After recently reading in Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP newsletter that she tries to feed her children a tablespoon of lemon flavored flaxseed oil every morning, I thought, “lemon flavored?” I was so intrigued, especially because I worry about whether my children consume enough healthy fats that I bought a bottle that same day and added it to some Cajun-spiced catfish. It was surprisingly delicious! I then added some to sauteed vegetables… again, delicious!

Could flaxseed oil be a solution to one of my nutritional worries? We investigated further…

The Flax Plant

Flaxseed — An Overview

Flaxseed can be consumed in several forms: ground flax seed (and it may be purchased as whole seeds or already ground up), and as flaxseed oil (which comes from the seeds of the flax plant).

Available in liquid and soft-gel capsule form, flaxseed oil contains both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are needed for health. For good health, your body needs twice as many omega-6 as omega-3s in order to combat inflammation. However, most of us already get a large amount of omega-6s from our diet and are deficient in omega-3s. Flaxseed contains approximately three times as much omega-3s as it does omega-6s.

Benefits of Flaxseed

Flaxseed Oil

According to WebMD.com, although flaxseed contains all sorts of healthy components, it owes its healthy reputation primarily to three ingredients:

• Omega-3 essential fatty acids, “good” fats that have been shown to have heart-healthy effects. Each tablespoon of ground flaxseed contains about 1.8 grams of plant omega-3s.
• Lignans, which have both plant estrogen and antioxidant qualities. Flaxseed contains 75- 800 times more lignans than other plant foods
• Fiber. Flaxseed contains both the soluble and insoluble types.

Would the omega-3s in flaxseed oil address my concerns about our children getting enough good fats for brain development? It turns out that omega-3s from plant sources (e.g., flaxseed, nuts and nut oil, and canola oil) are not as useful to our bodies as the omega-3s from seafood (you may read my notes on this by clicking here: Nutritional Deficit Disorder by Dr. William Sears). However, Dr. William Sears describes flaxseed oil as a “very healthy oil” that he prescribes to children who need more nutrition from under eating.

Lilian Thompson, PHD, an internationally known flaxseed researcher from the University of Toronto, says that although the research isn’t yet “well established,” there is indication that flaxseed may help reduce the risks of certain cancers and lung disease, cardiovascular disease, inflammation, diabetes, and hot flashes.

Tips

• Check labels. Now that omega 3s are so popular, food packages want to advertise them on their labels. Some food makers slip in some of the less expensive omega 3s, like flaxseed oil and canola oil, yet the package will say, “fortified with omega 3s.” Look for a package label that reads “omega 3 DHA,” “omega 3s from marine sources,” make sure ground flaxseed, not whole flaxseed, was added. Flaxseed is a featured ingredient in cereals, pasta, whole grain breads and crackers, energy bars, meatless meal products, and snack foods.
• Whole flaxseed keeps longer. The outside shell in whole flaxseed appears to keep the fatty acids inside well protected. It’s a good idea to keep your whole flaxseed in a dark, cool place until you grind it. But as long as it is dry and of good quality, whole flaxseed can be stored at room temperature for up to a year.
• Buy it ground or grind it yourself. When eaten as a whole seed, flaxseed is more likely to pass through the intestinal tract undigested, which means your body doesn’t get all the healthful components. To grind flaxseed yourself, the little electric coffee grinders seem to work best.
• Keep it in the freezer. The best place to store ground flaxseed is the freezer. Freeze pre-ground flaxseed in the bag you bought it in, or in a plastic sealable bag if you ground it yourself. The freezer will keep the ground flax from oxidizing and losing its nutritional potency.
• Buy either brown or golden flaxseed. There is very little nutritional difference between brown or golden flaxseed (except that brown is easier to find in most supermarkets).
• Milled = ground = flax meal. Don’t be confused by the different product names for ground flaxseed. Milled or ground flaxseed is the same thing as flax meal.
• Add flaxseed to a food you habitually eat. Every time you have a certain food, like oatmeal, smoothies, soup, or yogurt, stir in a couple tablespoons of ground flaxseed. Soon it will be a habit and you won’t have to think about it, you’ll just do it.
• Use it in baking. Substitute ground flaxseed for part of the flour in recipes for quick breads, muffins, rolls, bread, bagels, pancakes, and waffles. Try replacing 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the flour with ground flaxseed if the recipe calls for 2 or more cups of flour.
• Flaxseed oil does not have the fiber and has fewer lignans than the ground flaxseed. Read more on the Dr. Oz website: 3 Benefits of Flax.

My Related Notes:

• Avoiding / Minimizing Dairy? Read What Alternative Sources Provide Calcium, Protein and Vitamin D
• Ten Super Foods To Use
• Nuts and Seeds
• Eggs — A Cheat Sheet

Research Found That A Sleepy Sixth-Grader Will Perform In Class Like A Mere Fourth-Grader

Did you know that children — from elementary school through high school — get an hour less sleep each night than they did thirty years ago? The authors of Nurture Shock, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, investigated the consequences of this. Below is a list of the ones that I found currently relevant to my family (you may click on the links for more):

• A Slightly Sleepy Sixth-Grader Will Perform In Class Like A Mere Fourth-Grader
• A Good Night’s Sleep Is Important For Long-Term Learning
• Sleep-Deprived People Fail To Recall Pleasant Memories, Yet Recall Gloomy Memories Just Fine
• Dropping Below Eight Hours of Sleep Doubled The Rate of Clinical-Level Depression
• Shifting Weekend Sleep (Going to bed later but waking up later while still getting the same number of hours of sleep) Leads To Lower IQ Points
• The More You Learn During The Day, The More Sleep You Need
• Every Fifteen Minutes Counts

What Happened When Some Forward-Thinking Schools Pushed Back School Start Times By One Hour?

• Higher SAT Scores: Math SAT Scores Increased 56 Points, Verbal SAT Scores Increased 156 Points
• Teenage Car Accidents Decreased 25%

The CDC now recommends that high schools consider later starts: its representatives are now opining that a change in school start times can change lives.

Related Content:

• Sleep: “The Lost Hour”
• Sleep Deprivation: How Do Parents Manage It?!
• Impact of Sleep: Interesting Things Didn’t Know
• Finally Liberated To Sleep!

My Notes On Sleep:

• Sleep
• Sleep’s Impact on the Brain
• Sleep’s Influence on “Intelligence” and School Performance
• Benefits of Good Sleep Habits
• Sleep Tips
• Five Elements of Healthy Sleep
• Prevent Poor Sleep Habits
• Biological Rhythms

Recently, I started to notice that my daughter, when playing with her father, would give up on a game or task relatively quickly when encountered by a challenge. This struck me because she would not give up when playing with me. In fact, she seemed not to be self-conscious at all around me — didn’t seem to notice judgment / evaluation from me and didn’t seem concerned about my opinion of her. With my husband, however, she was self-conscious and would give up on activities much more quickly. I sensed that she didn’t want to disappoint her adoring father.

This experience reminded me of an article, “The Inverse Power of Praise” by Po Bronson in New York Magazine from a few years ago, that I had skimmed when my daughter was just a few months old. I also unintentionally came across the same article as the first chapter in a book, Nurture Shock, by the same authors, Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman. When reading “The Inverse Power of Praise” the first time, I thought it was fascinating. Re-reading the article a few years later as a parent to two girls, I now have a different appreciation for the content.

The Inverse Power of Praise

When interacting with our three-year-old, one key difference that stood out to me was that I tended to be more silent when my daughter would get engaged in something, wanting to give her the freedom to figure things out on her own and conservatively guiding her when she would get stumped. My husband, however, who is a much more fun-loving playmate to her than I am, was a much more generous cheerleader, enthusiastically saying things like, “That’s so great! You’re so smart!!”

A growing body of research strongly suggests that giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.

– Nurture Shock (2009) by Po Bronson and Ashely Merryman; page 13

“The Inverse Power of Praise” makes the point that praise can be effective — “a positive, motivating force.” However, all praise is not equal. “To be effective, researchers have found, praise needs to be specific” and it needs to be sincere.

“[Researchers] have found that frequently-praised children get more competitive and more interested in tearing others down. Image-maintenance becomes their primary concern. A raft of very alarming studies… illustrates this.”

– Nurture Shock (2009) by Po Bronson and Ashely Merryman; page 21

Modifying His Praise Immediately Altered My Daughter’s Behavior

Being as open-minded and open-hearted as my husband is, he agreed to listen to “The Inverse Power of Praise” as I read it to him during a recent car ride. He immediately embraced this new perspective and minimized general praise like “you’re so smart” and “that’s so good” and started focusing his praise more on effort, saying things like “That was such a great try! Even though you didn’t get it the first time, I’m so proud of you for trying and trying again!” We now both place a greater emphasis on effort and less on outcome. The result? Since making this change, I now don’t remember the last time she gave up on a task.

“Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control… They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to failure.”

– Nurture Shock (2009) by Po Bronson and Ashely Merryman; page 15

“The Inverse Power of Praise” by Po Bronson

I highly recommend reading the article which can be found in its entirety on the NYMag website, which you may access by clicking on: “The Inverse Power of Praise” by Po Bronson. The book, Nurture Shock, contains other fascinating discoveries on other topics as well!

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This week has been a very emotional week for my three-year-old and I. She’s been communicating a series of alarming messages; including the claim that her nanny hits her in the face!

After having time to gather more information from her during this week and after listening to input from those that are more experienced, I think the root cause of this new behavior is that she’s jealous and confused about her eight-month-old sister.

The frequency of our three-year-old knocking over the baby, or other physical expressions of her frustrations, has been increasing recently. After trying different traditional responses that weren’t working, I am excited to try a new tool: reflection-time.

“Reflection-Time” Is The New “Time-Out”

While talking to our new babysitter, Ms. T (who has been a teacher), about how to address the sibling rivalry, I asked about implementing “time-out.” Ms. T said that she found time-outs to be very effective in her classroom. After telling her that I didn’t like the sense of punishment that a time-out creates, she suggested the use of the term “reflection-time.” I loved it.

So, this morning, I had the following conversation with my three-year-old:

“Y’know, for a long time before your sister came along, it was just you, me and daddy. And you got to have all of our attention, everyone‘s attention.

Now that your sister is here, it is very normal for you to not like her sometimes and to get mad at her sometimes because you have to share the attention. I know you always love her but you’re not always going to like her. And that’s okay. But, it’s not okay for you to hurt her. And I think you hurt her sometimes because you’re confused about new feelings that you don’t have words for.

So, we’re going to try something new. Whenever you hurt your sister, a grown up is going to pick you up and place you in the travel crib to let you think about why you hurt your sister.”

Her face lit up because she’s been wanting to dominate any item that her eight-month-old sister has been using, which has included the travel crib.

“You’ll be left there for 3 minutes — because you’re 3 years old (I got a big smile from that explanation) — to think about why you weren’t nice to your sister. Then, after 3 minutes, the grown up is going to come back to talk to you about why you weren’t nice to your sister.”

She was smiling, nodding her head, and shaking her body with excitement.

“We want to help you understand why you’re not nice to your sister sometimes and help give you the words to share why. Since you are feeling new things, it’s normal for you to not know, but we want to help you learn. We all want to learn.”

She was thrilled. She wrapped both arms around my neck to hug me tight (I had been carrying her while having this conversation), and was visibly excited by this new idea. We are as well! The grown ups get reflection-time too.

Other tips I heard that we’ll be trying are below:

• The minutes of reflection-time should not exceed the number of years old the child is.
• They should each have things that they do not have to share with each other, even if it’s just one thing each. It is very hard for siblings to have to share everything.
• Limit the use of the word “share” and, instead, use the words “take turns.”
• Shower the older sibling with tons of attention when they are doing desirable things (like, being caring and gentle towards the younger sibling) and minimize attention (even negative attention) when they are doing less desirable things.
• Highlight special privileges that the older sibling has that the younger one doesn’t. For example, make a big deal of the older sibling being able to have a later bedtime than the younger one.

I’ll keep you posted on our lessons learned. And, if you have any tips, please share them below!

Fall is here and so is the back-to-school season! I’ve been looking forward to the routines and structure, investigating which activities to enroll my three-year-old. At the same time, I keep wondering what is the right balance of structured activities and open play. (In Manhattan, many three-year-olds — and even younger children — have busy schedules!) Earlier this summer, I reached out to our friend, Ms. Natalie Smith of Wonder and Spark for her input.

“… the MOST IMPORTANT gift / activity that we can give our children is fostering their creativity… If we schedule every second of a child’s life, when will they have time to think? When can they ponder what they’ve learned and connect that thinking and new knowledge to their prior knowledge?”

– Natalie Smith of Wonder and Spark

Did You Know About The Creativity Crisis?

Natalie introduced me to an interesting Newsweek article, “The Creativity Crisis” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman (authors of a book that I’m reading and loving, ). In the article, I learned of a “creativity index,” developed by professor E. Paul Torrance. The “Torrance tasks,” as the creativity assessment was referred to throughout the article, has become the gold standard in creativity assessment, “measuring creativity perfectly.”

“What’s shocking is how incredibly well Torrance’s creativity index predicted those kids’ creative accomplishments as adults. Those who came up with more good ideas on Torrance’s tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers. Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University recently reanalyzed Torrance’s data. The correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.“

– “The Creativity Crisis” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Interesting. I had no idea that creativity could be measured and that it is an important factor for life quality, as are emotional intelligence and education. Some researchers theorize that a lack of creativity — an inability to conceive of alternative approaches — may lead to despair. They have found that those who are better at identifying problems and solving them have better relationships. Creative people are more able to handle stress and overcome the stresses and hardships of life.

American Creativity Scores Are Falling

Okay, I’m convinced that nurturing creativity in my children is valuable. But how do I do that? Should they be enrolled in more diversity of classes (like music, languages, and sports) to stimulate their brain development? Or should I schedule more play dates so that they are exposed to more children and all that those children introduce?

“Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test — a 90 minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist — has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect — each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.”

– “The Creativity Crisis” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

American creativity scores are going down?! Hmmm… maybe I shouldn’t be doing what most other parents are doing….

“The Creativity Crisis” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman has additional insight on how to “teach” creativity skills, and it’s not through art and music classes as most people think. For my family, I’ll be applying those insights when my children are older. But, for my three-year-old, I’ve been wondering how can I better nurture her creativity…

Lesson Learned: Value In Boredom

This morning, at an appointment with our pediatrician for our eight-month-old, I asked our wonderful pediatrician what her thoughts were on the healthy balance of activities for a bright, curious three-year-old. She immediately noted the importance of open play and how crazy the Manhattan culture is with scheduling children’s activities.

It’s very clear, and the decrease is significant… It is the scores of younger children in America — from kindergarten through sixth grade — for whom the decline is “most serious.”

– “The Creativity Crisis” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

An interesting thing that dawned on me, as I listened to her thoughts was the value of giving children the opportunity to get bored at home, but without access to electronics, like television, computers, and wireless devices. I started remembering how bored I often times got as a child and teenager. For example, my parents would sometimes make me attend church services that were conducted in Taiwanese, a language I don’t understand at all. So sitting through two-hour sermons was painfully boring. However, it was during these times that I was forced to explore and entertain within my own self — intellectually, emotionally, philosophically, analytically — for entertainment.

“It’s also true that highly creative adults frequently grew up with hardship. Hardship by itself doesn’t lead to creativity, but it does force kids to become more flexible — and flexibility helps with creativity.”

– “The Creativity Crisis” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

From this example, I’m not at all inspired to take my children to a church sermon that is conducted in a language they do not understand. But, I realize that moments of boredom — of not having easy stimulation and engagement (like, from electronics and play dates) — are opportunities for my children to become much more inventive, creative, and mentally resourceful. This has been especially enlightening for me since our Manhattan context constantly reminds me of how not busy my children are in comparison to their local peers.

What have your experiences been either from your own childhood or with your own children?

Related Content

• “The Inverse Power of Praise”
• Sleep: “The Lost Hour”
• Fetal Origins: How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life

Over the past year, my daughter quickly fell in love with Magna-tiles, a fun educational toy, at her preschool. When picking up my daughter from school, there were several times that her teachers would make it a point to tell me that my 2.5 year old daughter spent a good 20 minutes that day absorbed in these tiles. My husband and I just recently bought a set for home. Watching both my daughter and my husband play with them for quite a while (and then I started playing with them!), I decided to share this wonderful product with SFile readers!

Magna-Tiles

Magna-tiles are created by Valtech! Co. From its website:

The Valtech! Magna-Tiles® line of colorful building toys have gained popularity among thousands of preschools nationwide and continue to enjoy strong response from teachers, parents and kids.

For children, taking flat objects and constructing 3-D objects is a new, exciting discovery. Various geometric shapes and other objects can easily be created.

Students learn informally and through creative play about geometric shapes, symmetry and other concepts with these colorful pieces.

Helps to develop:

Magna-tiles Is the Winner of Several Awards:

Check them out in the video below!

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My youngest daughter is about six months old as I write this and she seems ready to start learning some baby sign language, which is intimidating to me! However, our oldest daughter was taught it when she was around eight months (by her nanny at the time) and it was really wonderful to empower our daughter with communication tools so that should could express some basic needs, like wanting to eat, drink, or have her diaper changed. So I’ve been trying to refresh my memory on the signs for milk (and more) but haven’t been able to figure out the hand gestures from the flash cards that we were given. So I went to YouTube and found the following video to be perfectly helpful. It is below, in case you’d like to try it with your child!

 A friend of mine forwarded an email about a program (flash cards, DVDs, books, etc) that teaches young children to read.  I gave it a try after seeing some of the testimonials and I’d recommend it!  My daughter loves the flash cards, videos, and books.  The video below demonstrates what some babies are capable of doing.  More information can be found at http://www.yourbabycan.com/.