Consultants for Kindergarten?

For an increasing number of parents, it's never too early to start thinking about your child's future. This thought will probably be consuming their Thanksgiving dinners this past weekend: postulating and speculating with relatives about little Jenny and all her wondrous gifts and potential.

With the rising number of children attending private school, competition has become fierce. To the point that many parents have begun hiring consultants to help advise them about where is best to send their child...for kindergarten!

Oftentimes paying exorbitant amounts of money for  advice, these parents seeking information in an age where the traditional "ask your friends and neighbors" policy just doesn't work anymore.  So parents are turning to admission consultants, used for years for high schools and colleges, to now tell them how best to start their children's private school kindergarten careers.

While it might sound crazy, many parents rave about having a consultant help in the search for the perfect kindergarten. What once seemed like a simple process has now turned into a complicated, stressful mess. Many schools now require student testing, observed play dates of toddlers, multiple recommendations from nursery-school teachers and directors, and essays by the parents about the unique qualities of the child and family and ways in which they would complement that school community! 

Of course, in our era of wanting to push, cajole, plead and bribe our children to be the best they can be in all areas, many parents have come to feel the earlier you start your child on the road to success, the better.

The trend of hiring kindergarten consultants was once attributed to only the most competitive, wealthiest, or obsessive parents, but now seems to be a increasingly common practice.

Apparently for many parents, hiring a consultant has been the key to finding the inside scoop on the best schools, to learning to whether to wait another year before entering your child with the August birthday into school.

I find it yet another example of how within our child-centric culture we can so easily shift from being fans of our children to fanatical. No doubt nursery school strategists are up next.

 

Image from: CSIS

Pirate at Heart: Pat Croce

At my recent visit to the Today Show I met a larger-than-life guy, Pat Croce who was on about a pirate book he just wrote Pirate Soul: The Golden Age of Pirates (and was clearly living the life with his earring and goatee pirate’s beard), not to mention a Pirate’s Museum he just opened in Key West, Florida. Oh, and he did happen to mention that until recently he owned the 76’ers. A small point!

So Google and the Philadelphia Inquirer informs me about Pat: “'They said I was nuts when I was creating the sports-medicine center, when there was no such thing,' he says of his 40-unit empire whose sale made him a multimillionaire at age 38. 'They thought I was nuts when I was going after the Sixers and I said we could resurrect that team from last place to first.'" Croce did just that, buying into the franchise and filling seats with happy fans before leaving in 2001 after nearly five years. There are also the three motivational books; hundreds of $50,000 corporate speeches; sports-commentator jobs for NBC; a TV game called SlamBall; and his current syndicated TV show, in which he moves into your rotten world and tries to fix it."

Croce opened a pirate museum in Key West, a $10 million project he paid for himself. He dressed as a pirate cutting the ribbon at opening ceremonies with a 17th-century sword. Croce has apparently been a pirate fan since he saw the 1935 Errol Flynn classic Captain Blood as a kid.

Oh... and did I mention learning that he has a ship tattooed on his left forearm, a Jolly Roger on his left hand, a parrot on his upper back, and an itty-bitty pirate head imprinted on one of his dental caps.

Guess I will have to take seriously the Mom-internet site he has helped found and emailed me about from his Blackberry wireless. Or maybe I should just go for a couple free Pirate museum tickets and walk off the plank?! To be continued!

"Child"hood friends: Why Celeb Mom Cliques Are Cool

                                                            Celeb playdates seem to be the new fade in Hollywood parenting culture. Seal, Heidi Klum, Gwen Stefani, Gavin Rossdale, and kids met up in London (seen here). Also, Courteney Cox Arquette is a really cool "Friend." Pictures of Courtney strolling along the sandy beaches of Santa Monica with fellow mom Cindy Crawford and their bundles of joy have been turning up, as well as snaps of Brooke Shields (pictured with Cox on a play-date) and her babies enjoying the festivities at a Courtney-hosted Father's Day bash.

Courtney isn't the only celebrity mom palling around with fellow Mommy-wood stars. Katie Holmes, pre-Suri, was spotted shopping for shoes with Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham, mom to three kids and wife of one soccer superstar. Gwyneth Paltrow was seen spending more time with mom Madonna after her daughter Apple was born. And now Jennifer Lopez, who is rumored to be either expecting or hoping to expect, has been seen attached to the hip of new mom and King of Queens star Leah Remini.

Oh and I can't wait to see Jennifer Garner strolling the streets with her and Ben Affleck's adorable daughter Violet alongside Matt Damon's baby momma, Luciana Boroza and their baby girl, Isabella. I'm ready for those two celeb kids to become best friends like their dads! Isabella and Violet can be like Paris and Nicole before the catfight.

It's nice seeing celebrity moms bond. Especially because in the real world of our everyday life dramas (which should be made into a reality show or hit sitcom, but alas, are not), becoming a new mom can create fear that we will never, ever again be best friends forever with our fabulous pseudo-sisters.

Friendships, like any huge life change, are tested by a new baby and the responsibilities that come with being a new mom. Diapers and formula take the place of high heels and cocktails. It's hard to make quality time with friends when your bedtime is any time after your baby conks out. But just because time becomes more precious does not mean we must become less creative. Which is why seeing Courtney Cox Arquette with her daughter Coco strapped to her chest while walking the beach and gabbing away with good friends and their similarly strapped babies is GREAT.

Image from teddy and moo

Holiday Movies

As the holidays approach, so do the numerous movie releases. But sometimes sorting through the massive amounts of different movies can be frustrating, especially when looking for something appropriate to watch with the kids. Here are a couple movies which just hit the theaters which are sure to be enjoyable  for you and your kids:

Santa Clause 3 portrays a battle for Christmas between Santa Clause and the evil Jack Frost. A follow-up from the first two Santa Clause films, this one again includes Tim Allen playing the role of good old Saint Nick. Guaranteed to be funny, as all Allen films, this is a must-see to get into the holiday spirit.

Flushed Away is the story of a pet mouse named Roddy St. James (voiced by Hugh Jackman) who gets flushed down a toilet. Naturally, the mouse ends up in the sewer world, and is forced to deal with the precarious underground streets of London and all the crazy creatures that reside there. An adventure of the rodent sort, this light-hearted film is a fun one for all ages.

It is possible to spend a night at the movie theater with the family with feeling like you constantly have to cover your children's eyes and ears. Check out these movies for a fun family evening!

Image from: IonCinema

The Battle of The Penguin and Bond

Going into the holiday movie season it is always a battle to nab the top spot at the box office. However, one would be surprised to see who is leading the pack. This weekend we saw two big box office releases with Happy Feet (a movie about a dancing penguin with voices including Elijah Wood, Britney Murphy, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, and Robin Williams) and Casino Royale (the latest Bond film introducing Daniel Craig as the new Bond).

The Bond film has been toted to entertainment journals as veering away from the crazy stunts and gadgets that have dominated the films since Pierce Brosnan took over the role. Daniel Craig's Bond is younger, more, rash, and telling the story of how Bond came to get his job. However, like so many Bond films before it the movie is dominated by explosions and sexy women. All what we have come to expect from an action movie, however maybe not what we want to take our kids too. This one is for adults only.

It is refreshing however to see an animated children's movie dominate the box office. Happy Feet edged out Casino Royale to gain the coveted #1 ranking, even it was only by two million dollars. One thing can be said for Happy Feet, the animation is AMAZING! Catch a clip here. Ever since The March of the Penguins came out penguins seem to have become the new cuddly animated character of choice. This movie encapsulates everything good about a family film.

The basic story is of Mumbles, a penguin without a song. Right out of the egg, Mumble is different than the other penguins because his talents do not lie in his voice, but in his feet. He doesn't know why "his feet are just happy." He is penalized by being sent out of the penguin colony. On his journey to find himself he meets with a group of acappella penguins fronted by Robin Williams. His comic styling have perfect timing and reminds me of when he ingeniously played the Genie in the first Aladdin films.  Mumbles himself is voiced by Elijah Wood who is able to convey both innocence and intelligence through his characterization of a outcast looking for a way to make his mark. Unlike other animated films it never slips too far into sentimentality and is able to keep both parents and kids entertained.

So this coming Thanksgiving weekend the choices are between sexed-up violence or a dancing penguin!

Images:    Sony Pictures and Warner Bros.

Tragic Bus Accident in Alabama

It was reported early this morning that a high school regulation school bus carrying 30 students ran off of an overpass in Alabama. CNN reported two female students dead with numerous others in critical conditions in two of the local hospitals. No more reports of survivors has been given out due to the frantic emotional atmosphere that now surrounds the town. CNN has said that the driver of the bus survived. Police spokesman Wendell Johnson said to the press "Huntsville has never seen an accident like this involving students."

The bus carrying the students from their local high school to attend classes at the technology center is still a mystery as exact events surrounding the accident are still unclear. 

The bus was regulation, meaning there were no seat belts or airbags to protect the teens from the 30 foot fall the bus took off the overpass.

The question of bus safety seems to have taken one of its hardest hits this afternoon. It seems strange that most states in America make it mandatory for all drivers and passengers to wear seat belts, but we have yet to make them part of the regulations on school transportation.

Police say the main reason for fatalities was due to students who "were just tossed around inside the school bus."

My heart goes out the parents and children involved in this tragic event.

And the time has long past to make seat belts a mandatory feature of school buses. Period.

Image: CNN.com

New Kid-Friendly Search Engine!

Good news for all parents with younger kids: InfoSpace has just launched a kid-friendly search engine. The engine, at www.Zoo.com, allows searches on the Internet for news. The content is still from the same sources as average search engines, including Google, Yahoo, and Wikipedia. And the news is genuine, coming from ABC News, Fox News and Yahoo News. But the site screens out adult sites and many phrases. Some queries it won't yield any results for!

The site is a safari theme and aimed specifically at kids ages 8-13. According to an InfoSpace study, more than half of all kids use the Internet for homework.

So it's about time that we had a site to help weed out all of the inappropriate stuff out there. After all, just typing a search for Madonna into Google comes up with her Sex book, something I don't think any 8-year-old needs to be reading about. It's all too easy to stumble across adult content, and changing filters on adult search engines can be confusing.

With a great site like this, parents don't have to worry about porn popping up out of nowhere. So let your kids turn on the computer and start doing their homework research unsupervised!

Image from: Zoo.com

Safety Tips From MySpace...helpful?

Upon reading a recent blurb about a new on-line safety guide posted on myspace.com I became excited that some finally precautions were being taken in order to protect teen and tween users.

However, after perusing the tips I left feeling more than a little bit deflated. The tips listed on www.myspace.com/safetytips are slightly helpful and the bare minimum I feel that MySpace should be doing in order to protect their young users.

It is obvious when logging onto www.myspace.com that the site caters to our teens. Flashy ads for new movies and television shows as well as exclusive music clips the site is advertising to the trends setting teens of America. With this type of "cool," kids are naturally drawn to the site and it is still a mystery at how well it is monitored. In the parent safety tips it states:

"MySpace members must be 14 years of age or older. We take extra precautions to protect our younger members and we are not able to do so if they do not identify themselves as such. MySpace will delete users whom we find to be younger than 14, or those misrepresenting their age."

My question to MySpace is who is monitoring the space? I know from my 13-year-old daughter that many of her under 14-year-old friends have their own pages. If they are logging on, whom else is? If Myspace is promoting these principles they should be backing us parents up with strong monitoring efforts.

Another safety tips that made me think twice was:

" People aren't always who they say they are. Ask your children to be careful about adding strangers to their friends list. It's fun to connect with new MySpace friends from all over the world, but members should be cautious when communicating with people they don't know. They should talk to you if they want to meet an online friend in person, and if you think it's safe, any meeting should take place in public and with friends or a trusted adult present."

Would any parent allow their child to meet up with a stranger under different circumstances, I don't think so. Even if a trusted adult is around the message from MySpace to young users should be not to meet up with strangers. Although I understand MySpace is trying to set up a community I feel that community should stay virtual for minor users.

MySpace also says that if either a parent or child notices inappropriate use they should contact the MySpace authorities. Although this seems comforting, there is no contact information available. If MySpace was serious about out reaching to parents their information should be readily available. MySpace seems to be putting in a good effort but falling short of providing quality safety information for parents.

We parents absolutely need to monitor our children's spaces online. Personal home pages are not private diaries - this is information they are posting for everyone to see! However if this is MySpace's attempt at providing parents with safety information more criticism is bond to follow. MySpace must enforce stricter regulation, but until then parents must be on a greater level of alert about where their children are placing their personal information and who they are "friending." If your child wouldn't friend a stranger on the street, why should they be doing it virtually?

Clearly, I find this issue fraught with parenting perils!

Image from: The Cancer Blog

A refreshing side of stardom

15-year-old JoJo - who has a huge hit with the single "Too Little Too Late" - isn't your typical teen diva. Unlike most others, JoJo does not travel with a large entourage of fans and bodyguards, but instead only travels with her publicist and mom.

An only child, she lives with her parents outside of Boston, who are doing their best to keep her from getting caught up in the negative of being a young starlet. A positive sign since JoJo's fame is growing daily. She recently starred in a film with Robin Williams, called RV, and her second album is due out this month.

Having recorded her first album at only age 12, JoJo has had plenty of time to get caught up in the celebrity world. After all, it didn't take Britney Spears long to shed her innocent image for a sexy, older look. Nor has Jessica Simpson remained the sweet girl she was when she first encountered fame. But JoJo is aware of the pressures of the outside world and doesn't plan on changing anytime soon. Speaking on the lack of clothing many singers now wear, she says, "I just don't think that you'll see this crazy turnaround from me when I'm 18."

For now, JoJo is focusing exactly on what she should be -- her life as a teenager. Talking about her upcoming sweet 16 she says, "I definitely want it to include a car. I just want to be with my friends and family, have music and food...and just people that I love to be with. And my birthday is in December, so hopefully somewhere that's not snowing...maybe somewhere warm like Miami."

That's sounds just right for what a 15-year-old should be dreaming about. Refreshing for a mom who is watching her children hit their teenage years as well.

Image from: MyTelevision

Pish Posh: Victoria Beckham Looks "Awful"

Victoria Beckham, wife of soccer superstar David Beckham and former Spice Girl, reports thinking she looks "awful naked" after giving birth to three kids. Posh tells Australian Bazaar that she has "so much saggy skin on her stomach" despite the fact that she "might fit into jeans."

Ahem, what? Is Posh Becks not the notoriously scantily clad "mum" always out and about in cut-off jean shorts, midriff baring tees and artificially enhanced cleavage out to here? Where does this full-fledge MOM get off sharing her body dysmorphia with the rest of us mortals, not nearly as lucky to be perfectly tan and glowing on a daily basis, what with the demands of three small children keeping us from slipping on stilettos, daisy dukes, and heading out the door to school?

Becks' admission that she thinks she looks "awful naked" is causing a lot of buzz in the world of gossip. But why? Because we are fascinated by a woman so obviously groomed who literally feels  awfully about herself. Is it not sad that after three children, this still young mother, one of the richest wives in the world, and possibly one of the skinniest, can't stop obsessing over her looks? Let alone the fact that compared to the average non-mother of three, she looks ridiculously thin, young, and put together.

Perhaps Victoria Beckham looks awful naked because she doesn't look at herself with a normal, mentally healthy person's perspective, but with a terribly skewed idea of what looks "good" naked. It's horrible to think that many people will hear what Beckham has to say as truth, not self-delusion, and in turn look at their own bodies naked and think, "If Posh looks awful, I must look horrendous!"

Fear not, moms. As for Posh, why the distorted body image? Of course, worth mentioning, this is a core symptom of anorexia. Now there's a question I wish Bazaar had shot back.

Image from starpulse.com