Last year I did a blog series called Mythbusters: Alternative Therapies for 2e Learners on alternative therapies, pseudoscience, and educational beliefs/myths. I covered: vision therapy, essential oils, learning styles, overexcitabilites, auditory processing disorder, sensory integration, diet and ADHD, Brain Balance Centers, and the Amen Clinics. 

My goal was to help parents and professionals think critically and consider the science before spending time and money on a therapy that might not be effective.

I've run out of therapies to critique (if I've missed something please let me know!)

So this year I’m starting a new series called Mythbusters: Questioning Conventional Wisdom in Parenting. I'm writing this with parents of gifted and twice-exceptional students in mind. But many of the topics I'll cover aren't about giftedness or brain wiring differences per se. They're just the questions that keep us up at night worrying if we're doing the right thing by our child.

I’ll address topics like:

Does your child really need to go to a selective college?
Must your child play a team sport?
Does your child need to get straight A’s?
Is it important for your child to be social and popular with their peers?
Should your child learn how to play a musical instrument?
Is it important that your child learn a foreign language?
Should you (and can you) restrict the amount of time your child is engaged in screen time activities?
Does your child really need to read more?
Do you need to teach your child “good manners?”
Should you enforce rules about what your child wears?
Should your child be kept busy doing something productive over the summer and on weekends?
Should you schedule your child’s time to allow “down time” for free play?

I’ll tackle each topic just like I did in the last series – by defining the problem, looking at the arguments and evidence for and against, then weighing the evidence and distilling it into a recommendation for parents. I hope you find this interesting!