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Published on February 29, 2012 by Mike Lanza

My Marco (7) and Nico (4) weren’t very impressed with Disneyworld a couple of weeks ago. Instead, they can’t stop talking about our trip in May to Pittsburgh and Southern Indiana.

Pittsburgh and Southern Indiana over Disneyworld? Are they crazy?

I don’t think so. Actually, I’m quite pleased with their choice.
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Posted in Bright Spots |

Published on February 20, 2012 by Mike Lanza

If you’re reading this article, you want kids to “play.” Furthermore, you want that play to be “unstructured,” or, as I prefer to say, “unsupervised.”

Play researcher Stuart Brown says that it is, by definition, purposeless and all-consuming. Another play researcher, Peter Gray, writes, “activity oriented toward intrinsic goals, almost by definition, is play.”

Let’s face it, folks, this is all pretty vague. The truth is that all play, even within those definitions, is not equal. Far from it.

Certainly, there are certain behaviors that I hope to see when my kids play. However, because I believe play must be “freely chosen” in order to be truly beneficial, I can’t force my kids down a certain path. All I can do is prepare their environment and their minds, clear out distractions that might keep them from playing, and let them go.
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Posted in Bright Spots |

Published on February 15, 2012 by Mike Lanza

We’re blessed to have two fabulous – dare I say historic – idols for kids in professional sports right now.

Jeremy Lin and Tim Tebow are gifts. Let’s use them.

For me, as a kid growing up in Pittsburgh, it was Roberto Clemente. He played his heart out, he had his many unconventional habits (e.g. neck-twitching before each at-bat), he was the first Latino superstar in baseball, and he was extremely generous to the place of his impoverished upbringing – Puerto Rico.
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Posted in Bright Spots, Solutions |

Published on January 23, 2012 by Mike Lanza

“Children’s ability to roam has basically been destroyed,” said Danah Boyd, a researcher on children’s use of social networking, in a New York Times article today.

It’s typical of our society’s fatalistic attitude towards childhood. In general, that attitude says, “Yes, childhood isn’t as good as it used to be. Just get over it and move on.”

This really pisses me off. No, I’m not ready to move on. I’m not ready to accept the prospect of my children having a worse childhood than I did.

I’m guessing you’re not willing to accept it, either.
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Posted in Solutions |

Published on January 19, 2012 by Mike Lanza

The last couple of weekends, my family’s had a totally empty schedule – no sports games, birthday parties, play dates, etc. In fact, we didn’t even make a plan to go anywhere like a zoo or park.

So, every morning, we woke up without anything in particular to do. When my wife was in charge, she came up with an idea of where to take our boys (7, 4, and 2) and she loaded them into the minivan. However, when I was in charge, our boys and I wandered around our yard and neighborhood.

Sounds boring, eh?

Actually, we weren’t bored at all. In fact, two of those days were really fantastic, one even qualifying as one of those cherished days I’ll remember the rest of my life.
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Posted in Bright Spots, Solutions |

Published on January 10, 2012 by Mike Lanza

Some kids are “self-starters,” but Marco’s not. That’s what I thought two years ago, when he was 5.

Those other kids, the “exceptional ones,” have their own interests and passionately pursue them on their own. On the other hand, Marco will probably always need to be guided, force-fed.

Today, I can see that I was dead wrong, I’m happy to say.

At 7, he’s an independent reader. He reads on his own for at least 15 minutes a night, and he recently completed his first long book on his own, a 217-pager called Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Now, he’s on the second Wimpy Kid book, and we have to force him to put it down to go to bed every night. He’s that into it.
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Posted in Bright Spots, Solutions |

Published on December 20, 2011 by Mike Lanza

Christmas isn’t a very big deal for my kids. For them it’s about having a tree in the house, taking some time off of school, and attending a large family gathering on Christmas day.

We don’t really talk about Christmas gifts. No, we don’t do Santa here. Over the past two weeks, my wife and I have given our kids a few gifts, rather than waiting for Christmas day. We gave Nico (4) roller blades and pads, we gave Marco (7) a skateboard, and we gave Nico and Leo (2) some super-sized (6-notch!) Lincoln Logs for building huge log cabins.

Because we don’t preannounce gifts, our kids are usually surprised and very happy when they receive them. They appreciate them. They’re thankful.
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Posted in Bright Spots |

Published on December 14, 2011 by Mike Lanza

Marco (7) walked into our local bike shop, Menlo Velo, through the back door, with his bike today. Christian, an employee there, said, “Hi, Marco!” as soon as he walked in. I got there first and was waiting for him. You see, I had him ride from our house to there to meet me.

I asked Christian to reattach a part for the speedometer we bought there a few months back. He grabbed Marco’s bike and started working on it immediately without asking for a receipt. We hung out in the repair area next to Christian, and Marco peppered him with questions. We hardly ever venture past the front counter when we visit there.

Clearly, Menlo Velo is now part of Marco’s Village, an area which I first wrote about a year ago that grows as Marco matures. It’s a place where he can go on his own and feel comfortable. The people there know and like him, and vice-versa. He’s very comfortable getting there on his own.
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Posted in Neighborhood, Solutions |

Published on December 5, 2011 by Mike Lanza

Barack Obama said this back in 1990 as a 28-year-old law school student at Harvard. This doesn’t bother me. I’ll bet most twentysomething yuppies would agree. Cities are so much more alive and hip to these folks. I probably said something like that myself when I was in my twenties.

Then, we get married and have kids, and suddenly most of us notice how unaccommodating our urban environments are for kids. We notice the crappy schools for the first time. We start to pay a lot more attention to the crime reports in our neighborhoods. We lament the fact that we hardly see children outside in our neighborhoods having fun.

So, many of us leave our hip urban enclaves for the boring suburbs. My wife and I left San Francisco for the suburbs of the Peninsula back in 2006 when Marco, our oldest, was 1-1/2. At least half of our San Francisco friends with young kids did the same. San Francisco’s proportion of population under 18, 14%, is one of the lowest in the United States (see this article). New York’s is 15%. By comparison, the national average is 24%.
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Posted in The Problem |

Published on November 24, 2011 by Mike Lanza

Every weeknight of my life, a big thrill runs through my body as I approach my house. Inside are three young kids (7, 4, and 2) and a wife who love me. I love them back, more than I ever could have imagined as a single guy a decade ago.

We laugh and we kiss and we hug, every single day.

My in-laws come by my house every day. I thank them every chance I get for being loving grandparents to my kids. We don’t always see eye-to-eye, but our petty disagreements are so trivial compared to our shared love for our kids.

I see neighbors and school friends I care about every day, too. We smile and we chat. Sure, I sometimes see people I’m not wild about, but that’s not a big deal.

I don’t have my own life anymore. Neither does my wife, and neither do my in-laws. It’s all about our kids.
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Posted in Bright Spots |