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…parents from different social classes teach their children different lessons about interacting with institutions. …parents help to perpetuate inequalities not only through what they do for their children, such as equipping them with different resources or opportunities, but also through what they teach children to do for themselves. -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: Add to your character sketch. How did your protagonist’s parents teach social interaction and how does that affect your protagonist in your story? (Click through and read the entire article to learn how social class affects what parents teach children.)
Journaling Prompt: What is the most valuable lesson your parents taught you?
Art Prompt: Parent teaching Child
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the essential lessons that parents must teach their children.
Photo Credit: Nationaal Archief on Flickr
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The great majority of the parents (88 per cent) answered that they did not think that there were disadvantages for their child in having an imaginary friend. Parents saw the main reasons for having invisible friends as supporting fantasy play and as a companion to play and have fun with. Parents also gave numerous examples of how invisible friends helped their children process and cope with life events.
Younger children also used their interactions with invisible friends to test their parents’ reactions to behaviour that might be disapproved of, thus helping them learn to regulate their behaviour. -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story or poem about a child and his or her imaginary friend.
Journaling Prompt: Did you have an imaginary friend or a stuffed animal that you believed was alive?
Art Prompt: Imaginary Friend
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Tell your audience how parents should deal with a child’s imaginary friend.
Photo Credit: dospaz on Flickr
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The four culture types identified, which together comprised 89 percent of families surveyed, are:
- The Faithful: These parents base their moral compass on religion and seek to maintain traditions within their homes and through their children.
- The Engaged Progressives: These parents view morality through a lens of personal responsibility and freedom and strive to raise “responsible choosers.”
- The Detached: These parents don’t feel very close to their children and tend to adopt a “let kids be kids and let the cards fall where they may” attitude.
- The American Dreamers: These parents are very optimistic about their children’s future and focus heavily on giving them every possible advantage while also protecting them from negative influences. -Kecia Lynn
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a scene about something that happens in within a family. Re-write the same scene for each of the family types.
Journaling Prompt: Where does your family fall in this list? Write about how you feel about your family type.
Art Prompt: Families
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about the four American family types.
Photo Credit: normalityrelief on Flickr
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The other night, our newborn didn’t sleep. We’d feed him, put him to bed, and a few minutes later he’d start fussing and crying and screaming bloody murder.
I’d pick him up, swaddle that little bugger till his face turned blue, and put him back into the crib with a magic singing seahorse that’s supposed to hypnotize him back to sleep.
Twenty minutes later, little Houdini was out of his blankets, flailing his arms again like he was at a Black Sabbath reunion. -Jeff Goins
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene or poem that features a crying baby.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a parenting or babysitting experience where you had to deal with an unhappy baby or child.
Art Prompt: Crying Baby
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the trials of being a new parent.
Photo Credit: Jeremy Burgin on Flickr
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Parents who feel guilty about letting their young children watch too many fantasy movies on TV can relax.
Researchers from Lancaster University have discovered that youngsters who watch films like Harry Potter improve their imagination and creativity. -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story or poem about a child who grows up watching fantasy movies.
Journaling Prompt: Write about the kind of movies you enjoyed watching as a kid. How did they inspire you?
Art Prompt: Children and Fantasy
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about a movie that inspired you as a child and how it shaped your life.
Photo Credit: Lars Plougmann on Flickr
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Create whatever this visual prompt inspires in you!
Photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr.
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A majority of Americans rate their current financial situation as poor or fair, and nearly half of Americans say they have encountered financial problems in the past year, according to the Pew Research Center. A University of Missouri researcher studied how parents’ financial problems and resulting mental distress affect their relationships with their children. He found that parents who experience financial problems and depression are less likely to feel connected to their children, and their children are less likely to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as volunteering or helping others.
“The study serves as a reminder that children’s behaviors are affected by issues beyond their immediate surroundings,” said Gustavo Carlo, Millsap Professor of Diversity in the MU Department of Human Development and Family Studies. “Families’ economic situations are affected by broader factors in our society, and those financial problems can lead to depression that hurts parent-child relationships.”
Previous research has indicated that parent-child connectedness is an important indicator of prosocial behavior in children. Prosocial behaviors lead to moral development, better outcomes in relationships and enhanced performance at work and school.
Unlike previous research that has focused on high-risk and low-income families, Carlo and his colleagues studied middle- to upper-middle-class families. Parents and children answered questions about economic stress, depression and connectedness between parents and children. A year later, the children reported how often they engaged in prosocial behaviors toward strangers, family members and friends.
“Even middle-class families are having financial difficulties, and it’s affecting their ability to be effective parents,” Carlo said. “When parents are depressed, it affects their relationships with their kids.” -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a story or scene about a family under financial pressure from the child’s POV.
Journaling Prompt: Write about what you remember about your family’s finances during your childhood OR write about how your family is dealing with the economic pressures today.
Art Prompt: Too Many Bills!
Photo Credit: Claudio Gennari on Flickr
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Children are becoming more sophisticated about image at younger and younger ages.
…even very young children have a great deal of knowledge about the clothing retail sector and they know exactly which shops will sell the kind of clothing they want.
[Researchers] also found a strong association between family culture and the value children placed on brands and logos, citing two cases, ‘Robert’ and ‘Hayley’ (not their real names).
Robert came from a family where brands and designer fashions were valued, and he ‘name-dropped’ constantly about the brands of his clothes. Hayley, on the other hand, came from a family with little disposable income, where brands and logos were of so little importance that she had difficulty in understanding what the terms meant.
Parents, however, do not have it all their own way. Dr Pilcher commented: “There are a variety of fashion influences on children and you can’t ignore the pressures from their peer groups, especially friends of the same sex, and their ideas of what is cool.”
A further influence on young children is the celebrity culture, which they may wish to copy or they may reject. The skimpy clothing of singers Beyoncé and Kylie were not always admired by girls, who thought it was rude to show so much bare skin…
Children who do not participate in that culture, however, can be isolated from their peers in a form of social exclusion. This, Dr Pilcher says, is something to be borne in mind by teachers when considering school uniform policies and by parents doing battle with their children on the shop floor. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a scene about a young child shopping for clothes.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a shopping trip for clothing from your own childhood. If you have children, compare it to a shopping trip with them.
Art Prompt: Children’s fashion
Photo Credit: Jason Hargrove on Flickr
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This is the story of a mother, and a daughter, and the right to life, and the dignity of all living things, and of some souls granted great destinies at the moment of their conception, and of others damned to remain society’s useful idiots. -Adam-Troy Castro, Arvies (free to read at Lightspeed magazine, but be warned. This is a very disturbing story.)
Writing Prompt: Using the sentence above as inspiration, write a story, scene, or poem.
Journaling Prompt: Have you ever felt like a useful idiot or like you have a great destiny?
Art Prompt: Idiot
Photo Credit: Jo Jakeman on Flickr
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I never knew my mother, and I never understood why she did what she did. -Carrie Vaughan, Amaryllis
Writing Prompt: Using the first line above, write a story or scene.
Journaling Prompt: Did your mother ever do something that you didn’t understand? Now that you’re older, do you have any more ideas why she did it?
Art Prompt: Mother
Photo Credit: Tumble Fish Studio on Flickr
Send to KindleRelated posts:
- Prompt #146: First Line of the Week – One for the Money
- Prompt #104: First Line of the Week – Still Life with a Woodpecker
- Prompt #125: First Line of the Week – Metamorphosis
- Prompt #160: First Line of the Week – The Cassandra Project
- Prompt #97: First Line of the Week – Millicent Min, Girl Genius
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