I’ve not had much time to sit down and write this week. Truth is, I scraped together some cash and bought myself a new notebook that has been occupying too much of my attention whilst I try out the many new features. That said, the plan in buying the new notebook was to give me more time and convenience in writing for this project (as well as a few others). Convenience? Well, it’s a notebook, so I can sit on the couch, put on some tunes, and type. Time? A rare commodity as a parent, but the new computer is, admittedly, a Mac so (as promised by the onslaught of advertising) its been running all weekend trouble free right out of the box. No more precious hours shared between changing diapers, reading aloud, and wireless connectivity maintenance. Of course, this gives me reason to pause and consider what I should write.

In the last month traffic to this site has quadrupled. I know people are reading this, so c’mon and comment. I don’t bite. And here’s your chance. Please, introduce yourself and give me a some feedback on some of the suggestions below. After all, I’m a dad and I don’t have “all the time in the world” anymore. As such, I was thinking of a few topics I’d like to pursue.

Encouraging Creativity

Ah the ‘holy grail’ of bohemian child rearing? I wrote this as one of my goals when I built this blog a number of months back, and by the drought in content around it, one might think I’d almost forgot. The truth is, I’m a bit stumped. How does one encourage kids to be creative in creative ways? What is creativity? How does one teach their child to be a creative individual as part of (and in partnership) with a goal of teaching critical thought? I need to write more on this topic, but where to start?

What Should We Be Reading to Kids

I came across an article the other day that explained that reading to kids really had little to do with future reading skill or intelligence. Great! A skeptical article, but I’ll be darned if I could find the link again. If I recall correctly it was emphasizing that reading aloud in the early years seemed to correlate with later interest in reading, but could not be pinned as a cause. Does that mean reading serves no other purpose? What should we be reading when we read to our kids, and if we hand pick and exclude certain texts what are we teaching them about censorship?

Wacky Product Claims

I consider this an entirely new category of entries that could potentially be developed. I look at boxes and labels of the numerous (but relatively few) toys we have acquired since becoming parents, and I wonder at the creative minds who’ve squandered their talents fooling parents into buying things they don’t need that overstate their own abilities. I consider this a bit of a consumer advocacy role, dipping my toe into dissecting the so-called ‘learning objectives’ and ‘educational values’ of infant and toddler toy-dom. Or would I be, to tread cliche, beating a dead horse?

Video Games and Such

In some respects I think this topic has been overplayed. But I have a few ideas of my own up my sleeve that I’d like to write about. I’m not so much worried about violence in video games or that sort of thing, but rather some of the claims made my kid’s games and so-called learning software. Do those little kids computers that you hook up to a television actually teach kids anything? Do daily “brain training” games really train brains, and what effect do they have on kids? What are some good elements of educational software that parents should be looking out for?

Social Gaming (or throwing the dice?)

I’m finding overlap between fellow skeptics and folks who game. That is to say, the people I know in real life and online who I would consider ‘critical thinkers’ and scientists have a notable affinity for playing complex and unique board games, dice games, or card games. (And I’m not talking poker, though I could be totally wrong on that count.) What do games teach us about thought? Are games good models for teaching integrity to kids (one of skep/dad’s core pillars of critical thinking) or is it mere correlation?

And, on a more serious note: Health

I’m not a doctor. I’m trained in biology, true, but that is definitely no substitute. At best, that background allows me to think a little more critically about kids health claims and perhaps direct eager, self-diagnosing web-surfers in a more medical direction by merely pointing out the contradictions and other worrisome claims made by pseudo-health practitioners. I’m thinking here of exploring the claims related to vaccines, infant chiropractics, and other shady areas of child health I’ve stumbled across in my short career as a skeptical father. Or perhaps I should not even go here.

So, dear reader, on a quiet Sunday evening I leave the verdict to you. Please comment, and let me know what you would be interested in discussing. Over the next six months or so I’ll (hopefully) find the time to talk about many (and maybe all) of these. In the meantime, I’ll keep working on some of my other features such as Avoiding Logical Fallacies, the Defining Critical Thought series, and my Science Fair Project ideas and But from comments I will prioritize.