Greenlight: debit card for kids, managed by parents

With Greenlight®, the money you give your child is divided into two categories: money they can Spend Anywhere, and money they can spend ONLY at a store (or a kind of store) you’ve approved in advance. We call these permission-based spending opportunities “a greenlight.”

The amount of money put into each category is controlled by the parent only, and you can change it any time.

If your child tries to spend at a store you haven’t approved in advance, and they don’t have enough Spend Anywhere money, then their card will be declined. Ouch! Fortunately, kids get a version of the app too, so they can check their balances and permissions before they walk into a store.

What the Times got wrong about kids and phones

strict approaches aimed only at limiting screen time aren’t the most effective. You have to be a role model and engage alongside your kids, a notion that the Times stories largely skirted.

.. But when parents take the time to appreciate and connect with their kids’ digital interests, it can be a site of connection and shared joy”—and a way to mentor kids to discover their own creativity.

 

My Kid’s First Lesson in Realpolitik

If you examine him through the lens of playground politics, you will recognize Mr. Trump as a thin-skinned bully who seems incapable of stomaching criticism or opposition. At the same time, he postures as a victim, vacillating between venomous outcries at his foes and the desperate need for validation from his fans.

.. The problem with America — Mr. Trump’s playground — is that we’ve developed an insular, conflict-averse culture. The president’s trolling is so effective, in part, because many of us have not learned how to deal with interpersonal conflict, starting with the playground. We must learn to defend ourselves so that when Donald Trump or any other bully taunts us, we can rise to the occasion.

.. One of the earliest lessons you learn at school is about the boundless cruelty of other children. And that bullies can win. Yet contrary to these early playground lessons in realpolitik, children are consistently taught to avoid conflict by well-meaning parents, teachers and caregivers because that’s how we want the world to work.

.. I don’t want her to lose it when somebody like Donald Trump is elected. More than anything, I want her to be able to defend herself and fight back.

.. I want my daughter to learn to say no confidently and unapologetically. Dealing with conflict is also about standing up for yourself as a woman, whether a man is talking over you at a meeting or trying to engage in unwanted sexual behavior. If we learn early how to have difficult or uncomfortable conversations up front, we don’t need others to fill in the gaps, make our decisions or read our minds. But if we can’t stand up to conflict, we risk becoming the snowflakes that the Donald Trumps and the wagging tongues on the right make us out to be.

The Carpenter Vs. The Gardener: Two Models Of Modern Parenting

Parents these days are stressed. So are their kids.

The root of this anxiety, one scholar says, is the way we understand the relationship between parents and children. Alison Gopnik, a psychology and philosophy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks parents—especially middle-class parents—view their children as entities they can mold into a specific image.

“The idea is that if you just do the right things, get the right skills, read the right books, you’re going to be able to shape your child into a particular kind of adult,” she says.

It’s a view that’s gained popularity in the last few decades, along with the term “parenting” — which is itself a relatively new idea.

“It’s only around the 1970s in America that the word first begins to really take off,” she says.

.. In her latest book, The Gardener and the CarpenterAlison lays out this science and an alternative way to think about the relationship between parents and children.