent learners during the academic year and summer camps off-season).  Science and math classes for Grades 1-8.  

Thinkering School (San Francisco, Montara): Classes and workshops that encourage kids to Think, Make, and Tinker.

The Tech Shop - (Redwood City, SF, San Jose) - The TechShop is a playground for creativity. Part fabrication and prototyping studio, parthackerspace and part learning center, TechShop provides access to over $1 million worth of professional equipment and software. We offer comprehensive instruction and expert staff to ensure you have a safe, meaningful and rewarding experience. 

Mathnasium: (102 CA locations including Burlingame, San Mateo, RWC, Palo Alto, Mountainview and Sunnyvale): Franchised Math Small Group Tutoring; more progressive feeling and fun than Kumon or other traditional tutoring companies.  Some locations have Homeschooling Hours (like the San Mateo location; if you go there please say I referred you)...if not, ask them to open a day up. 

Outschool:  (Various) Great Listing Service for Learning Experience Outside of Regular School

San Francisco:

The Peninsula: Classical Living History For Kids - Classes and camps offered by a College Professor and Foothill College Dean of Fine Arts, Simon Pennington, who along with his wife, is also part of Palo Alto homeschooling family.   They are committed to multidimensional integrated learning, community building, and academic excellence through fun, applied, and engaging courses. Classes involve language skills, mathematics, practical physics, writing, art, and history combined into projects designed to emphasize the synthesis of all these disciplines. Their aim is to challenge the intellect through 'living history' classes helping to create a love of learning. Riekes Center: (Menlo Park): The Riekes Center, in Menlo Park near Redwood City, is a nonprofit organization that offers programs in Athletic Fitness, Creative Arts, Nature Awareness and Student Services. School of Independent Learners (Mountainview): One on one classes Kidizens (Los Altos/Palo Alto): Social Studies through hands-on Lego City Building The East Bay: The Crucible - (Oakland) The Crucible inspires creative exploration and expression through welcoming, hands-on arts education and experiences for people of diverse ages and backgrounds. As an innovative hub built around the industrial arts, The Crucible is a catalyst for individual growth and vibrant community connections. The South Bay: Communication Academy (Cupertino): Communication skills courses offering instruction and coaching from professionals in Public Speaking, Debate, Writing, and Math Olympiad.

The Young Socrates (San Jose and online) - I don't have personal experience with this but it looks interesting. Uniquely combine traditional class-room teaching and live webcast classes with online self-paced content and one-on-one tutoring sessions. 

Academic Antics is a core learning and enrichment program for homeschool families.  Found in 2010 by families in San Jose.

The A-Team - A community where homeschoolers come together to learn in a safe and fun environment.

Rock-It Science - Fun science classes for kids and teens

Adventure Out - Adventure Out is California’s premiere outdoor school specializing in surf camps, rock climbing classes, backpacking trips, mountain biking, and wilderness survival skills instruction. Our mission is to share decades of wilderness experience while achieving our wildest adventures in the outdoors.

Program Ideas for 14-17 year old self-directed learners?

Earlier this year, I wrote a post called My Current High School Independent Learning Crisis because that's what happens occasionally when loving, highly-involved parents have kids .  We're even more susceptible when we've accepted 100% responsibility for not just the basic necessity offerings, but also the responsibility for our kids' entire set of life and educational needs.  We are simply going to freak out every once in a while! Or every few months!  That was April; this is November.

Seriously, I'm kind of joking and kind of not.  The teen/high school years are a time of so much change not only in said kid's body and mind but also in terms of ME and my relationship with him.  I am learning how to parent all over; navigating the treacherous seas of guidance, navigation and letting go (while wanting both to do so AND to hold on for dear life).  I'm never really sure how much is too much or too little of each at any given time.  It's an ongoing frenzied, emotional dance of sorts.

SO, today I woke up realizing that:

1) As far as we've gone from the norm of education, we could afford to amp it up a notch further.  It might be time to get rid of the remaining threads of school-at-home and step one step further outside of the box.

2) Metaphorically, he's about where I was in my second year of University.  I realized then that I was taking content based classes but didn't know what I wanted to say once I had the skills I was being taught.  That's when I left and probably why I never went back.  And that's why I'm preparing myself to "toss" him out into the right real world situation (if I can find the right one).  Toss, you say?  Isn't it his job to rebel/leave; isn't that the way he will define himself.  Yes, and "at some point".  Right now, I'm a scaffolder.  I see it as my job to understand (with his help wherever possible) what he needs and help him get there.  I haven't yet pushed him in the proverbial pool to learn to swim but if I though it was the right thing, I might.

3) I care more about him caring about something than I do about the content in his knowledge base or even (and this might be new for me) his skill-set.  The reality is that once he knows why he wants to write, do math, explore science, then it will be easy for him to apply.  The missing link at almost 15 is self-awareness, self-advocacy and love/passion.

SO, given that he's far younger than I was at this stage of development...and I because I do still have the responsibility of scaffolding support, I'm looking for possible opportunities to expose him to the following:

1) communities of young people who are coming together to change the world in some positive way (even if that means starting with themselves).  The bottom line here is intentionality.
2) programs which support that change and last between 1 and 6 months (ie. not a full-time-give-us-your-kid-til-college kind of program)
3) leaders and leadership skills training for 14-17 year olds (ish)

Here are some of the possibilities that come to mind off the top of my head.  Do you have personal experience with any of these or have other suggestions?

Outward Bound  is more than just an outdoor camp. It is more than a wilderness adventure. Outward Bound has been changing lives through challenge and discovery for more than 50 years by using the wilderness as a classroom to provide unparalleled opportunities for discovery, personal growth, self-reliance, teamwork and compassion.  (NOTE: OB has been around for ages. I have no personal or anecdotal insight.  Expensive?)

National Teen Leadership Program is committed to create positive environments that empower, inspire and educate all teens to discover and maximize their unique leadership potential and embrace the diversity and equal value of everyone.  The focus during the 3 day summer program (in Sacramento or Southern California) is on the positive and on channeling the energy and enthusiasm already inherent in our youth to help them acquire focus and a vision for their future. The program challenges and empowers today’s youth by providing them with the skills and motivation necessary to positively impact their own lives and the lives of those in their communities.

Anake Outdoor School features 9 months of in-depth training in nature awareness and wilderness survival skills.  Participants develop a deep and intimate relationship with the natural world grounded in a powerful, community-oriented philosophy of learning. Your year is informed by the legacy of indigenous cultures from around the world. Each experience is crafted around a cutting-edge understanding of our natural heritage as human beings.

Unschool Adventures with Blake Boles offers a month long writing retreat.  (NOTE: I have a young friend who just returned from this years retreat.  She said it was life-changing in terms of the friends she made.)

The Woolman Semester School (Nevada City, CA) is a progressive academic school for young people who want to make a difference in the world.  Students in their junior, senior, or gap year come for a "semester away" to take charge of their education and study the issues that matter most to them.  Woolman students earn transferable high school credits while taking an active role in their learning experience through community work, organic gardening and cooking, permaculture, art, wilderness exploration, service work, and by doing advocacy and activism work with real issues of peace, justice and sustainability in the world.

Conserve School (Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin) inspires young people, primarily high school juniors, to environmental stewardship through academics and engagement with the forests, lakes, and wildlife of Lowenwood.  Each Conserve School semester immerses students in environmental history, nature literature, and the science of conservation. Innovative hands-on courses capture students’ imaginations while making the most of Conserve School’s 1200-acre wilderness campus. The school’s strikingly beautiful Northwoods location sets the stage for an exceptional educational experience; at Conserve School, forests, lakes, and wildlife become students’ inspiration, their course materials, and their laboratory. At the same time, Conserve School’s program advances students’ skills in standard high school subjects.

Sea Education Association is an internationally recognized leader in undergraduate ocean education which also offers Seascape a 3-week summer high school level oceanography program. For 40 years and more than one million nautical miles, we have educated students about the world’s oceans through our fully accredited study abroad program, SEA Semester. SEA is based on Cape Cod in the oceanographic research community of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. (NOTE: The High School program sails from SF on the same tall ship a friend, Christa C. sailed in the Gyre, with shore studies on Catalina Island.)

The Experiment in International Living has been offering extraordinary immersive cross-cultural summer exchanges, fun and thought-provoking adventures, and experiential learning programs since 1932. Today, The Experiment offers three-, four-, and five-week summer programs for high school students in more than 20 countries around the world.

Summer Programs

SPARC is a how-to-be-awesome camp for extremely bright high school students, focussing on math, psychology, programming, statistics, and general personal effectiveness. CFAR (the parent organization, http://rationality.org/) normally charges $4k for 4 days of training, but SPARC is free for high-school-aged students, so it's a great opportunity for any interested young people. SPARC has typically only admitted folks scoring in the top 50 in the US on mathematics competitions, but is now open to admitting a more diverse group, provided the applicants are sufficiently awesome. 

Thanks for your ideas!  -Lisa

Addendum:

http://projectworldschool.com/

----

PS.  Please note that there are so many amazing opportunities for self-directed learners 18+ but that's another story.  Look for an upcoming piece highlighting:

Trailblazers

Watson University

Uncollege

The Millenial Train Project

The Thiel Fellowship

"Gifted" or Not?

I wrote this today in response to a friend's request for info and realize that it fits into the category of topics-I-get-asked-about-often-enough-to-preserve-for-future-use and so am posting it here. This particular friend was wanting more information on giftedness because she couldn't figure out what was going on for her 9 year old son and was beginning to the look at the possibilities of giftedness because she'd read that it sometimes masqueraded as giftedness. She wanted an basic intro into the concept and realities of giftedness.

Giftedness can be simple to define, if you think in terms of IQ:

· Mildly Gifted -- 115 to 129

· Moderately Gifted -- 130 to 144

· Highly Gifted -- 145 to 159

· Exceptionally Gifted -- 160 to 179

· Profoundly Gifted -- 180

Most people dislike defining it in this way because it's so limited and so label-y. Still a kid's test results can often provide insight; the further they test from the average 100 IQ the more specific their needs will be, and the less well they will fit in with a typical grouping of kids, both academically and socially. Some people reject the idea of giftedness based on the fact that, occasionally, even gifted children don't test well in spite of (or sometimes because of a very high degree) of traits usually associated with giftedness.

There is also the huge problem of terminology which manages to turn of critics of "giftedness" and even "gifted"-oriented parents and professionals; The word "gifted" is an irritating misnomer. Critics accurately point out that all kids are "gifted" and of course that is true!! The problem is that the word as used by those of us who have no better word for what we mean, generally is referring to intellectual advancement or unusual academic requirements. In some the unique requirements best suited for highly or profoundly gifted learner are as extreme as the special needs of severely handicapped child in the other direction. IQ outliers require radical differences in learning; In my opinion all kids need, or at least really benefit from, individualization but kids on the high end of the giftedness scales often need much, much more, and not receiving it can be damaging in a myriad of ways.

I think this list is a very good indictor of giftedness (in spite of testing results or in the case of no testing) and it matches my experience of what "giftedness" looks like:

· Extremely Curious

· Intense interests

· Excellent memory

· Long attention span

· Excellent reasoning skills

· Well-developed powers of abstraction, conceptualization, and synthesis

· Quickly and easily sees relationships in ideas, objects, or facts

· Fluent and flexible thinking

· Elaborate and original thinking

· Excellent problem solving skills

· Learns quickly and with less practice and repetition

· Unusual and/or vivid imagination

Linda Silverman, the director of the GDC, has a nice page on identifying gifted kids here, and her list overlaps with the one above:

http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/What_is_Gifted/characgt.htm

This is another good checklist comparing bright and "gifted":

http://hubpages.com/hub/How_to_Know_if_Your_Child_is_Gifted

Linda and other experts consider that the two subcomponents of IQ testing most strongly correlated with, and indicative of, IQ/giftedness are Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI) and Perceptual Reasoning Index (PRI). Often these traits are strong in highly verbal or auditory-sequential people but she's also done research to show that many gifted kids are highly visual-spatial.

Here's a basic intro into gifted visual-spatial learners:

http://www.giftedservices.com.au/StartingPoints/VisualSpatial.html

Giftedness can be mistaken for ADD/ADHD especially, imo, in schools where the academic/intellectual offerings are just too slow for the gifted child. James Webb who is another great resource on gifted issues says:

"Many gifted children are being mis-diagnosed as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The gifted child's characteristics of intensity, sensitivity, impatience, and high motor activity can easily be mistaken for ADHD. Some gifted children surely do suffer from ADHD, and thus have a dual diagnosis of gifted and ADHD; but in my opinion, most are not."

Here is his rather dense article on the topic:

http://www.sengifted.org/articles_counseling/Webb_MisdiagnosisAndDualDiagnosisOfGiftedChildren.shtml

The chart part way down shows which characteristics might be interpreted negatively.

One of the things I've heard as a differentiator is this: If your child seems to have a difficult time maintaining focus on most things, that may be indicative of ADD/ADHD whereas a gifted child will be bored and seem unfocused if the content is too easy or irrelevant to him but will be highly focused in areas of curiosity, challenge or fascination.

Perfectionism (fear of failure) are often found in gifted kids because they've been told how smart they are so often that they get attached to the idea and don't want to prove it wrong. This is not a gifted book per se but I think it's a great resource for helping kids to develop an image of flexibility vis a vis their intelligence and skill. The author, Carol Dweck, dismissed the idea of giftedness when I heard her speak in person, which I wholeheartedly disagree with (beyond the specific word) but I think this book is great in terms of helping children develop a positive "mindset" towards themselves and their learning.

http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Success-Carol-Dweck/dp/1400062756

As for testing, yes there are lots of people who offer testing in the bay area though it's almost the topic of another full email. Here's an overview of the some of the different types of testing:

IQ testing; usually one of the Weschler set of tests and usually the WISC IV, for ~4-16 years of age, I believe:

http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/wisciv_hx.html

This test ceilings at 160.

Achievement testing: for the purpose of evaluating degree of knowledge and proficiency (ie grade level) in an area or set of areas; GDC uses the Woodcock-Johnston battery.

Qualitative Testing; this was developed by AnneMarie Roeper and she has a protege in the Bay area who does this kind of testing. Some people see this to be in the all-kids-are-gifted camp but I know some local families who have received useful qualitative information from QA.

http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/AMR%20Symposium%20Paper.pdf

Neuropsychological assessment; evaluates brain-based impairment and functioning; often used for kids who have extreme disfunction or brain-based problems.

http://www.bapta.com/np_testing.htm

This is just a small tip of a big iceberg and I hope it helps in some way. Let me know if I can help in any other way.

-Lisa

Denver: An Easy and Inexpensive Summer Trip

Every year we attend a family retreat in Colorado Springs and most years we have flown to Denver and then made our way to the Springs, from there. One year we drove but K made me swear we’d never do it again. This year we took the Amtrak California Zephyr. If you have any need to go to Denver and have a few extra days on either side of your plans, I highly recommend the Zephyr for an inexpensive, fun and easy trip between the bay area and Denver. If you live on the other side of the country, the Zephyr runs both ways between Chicago, IL and Emeryville, CA.

We arrived at Emeryville Station, where it’s possible to park for free in a secure parking lot right beside the train station. The conductor provides a ticket for the dashboard with return date on it, and you’re good to go.

The Train tickets for two adults and two kids were $605 after a AAA discount and half-price for the kids. This could change; ticket prices on Amtrak are not set. The seats were comfortable, with both leg and foot rests and a great recline. Sure it’s not a bed, but for one night on board in each direction, we were ok. (The train departs Emeryville at 9:15am and arrives in Denver the next day at 7:25pm.)

It was great to be able to plop our stuff from the car straight onto the train with no security or other airport hassles! Then we settled in and explored the train.

The viewing car (aka “the lounge” or “the skyliner”) was a great place to chat with other passengers, who by the way were a truly mixed bunch. We came across Amish families, dread-locked 30-somethings, European travelers and Train Enthusiasts traveling for the train-ride itself.

The food in the dining car, which offers three meals a day, is reasonably good, all things considered. Since lunch was half the price of dinner we had our one restaurant meal per day then and purchased food from the snack bar --or ate snacks we brought with us-- the rest of the time.

Arrival in Denver was simple. Union Station is gorgeous; a real old-style train station!

We easily and enjoyably spent the two days reading, napping, playing cards and our recent discovery, banagrams, chatting, watching the great paper-folding documentary, Between the Folds, drawing, looking out the window, dining, etc. We have been holding on to the video, which was a gift from our friend Jacquie, for months and the train ride finally gave us the time we needed to watch. Some fellow travels looking over our shoulders were so intrigued that I lent it to them once we were done. Incidentally, my favorite person featured in the documentary was Erik Demaine, who was homeschooled and is also a fellow Canadian.

Before the trip I ordered Zephyr: Tracking a Dream Across America by Henry Kisor and enjoyed the simultaneous reading of the book, whilst traveling on the train.

During my pre-trip prep, I researched computer A/C power access and read many reviews describing the complex machinations required for charging technology. It turned out that the Zephyr (at least the one we were one) was a new enough train and offered a two-plug power station at each seat. Now if only they could provide WiFi…

On both ends of the Colorado Springs portion of our trip, we stayed in Denver for one night and we all emphatically agreed that Denver is a wonderful city. That conclusion was reached very quickly on this trip, largely by virtue of having arrived at Union Station right in the heart of Downtown Denver, which is radically different from arriving at DIA! That said, even the kids commented on how helpful and friendly everyone in Denver was to us.

My Priceline bid of $80 yielded great 3.5 star hotels on both sides of Denver stay. When we got off the train we walked to our hotel, Courtyard by Marriott Denver Downtown. It was a fifteen-minute walk, but if you do it, and you’ve read this blogpost, then you’ll know that there is a free shuttle, which runs along the central mile of the 16^th Street Mall starting at Union Station.

There is also the option to pay for horse and buggy or pedicabs but we took the free shuttle most of the time. If every person in our party was more than 4.5 feet tall we would have used the fabulous looking bike-sharing program, Denver B Cycle (think Zipcar for bikes), which allows you to take a bike and return to one of over 40 stations. This is a super cool idea and very affordable, too. Too bad the bay area is so hilly!

On our return trip we stayed at The Curtis, which bills itself as a “Uniquely Fun Boutique Hotel”. The kids only regret was that we weren’t on the Simpsons themed floor 9, but instead were put on the “Dance” floor ie. Floor 12. They did like the fact that we could borrow Yahtzee and other games, however.

If only we’d had more time we would have returned to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science which is free for us with our local science center membership by reciprocal agreement through the ASTC Passport Program. The DMVS is currently hosting Body Worlds & The Story of the Heart through August 15, 2010, which, if you haven’t seen it, is a thought-provoking, inspiring, controversial, educational and beautiful exhibit.

I think we’ll definitely take the Zephyr again next year.

Giftedness Misunderstood (yet again)

Yet again, ignorance about the experience we call "giftedness" (for lack of a better and more all-encompassing word) is being propagated on a learning-oriented blog. It's always particularly sad for me when that sentiment comes from a teacher! The gist of the particular post in question is not new; essentially it goes like this: because "giftedness" is not a perfect word, giftedness as an experience must not exist and therefore kids we call "gifted" should not receive any special services or attention.

This writer's post, and others like it, contribute to the many misunderstandings about the population we describe with that flawed word. As Suki Wessling points out in her articulate response to the article, "a better term for the kids we're referring to is “neuro-nontypical.” As has been pointed out so many times before, kids who are wired differently and in some cases, operating as many standard deviations away from the norm as a developmentally challenged child, are not served by such misinformed attitudes and beliefs.

Thankfully there are growing numbers of parents, educators and other professionals who are committed to serving the unique needs and challenges faced by gifted kids and their families. Most of us in this position understand that, while the label is problematic for a variety of reasons, the needs and differences are very real.

Most of the parents of the gifted kids I know are working overtime to raise happy, self-confident children who are able to use their gifts, thrive and grow into contributing adults. Achieving this task is a compelling, and sometimes challenging task, and misconceptions about giftedness do not serve us, our kids, or the population at large.

The author uses terms like "exceptional musician, a brilliant mathematician, [and] an outstanding basketball player" without pause but takes issue with the use of the term "giftedness" and wonders what the cutoff might be for the usage of that term. While giftedness does have (albeit, socially constructed categorizations) I can't help but point out the irony of her comfort with those other terms even as she's dismissing advanced intellectual ability.

It's true the "intellectual" is often dropped because we live in anti-intellectual society; sadly children who are different in this regard are expected to hide it because it might make someone else feel that their own special gifts are less-than.

To the author's point about advocating for every child, who could ever disagree with that? Of course, every child deserves to have his needs and abilities addresses and supported. The reason so many of us feel the need to advocate for the "intellectually gifted child", the "quick learner", the "asyncronistic child whose learning range spans 6, 8 or 10 years", the "kid who is intellectually 3 standard deviations away from the norm", the "child whose is emotionally like his peers but has a vocabulary and humor they don't understand and so is ostracized by them", the "child who intimates his teacher" etc etc is because these are, contrary to popular opinion, the kids we are leaving behind. Our culture already teaches to the mid-range (granted I'd argue, as she seems to be, that we are not doing even that very well) and we have no problems talking about and funding kids with learning and physical disabilities. It seems to many of the parents I know, that it's the kids on the intellectually high side of the variation that are ignored and expected to be fine with inadequate and inappropriate support for their gifts.

I will argue passionately that it is not the field of study of giftedness or the people who are up-close-and-personal with our kids that are at fault. On the contrary, there is a vast network of intelligent and committed parents, educators and specialists who understand the complexity and beauty of this particular grouping of learners. Sadly it is misunderstandings about gifted learners as illustrated by this and other posts, which undermine the possibility of meeting every child's need.

==

ps. To the writer's credit, after receiving close to 20 passionate, informed and intelligent responses to her original post in less than 19 hours, she acknowledged the fact that her original posting was not an accurate reflection of giftedness, that parents of gifted kids are not necessarily pushy, that kids who are advanced should be encouraged and that ALL kids including well-advanced kids should be given what they need. Kudos to those willing to speak up on behalf of gifted kids!!

pps. Further credit: Here is the follow-on conversation between Tracy Steven's and Suki Wessling. More kudos to Tracy Steven's for taking the criticism as an opportunity to dialogue learn and grow!

Raising an Early Reader

Having a child who reads years in advance of their biological age is tricky but also very interesting.  We choose to spend a lot of time seeking out appropriate book choices and selected for sweetness and innocence (in the early years), quality writing including complex language structure and emotional/moral ambiguity (not all black and white) as well as thoughtful, complex characters (progressively so with maturity).

When our first was very young we also chose to avoid all Disney (mostly for gender-stereotyping reasons), traditional fairy tales (as some are kind of gruesome), and anything violent or mean-spirited (which includes a surprising number of children’s book).  When he was about three years old my mom gave him a copy of Chicken Little and was surprised when I said “thanks” and then put it in a box.  I think she felt a mixture of admiration and irritation when I explained that I didn’t want to impress upon his young psyche that “the sky is falling”.

As he got a little older we also tried to fend off the typical banal and snarky young people’s books for as long as possible though at a certain age we felt he was less effected his love of reading quality lit pretty much untouchable so sometimes let him veg out to Captain Underpants and Lemony Snicket.

It’s my belief that very young kids cannot filter for themselves and so I like to do the filtering for them.  They can’t process violent or scary material and once it’s in you can’t take it away (though of course you can use it as a learning/discussion/processing opportunity if you’re aware of it).  Essentially, you can’t un-ring a bell.  So I just try to keep the inputs positive and then be sure to raise awareness about those things that do get through the filter.  I think without vigilance in this regard, kids (especially early readers) can easily be consuming a steady diet of mean-spiritedness, violence, darkness, pettiness, conformity and fear, before they’re ready. 

When I raise my opinion on this, I often hear the argument that “kids need to work through their demons and ogres, monsters and evil stepmothers in books are a safe way to do so…”  All in good time, I say.  Just like swimming… I want my kids to be able to survive and have fun in the water but I don’t want to throw them in the pool to make it happen.  There’s so much time to learn to deal with the big world; I prefer to fend it off until their personalities are formed more fully and they have a base sense of security in themselves and the world.

A friend with a younger early reader recently asked me how we nurture our child’s love of reading and support his continued development and I’d say that a big factor has been that we’ve always read to our kids and continue to do so, usually a step or two above where they were able to, or likely to read on their own, even it that means reading and discussing adult fiction.

This is just my opinion for my kids, and in support of others who choose to filter material for their kids; Of course, I recognize and respect that not everyone has the time or inclination to do the same.  We all make the best choices for ourselves and our kids.  And of course, as they get older, everything changes...