It is very similar to the original, only geared to the younger set. Be sure to click on and read the Start here: About the SD for Kids link.

Robert Todd Carroll talked about the Skeptic’s Dictionary for Kids and the creation of the original Skeptic’s Dictionary with Kylie Sturgess. You can read about and download the podcast at Episode Seventy-Seven – On The Skeptic’s Dictionary For Kids – Interview With Robert Todd Carroll.

So if your local library does not have an item, you can find it in a nearby library system. I have a library card for both my city and county library systems, since I often find that something I want is only in one system. If it is not in either system there are interlibrary loans, though that may require a fee. We’ve used this for a school research project that allowed child to get books from the local university library.

Now about Lillian Moller Gilbreth:

When I was a kid back in the days where there was no cable TV, some of local channels usually up the dial would show old movies in the early afternoon. These were the things to watch while I was sorta kinda doing my homework before my parents came home. I remember one old movie that involved a family of lots of children, but with a working mother. Which fascinated me since I was one of the few kids I knew who had a working mother. The movie was Cheaper by the Dozen (do not confuse it with more recent versions).

Sadly, the movie ends with the death of the father. It took me a few years to find out that there was a sequel, which I saw as an adult. Belles on Their Toes. While the first movie concentrated on the father, the second one is really about Mrs. Gilbreth. It shows her monetary struggles and the trials of working in a non-traditional field. One scene has her showing up to give a paper but being refused entry because she is a woman.

The movies are obvious family comedies, and may show their age. But they are both based on books geared towards young readers, where some of the fathers efficiency studies were tested on the large family:
Cheaper by the Dozen
Belles on Their Toes

Since the authors, two of Mrs. Gilbreth’s children, geared the books to a young audience much of the reality was left out. That was remedied with Making time : Lillian Moller Gilbreth–a life beyond “Cheaper by the dozen”. It is in this book that you really meet her and her family. It shows how her husband supported her education, how their work was incorporated in their home and the struggles they faced. This includes the death of one child due to diphtheria, a couple of miscarriages and a train trip across the country dealing with hungry tired kids, messy diapers and all the other things many of us are too familiar with, only more so. It is interesting to note that when she finally moved out of their house it was beyond repair, all those kids were rather destructive.

She was a remarkable woman with a remarkable family. She was a pioneer in engineering, a university professor and a very busy single mother. Definitely someone to introduce to kids through the books and movies.

This sunflower is now open and hanging from the top of the rockery to greet the folks driving up and down my street looking to park during college football games.  Just one of the signs of the changing seasons, which leaves of memories of the previous few short months.

First we had some beautiful visitors:

Like this dragonfly that hung around the yard one day.

Then there we saw some odd genetic anomalies, like this rose that had buds sprouting from its center:

And one of the buds did bloom as the original faded:

The kids got a kick out of this oddity.  This type of rose, Cecile Brunner Climber, is a clone.  This is true of most nursery roses.  Once in a while a branch, or in this case a single bloom, will have a subtle change in its genetic code.  This is most often seen when there is a plant with variegated leaves, a trait that was created through selective breeding.  Once in a while a branch will revert back to its original genetic state (and then I prune it off).

All in fun, and the turn of the seasons.  Which makes this a good time to balance eggs!  Okay, the link is to something to do with the Spring Equinox, but think why it is the same for the Autumn Equinox.

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When the children were small I made sure to get them to each well-child checkup. This was especially important because Big Boy had started out badly with seizures and was being watched closely for developmental issues that did require him to get early intervention services. I am not going to explain what to expect at a well-child checkup because that is covered quite nicely here. This is a personal story on why I think they are important.

As time wore on, Big Boy’s issues stabilized and all three of the kids became busy. There were soccer games, nature camps, play dates and all of the other bits of normal kid life (with the addition of special education meetings at school). I just kind of forgot about those annual checkups. Often times they got done when I was reminded after calling in about warts or something else.

I was even forgetting them for myself, except that I ran out of my prescription allergy pills. I had managed to stretch them out by taking the over-the-counter stuff at night (they make me sleepy), but this was a particularly bad summer causing my face to swell up. So I called to refill the prescription, and was told I needed to come in for a checkup. Okay. While I was there getting poked and prodded I was reminded that Big Boy was due for a tetanus booster and was also overdue for a checkup. So I made an appointment for him just as his afternoon soccer camp was starting.

So on an August morning I took him in for the checkup, and since he was going into high school I decided that it was okay for me to not be in the room. He was, after all, a Big Boy. After he came out the nurse asked me to follow him to talk to the doctor. The first thing I saw when I entered the exam room was the grave look on the doctor’s face. He told me that my son had heart murmur, and it was something he had not heard in him before. He sent me next door to the hospital to schedule an echocardiogram.

That Friday morning we walked down the hallway of the small neighborhood hospital and he had an echocardiogram. It is an ultrasound exam that looks at the function of the heart. I could see and hear my son’s heart pump. The technician used a stylus to mark points and measure the distances, and then she popped out a video cassette (this was eight years ago) for the radiologist.

We went home, had some lunch and I sat down to go through some email before taking him to soccer camp. I then got a call from the doctor telling me that he did not think it would be a good idea for Big Boy to go to soccer camp that afternoon, and to make an appointment for next week.

That next appointment was oddly short. The doctor told me that Big Boy had a genetic condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and it was very serious. He gave me a referral to a pediatric cardiologist at the main hospital downtown. What followed were several appointments that included EKGs, a stress test, a 24 hour EKG with something called a “holter monitor” and another echocardiogram.

The same technician who did the echocardiogram at the neighborhood hospital was there to do it at the main hospital. She told me that I had mentioned he was going to soccer camp a few hours after the echo, and she became quite worried after what she saw. She really did not have the authority to tell me not to take him to soccer, so she called our family doctor and told him what she saw so he did not have to wait for the official radiologist reading.

His heart condition is very serious, but it was caught in time. Just a few days before his diagnosis, a young person died from it a middle school track meet. And here is the scary part; it is fairly common (about one in a thousand) and is genetic. I talked to my father and learned that it may have been a contributor to the death of one of his sisters as an infant and his brother in his 40s (though we really don’t know). The other two kids were tested, but had no signs of abnormality (but will need to be checked every five years until their 30s).

So I became more diligent about well-child checkups (even if the *&^%$#! health insurance did not cover them). No other major issues have been found. Math Man has scoliosis of his spine, but it is only about 10% (though the doctor insisted it be X-rayed once a year for about three years to see that it was not changing).

Fortunately Big Boy only really needs to take beta blockers to reduce the pressure across the mitral valve and regulate his heart rhythm. For more information see:

PubMed Health page on HCM.

Wikipedia article on HCM.

The Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association, full of all sorts of information, but I find the forums and stories too depressing.

Note: This past year we’ve had problems with Big Boy taking his medication. He did not like that it made him tired after taking it, and then his heart would go faster later. So the cardiologist prescribed a time release formulation to make sure there was a steady level throughout the day. Unfortunately Big Boy was not diligent, and on Labor Day Weekend he complained of a racing heart and numbness in his arms, so his father called 911. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital where he was stabilized, given a fast acting version of the beta-blocker to help when he had rapid heartbeat and now we have another round of medical appointments. He should be fine.

I cannot say enough good things about the firefighters, the paramedics, nurses, technicians, doctors, clerks and everyone else who I have encountered in connection to my son’s heart condition. Though when I rode in the front of the ambulance I was appalled how clueless some drivers are when there are flashing lights and sirens. Please, when you see flashing lights and hear sirens: get out of the way!

It’s hopeless for me to write an unbiased review about the book Ankylosaur Attack. Primarily, because it’s written by one of my favorite skeptics, Daniel Loxton, but also because it features my favorite dinosaur, the durable battle-armored ankylosaurus.

For those who are unfamiliar with Daniel Loxton, he’s the author/editor of the Junior Skeptic column in the back of Skeptic magazine. Junior Skeptic really stands out as a brilliant, gorgeously illustrated introduction to the scientific analysis of fringe ideas such as psychics, fairies, and mythical monsters. I can’t imagine anyone else that I would trust to be as accurate about relaying scientific information to children as Daniel Loxton, and I certainly can’t imagine anyone else who could translate that accuracy into such clever illustrations.

Daniel Loxton is also the author of the truly awesome book Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came To Be, a primer for kids on the subject of natural selection. There was a bit of a pseudo-controversy surrounding Daniel’s advice to young readers that questions about religion be directed toward pastors and parents, but I firmly agree with Daniel that the topic deserved to be addressed in a respectful way. Often, non-believers shoot themselves in the foot by insinuating that atheism be the key to opening the door to science; that kind of hard-lined attitude makes people of faith feel unwelcome in the wonderful world of natural discovery and scientific knowledge. Kudos to Loxton for making science accessible to EVERYONE, as it should be.

Ankylosaur Attack is a deviation from Daniel Loxton’s previous books because it is prehistoric fiction. It offers the story of a young ankylosaur being attacked by a hungry t-rex looking for a snack. The rendered graphics are phenomenal and really help stimulate the imagination with attention to detail and lighting. The plot is simple enough for younger readers, but also helps stimulate discussion for older readers about defensive and offensive genetic traits that have evolved in dinosaurs. What do ankylosaurs and turtles have in common? If you were a predator how would you try to eat them? Isn’t awesome that this extinct animal had an armored back to defend against attacks and also a cannonball whip for a tail?

Ankylosaur Attack is the first of a series of prehistoric fiction. I look forward to the rest in the Tales of Prehistoric Life series.

As an added aside, in honor of our local museum’s life-sized model ankylosaur, I decided to donate a copy of Ankylosaur Attack to the dinosaur library at Cincinnati Museum Center. It was tempting to keep the book for my daughters (pictured above), but I thought that it would be better served as a resource for other kids visiting the museum. So, here’s a photo of the book at Cincinnati Museum Center’s dinosaur library. Hope the museum visitors enjoy it as much as my kids!

I was reminded of another version of the periodic table I read about years ago. One of the founders of a math program, Theodore Gray, had read Oliver Sacks’ autobiography Uncle Tungsten. In his mind he envisioned an actual table, and being a fairly handy guy with a whole shop full of tools he made one. He details the whole thing on a website that I have spent literally spent hours perusing (often at the sodium party). The details actually include a click-able version of a periodic table with photos and descriptions of all the elements, which has been translated in a beautiful book on the elements, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom of the Universe.

The Elements reminds me of the big beautifully illustrated National Geographic and Time-Life books I grew up with as a kid, much like Rob T.’s book Our Universe. As a kid I remember flipping through those books, possibly even before I could read, over and over again. This would be a good accompaniment to The Disappearing Spoon.

Then I saw Mr. Gray had another book on chemistry, Mad Science, a beautifully photographed book of interesting chemical reactions. See the videos on the book website, and his Popular Science column.

Warning! Warning! Many are explosive, fiery and really poisonous. I think I saw only a few that I would attempt, much less let a child try. Some are things that my kids have encountered at the annual engineering and science open houses (like the liquid nitrogen ice cream, which really is very yummy). It is definitely one way to get a kid excited about chemistry, and I don’t think there is any danger of most children attempting the more dangerous stuff. Mostly because there may be an age requirement to buy supplies like chlorine gas, phosphorous and heavy water (yup, just checked… you have to be over twenty-one to receive shipments from United Nuclear Scientific).

As far as home experiments I’ll stick to the very information dense, much safer, and not so beautifully illustrated tomes by Sean Connolly: The Book of Totally Irresponsible Science and The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science. These books are meant to be used, read in snippets, and be pulled out during an outbreak of “I’m bored” (something that often happens in the dog days of August). They have lots of stories, explanations and truly accessible experiments. Who knew that popcorn popping could be analogous to radioactive decay half-life?

Have fun before school starts (which may be a couple of weeks for some!). But make it safe fun. While I resented that I never got the chemistry set I always asked for, as a boring grown-up I understand why my parents never obliged: my brother. He liked to blow things up, and my parents did not really want to replace those things again.

I did do an experiment recently with an element when I saw a snail crawling up my rockery. I wanted to see if the copper screening actually stopped slugs and snails, so I put a piece in its path. Hah! It stopped! And no snails or humans were harmed in this experiment.

No! No! Not the copper barrier!

A good example of positive skeptical communication would be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini, who were friends for a time, despite their differences in belief. I wrongly stated in the parenting workshop that they remained friends until their death, but despite that justifiable correction, it’s generally true that Houdini was very diplomatic about communicating to Doyle his skepticism of the paranormal. Eventually, Houdini’s diplomacy was unsustainable due to his very public activism against the paranormal (and Doyle’s very public belief), and even in their falling out, we can learn that some friendships may be to challenging to save. It just depends whether both sides can communicate with each other respectfully and without too much judgement (or perception of judgement). I was interested to read this excerpt from a letter between Doyle and Houdini’s wife Bess after Houdini died…

“He was deeply hurt whenever any journalistic arguments arose between you and would have been the happiest man in the world had he been able to agree with your views on Spiritism. He admired and respected you –two remarkable men with different views.”

Ultimately, we must remember that there’s a difference between respecting the friend and respecting the friend’s ideas. A true friend can distinguish between the two.

To help bring this point home, I invited Mike Meraz to offer his advice on the best way to “be a skeptic and still have friends”. Mike produced the Actually Speaking podcast, a short-lived series on the theme of balancing skepticism with personal relationships. There were many good nuggets of advice in the Actually Speaking podcast, but Mike has moved on to producing the ever-more-popular Aaron’s World dinosaur podcast hosted by his seven year old son.

Anyway, Mike’s advice on communicating skepticism with your friends is below…

It’s important to remember that we can’t “make” people think, feel, believe, or behave in ways they haven’t freely chosen for themselves. Our friends need to be free to make their own decisions in order for those choices to have an impact in their lives. Assuming a person is happy, healthy and doing no harm to themselves or others, the promotion of skepticism is most effective when based on education, not confrontation. With that in mind, here are 5 tips for sharing skepticism with friends.

Share Without Judging – Don’t set out to change minds or win arguments. Instead seek to share information and inform decisions. Your friend’s choices are their own.

Be A Skeptical Example – Be an model of skepticism for friends. Demonstrate it by sharing your own decision making process as well as how you handle being wrong.

Notice and Praise – Identify and acknowledge areas where friends are already thinking skeptically and encourage them to apply that process in new areas.

Be Supportive – Remember, for growth to occur, people need a balanced amount of both challenge and support. Skepticism is challenging enough… so focus on support!

Accept Your Friends and Choose Your Battles – Allow friends to make mistakes and don’t fight every battle. A strained friendship stops the flow of communication and benefits no one.

-Mike Meraz (and family)

I felt compelled to bring this message to TAM because I felt the arguments over tone (such as DBAD) were not directly helpful to skeptics who want better relationships with their family and community. Most previous arguments have focused on the best ways to communicate to the public, but have avoided more personal levels of communication. Within that context, it would be detrimental to take an aggressive approach to communicating skepticism because losing your audience would mean losing a loved one.

With that in mind, please take a look and consider these suggestions. For each category, I’ve solicited the help of an expert within that category. My first expert is an anonymous friend from Atlanta, GA. She is a skeptical activist, but her husband does not share her love of science and critical thinking. Her advice…

When we married, I was agnostic and he claimed to be an atheist, though I don’t know how he arrived at that conclusion – I don’t think it was by extensive reading or deep consideration.

I did much reading, thinking, and research to figure out my position. I was raised Methodist, and though I paid lip service to it, I always had doubts. I did a lot of reading in the Bible, and found that it didn’t seem to say what people claimed. In my youth, I had attended a college prep boarding school and had been required to attend some religious services each week, though they permitted you to choose which. I had many friends who were wiccans, and I went to some of their circles, but the whole thing seemed rather silly and self-conscious.

My husband and I even joined a church and I liked the social aspect, but though I felt like we fit in from a social standpoint, my hackles raised when we got an email urging us not to go see “The Golden Compass” because it didn’t agree with church teachings. I thought, “I’ll decide what movies I will and won’t see, as well as what to think about them, thank you very much.” I tried to believe. I really did. My rational mind kept getting in the way.

I read Francis Collins’ book and still didn’t understand how he could be a theist, and his argument went something like, “I believe because I believe.” Once I read “The God Delusion”, I decided that being an atheist was the only way to reconcile my science training and critical thinking with what I understood about reality. I had never met anyone (to my knowledge) who was an atheist, or at least had never really talked to one, but Dawkins’ logic was compelling.

My husband did not have science training, and sometime during all of this, he began meditating. I don’t really know when he graduated from just meditating to believing in contrails, UFOs, chakras, and most conspiracy theories. Honestly, I don’t even know what he believes, because he won’t tell me. I question, but he shuts down quickly. When alt med or fundamental misunderstandings of medicine are involved, I don’t let these go. Everything else I just quit bothering. Mostly. Having a rational discussion with someone who is not using reason is nearly impossible.

1)Conditional Compromises: Pick your battles wisely (altmed BS is going to require some education).

2) Put the Relationship First: Decide if you would rather have harmony or if you would rather be right.

3) Be crafty: Sometimes I explain principles of critical thinking to the kids within earshot of my husband, hoping he will hear. If he gets mad, I can point out that I wasn’t actually talking to him.

4) Take a gradual approach: Start with less threatening topics then perhaps build parallels with more sensitive topics- you can hope that the believer will extrapolate.

5) Be understanding and respectful: Confront differences frankly, but respectfully. Senses of humor REALLY help.

Thank you, Anonymous! I must say that I completely understand and relate to her experience because my wife was once a student of acupuncture, a type of medicine that lacks plausibility and evidence. One thing that I would add to the above recommendations by my friend would be that we should take care to avoid making fanboy references to every SGU podcast or Mr. Deity episode, and we should refrain from using debate rhetoric (“straw man”) when arguing with a spouse. It can be easy to forget that the rest of the world is not as excited about skepticism as we are. Unfortunately, skeptics live in an insular world that feeds upon it’s own internal drama.

What would you add? Let me know in the comments section.