The London Free Press online teaser warned of freezing rain. The picture indicated, that for some Londoners, freezing was already here. Clearly, a Free Press photographer or reporter had shot a picture of an icy mirror.
As a former Free Press photographer, I spent a lot of time driving about the area on treacherous winter roads taking pictures for the paper. Freezing rain and ice slicked roads were my biggest fear.
According to Texas A&M, "Freezing rain is difficult to forecast because just one or two degrees
in temperature difference can mean either rain or snow or freezing rain.
Freezing rain is very dangerous because it tends to coat roads with ice
first. If the surface it hits is 32 degrees or lower, it will quickly
freeze on contact, and the resulting ice storms can shut down an entire
city very quickly."
Warning readers of dangers in life, such as the possibility of freezing rain coating the area, is what online newspapers should do. The stuff can instantly render a road too slippery for walking let alone driving. No one should drive on the stuff.
When I used to be sent out to grab a picture showing London in the middle of a freezing ice storm, I used to wish there was another way to get an image — a way that did not involve me driving on wet, icy roads. Well, today there is!
Thanks to photography having gone digital, a reader living in an affected area can take a picture showing the ice with their cell phone and transmit it to the newsroom. I can recall the newsroom phoning readers in areas hit by something like an ice storms and gathering information for a story from the safety of the York Street building. Photographers didn't get off so lightly.
News photos are not simply shims for a page, although that is the way they were, and are, all too often used. Nor are news photos simply illustrations to enliven the visual appeal of a story. That is why editors usually insisted on fresh art for a story. The Free Press was a N-E-W-S-paper.
Many of the editors I had the good fortune to work with over the years would not have risked frightening readers with an image misrepresenting the news. The image of an ice encrusted driver's outside mirror would have had to show a moment from the day.
Look carefully at the image. There is no credit given. When I clicked on the image and went to the linked story, I noticed no credit appeared beneath the image running with the story. Odd.
I thought whoever took this picture was very, dare I say, lucky. You see, I spent the day driving about London doing Christmas shopping. I watched the temperature gauge on my dash very carefully. Sometimes it registered three full degrees Fahrenheit above freezing. At no point did I come across freezing rain.
At night I had to drive from southwest London to northwest London and by that time the temperature was rising. With the temperature well above freezing, the warning of freezing rain was lifted.
Still, hours after the warning was no longer in force, the local paper was still carrying the story on their website. Why had the picture and story not been taken down? Worse, the story had evolved. Freezing rain was now falling well to the east of London leaving highways dangerously slick. The was no mention of this.
A little sleuthing revealed that the image of an icy mirror also ran Sunday in the Sarnia Observer with an ice storm story.
There are indications the image is a file photo from the Sun Media archives. Maybe I am wrong about the source of the image, but I wait to be corrected.
Newspaper sales are down. No wonder. Newspapers are playing fast and loose with the news. Running an uncredited file picture with a news story is not journalism.
Sun Media and Quebecor need to hire more staff. They need more reporters and photographers, and editors too. Sadly, that won't happen until hell freezes over.
Addendum: This is not the only instance of the paper under Sun Media and Quebecor using questionable file art. Recently, a serious story on Canada's top court handling the appeal of a lower court 'bawdy house' ruling was accompanied with a silly piece of file filler.
And the very worst example of faux photojournalism that I have come across was the use of hired models to illustrate a story on going topless at the beach. The Ottawa Sun faked a number of images and then moved them to the Canadian Press. CP in turn moved them to the Associated Press.
Years later one of the images popped up in The New York Times as visual proof that women with breasts bare are commonly found on beaches near the Canadian capital.
A slide show was shown at a recent ReThink London event with those attending being asked to vote. That slide show is now online and we are again being asked to view the pictures and indicate our preferences. Unfortunately, we are not given the chance to answer: "None of the above."
Ideally this voting activity would have been, at a minimum, a two stage project. First, Londoners should have been encouraged to scour the Internet for images depicting an urban landscape they would like to see emulated here in London. The best images would have been presented for consideration and voting.
Click on the image below to enlarge it and see my improved "ballot."
As I recall image A and image B did not garner many votes. Clearly the audience preferred the modern townhouses (C) and the apartments located above commercial space (D). Now that we know the preferences, let's give folk some better choices.
The image, second from bottom on left, is the Norwalk Town Center in Norwalk, Connecticut. This $200 million initiative looks rather grand for a town of only 86,000 where the estimated per capital annual income in 2009 was only $39, 695. Still, as best as I could determine, the plan is moving ahead.
The image to the immediate right is an artist's conception of a proposed new town centre in Clayton, Ohio. A new urbanist experiment in suburban planning, some of the proposed buildings have been built already. Below is map with inserted illustration of the development.
At the bottom left is an example what comes from using form-based code. This is a method of regulating development with the goal of achieving a specific urban look. Since the goal of this ReThink London project is to develop a new urban plan, maybe Londoners could take some inspiration from the Birmingham planning design guide released in late 2006 and available online.
Lastly, on the bottom right is the new apartment/commercial complex on Dundas Street in Old East London. How many votes do you think this image would attract?
Now, to move on to question two of the ReThink London ballot.
It is interesting to look at the apartment buildings shown and then consider the apartment buildings built recently in London. And then to give some thought to how other southern Ontario cities have approached apartment/condominium designs.
Think of Mississauga. Wanting to make a splash internationally, a development company, Fernbrook/Cityzen, sponsored an international design competition in 2005 for the condo towers it planned for the town centre.
The resulting skyscraper was called the “Marilyn Monroe” by locals for its voluptuous
curves.
"People looking for the latest in twisting, gravity-defying architecture
might start with the international cities of the Middle East or China,
but you wouldn’t expect them to look here, in the suburbs outside
Toronto.
. . . designed by the Chinese architect Ma Yansong, assisted by his partner,
Qun Dang. Sales were so brisk in the 428-unit “Marilyn” tower that the
developers asked the architect to deliver a second, 50-story high-rise
with 433 units."
Like to know more? Watch the video. Mississauga and Fernbrook/Cityzen certainly generated buzz.
When I gushed over her art, Fiona told me firmly: "Gug-gah, I scribble."
A lot of psychologists have come out against praising children, or more accurately against heaping too much praise on children. According to these experts too much praise doesn't build self-esteem but diminishes it. It's a confidence killer.
Originally I had another title on this post and then I read The New York Times article. I immediately shifted gears and my post took off in a new direction. Madeline Levine wrote:
Dr. Carol Dweck, a social and developmental psychologist at Stanford University, takes young children into a room and
asks them to solve a simple puzzle. Most do so with little difficulty.
But then Dr. Dweck tells some, but not all, of the kids how very bright
and capable they are. As it turns out, the children who are not told
they’re smart are more motivated to tackle increasingly difficult
puzzles. They also exhibit higher levels of confidence and show greater
overall progress in puzzle-solving.
This may seem counter-intuitive, but praising children’s talents and
abilities seems to rattle their confidence. Tackling more difficult
puzzles carries the risk of losing one’s status as “smart” and deprives
kids of the thrill of choosing to work simply for its own sake,
regardless of outcomes. Dr. Dweck’s work aligns nicely with that of Dr.
Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist at the University of California, who also found that reasonably supporting a child’s autonomy
and limiting interference results in better academic and emotional
outcomes.
All my life I've been known as a tough critic. My nieces and nephews had to work to impress me, and work they did. Now, as a grandfather, I fear I have lost my harsh edge. I fear I've grown soft. I have turned into a push-over.
Praise, to be beneficial, should be genuine, focused on the child's good effort and hard work and not necessarily the outcome. I read numerous posts on the Web, all agreed the important word here is sincere. Children can sense insincerity. Artificial praise risks damaging trust.
Music playing, Fiona spins as she performs her little dance.
My granddaughter loves to make scribbles in pen and ink and then together we colour some of the open spaces. She picks the colours and the spaces, and I do the colouring. I have really liked some of the art we've created together.
I love the shapes she draws. I love the way she puts pen to page and the bold way she attacks the blank sheet of paper. I've tried emulating her approach; I can't. I over-think my scribbles.
The other day I was gushing over one of her sketches when she turned to me and stopped me dead by telling me firmly, "Gug-gah, I scribble."
Hmmm. Maybe it is time to dial down the praise a notch or two. It might make her a bolder child, willing to tackle the truly challenging stuff — like dance.
Aesha is a shy 18-year-old Afghan woman sentenced by a Taliban commander to have her nose and ears cut off as the penalty for fleeing her abusive in-laws.
Aesha posed for the Time magazine cover photo because she wanted the world to see the effect a Taliban resurgence would have on the women of Afghanistan. Or this is the story being reported by the American media.
Today Aesha has a nose, but only a prosthetic nose. As of May 2012, the psychological damage suffered by the young woman has proven more destructive than her disfigurement. She has mood swings – violent tantrums. According to the British Mail Online, "Her plastic surgery had to be delayed
because (she was emotionally not ready to cope with)the painful and lengthy surgery required."
Aesha is in ruins, physically and emotionally, and so is her homeland.
For another media report, try this link to a New York Times story on another young girl attacked and left for dead in an honour killing.
The last I heard, all Canadian military will be out of Afghanistan after 2014. Canada will continue to financially support the Afghan military for three years with an annual payment of $110-million, but our military presence will be over.
Canada claimed one of its priorities in Afghanistan was to help Afghan women. Are we abandoning this goal as we prepare to leave the Asian country, its society and culture in tatters after decades of war?
I understand the Canadian military is in favour of this action and I can understand why. The story we are told is that Afghanistan is a battle that cannot be won. And they are right, at least when it comes to the present military battle.
Supposedly the country is a brutal, tribal land ruled by vicious war lords. Foreign armies foolish enough to invade, it is said, find themselves mired in a crushing, unending war impossible to win. The history of foreign engagements in the country over almost the past two centuries seems to support this belief.
Afghan women, I've been told, are treated cruelly but that is the Afghan way. There is nothing we can do to save these women. This is a problem that can only be solved by the Afghans themselves.
I'm not a war booster. I find the entire idea of marching off to war repellent, although sometimes it is necessary. As a young man I considered myself very luck to be Canadian and not compelled to fight in Viet Nam like so many of my American friends. I didn't support that Southeast Asian war.
The invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent war seems somewhat similar to that long over Southeast Asian conflict. The sooner the Western military is out the better. Still, Afghanistan seems different from Viet Nam. Under the Taliban Afghanistan seems more like Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.
There is nothing unique about government-sponsored violence. There is,
in fact, nothing especially unusual about widespread killing, or even
genocide. The rallying cry heard in the wake of World War II — "Never
again!" — is a noble sentiment but not a reflection of reality. Ask
the Indonesians, or the Timorese, or the Salvadorans, or the Rwandans,
or the Albanians . . . or the Cambodians. (Allow me to add, the Afghans to this sad list.)
I'm troubled by our leaving of Afghanistan. It will not be long before all Western armies will have departed. Were we wrong to have entered Afghanistan? Probably. Are we wrong to be leaving? Probably not.
Still, leaving Afghanistan in ruins, its culture and traditional society destroyed, is to leave a vaccuum that may well be filled by the Taliban, religious fanatics, or by the criminal warlords once decried and now, in many cases, enjoying begrudging support by the West. This is a Gordian that cannot be cut, the result simply unravels, we must find a way slowly to untangle the mess that the British, the Russians, the Americans, even the Afghans themselves have created.
I worry I don't know enough to make a thoughtful decision. I do know that every time I try to learn a little about Afghanistan, I come away more confused. What I discovered when I start researching this post didn't jibe neatly with the stories I usually heard and always claimed to reflect "the truth."
Sgt. Kimberly Lamb U.S. Armed Forces-Released by U.S. Army: ID 120627-A-LE308-091
First, the country is not all a complete desert waste land. There are large swaths of the country that one could call lush. Think of the United States. If you have ever traveled the American West, you know what a large chunk of the U.S. is arid desert. But no one would call the United States anything but blessed when it comes farmland. Countries are big places.
Afghanistan is in many ways a blessed land. It was not always hell. Many would argue strongly that the West brought and installed hell in Afghanistan. Is there anyway that as we remove troops from the country that we can take the hell out of the little country as well?
When I began asking questions about women and their place in Afghan culture I found the following published by the U.S. Department of State:
Prior to the rise of the Taliban, women in Afghanistan were protected
under law and increasingly afforded rights in Afghan society. Women
received the right to vote in the 1920s; and as early as the 1960s, the
Afghan constitution provided for equality for women. There was a mood of
tolerance and openness as the country began moving toward democracy.
Women were making important contributions to national development. In
1977, women comprised over 15% of Afghanistan's highest legislative
body. It is estimated that by the early 1990s, 70% of schoolteachers,
50% of government workers and university students, and 40% of doctors in
Kabul were women. Afghan women had been active in humanitarian relief
organizations until the Taliban imposed severe restrictions on their
ability to work. These professional women provide a pool of talent and
expertise that will be needed in the reconstruction of post-Taliban
Afghanistan.
Islam has a tradition of protecting the rights of women and children.
In fact, Islam has specific provisions which define the rights of women
in areas such as marriage, divorce, and property rights. The Taliban's
version of Islam is not supported by the world's Muslims. Although the
Taliban claimed that it was acting in the best interests of women, the
truth is that the Taliban regime cruelly reduced women and girls to
poverty, worsened their health, and deprived them of their right to an
education, and many times the right to practice their religion. The
Taliban is out of step with the Muslim world and with Islam.
Afghanistan under the Taliban had one of the worst
human rights records in the world. The regime systematically repressed
all sectors of the population and denied even the most basic individual
rights. Yet the Taliban's war against women was particularly appalling.
Is the above all true. Yes, but the story is getting some spin.
According to Huma Ahmed-Ghosh: "Afghanistan may be the only country in the world where during the last century kings and politicians have been made and undone by struggles relating to women’s status." But he does agree with the Yanks when he says, "Women in Afghanistan were not always oppressed by fundamentalism as occurred under the Mujahideen and the Taliban."
I know arguing for any continuing involvement by Canada in Afghanistan is not a popular position. I know that few question the wisdom, the morality, of pulling our troops out of Afghanistan. It is not a welcoming country for our military. Still, does our total abandonment of the country after a few additional short years demonstrate wisdom or morality? Would our feelings change if our wives, daughters, granddaughters were threatened by the violence of the resurgent Taliban?
Wanting to know more about Afghanistan, both the history and the present situation, I am posting links to a number of important documentaries that I tracked down on YouTube. The first two are historical and were originally broadcast by the BBC. The next four are the work of two excellent Canadian journalists, David Pugliese and Scott Taylor, who travelled about war torn Afghanistan carefully documenting what they found. Talk about guts. These are two incredible journalists. (I worked with Dave Pugliese when he was a reporter for The London Free Press.)
One approach to assisting the Afghans with minimal military involvement is the use of PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams). The Canadian reporter, Scott Taylor, interviews a Turkish chap about his country's PRTs and their success. Canada supports a number of PRT projects in the Kadahar region.
I found a number of good videos on Afghanistan but the links keep breaking. I am supplying the following plus links but be warned all embedded video and all links may not work by the time you visit.
For part two you will have to google it. Good luck. Also, google Rory Stewart. He is not simply a talking, media head. His views carry weight.
One America woman interviewed in the Canadian documentary, Sarah Chayes, wrote a book, The Punishment of Virtue, detailing her experiences in Afghanistan. We learn from her Internet site:
"The story Chayes tells is a powerful, disturbing revelation of misguided
U.S. policy and of the deeply entrenched traditions of tribal
warlordism that have ruled Afghanistan through the centuries."
"She reveals how the tribal strongmen who have regained power-after years
of being displaced by the Taliban-have visited a renewed plague of
corruption and violence on the Afghan people, under the complicit eyes
of U.S. forces and officials."
When you consider the time and money that the West has dumped in Afghanistan, how does one explain that this little Asian country has the highest infant mortality rate in the world. No place one earth equals Afghanistan at 121. 63 deaths per 1000 live births. Its neighbour, Turkmenistan has a rate of approximately 40, while Uzbekistan is about 20.
But death doesn't just stalk the very young in Afghanistan. The life expectancy at birth is only 49.72 years.
Older, original downtowns throughout North America were attractive places. One reason was the unity of the architecture. All the structures dated from approximately the same era. Often the building material, the local brick or stone, was a uniting feature tying the entire streetscape together.
Today we have a plethora of theories on how to make failing downtowns successful again. Saving historic buildings, or at a minimum their facades, is often heralded as one answer. Sadly, many of the facades are gone, the architectural flow broken. But, there is an answer.
First, forget trying to bring back what was lost. If a beautiful, cut granite building facade was demolished, accept it. Such facades are often out of reach cost-wise today. But don't fill in the gaping break in the streetscape with an oh-so-out-of-place modern, glass structure. Reach back into the past, find a much cheaper alternative to the original structure, but an alternative with roots in the last century, and lay some brick.
Brick is not that expensive and brick can be laid in a multitude of patterns making a new facade blend with older buildings. What goes behind the facade is another matter. With modern construction hidden behind the facade, the new building can be both beautiful and practical.
Even better, let the facade skin a structure only three or four stories
high, don't make that structure too deep. Keep it shallow. With the feel
of the street restored, build a much higher, multi-storied building
behind and welcome increased office space and a growing number of
residential units to the revitalized street.
How do we encourage such an approach? Think form-based code. I've written about this in the past, click this link, ReThink London suggestions, and go down to the sixth suggestion.
I like margarine. The soft stuff in the plastic tubs. The ones made with a little olive oil are my favorites. Butter is for cooking; margarine is for the table. (My wife has gone on to prove that a good margarine can work very well for cooking, too.)
I have some friends who seem to believe margarine is made from petroleum products. I say seem because they are very bright and may be just making the claim to annoy me.
I've had robotic heart surgery. I had an ICD with a pacemaker inserted into my chest. I've spent a lot of time chatting with heart doctors. On one matter all agree: use soft, non-hydrogenated margarine, and use it in moderation. Go light with fat but don't fear fat.
Did you know a half litre of chocolate milk has 12 1/2 tsp. sugar?
Recently the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) held a press conference at which the province's doctors came out in favour of increasing taxes on junk food, while at the same time decreasing taxes on healthy alternatives. The OMA went so far as to suggest placing graphic warning labels on pop and other high calorie foods having little or no nutritional value.
The graphic images presented were pretty horrible. I am sure the OMA hoped to grab media attention by juxtaposing an image of an ulcerated foot with that of a juice box. If that was their intent, they were successful. (Read Ian Gillespie's opinion piece in The London Free Press.)
Taxing high calorie food is already being done in Denmark, Hungary and France. Peru, Ireland and the UK are considering such taxes. Maybe it is high time for Ontario to consider following suit. Research indicates the tax must be 20 percent or higher in order to cut consumption. The levy should be accompanied by subsidies on healthy foods. Research indicates those with low incomes benefit the most from these measures.
One juice box may contain 36 grams of sugar.
According to the OMA obesity in children is at epidemic levels. 26 percent of
Canadian children between two and 17 years of age are considered
overweight, 8 percent to the point of obesity. These numbers are almost double what they were a little more than three decades ago.
The trend is staggering. Statistics indicate 75% of obese children will become obese adults. We may be raising the first generation of
children to not outlive their parents.
All this is very important to me; I have two lovely granddaughters. I look at the stuff that can sneak into their diets, stuff that wasn't around when I was a boy, and I worry. We are learning how to manufacture some pretty awful stuff and call it food. And reporters, like Luisa D'Amato of The Record, are quick to jump to the defence of this true junk food.
"A carton of grape juice is not the same as a carton of cigarettes. Not even close," she writes.
I think most of us would agree with her, and most of us might be wrong. Take Welch's Healthy Start Grape Juice. A 200 ml juice box contains more than 31 grams of sugar. Now you know why the OMA warns against excess consumption of grape juice, even 100 percent grape juice with no added sugar must be consumed in limited amounts.
And we aren't even looking at grape drinks (grape drink as opposed to grape juice). The added sugar can push grape drinks into the bad nutrition stratosphere.
D'Amato suggests we resist overeating despite the temptation posed by our cheap,
abundant food. D'Amato misses the point. Way too much of our oh-so-abundant food is incredibly calorie rich and a lot of what is being offered our children is nutrient deficient junk food. With foods high in fats and sugars, we do not have to overeat to pack on the pounds, clog the arteries and overwhelm our bodies.
When I was a boy I ate Kellogg's Krumbles for breakfast as kids had done since 1912. Krumbles were a toasted whole wheat cereal lacking the sugar coating de rigeur today. Krumbles disappeared from store shelves decades ago. Some of today's cereals, like Kellogg's Honey Smacks and Post Golden Crisp, are more than 50 percent sugar (by weight) according to an article that Consumer Reports ran in 2008.
The same CR article states that such sugary cereals are
heavily marketed to children, to the tune of about $229 million advertising dollars per year. With that kind of money driving sales, maybe the doctors are onto something when they suggest using the tax code to apply the brakes to sales.
Many of our processed foods add solid fats along with added sugar. Together, solid fats and added sugar are known as SoFAS.
To cut back on SoFAS the Mayo Clinic advises limiting table sugar, desserts, pizza, sausage and
similar fatty meats, sweetened beverages, stick margarine and butter,
and candy.
A tax applied in a reasonable manner would not price food out of reach of the poor but encourage companies to beat the tax by offering nutritionally rich food products at prices reflecting the tax-free status. My wife's homemade pizza goes heavy on the artichokes, tomato slices, broccoli and colourful sweet peppers and it is light on bacon, sausage and cheese. No warning is needed on my wife's Mediterranean diet pizza - a pizza inspired by our visit to southern France and Italy.
There is no hotdog stuffed crust to be found sullying real Italian, oh-so-healthy, pizza.
I'm always partial to works by Fiona, my three-year-old granddaughter.
Friday my wife was given a piece of art. It was a blank sheet of white paper with four little, green lines drawn in the middle of each of the sheet's four sides. My wife thought it was rather "cute."
Think of Nothing To Be Afraid Of V 22.8.69
I didn't know what to think. Heck, when I was in art school back in the '60s, this would have been a brilliant piece of minimalist art. Think of Nothing To Be Afraid Of V 22.8.69 by British artist Bob Law.
Law, who died aged 70 in 2004, was one of the founding fathers of British
minimalist painting. When he died he left his 9ft by 7ft “painting” (white apart from the date and a
black border drawn with a marker pen).
So, who was the creative artist that gave my wife the gift? It was a little girl not quite five at the school where my wife works.
I told my wife that if that piece had been eight feet by ten feet and not eight inches by ten inches, it would have been a totally different art piece. Size matters in art. She wasn't buying it.
This wasn't art that a child could do, this was a child's art.
If I can find the piece, I'll iron it (my wife let it get wrinkled) and I'll post the work of the little genius. I wonder if the kid needs an agent.
When I worked in the media there were things that one simply did not do. If you did, you risked a reprimand or worse.
I can recall being assigned to illustrate a story on prostitution and the desk actually arranged a meeting with a real streetwalker. I met the lady on Dundas Street at Rectory at dusk and shot pictures of her from some distance using a long lens.
The resulting pictures showed the silhouette of a heavy lady in too short a skirt standing alone on a dark street waving to passing vehicles. We didn't want to make her identity too clear. She wasn't concerned. Her friends and family knew she earned her money hooking, still using some discretion seemed wise.
I never liked faking pictures. Fake a shot and you simply reinforce the standard, hackneyed take on a story. For a case in point, look at these two screen grabs. Today The London Free Press may illustrate a news story using a royalty free stock image. This one is from Fotolia.
I understand Fotolia is a fine company and a good source of stock images. Yet, are images like this one what should be illustrating our newspapers and shaping our view of the world?
The other night I attended a ReThink London event held in the Wolf Auditorium at the Central Library in London, Ontario.
Leaving the event I bumped into an old acquaintance, a woman I've known and admired for years, a woman I met through my former job at the local paper. We chatted briefly, bringing each other up to speed on the changes in our lives since we last bumped into each other. (We do bump now and then as we seem to have interests that intersect now and then.)
I told her about my two granddaughters and how Fiona, the oldest, is now more than three. The woman's eyes lit up, sparkling more than usual. I've got just the thing for a little girl; I've got a great little book. "Have you ever heard of 'A House Is a House for Me'?"
It seems this woman had three copies for some reason and had recently given one away. She said she'd love to send Fiona here last spare copy. She took my address and a few days later the book arrived.
I have a plastic turtle that I was given when I was about Fiona's age. It, too, was a gift from a stranger. I still have that turtle and it still makes me smile. It represents the friendliness of strangers. The world is not a cold place and this truth is embodied in my turtle.
Now, Fiona has a gift that carries the same message. Nice.
London, like most cities, is not cold. London is a friendly town. Just ask Fiona.
Fiona liked this art we made together so much that she took a picture.
I love the art often referred to as "modern art." I'm attracted by the splashes of colour, the bold application of paint, paint applied so thickly that the painting has a veritable sculptural quality on the picture plane.
One criticism one oh-so-often hears is: "A child could do it." So? Your point is?
Actually, the chance of a child turning out a Willem de Kooning style work is somewhat hard to see. But, after enjoying a de Kooning one is better positioned to enjoy a child's art on a whole new level.
Before 1947 there were no self-serve gas stations.
You read correctly. Drivers can't pump their own gas in Oregon. Self-serve gas stations are illegal. I'd forgotten this weird little fact until Sunday when I listened to some folk discussing their recent road trip through the American northwest. They were surprised to be told they could not pump their own gas in Oregon. It's been illegal in the state since 1951.
It was just four years earlier, 1947, that Frank Ulrich, an independent gas station operator in Los Angeles, opened the first self-serve gas station. His mantra was: “Save 5 cents, serve yourself, why pay
more?” He sold
half a million gallons in his first month.
It took more than two decades but eventually almost every state and province conceded that do-it-yourself gas pumpers would
not blow themselves up. Today, only two states remain solid hold-outs: Oregon and New Jersey. Both have looked at rescinding the prohibition but both ran into fierce opposition. Apparently people in those states don't object to forgoing the pleasure of pumping their own smelly gasoline.
So, are their any advantages or disadvantages of having such a law? One person thought it was a great idea as it provided jobs. And they were right. There are approximately a whopping 8000 gas pump attendants in Oregon pumping an estimated $160 million into the Oregon economy.
Some take offence at the fuel pumping restriction and belittle the job creation claim. The ban may create thousands of jobs but they are working-poor-poor type jobs --- and these jobs are created at a very high cost, or so goes the argument. If gasoline in Oregon costs more than in surrounding states, this extra expense is the cost to society for providing folk with substandard jobs.
The argument sounds reasonable but it may not be true. When it comes to salary, the top 25 percent of gas pump attendants in Oregon earn more than $25,250 with those at the very top of the range are taking home something north of $30,000. Tips from appreciative drivers bump the gas jockey income up another notch.
The median salary for pumping gas in Oregon is about $20,000. This isn't surprising as the minimum wage in Oregon is about $9 an hour. This translates into a full-time wage in the neighbourhood of $18,500 annually. (The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) places the poverty level in Oregon at $11,170 for a single person, $15,130 for a couple and $19,090 for a couple with one child.)
As for the burdensome cost to society, if there is a burden, it is nicely hidden. In New Jersey, the other state where self serve gas stations have been outlawed, the price of gas is consistently less than that charged in surrounding states. In Oregon the cost of gas is not high in comparison with neighbouring states. This fact is confirmed by my friends who recently traveled the roads of Washington state, Oregon and California.
Oregonian reporter Joseph Rose wrote a column on the longstanding law. He recalled an evening from his youth when he and five friends pulled into an Exxon station in need of gas. A lanky figure with a greasy wool cap stood next to the pumps. The man was Rose's dad. Desperate for a paycheck, his dad had taken the only job he could find: Pumping gas.
I read many other similar stories on the Net. Sometimes getting a simple gas jockey job can be a godsend.
When I was in Oregon two years ago, I did pump my own gas. I thought the attendants were worried about spilling fuel on my antique Morgan. Nope. It turns out motorcycle drivers and heritage car owners both enjoy an exemption. I hear diesel drivers are also allowed to pump their own fuel. I fully understand the thinking. I belong to all three groups and can assure you that these are all exceptional people.
If you take a daily newspaper, you may well have read how awful the returns are on one's investments today. And the poor returns of today are not going to improve in the future, or so we are told. I wouldn't bank on it.
I heard from one reporter who took offence at my position. This reporter had written one of the "investment world is coming to an end" pieces that so offend me. No one knows the future when it comes to investment returns. Frightening people with negative scare stories, making them feel powerless when it comes to investing for their future is wrong. It is just completely wrong.
We should be encouraging people to take an active role in managing their retirement funds. They should know enough to judge whether their investments are performing well or not. And if they are not, and they know it, they can take measures to improve their portfolio's performance. No one need accept three percent growth. No one.
The reporter who wrote me was very defensive about a piece they had written on the diminished returns to now be expected from RSP savings. This reporter told me: "I'm not going to tell you I am some financial whiz or pretend to be. I am a middle-class [person] trying to make ends meet. I was told to get something together under deadline, the same day." They went on to say, "I was assigned [this] out of the blue."
The reporter seemed to think that it simply wasn't fair for me to criticize. I don't work to a deadline. They told me that I have " months to fume, ruminate, dissect and ultimately write" my opinion pieces. Yes I do. And it is a luxury. I admit it.
Still, what the paper ran was wrong. Quite wrong. And I can prove it. I opened a tax free savings plan some months ago and it has done very well indeed. It has delivered fine gains plus very nice dividends. I am up 18.59 percent
My tax free savings plan is up almost 19%.
And how did I pull off this miracle? I went to the library. I took out some books on investing and read them. And, most importantly, I didn't read the newspaper for advice. Unlike the authors of the books I read, newspaper writers (by their own admission) are pumping out words to deadline to fill column inches. All too sad. When I started in the newspaper business in the early '70s, financial page writers were knowledgeable folk who spent their time ruminating on the stuff about which they would eventually report. (My much larger RSP portfolio, with about 32 different investments (stocks, ETFs and mutual funds), is sporting approximately a 8.8% annualized return at this moment. It rises and falls with the market.)
I have heard from readers who protest that those who opened RSPs in the years right before the massive crash of 2008 and 09 are still struggling to recoup their losses. Earning more than six percent annually on their retirement funds is but a distant dream for these people, I'm told.
Curious, I calculated the outcome for a young person who started saving for retirement on January 1st, 2005. This is just a few short years away from the global financial meltdown to come. A conservative type, my young saver put the money in the TD Monthly Income balanced fund and reinvested the monthly payments. (A DRIP plan) They made annual contributions at the first of every year. Today, less than eight years later, they have earned the annalized equivalent of 6.1%. If they'd have put aside $3000 annually, today they would have $46,301.79. They would be well on their way to a successful retirement.
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Please read this paragraph from an e-mail from a reporter working at a daily paper.
"You quickly forgot the pressures and stress associated with modern journalism. This ain't the so-called good old days. There aren't 150 people in the newsroom anymore. Our deadlines aren't the next day, they're now. We write for the web, produce videos, tweet and ultimately write at the end of the day for the print record. We cover what we can and work with what we have . . . "
They went on to say that they think they do a fine job. I think, when you take into consideration that they are understaffed, overworked and undertrained for the rich mix of professions they must now juggle, that they do do an amazing job. But amazing is not always fine.
A kitchen renovation results in lots of dust settling everywhere in the home.
I'm having the kitchen renovated. It's my wife's idea not mine, but that is another blog. Walls have come down, flooring has been ripped out and drywall has gone up. Dust is everywhere. Friends and relatives are telling us that we have to have our ducts cleaned when this is finished. Do we?
I have always had strong doubts about the whole duct cleaning business. My experience with dust and airflow tells me that often dust, once settled, is not easily disturbed. There is often a boundary layer of dead air separating the settled dust from the moving air stream.
Laminar flow is the smooth, undisturbed movement of a gas or a liquid. I first came upon the term when studying photographic film development. To promote consistent development of film processed in the television news lab where I worked, the circulation of liquid in the processing tanks was always mechanically disturbed. This agitation of the flow had other benefits as well; It distributed the chemical bi-products of processing throughout the tanks and promoted consistent chemical bath activity. The instructors at Kodak in Rochester taught me that simply having processing liquids flowing smoothly over a piece of film was not sufficient to disturb the boundary layer.
What has all this got to do with the ducts in a home? Well I would think it quite possible that dust in ducts does one of three things: gets caught by the furnace filter, stays in the air stream to be blown back into the home or settles almost permanently in the ducts themselves. The whole duct cleaning operation is predicated on the dust doing a fourth thing --- being disturbed by the air flow, picked up and blown back into the home.
My gut feeling was that the fourth option was the least likely to occur. Years ago I had a chance to inspect a cold air return in an older home. The dust in that return had not been disturbed for fifty some years. There was a thick, felt-like layer of dust that I was able to remove in one solid, long sheet. It was not hard to imagine that some of that dust had been trapped there since the home was built back in the '20s.
Almost 20 years ago, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) in Canada conducted some research into the benefits of duct cleaning. 33 homes in the Montreal area were selected for the study. Measurements of dust in the air in the selected homes showed no significant reductions after duct cleaning. In some cases, houses showed a temporary increase in dust levels for several hours
after duct cleaning probably due to dust being disturbed by
the process.
In most cases, duct cleaning resulted in significant reductions in the amount of dust on the surface of the
return ("cold") air ducts.
In some cases, ducts were not cleaner after the cleaning exercise
The concentrations of dust were very low in
the supply (“hot”) air ducts, both before and after the cleaning.
Duct cleaning did not significantly reduce the amount of energy used by the furnace fan.
Duct cleaning did not significantly increase supply or return air flow rates.
The only positive outcome I could find was reduced concentrations of airborne microorganisms. Of course this may have resulted from the use of a biocide during cleaning.
CMHC concluded:
Homeowners should not necessarily expect significant improvements in their home’s indoor air quality, nor reductions in their heating bills, as a result of having their house ducts cleaned. Furthermore, until the efficiency of biocides are proven and their potential effects established, householders should refrain from having biocides applied.
I must add that to the best of my knowledge, there are no published standards when it comes to duct cleaning in Canada. When I worked at the local newspaper, I worked on a story on duct cleaning. To my untrained eye, it looked as if the workers chopped holes in the duct work with little understanding of air flow and repaired their access holes very crudely. I was not impressed.
I'm going to take a pass on the duct cleaning. I'll drop the hose of our vacuum down the air vents but that will be it. I may have the fan in our furnace cleaned before winter. I'll certainly change our furnace filter. But, will I have my ducts cleaned? In a word, "No."
To paraphrase a famous retort about art knowledge, "I don't know about child psychology but I know what I like (when it comes to raising kids.)
No, I've never actually heard that exact response but I have heard folk claim they don't give two hoots about what experts say about child rearing but they are quite sure how to do it. The opinion of the experts is held in such low esteem that the experts are not consulted nor given even a cursory reading. All this is not all that surprising considering that there is all too often a wall of misinformation surrounding experts and their opinions: Take B.F. Skinner.
The glass wall removed, Deborah enjoys her mother's touch.
Some years ago B. F. Skinner, of behavioral modification fame, wrote a utopia themed book titled Walden Two. I read Walden Two while staying with a far left leaning family in Berkeley, California, in the late '60s. A core theme of the fictional work was the controlled behavior modification of the community children.
A close friend, who was studying psychology, had made me aware of the Skinner box used in the training and testing of pigeons and lab rats. But, Skinner was famous for another box, one used in child rearing. This box is often known as the "Skinner baby tender."
Skinner put his daughter Deborah into
a Skinner baby tender in her early years . . . an air-conditioned crib with see through
walls. By Deborah's own account, her crib provided her a place to sleep
and to remain warm without the rashes involved in being wrapped within
numerous layers of clothes and blankets. Deborah slept in her novel
crib until she was two and a half years old, and by all accounts grew up
a happy, healthy, thriving child and is now a successful artist living
in London.
Despite the success of Skinner's Air Crib, false and oh-so-nasty stories circulated about the baby tender, Deborah Skinner and her father. The most damning and most inaccurate stories were spread by author Lauren Slater in her 2004 book Opening Skinner's Box . . .
Deborah Skinner has a website where she talks a little about her childhood and the Air Crib. There are no bad memories. In fact, I believe her sister, Julie, used an Air Crib with both her daughters, Lisa and
Justine.
Deborah Skinner also uses her site to showcase her art which can be purchased online. To view her horse drawings follow this link: Horses by Skinner. To view her landscapes click here: Landscapes by Skinner.
If you are interested in reading more about Deborah Skinner and her response to the error filled stories shrouding her early childhood, read: I was not a Lab Rat.
There is a warning in this tale: Be cautious. Do not be too quick to believe what you read. Furthermore, do not be too quick to dismiss what you haven't read.
Addendum: I believe my wife, without knowing it, is using Skinner operant conditioning to toilet train our granddaughter. Whenever Fiona uses the potty she is rewarded with some M&Ms. Shades of the Skinner box and its food pellet rewards used to teach pigeons and rats to pull a lever, yes?
I have known a number of practising Buddists. Young people drawn to this Eastern philosophy, I hesitate to call what they were seeking religion, were especially common in Berkeley in the late '60s.
One goal they all shared was a search for enlightenment. One thing I never heard anyone talk at length about was reincarnation.
Last night, at a friend's home, we somehow got into a discussion of religion. My friend said he would never consider Buddhism as he could not get past the belief in reincarnation. I told him how I had had some interest in Buddhism but never got passed the koans. Koans are short, sometimes confusing, stories told by Masters to encourage thinking, to awaken new ways of approaching the problems of life. They are a powerful tool used by Masters to instruct students in the value of creative thinking, of intuitive reasoning, and to move them towards enlightenment.
For me, all this brought to mind the following koan:
A certain monk lived for one thing and one thing only: enlightenment. He worked day and night, endlessly, to reach the fully awakened state. But, his frequent, intense bouts of meditation instead of bringing him closer to his goal appeared to be playing havoc with both his mind and his body. Suffering mentally and physically he sought the guidance of the Master.
The Master taught the monk the theory of reincarnation. He patiently explained that this present life would be followed by many more. If he lived a life sotted by spirtuality, this would be carried over into the next. The Master advised him to ease up, to step back and find the natural order of life. When he was not overstressed by arduous mediation, when he was not trying to drive himself forcefully forward, he would find enlightenment. Only by looking away could he hope to see.
The monk followed his Master's instructions and rapidly made great spiritual progress. He let go of his obsessive push for enlightenment and stopped focusing on the future and instead dwelt on the moment and enjoying the present. His mental and physical health improved greatly and the monk was very happy with his progress. He was so happy that he shared his Master's teachings with his friend Toto, a man, although also interested in enlightenment, had a much different temperament than the monk. The friend set off to visit the Master.
At the meeting Toto confessed he meditated irregularly, indulged in pleasures of the body and left his mind unchallenged. Toto talked of his friend the monk and how an understanding of reincarnation had turned his present life completely around. Toto said that he understood it was the Master's guidance that had led to the monk's improved state in both mind and body.
The Master frowned, telling Toto flatly, "There is no reincarnation. It is a lie. The greatest sin you can commit is losing focus and squandering the opportunity for enlightenment offered by this life."
The Master came down hard on Toto for his laziness and for his view that reincarnation offered all a second chance. "There is no reincarnation; You are simply lazy; You are wasting a precious life."
Jolted by the Master's words, Toto reacted immediately. He straightened himself up, abandoned his vices, gave up all his indulgent ways. His spiritual progress reached new heights with regular and intense meditation.
There is a Dec. post on the blog The closer you look . . . examining Trinity Global charitable work. It is a good read. Unfortunately, this blog now requires a password to access. Strange. This closer-you-look blog broke some of the early stuff in the Fontana story. I left the link but it seems to be a deadend today. I wonder who is behind this blog. Accounting on World's AIDS Day.
And here is a link to a February 21, 2013, story in The London Free Press. Chip Martin is doing a great job covering this story. Read: Feds target charity chaired by Fontana.
According to the Martin piece, a charity (Trinity Global) headed by London Mayor Joe Fontana has threatened to sue the London daily and two city hall bloggers - Gina Barber and Phil McLeod - over stories they all ran about the charity and the mayor.
The London Free Press online headline that drew the lawyer's attention read: "Fontana's connections draw scrutiny, Foundation chaired by mayor founded by securities fraudster."
Chip Martin reported:
Fontana is chairman of Trinity Global Foundation, a charity
established by a boyhood chum who faces accusations of fraud and
misleading investors of $19 million. Fontana's son, Ugo Joseph, is
president.
Joe Fontana joined the board of Trinity Global in 2008. . . . He joined at the invitation of his boyhood
friend from Timmins, Vincent Ciccone, who founded it a year earlier.
Ciccone left Trinity Global after Ontario securities regulators said
he defrauded and misled investors with his private investment firm,
Ciccone Group, to the tune of $19 million between 2008 to 2010.
"Vince is a friend and always will be," Fontana said. "What people do
in their private lives is their own business. I'm not associated in
that respect."
Reading this story brought to mind another story in which Joe Fontana and Vince Ciccone featured prominently. Read the following from Hansard for October 26, 1988:
Mr. Pope: My question is to the Premier and it concerns exactly his new standards. It is with respect to a decision made by the former Minister of Housing, the member for Scarborough North (Mr. Curling), and implemented by the current Minister of Housing (Ms. Hošek), concerning just who exactly profits from his nonprofit and public housing programs in this province.
Specifically, I am referring the Premier to a controversial construction project in the city of Timmins that has been before the city of Timmins council in the last week. Can the Premier justify the awarding of a Renterprise approval in Timmins to his campaign worker, Joe Fontana, and his associate, Vince Ciccone, both of London, and allowing them within one minute on September 3 to flip land for a profit of $66,820?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: I have no knowledge of the matter the honourable member is speaking of. If he wants to give me the details, I will obviously look into it.
Mr. Pope: Not only was the land acquired in one minute and disposed of the next for a profit of $66,820, but can the Premier explain to us how someone like Joe Fontana, who professes to be one of his campaign workers, with no development experience, no construction experience and no site available, would ever be approved for a Renterprise loan in the first place?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: I have absolutely no knowledge of the matter my honourable friend is talking about. I can assure him we will look at it. Somebody just handed me a note, and if I can understand it, I will read it to him.
Mr. Pope: The fact of the matter is that over the past few months this project has been beset by deficiencies in construction, stop-work orders, construction liens, poor quality workmanship, still not completed, occupied by tenants on a rent subsidy basis that his Minister of Housing is involved in. His Minister of Housing approved financial support to the tune of $310,000. Now they are attempting to convert the project into condominiums to get out from under.
Can the Premier explain to the tenants of Timmins, who need this housing desperately, why he has allowed deterioration in the administration of the Renterprise program in this province, and specifically the disgraceful events that went on in Timmins with respect to this land and his campaign worker?
Hon. Mr. Peterson: As I said, I will look at the facts and share them with my honourable friend. He may well know something I do not know.
At the time that this appeared in Hansard, The London Free Press chased the story and ran an interview with Lionel Bonhomme of Timmins, the original owner of the land at the centre of the controversy. A reference to the article can be found in Hansard.
Joe Fontana has had a colourful career since he appeared on the City of London radar many years ago when he led a group opposed to the locating of a federal prison in the London area. Fontana was successful; A prison was not located here.
If you are interested in the tax shelter angle to this story, here are some links:
The mayor was the focus of a post, Something smells, by Gina Barber, formerly a member of the old Board of Control. This article on Barber's personal blog drew the following comment. (Please note: I (Rockinon) googled some stuff stated in this comment. I found no solid support for the claim that there was anything legally inappropriate going on between Neil Friesen and Associates and One World United.:
I have invested in the company you [Gina Barber] mention in your article "Something
Smells", dated Jan 3, 2011. . . . CEO Derk Maat , hasn't honored paying
the promised dividends in January 2011. I invested in 2008 and never
once received any financial statements , audited or unaudited, no Annual
Report or any analysis done by a professional. This has been requested
recently, but instead of coming up with the above, I am thanked for my
patience and received some more empty promises. The contracts were
handled by Neil Friesen and Associates from Winnipeg and they even have trouble finding the "exact" person that handled the transaction. The
company came highly recommended as an institution run by Christians...I
find this very ironic. I have just started to get behind all this and
your article made a few very interesting points such as the fact that
nobody really knows where GPEC is and exactly what it is they are doing.
It is all stipulated on their website, but once you try to follow up,
the only valid link is KMW energy. Their CEO, Mr Rosen also responded
very favourably to Joe Fontana's intentions of cleaning up the
city...Nothing wrong with that, it just seems like a strange chain. Not
too long ago Friesen's involvement in the One World United scam,
raised concern. What can I say, something smells....very bad indeed... [
One could argue it is not fair to the mayor to have all these nebulous accusations swirling about, he deserves a full, in-depth, public examination to, let's say, clear the air.
My granddaughter is a perfectly normal 3-year-old; She throws tantrums.
She has emotional meltdowns and subjects all of us, parents and grandparents, to the turmoil.
Concerned, I typed "3 year old" into Google. The search engine ventured to guess my next word would be "tantrums." Clearly, I am not alone.
I quickly learned that temper tantrums are normal. In fact, they are to be expected from toddlers and older children learning to handle frustration.
Truly problem children may be those who are no problem. Unfailingly obedient, they like to play it safe and avoid conflict by never disobeying. According to Alfie Kohn, author of Unconditional Parenting. Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason,
"When I ask parents, at the beginning of my lectures, what their
long term goals are for the children, I hear words such as ethical,
compassionate independent happy and so on. No-one ever says mindlessly
compliant."
A compliant child becomes a particular concern, Kohn says, when they
reach adolescence. "If they take their orders from other people, that
may include people we may not approve of. To put it the other way
around: kids who are subject to peer pressure at its worst are kids
whose parents taught them to do what they're told."
I laughed out loud when I read the following in an article run by The Guardian.
There seems to be a real fashion for taming children and the reason
seems to be fear: It's not that most people are worried about one
incident of wall-scribbling, but that they seem to fear what this
behaviour will turn into if it's not kept in check, as if all children
are just waiting to grow up into sociopaths. One of the comments I get a
lot, at the end of my columns for the Family
section of The Guardian (when I have advocated understanding and a more
what would be called 'softly softly' approach to a child) is something
along the lines of 'they'll turn into a monster if you don't put your
foot down/show them who's boss'.
"It's not based on empirical evidence," argues Kohn. "It's a very dark view of human nature."
I'm with Kohn, and so is my granddaughter. She shows no signs of being anyone's future door mat, and no signs of being the next Bad Seed as played by child star Patty McCormick. Fiona my have a bit of rebellious spunk, but she is still a wonderful little girl who shares her "Emma Ems" and delights in helping around the house. She throws a proper tea party that would make Strawberry Shortcake proud.
Having embraced tantrums as a necessary stage in growing up, what's the best way to respond to these angry outbursts fueled by frustration? Sometimes a simple reminder to "use your words" is all that is necessary. For a
full-blown tantrum, a timeout may be demanded. (One minute for every year of age is the timeout rule of thumb.)
Although we cannot eliminate tantrums, we can encourage better behavior. I've gleaned the following from the Internet:
Be consistent: Establish a routine for your child so that they know what to expect. Nap time and bedtime should be part of this daily routine.
The flip side of the above is don't worry if you child must deal with different rules in different homes. Parents and grandparents don't have to be on the same page, just read from the same chapter. As long as all parenting approaches are reasonable, go with the flow. Think of this as one more lesson on getting along in life.
Plan ahead: If you need to run errands, go early in the day — when your child isn't likely to be hungry or tired. If you're expecting to wait in line, pack a small toy.
Encourage the use of words: Toddlers and young children understand many more words than they express. As communication skills grow, tantrums tend to subside but with one caveat: For this to happen, you've got to listen and respond. Many kids go through an "I'd-like-to-do-it-myself" stage. If they communicate this feeling, the game has shifted into your court. It is up to you to build the time into the day to give them the opportunity of putting on their own shoes. Tantrum avoided.
Give your child a sense of control, let them make choices when appropriate. You are in charge. Use that power to give your child the chance to make decisions. Instead of saying, "Time to get dressed!" say, "Do you want to wear the blue blouse or the green one?" Instead of "Time to go to bed!" try "Which book shall we read before bed — this one, or that one?" Keeping the choices to two is generally best. Your child is less likely to feel bossed around. Another tantrum avoided.
A corollary to the above is: Compliment your child on his or her choices.
Praise good behavior: Offer extra attention when your child behaves well. It may seem like standard, appropriate behaviour to you, an adult, but performed by a toddler or young child good behaviour earns a little hand clapping.
Use distraction: If you sense a tantrum brewing, distract your child. Try and change the focus of the moment.
In the same vein as above, avoid situations likely to trigger tantrums.
Resist the temptation to give in: Giving in to your child may quiet things down for the moment, but may teach them that tantrums work. Don't lay the foundation for future tantrums.
Lastly, take a deep breath — both you and your child need to do this. Your child needs to regain control and you've got to keep control. If you are both upset, it's only going to make things worse.
We're all familiar with time-outs, but are you familiar with time-ins? Dr. Lawrence Kutner says,
"As children reach the preschool years, their interactions with their
parents change. Because they are becoming more competent at dressing
themselves and using the toilet, parents usually touch them much less.
That means that older children do not get the rewards of physical
attention that they once did. Yet they still need and crave lots of
brief, affectionate contact throughout the day. That is where time-in fits. It is a way of lowering your child’s
frustration level and averting some potential behavior problems.
Throughout the day — perhaps 50 times a day or even more — when your
child is behaving in an appropriate way, take two seconds to let her
know in a nonverbal way that you approve. You can do this by
briefly giving her a hug, stroking her hair, scratching her back,
planting a kiss on the top of her head, or anything else that does not
interrupt what she is doing but still gets the message across. In other
words, you are reinforcing her when she is handling things well."
The most reassuring thing about tantrums? Most children outgrow them by age 4 or 5.
Give the child a sense of control and avoid a few tantrums.
Look carefully at the image. There is no credit given. When I clicked on the image and went to the linked story, I noticed no credit appeared beneath the image running with the story. Odd.
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