We’re very much a gamer family. We play games at home.  We play games on holiday.  We play games at our friends’ houses. Video.  Board. Card. Yournameit weplayit. It an obsession, to a point and we’ll play pretty much anything. (Although, I will readily admit that my patience for repeated sessions of Candyland (TM) with The Girl is wearing thinner with each passing week.)
Of course, my current state of self-employ means I’ve needed to be a little more frugal on new acquisitions.  But just recently, I was particularly excited: an …

A likely familiar tune, but bedtime at our house is borderline ritualism: Bath. Brush teeth. Story. Shine the flashlight on the ceiling to make the the glow stars light. Song. Some idle talking about the day past. At least three drinks of water. And a small peppering of parental nudges to “get back into bed!”
Ritualism, and in that order.
Lately, and this evening being no exception, we’ve been adding the list. I’ve been hearing the faint voice summoning me from down the hall, a tired little …

This is about live-bloggy as I get: As I write this, a great collective of local skeptics have gathered at the University of Alberta for our first skepticamp (more). I’ll update this post over the day with links and notes on what sessions (concurrent sessions are running) I’m attending (and presenting.)
If your here, say hi…
1100 AM – Twyla of www.stopjenny.com is presenting on the anti-anti-vaccination movement, the science of immunity and vaccines, and vaccine fallacies.
1130 AM – Panel on civility and skepticism, staring @skepticsean, Brent, Marc-Julien and Ryan. How not …

My assertion, boy scout that I once was, stood firmly grounded in some quasi-idealistic notion of shivering in the deep woods, wrapped in a blanket eating a poorly cooked meal from a tin plate around a low fire and nursing a collection of bug bites and sore muscles acquired on the day-long trek from where we left the car and where we eventually pitched our tent. This, of course, was contrasted with current so-called camping experience of playing card games in a heated trailer, drinking microwaved beverages, and occasionally updating our Facebook status on our cell phone…

Any father extrapolating back to his own childhood and assuming a general, relative increase in availability over time, should have assumed that blocking, restricting, and demonizing said material was a futile pursuit. What I can only presume then is that there was a meaning in the message that only years later — as a parent myself — begins to make sense. But how does one then rationally — skeptically and logically — apply a filter to the media (and by this I mean television, movies, radio, books, and web content) pouring in ever increasing volumes across the gaze of our kids? And should we? I suppose the first question that must be explored is why might we need to filter?

I have doubts that as parents we fall for this stuff as easily as the toy companies believe. In some ways I’d suggest it’s a game of don’t-ask-don’t-tell; We buy the toys because we think they are good toys. Or — more likely — we buy the toys because our kids think they are good toys. Sure, we read the product claims on the side, maybe react somewhere between a disbelieving laugh and approving nod, thinking ‘well, what could it hurt…’ Sure. But then like every other aspect of skeptical bunk-busting, there ARE true believers, particularly when said claims go beyond vague promises of infant development.

As skeptical parents does it matter how we define education? Or is it merely stating the obvious to suggest we just get on with the teaching our kids? For we parents who seek a rational approach, perhaps in hopes of providing the most balanced and critical education for our kids, one that we can understand and have hope of contributing to as participant and co-educators, these differences of opinions — differences of definition of what defines a good education — are troubling. If we can’t agree on definition, then what hope do we have of moving onto the debate around context and purpose?

Until I actually release the new format later this month, read through some of the information about the category/topics, future content, themes, and concepts to find out what I’ve got planned. The trends and the ideas will, of course, stay very much in line with what you’ve been reading on The Skepdad Blog for the last couple years, but the look, feel, and tone will be going in for a major overhaul. And I hope you find it both enjoyable and useful. But for now here is a taste of what’s to come…

Catching a glimpse of an old rocket, space suit, shuttle, satellite, or (if you’re in my country) Canada’s remote manipulator arm is not going to — blink — turn a kid into a scientist. But then that’s not the point. If you’re raising kids RIGHT NOW there is one simple fact you already know: those kids will never know a time before humanity reached out to the stars. Big deal, right? Actually… I’d argue it is. And that argument wouldn’t be framed in reasons of nostalgia, historical perspective, or all that wishy-washy ‘hooray for us’ inspirational talk (though all valid in their own way.) I’d argue it is a big deal because while my generation didn’t exactly turn our backs on space, we did refocus much of our gaze on the unlimited realms information made possible by the technology of the so-called space age.

Chances are that over the course of your life you’re going to meet a lot of people who are — well — famous. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are movie stars. They might be people famous only to others in your community, famous for something they do that you happen to enjoy or follow like the president of a large club or lead singer of a band, or famous because they accomplished something that most of us have not or could not, such as in sports or their job.