A cornucopia of thanks to all of you that give Daniel Tiger, Super Why, Blue and the rest of our imaginary characters an open door policy into your home.

There isn’t a day that we take your trust for granted and we’re proud to meet the challenges of bettering the lives of children across the globe.

Happy Thanksgiving one and all!

xo

Angela

We love hearing from Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood fans and many parents have been reporting that the strategies featured in each episode are not just helpful for their preschoolers, but also useful tools in their adult lives! References to the original Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood series draw parents to the Daniel Tiger series as much as their toddlers. Whether parents remember the original “Daniel Striped Tiger” puppet that Fred held in his show, or have a special place in their hearts for the original red trolley (Ding! Ding!), there are little nods to Fred’s series throughout Daniel’s animated Neighborhood of Make-Believe. This affinity by parents is likely to lead to greater occurrences of co-viewing.

It is our hope that these co-viewing habits spark conversations about Daniel’s struggles and triumphs around the dinner table, before bed or anywhere it’s helpful.

According to Demers et al. (2012), “infant television viewing is greatly impacted by co-viewing, in that infants’ gaze and attention directly follows that of their parents.” Children put greater emphasis on content that their parents pay attention to. One positive consequence of this is that young children, mimicking the viewing behavior of their caregivers, will start to pick up on salient cues – a skill that is useful both with television viewing (higher comprehension of the episodes), and with other aspects of everyday life (picking out salient cues in our everyday environments, while ignoring distractions).

Not only is immediate viewing behavior (eyes on screen) affected by parental influence but, more importantly, off-screen time is also affected. Parents who co-view programs can then incorporate the lessons and themes from the episodes into their child’s daily routines. When this “take away” message is incorporated and applied to the child’s real world surroundings, that’s when the benefits of quality content really shine!

So pull up a seat, you might be surprised what quality content (in appropriate amounts) can do for everyone!

Our annual Halloween Photo Contest has finally found it’s winner!

With well over a hundred submitted entries (and some clever Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood disguises), the submissions were creative, heart felt, adorable and didn’t make it easy on our judges!

This year, it was a toss up..so we decided on 2 sets of winners. Congratulations to Cameron, whose Illinois family jumped into the fun also!

Congratulations, as well, to the cutest set of buccaneers, Levi & Henry, from Washington State. Your signed books (and a few extra treats) are on their way.

My sincere thanks to everyone for your most memorable Halloween pictures. Life is about having fun along the ride and the memories you’re all creating is to be commended!!

Here’s to a Happy & Healthy Thanksgiving!

xo

-Angela

As you’re probably aware by now, our little Daniel Tiger from PBS Kids’ Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood will be welcoming a new baby into his neighborhood tomorrow, Thursday August 14th. We are VERY excited about this BIG news!

We will celebrate the new baby with a Twitter Party at 9-10 pm ET (Be sure to use #DanielTigerPBS).

We will also be discussing important steps that new families might wish to consider when welcoming a new child into their home, especially in regard to siblings. We hope that the discussion will aid those families in similar situations & continue beyond!!

Act like a man!

What does that even mean?

Especially today.

It means A LOT.

Especially since I have two daughters.

It definitely doesn’t mean what I thought it meant when I was making that mysterious transformation, into becoming a man. That’s certainly because most old fashioned attitudes teach our young men to stifle who they truly are and make life changing decisions for often absurd reasons and superficial rewards. That sounds like the opposite of manly to me.

I saw the poignant but powerful documentary from The Representation Project on goodmenproject.com. Hopefully it will aid young boys in their transformative years. To teach them what  “Act Like A Man” should mean.

And especially what it NEEDS to mean..for all of us

I like to call it the “quarter-life crisis”. Out of college & in the “real world” for a few years, and suddenly panicking about whether the job you have now – the one you worked so hard in high school and college to land – will lead to a fulfilling and gratifying life-long career.

Studying towards my Masters in Developmental Psych. at Teachers College, Columbia U., I was certain that my passion was to work with children in some capacity, but I found myself at a crossroads, with 2 outstanding career opportunities – a very fortunate “problem” to have! Children’s Media or Speech and Language Therapy? Although they seem like wildly different professions, they are actually quite intertwined.

Exposed to several Language Development & Speech Therapy courses in my program at Teachers College, I decided to explore the SLP profession in the actual field. I was privileged to meet with Speech & Language Therapist, Lauren Turk, M.S., CCC-SLP, who kindly allowed me to shadow a few of her therapy sessions in school settings.

Ranging in ages from 3-16 years, and with a variety of different speech & language disorders, her clients did have 1 important aspect in common: the comforting & motivating environment that Lauren carefully established. It was inspiring to see how a speech therapist can really make an impact on a child to live a better, more fulfilled life.

There has been a greater awareness about the importance of early identification of speech, language, swallowing & hearing disorders in young children, but people may not necessarily know who to approach, or how and when to get treatment. Luckily, Lauren Turk has devised a new website, TherapyfindR, which enables parents to search for qualified therapists by zip code. Search results display profiles of therapists with their personal description, credentials & specialty so the family can carefully select the therapist that is right for them. The site is a FREE service to help you find the right therapist for your child’s unique situation and needs.

As for me, I simply could not leave the children’s media world (Have you seen how cute that Daniel Tiger is??). My work as Associate Producer at Out of the Blue enables me to enrich children’s lives, & particularly their communication skills, in a slightly different way, but I feel that my (brief) exposure to the SLP career has shaped the way I view educational children’s television: While I feel I am able to reach and make an impact on many more kids at once, it is important to keep in mind that each and every child behind the screen has distinctive strengths & weaknesses and comes from a unique family & school environment.

Thanks again to Lauren Turk for opening my eyes to the significant field of SLP, and make sure to check out her new site at www.TherapyFindR.com!

Like everyone these days, not only does this Dad’s plate overfloweth but I haven’t caught a glimpse of the plate in weeks! So when my girls had a snow day yesterday, the old man in me grumbled something about pushing much of my to do list to yet another day.

Though my 10 year old couldn’t hold back from getting into her winter gear, she quickly learned that her older sister didn’t share that sentiment.

Needless to say, she was not happy with that..at all.

I’m not sure if my youngest thought the duo’s sleigh riding reign was officially over, but she was certain that she had reached “THE WORST day of her life”.

Far be it from me to allow her to believe such, so on went my ski pants and out the door we flew. Today, my to do list is just as long as it was last week, but I’ve got a ten year old that went to sleep with a big smile on her face.

Calvin & Hobbes illustration by Bill Watterson

“I don’t need you anymore Dad.”

Seriously. That’s what my (newly) 10 year old told me yesterday afternoon! I was, according to her, “too busy” when she returned home from school.

Working from home has allowed me to be privy to the overall snapshot of my girls’ school day, the daily dish of drama or, at least, allow me to assist with their quiz/test preparation. But after today, that’s all in the past.

A mere memory of a time long ago.

Apparently vocab review no longer resides within my job description. Surely I get sidetracked and the five or thirty minutes I took to check on some files I had to ftp, was not sufficient grounds to take away some of my parental rights. Or perhaps she too, is on that dark and lonely independent course, journeyed by her older sister. A road that used to be less traveled, in which there’s no need for the big guy to get bogged down in the minutiae of their lives.

I should now assume that their “Don’t worry Dad. I did it. It’s in my bag” is all the interaction necessary when it comes to anything within the confines of academia. I’m okay with that..no, really.

I walked into the kitchen. Though I presently can’t seem to remember what exactly I was looking for, I saw her there. Doing her work at the kitchen table. I then learned that it wasn’t that I was obsolete, BUT I was being replaced!

Normally that wouldn’t sit well with me, especially since she’s my youngest! But what I saw made me smile.

My daughter had typed her entire list of words and definitions into my iPhone. This, I understood as Siri read each word aloud. My daughter continued to go through the words one at a time, pausing Siri after each word to deliver her answer, only to unpause to check if her answer was correct.

I’m not out of the game yet. But when I am, my replacement’s gotta be at least version 9.o!

Throughout the years, the back to school theme has made its into many of my preschool TV scripts. Probably my favorite one is the Blue’s Clues script I wrote when Steve (our main character) goes back to school, leaving for college in 2002..YIKES! Feel free to not do the math here.

We wrote 3 episodes leading up to the introduction of the new host, Joe and Steve’s going back top school. This way, when Steve left for college, Blue and the kids at home were already comfortable with the idea of Joe. The key was getting the audience used to the change before it actually happened. Who knew that, still today, many parents are up in arms about the change?! But back to my point, which is that the process was pivotal.

I try to always look at everything from the kid perspective. So, every fall I have a few back-to-school prep steps that seem to help the kids with the transition.

I hope that these 5 Tips will help you through a seamless transition:

Start the back-to-school routines a week before school starts: We go to bed on “school time”, start doing some “homework” and try to keep our nights low key. This especially helps with the stress of the mornings, when school starts back up.

Get the wipe on/wipe off calendar ready: We keep track of everything two months at a time. My kids are encouraged to add to the calendar as well. However, they think: “If it’s on the calendar then we do it!”..hence all of the waterpark and trampoline room notations

Put a bulletin board up in plain sight:  We use this for all of the paperwork that goes back and forth (permission slips, projects, field trips). Sounds simple but it’s amazing how quickly our papers get lost or overlooked without it.

Have a spot for the inevitable miscellaneous stuff: We empty a whole drawer in the kitchen for each of my girls for them to put all of their “stuff” in. We keep art projects (big paper plate man? Cute! On the fridge then in the drawer!), homework that has been returned, anything that comes home in the “folder!” Then we organize it into a big bin, labeled with each child’s name, at the end of each month. This keeps everything in one place while we’re busy during the school year.

Schedule Playdates: If my girls are feeling anxious about seeing old friends, playdates with our school friends are imperative. It also gets them excited about seeing the rest of the gang at school.

Please let us know what tips have helped you & your family get over the September Blues

My oldest daughter turns 13 in five months

The fact that she’s almost a teen has been staring me down for some time now.

When I look at her baby picture on my desk..yup, almost there.

When I see her talk to friends using my very own mannerisms..yup, almost there.

When I do the final check of the house before going to sleep, amazed at how her toes already touch her bed’s footboard. Yup. There too

Well on Friday evening, she was going to see a friend perform in a show. Before the performance, she planned to meet two “old friends” who’d join her. A girl, who has little to do with this story..and a boy.

This b-o-y happens to be a couple years OLDER than my little girl who, just yesterday, would only wear sequined, crinoline tutus and pigtailed hair. 

It also needs to be mentioned that it couldn’t be any clearer that this boy enjoys my daughter’s company..very much

So, yes:

• I agreed to send my daughter
• without her parent
• out into a dark theater
• with a boy that really digs her

I knew this was it.

I’m gonna throw up!

The age that I started “dating” is completely irrelevant here! Or is it? Yes, it is..it is.

I felt as if I could have flown round trip to Fiji waiting for my daughter to return home that night. But when she finally came into the house I knew I could not..must not, blow the exchange, so I nonchalantly went about my business..let a second or two pass and then casually inquired about her evening.

Did I get what I got because that’s what I wanted to hear?

I don’t care.

Because she was happy and I was happy.

Any parental tips are gladly appreciated in the comments section below. In other words..HELP!