By Laura Gray

Your preschooler is playing house with her friends when you overhear a surprising conversation. She assigns each friend a title – Mommy, Daddy, Sister, Brother – then lines everyone up in order of “importance.” When she names “Sister” as the least important, you ask her why. Tearfully, she recounts a recent experience when her older brother – not her – got to choose the board game your family played.

The moment offers you a chance to explain the roles each of us play in a family. And no person is less “important” than another; we all have value. It’s also a lesson learned by the lovable characters of Disney’s Toy Story 3, available this month on DVD and Blu-ray. Enjoy this soon-to-be-a-classic film with your family and talk about its commentary on family and friendship with our conversation starters. Then create Thumbuddies Onboard with our Play Together activity.

Toy Story 3 follows Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the other toys as they consider their fate, now that their owner, Andy, is going away to college. Will he toss them aside, pack them away in the attic or send them along to some other child? Woody is confident that Andy loves his dear toys but his friends are not so sure. When Andy’s mom accidentally throws the toys away, they assume the worst.

The toys escape the trash heap and climb into a box destined for a nearby daycare center. At the daycare, they are welcomed by Lotso, a teddy bear with an ulterior motive. Andy’s toys are excited to be played with by new children, but Lotso assigns them to the toddler room. The young children abuse the toys, as might be expected, but the toys beg Lotso to move them to another room. He refuses and they soon learn that he is a cruel tyrant who rules the daycare with terror and intimidation.

Woody, who was left behind when Andy tossed him into his box of college-bound stuff, sets out to rescue his friends from the daycare. As they flee, Lotso and his henchmen face off with the toys at a dumpster. Woody convinces the henchmen that Lotso is evil and they throw him into the dumpster. Lotso pulls Woody in with him and the toys jump in to save their friend. A garbage truck then empties the dumpster and unloads its contents into an incinerator.

At the last moment, the alien toys use a claw crane to pluck their friends from the incinerator. They make their way home to Andy, who decides to give his toys to a little girl named Bonnie. He tenderly introduces each beloved toy to her and they play together one last time. The toys come to understand that they will always hold a special place in Andy’s heart.

TALK TOGETHER

Initially, Andy decides to save his old toys in the attic. What did the toys hope would happen to them after Andy leaves home? How did they end up in the trash?

The toys work together to escape from the daycare center. What are some activities your family accomplishes together? What job does each of you do to make it happen?

PLAY TOGETHER: THUMBUDDIES ONBOARD

Let the world know what makes your family special!
You will need:
• Window paint marker
• Paintbrush
Let each family member press his or her thumb against the paint tip of the marker and make thumbprint images of themselves on your car window or bathroom mirror. Using a paintbrush, add arms, legs, hair and other features to convey your individual interests. For example, if your daughter likes to sing, have her add a microphone in her thumbprint person’s hand. Your kids will see how each of them plays a valuable role in your special family!
Plan a family movie night this fall! Check out our archives at www.Cinematters.com and get some great ideas for fun with your favorite films.

© 2010, Cinematters.

More than 10 nationally recognized children’s book authors and illustrators were on hand for the 7th Annual Savannah Children’s Book Festival on Nov. 13. Sponsored by Live Oak Public Libraries and the City of Savannah, this Savannah tradition “celebrates the joy of reading, the power of the written word and the magic of storytelling,” according to organizers. In this issue’s Book Review, we highlight books by some of the festival’s authors and illustrators.

• ANNA DEWDNEY
Vermont-based author and illustrator Anna Dewdney considers “mom” to be her most important title. She says she travels frequently to visit her two daughters who are away at school and college. She also finds time to create the popular Llama Llama children’s book series. The latest is Llama Llama Holiday Drama (Viking Juvenile, 2010).

Llama Llama holidays.
Jingle music. Lights ablaze.
How long till that special date?
Llama Llama has to wait.

About the Book: If there's one thing Llama Llama doesn't like, it's waiting. He and Mama Llama rush around, shopping for presents, baking cookies, decorating the tree -- but how long is it until Christmas? Will it ever come? Finally, Llama Llama just can't wait any more! It takes a cuddle from Mama Llama to remind him that “Gifts are nice, but there's another: The true gift is, we have each other.”

• ELIZABETH O. DULEMBA
If you have children, you’ve probably seen Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s illustrations everywhere. She is an award-winning illustrator of Highlights Magazine (she did the December cover) and numerous picture books for children. Her bilingual book, Paco and the Giant Chile Plant won a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award Bronze Medal. Her other works include Glitter Girl and the Crazy Cheese, The Prince’s Diary and her latest, The Twelve Days of Christmas in Georgia (Sterling Children’s Books, 2010), with author Susan Rosson Spain.

About the Book: Merry Christmas from the Peach State! Jacob's there visiting his cousin Ava, and together they'll have a Southern-style holiday hiking the Appalachian Trail, wandering through the Gold Museum and touring the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta.

Visit Dulemba’s website, www.dulemba.com, for free puzzles, coloring pages, recipes and more from her newest book.

• BRIAN JORDAN
A professional athlete who played for both the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Falcons, Brian Jordan now devotes much of his time to the Brian Jordan Foundation. It is a nonprofit organization that provides support to families and awards scholarships to underprivileged, deserving young people. Jordan is also an Emmy Award-winning sports analyst for FOX Sports South and, on ESPN, he is lead analyst for the Atlanta and Gwinnett Braves. He is the author of two children’s books, including the best-selling I Told You I Can Play! (Just Us Books, 2006).

About the Books: I Told You I Can Play! chronicles how young Jordan followed his heart and dreams to show others that he could do anything he put his mind to. Last summer, Jordan released his second children’s book, Overcoming the Fear of the Baseball. This book details a childhood experience when Jordan was hit in the face with a fastball. Instead of calling it quits, he returned to the baseball field where he went on to play 15 years of Major League Baseball.

• MILES & WILLIAM RABUN
When they were only 7 and 5, these youngsters wrote about their latest summer visit to their grandmother in Atlanta. After that particular visit, their “Drandma” (yes, that’s what they really call her) challenged them to write a book about it – and they did. Now 11 and 9, Miles and William live in Wake Forest, N.C., and still spend summers and holidays with their grandmother.
About the Book: My Grandma’s Backyard (Xlibris, 2007) explores the many favorite things that William and Miles enjoy doing in their grandmother’s backyard — skipping rocks, identifying plants, reciting poems and making up skits. With colorful illustrations by Atlanta illustrator, Tony Moore, My Grandma´s Backyard highlights a running water pond adorned with frogs and turtles and includes a fun activity section for kids to explore and talk about their own adventures. It even has vocabulary words, reading comprehension exercises and games with an answer key.

• MARJORY HEATH WENTWORTH
South Carolina’s poet laureate, Marjory Heath Wentworth has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize four times. She has written three books of poetry and a children’s book, Shackles (Legacy Publications, 2009), which won the Silver Medal in the national 2009 Moonbeam Children’s Book awards for multi-cultural children's books. Currently, she teaches poetry to cancer patients at Roper Hospital and in a poets-in-schools program at Burke High School, both in Charleston, S.C.

About the Book: Shackles, which is illustrated by Leslie Darwin Pratt-Thomas, is based on a true story. The book describes what happens when a group of young boys search for buried treasure in their backyard on Sullivan's Island, S.C., and dig up a bit of history – a set of shackles used centuries ago on slaves who were held on the island. Neighbor and friend Mr. Green is summoned and he tries to explain the painful hidden history of Sullivan’s Island. One out of every three African Americans had ancestors who were brought to Sullivan’s Island and held or perished in the slave trade. This important story reminds us of a piece of American history that is too often forgotten or overlooked.

By John Rosemond
 
The National Association for the Education of Young Children and I don’t see eye-to-eye on many things—maybe anything. We don’t even agree on a definition of “child.” For example, they believe children are capable of being reasoned with. I believe that if a person is capable of being reasoned with, he or she is no longer a child.

NAEYC certifies preschool education programs, and their standards, as one would expect, reflect their philosophy. They will not give a program their seal of approval if it punishes children who do bad things. Why? Because children do not do bad things.

According to one of NAEYC’s publications, they simply “make mistakes in their behavior.” In other words, when a child does the wrong thing, it is not intentional. Really? I was a child once. When caught, I was rather clever when it came to appearing that “I didn’t mean it.” Adults who believed me did me no favors.

A North Carolina preschool teacher recently told me their director informed her and her colleagues that time-out is being phased from the classroom because it is a form of “shaming.” Instead, they are to re-direct the misguided child to a more positive activity. A week after being so informed, said teacher reprimanded a toddler who was beating on another child. No punishment, just a reprimand. The director scolded her for being too negative. I feel certain the director did not appreciate the irony.

Another teacher in the program came up with the idea that children who followed classroom rules would get a prize at the end of the day. A child became upset that she didn’t get the prize. The director told the teacher to apologize to the child for singling her out and to give her the prize. This child has thus been moved one step further toward incurable narcissism. This is the stuff of trying to become certified by NAEYC.

One of NAEYC’s papers (http://www.naeyc.org/files/tyc/file/Gartrell%2001.pdf) says that “punishments such as time-outs confuse young children because they cannot easily understand the sequence of behaviors during and after a conflict nor what removal to a chair has to do with them.” That sentence confuses me, so I’m fairly certain it’s an example of pure, distilled psychobabble. The same paper goes on to assert that time-outs cause children to feel ineffectual, prevent them from developing alternative strategies, lower their self-worth, and are bewildering because young children have difficulty figuring out cause-effect relationships.

Psychobabble is any assertion that cannot be verified by the scientific method. All of the preceding fits that definition.

Concerning shame, it is dysfunctional when it is either excessive or absent. But when a child misbehaves, he should feel ashamed. Young children are incapable of feeling shame on their own; therefore, they need responsible agents (i.e. adults) to help them feel it. This process is essential to proper socialization; to an appreciation of the effect one’s behavior has on others.

Concerning children, I know that back in the parenting dark ages, when children knew they were going to be punished for misbehaving, they were far more likely to behave. That is why a teacher in the 1950s had no problem teaching 50 or more first-graders without an aide (of the 1950s first grade class sizes I’ve come across, 95 is the record so far, and the woman who taught that leviathan remembered no significant discipline problems).

Today’s teachers are dealing with classroom behavior problems that would have astounded our great-grandparents. NAEYC ought to be ashamed for contributing to this problem…but they won’t be. They don’t believe in shame.

Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents' questions on his Web site at www.rosemond.com. © 2009, John K. Rosemond.

By Laura Gray

It seems bullying dominated our national news this year. Sadly, most cases never made the front page until another child took his or her life. Savannah students are just as susceptible to this form of homegrown terrorism, but school administrators and leaders are making major strides in combating bullying of all kinds.

You probably know someone whose child has dealt with bullying. Maybe your own child has been bullied. Or, perhaps, you have bad childhood memories of your own experiences with bullies. What’s important is to be vigilant is watching out for the warning signs.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has come up with a list of potential signs that your child is being bullied:

• Comes home with torn, damaged or missing pieces of clothing, books or other belongings.
• Has unexplained cuts, bruises and scratches.

• Has few, if any friends, with whom he or she spends time.

• Seems afraid of going to school, walking to and from school, riding the school bus or taking part in organized activities with peers (such as clubs).

• Takes a long, “illogical” route when walking to or from school.

• Has lost interest in school work or suddenly begins to do poorly in school.

• Appears sad, moody, teary or depressed when he or she comes home.

• Complains frequently of headaches, stomachaches or other physical ailments.

• Has trouble sleeping or has frequent bad dreams.

• Experiences a loss of appetite.

• Appears anxious and suffers from low self-esteem.

To find out what local experts are doing to stop bullying in our schools, read my story on page 3. The sidebar, “What to Do If Your Child is Bullied,” gives you practical, concrete steps to take.

The experts agree that the key to curbing bullying is to stop the behavior early, when kids are still in elementary or middle school. To begin a dialogue with your child, try using one of these books:

• Gator Gumbo by Candace Fleming & Sally Anne Lambert
(Ages 4-8) Poor Monsieur Gator is getting old and is moving so slowly he can’t catch himself a possum or otter, or even a whiff of skunk. Day after day those animals tease and taunt him until, finally, he decides to cook up some gumbo just like Maman used to make. But who will help him boil, catch, sprinkle and chop?

• Shrinking Violet by Cari Best & Giselle Potter
(Ages 4-8) Whether she’s impersonating Elvia, swaggering like Captain Hook or imitating the sounds of a cricket, Violet is expressive and funny – but only when she’s alone or with her best friend, Opal. At school, especially around class bully Irwin, who teases her nonstop, she retreats into a shell of shyness.

• Nim and the War Effort by Milly Lee & Yangsook Choi
(Ages 5 and up) Nim, a young Chinese-American girl, lives with her multigenerational family in San Francisco’s Chinatown. World War II is ongoing, and she is absorbed in the last day of a competition to gather more newspapers for her school’s paper drive than Garland Stephenson, the class bully. Taking her red wagon into the ritzy Nob Hill area for a last search for newsprint, Nim discovers a treasure trove of collected papers, finds a way to transport them to school and wins the contest.

The Revealers By James Preller
(Ages 10 and up) Parkland Middle School is a place the students call Darkland because no one in it does much to stop the daily harassment of kids by other kids. Three bullied seventh graders use their smarts to get the better of their tormentors by starting an unofficial email forum at school in which they publicize their experiences.

Freak By Marcella Pixley
(Ages 12 and up) For Miriam Foster, a budding poet who reads the Oxford English Dictionary for fun, seventh grade is a year etched in her memory “clear as pain.” Teased and taunted in school, Miriam is pushed toward breaking until, in a gripped climax, she finds the inner strength to prove she’s a force to be reckoned with.