April 19, 2019

The Week in Early Learning

This week’s best reads about early learning and parenting from around the web — April 19, 2019 edition.

With so many news sources and new research, it’s hard to stay in the loop. But we’ve got you covered! Each week we will comb through the web and find the most interesting reads in the topics of parenthood and early childhood.

These Are the Choking Hazards Threatening American Toddlers — via Fatherly

If you see a penny, pick it up. Will you have good luck? Who knows. But you could save a life. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, coins are the most common foreign object kids swallow, leading to hospitalization. In a research study spanning 20 years, spare change accounted for 61.7 percent of incidences and 79.7 percent of hospitalizations.

No Fair! — via This American Life

In this adorable story, host Ira Glass talks with David Kestenbaum about his sons’ preschool. At the school, teachers — facing an onslaught of tattling from students — installed a phone dedicated to documenting their complaints. They named it The Tattle Phone, and with it, David and the teachers recorded weeks of tattling from kids in the class (click on the Prologue section of the show).

How To Tell Relatives, Teachers, Babysitters — Even Your Spouse — Your Screen Time Rules — via HuffPost

You wouldn’t send your kid to a sleepover without telling other parents about your kid’s allergies or bedtime bugaboos. Why not use the same logic with screen time rules?

Screening Screen Time

Why Do 4-Year-Olds Love Talking About Death? — via The New York Times

The leaves on the trees die. Cartoon characters die. The bugs outside too. Read about how to broach this topic with your curious little learner and the reasons driving their curiosity about death.

How to Wean Your Baby off the Rock ‘N Play — via Offspring

When Fisher-Price recalled its highly popular Rock ‘N Play “sleeper” earlier this month, sleep-deprived parents everywhere let out a collective sigh of frustration. For some parents—especially those whose babies have reflux—the slight incline and cozy structure (not to mention its vibration feature) was a godsend during nap time and, yes, nighttime.