Raising Baltimore

raising Baltimore Fall 2016

Fall Family Fun! Free art programs from Creative Alliance

Ericka Alston’s Westside “Disneyland” Take Back Control from the Screens

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Fine, Fun, and Free

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Ripples of Change

Creative Alliance at the Patterson offers free year-round art education for families.

One year after opening the Kids Safe Zone, Ericka Alston continues to work for the city’s children.

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Hello World

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Screen Play

Free-range parenting continues to be a controversial topic nationwide.

Have we become too overprotective?

Screens are everywhere in our digital world. Are these advances in technology slowing our children’s development?

Fine,

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Open Minds Art Club, a free after-school program encourages the growth of the students critical thinking and while providing hands-on art activities.

Fun,&Free Offering free year-round art education at local schools, libraries, recreation centers, and on-site, Creative Alliance is here to help your little one grow.

by Brandon Parker

ADMIT IT.

It’s far easier to place your kid in the clutches of the newest iDevice than it is to find something constructive for them to do. It’s ok. We all do it. Life is more stressful than ever and the warm, calming embrace of Netflix and an app store full of games will quiet your little monster long enough that you won’t tear your hair out and you can get some things done. Creative Alliance is here to help broaden your child’s horizons and keep them from becoming another tech zombie. Reaching over 2,000 children per year, Creative Alliance offers multiple education programs in schools, library branches, community centers, and on-site that are also free.

Don’t be alarmed upon arriving at the corner of Eastern and East Ave. Yes, that bus stop has an art installation that reminds you that it is indeed a bus stop. Yes, that is a 1930’s theater marquee. It’s lit up the Highlandtown sky since 2003 when Creative Alliance moved into the old Patterson Theater.

After outgrowing the Fells Point rowhouse that featured a modest gallery, performance space and artist guild, Creative Alliance renovated the dilapidated building and added 2 galleries for contemporary art, a 200-seat theater, a classroom, media lab, and live/work studios for eight artists. Finally, don’t be derailed by the scents coming from “Baltimore’s First Pizzeria”—Matthew’s Pizza. Grab one of their special pies later.

You’re here to give your kid a boost to their imagination.

This is not a “too good to be true” or “here today, gone tomorrow” type of scenario. Creative Alliance has been an

Photographs Courtesy of Creative Alliance

institution of cultural appreciation and art education for nearly two decades. What started as a month-long summer reading program in the libraries of Southeast Baltimore has grown to include a variety of activities to occupy the city’s youth throughout the year.

In the late nineties, Creative Alliance began the Open Minds Art Club, a free after-school program that encourages the growth of the students critical thinking while providing handson art activities. This fall, the program will organize an exhibit with projects responding to the works from the two on-site galleries. Nearly every Saturday, there’s the KERPLUNK! Free

Over 2,000 of Baltimore City’s youth are reached through Creative Alliance’s education programs each year.

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Nearly every Saturday at the Kerplunk! Free Family Art Drop-In, familes can tour Creative Alliance’s gallery and create art projects.

Creative Alliance Quick Facts • Founded in 1995 as the Fells Point Creative Alliance to showcase the best in the arts in Mid Atlantic region.

• Dedicated to building communities by bringing together artists and audiences from diverse backgrounds to engage in the creative process.

• The building is open to the public, including two free art galleries featuring contemporary and emerging artists.

• After school arts education programs serve more than 2,000 Baltimore schoolchildren and youth.

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Family Art Drop-In where families can tour Creative Alliance’s gallery and create art projects under the tutelage of artists Terry Barnes and Alexandra Gonzalez. Projects such as paintings, sculptures, collages connect with the current exhibits in the gallery. If you have a teen, the Baltimore Club Dance Team meets at Amazing Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in McElderry Park. The team offers lessons, field trips, and professional development in the dance industry.

Also, if your child happens to be a student at Patterson Park Public Charter School, Walter P. Carter Elementary/Middle School, Dickey Hill Elementary/Middle School, or Tench Tilghman School, they could participate in Creative Alliance’s after school programs. These programs offer homework help and art and dance workshops. According to Shalanda Hansboro, Creative Alliance’s education coordinator, these programs provide a place for young artists to “voice how they feel about what’s going on in their neighborhood...and [gives] them a chance to speak so [we] know how they are feeling.”

In addition to the abundance of youth activities offered by Creative Alliance, community outreach is among the group’s priorities and may be something you want your child to become invested in. One of their largest projects is the Great Halloween Lantern Parade and Festival. The annual parade and festival in Patterson Park offers arts and crafts activities and vendors, live music, costume contests, and hay rides. In preparation, Creative

Alliance offers multiple workshops for families to prepare the lanterns based on the year’s cultural theme.

Not only are Creative Alliance’s programs great for simply providing constructive things to fill up your kid’s day, but they are also integral to the growth of young minds and the culture of our city. Zachary Hock, artist and Creative Alliance member, believes that “the grooming of young artists is essential in any city but Baltimore especially…the only way to grow as a culture is to combine our experiences, whether that’s through class, race or even expression.” ◊

“The grooming of young artists is essential in any city but Baltimore especially… the only way to grow as a culture is to combine our experiences, whether that’s through class, race, or even expression.”

The annual Great Halloween Lantern Parade and Festival in Patterson Park offers arts and crafts activities and vendors, live music, costume contests, and hay rides.

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Ripples of Change One year after opening the Kids Safe Zone, Ericka Alston strives forward with her ultimate goal of being the “stone” that helps change the world.

by Brandon Parker

“I ALONE

cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” A mantra from Mother Teresa effectively depicts the architect that built a slice of West Baltimore into a “Disneyland” for the area’s children. Meet Ericka Alston, the founding director of Penn-North’s Kids Safe Zone. She and the Safe Zone received a great deal of local and national news coverage in the aftermath of the uprising following the death of Freddie Grey. Alston while working as the director of public relations and business development of Penn North’s Community Resource Center saw the needs of neighborhood children not being met and decided to step in and fill them.

Alston, armed with the keys of a vacant laundromat and a fluffy hair cloud as a crown became a “fearless, accidental leader” for a neighborhood of children needing a safe space from the anarchy that Baltimore fell into while providing guidance for those who wanted to help. Within five weeks, the Kids Safe Zone was furnished with gaming systems, flat screen televisions, an arts and crafts area, a reading nook, and donated furniture from Holiday Inn. After visits from over 7,000 children, the 1,000 square foot Kids Safe Zone was in desperate need of extra space.

After receiving a combined $40,000 in donations from A&E Networks and Kaiser-Permanente, the Governor’s Office upped the ante with a $50,000 donation. This donation ensured the Kids Safe Zone’s move to a larger 5,000 square foot home as well as having a computer lab once arriving.

Photographs Courtesy of the Kids Safe Zone

“I never wanted to be that person.

I was not inspired to be that person...

It isn’t normal to wake up one day and decide to change a vacant laundromat into a Disneyland.”

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It’s been nearly a year since the Kids Safe Zone was swarmed with blessings in a relatively short time frame. Now settled next door to Penn North’s Community Resource Center on Carey St., the Zone still remains a bright beacon of hope for children in Sandtown Winchester who lacked recreation and resources and in desperate of need of an outlet. Upon entering the Zone, the walls, colored in bright yet calming shades of blue, are peppered with art projects, words of wisdom, and a schedule of daily events. On an early Friday afternoon in September, the space is hauntingly quiet because school is back in session. However, there is one dominant sound echoing throughout the space despite it being contained behind a closed door: Ericka Alston’s voice. Today, a new employee is beginning her first shift and Alston is providing guidance and direction before the place is besieged by the smiling faces of children recently released from the grasps of the school day.

Then, she begins discussing the night’s scheduled activities.

Yoga will now be held at 6 PM. “I never wanted to be that person. I was not inspired to be that person,” Alston says in a moment of reflection while sipping lemon and cucumber water in her office—which is as bright and peppered with positivity and awards as the Zone’s entrance. In becoming that person, Alston—or Ms. Ericka as the neighborhood children lovingly refer to her—would have to leave behind the person whose identity was directly connected to her wages and employer. Losing her job and volunteering at the Community Resource Center led to her to finding a purpose: helping people. “I was very interested in helping people that were like me.” As a former addict void of self-esteem who dealt with homelessness, hopelessness and a suicide attempt, Alston was able to identify with young adults strug-

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gling with the same issues.

Everything that she had been through fueled the inspiration to do something great in her city. Becoming the director of public relations and business development led to her becoming more intimate with issues afflicting younger people particularly during the uprising. With the exception of the Community Resource Center, everything in the area was closed. During this time, Alston continually heard complaints of there not being anything available for children.

“A day came that I had heard for the thousandth time that there were no resources for children in this community. There are no after school programs. There were no summer camps. There were no organized sports. There was nothing for children to do. I kept thinking to myself ‘Well, someone should do something about that’…What inspired me was the reality of not seeing anyone else doing it. I didn’t know what doing it was. It isn’t normal to wake up one day and decide to change a vacant Laundromat into a Disneyland.”

So how does she keep going? She finds inspiration in receiving hugs from teenaged boys who have been hardened by West Baltimore’s streets, seeing children having a safe place to do their homework, the look on faces of children as they run towards the Kids Safe Zone, and the expressions of gratitude from those same children when they leave at 8 PM. “I still walk through this building and I see kids playing and i hear their laughter and my eyes still fill with tears because I still don’t understand how the hell this happened.”

Being up-close to city children on a daily basis has afforded Ms. Ericka with perspective on parenting .

“They want to see our smiles, they want to hear our claps on the sideline. We need to be apart of the PTA. We need to show up to

school assemblies when we can. We have to be there. There are basketball games, school plays, meet the teacher night, that we’re [The Kids Safe Zone] participating in because parents aren’t.

Our kids need to see us actively engaged and invested in their lives.

That doesn’t take money.”

Practicing what she preaches, Ms. Ericka, wife and mother of 4, spends ample time perfecting recipes, attending football games, and cheerleading practices and has since made her venture a family affair. “This place has given my family a reality check. I realized I did my children a disservice by sending them to good schools and moving them outside the city and not keeping them rooted in their own culture in community.” Her eldest daughter, Aundrea, works there daily and her younger children who volunteered during the summer were able to learn from the neighborhood kids and were able to come out of their introverted shells. Her husband also makes an appearance daily to lend a hand. “We thought we were well-rounded and cultured, but the Kids Safe Zone has rounded us more.”

Like Mother Teresa, Ms. Ericka seems to be content being the “stone” that will create many ripples for the children in the community. It is her hope that those ripples will be able to help change the world. “My ultimate goal is to be here when my 16 year olds graduate from college. To be here when my black boys have survived random traffic stops.

To be here, when they have a career, get married, and they bring their children back and they say, ‘I was able to do what I did because Ms. Ericka was here.’” ◊

“I still walk through this building and I see kids playing and I hear their laughter and my eyes still fill with tears because I still don’t understand how the hell this happened.”

The Kids Safe Zone offers recreation that includes flat screen TVs, Xbox gaming systems, board games, organized sports teams, a computer lab, girls and boys mentoring programs, peer led support groups, licensed counseling, field trips, a study lab and homework assistance.

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Hello World Fear and “overparenting” have made the concept of free-range parenting a nationwide controversy. Are we protecting children from the world or just trying to give ourselves peace of mind?

by Brandon Parker

FREE

-range parenting? If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering what the hell is that? In 2008, Lenore Skenazy let her 9-year old ride the New York subway alone, wrote a column about it and coined a term that equates our kids to roaming poultry and cattle. Free-range parenting is not about completely abandoning your parental duties and leaving your kids to fend for themselves. It’s about granting your children the freedom to well…grow up like we did.

Skenazy says, “We can give our children the same kind of freedom we had [as kids] without going nuts with worry…When you let children out, all the good things happen - the self-confidence, happiness, and self-sufficiency that come from letting our kids do some things on their own.”

Unfortunately, our society has grown into favoring “over parenting” or “helicopter parenting” where we literally hover over our child’s every waking moment. It’s what led us to accuse Silver Spring parents Alexander and Danielle Meitiv of neglect because they allowed their children, ages 10 and 6, to walk home from a park a mile away.

In 1995, at the age of 10, I was traversing the city alone to reach Roland Park Middle School from my Butcher’s Hill home.

A simple 7 mile, 15 min. drive could easily be a 2 hour hot pocket of late, crowded buses, antsy kids, and rude grown-ups who are tired from a long work day and didn’t want to share their commute with loud children. Riding the 23 to the 61 or the metro to the 33 alone during rush hour was equally terrifying and empowering. I was able to quickly develop the confidence to not only do things alone, but also how to handle myself in public and recognize that I’m a person in this great big world.

Yes, a little person, but still a person.

I understand. The world can be a scary place. But here’s a newsflash, it’s always been a scary place and will continue to be that way. It doesn’t help that we’re constantly bombarded by terrible news and situations due to increased access to social media, the Internet and television. You have Facebook warning you about killer clowns, Vic Carter and Denise Koch informing you about murders and assaults that occurred overnight, and Ice-T on Law and Order: SVU attempting to destroy a sex trafficking ring that specializes in little girls. After all of that,

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letting your kid walk home from the park feels like a terrifying proposition.

In spite of what all of the various forms of media tell us, the truth is your local area is probably less dangerous than it was “back in the day.” In 1995—when I first started my solo cross-city treks—Baltimore City had a violent crime rate of 3018 crimes per 100,000 citizens. As of 2014, that number has decreased by 57%. Nationally, crime has decreased 71% from its peak in 1994 and crimes against children have declined by 56% since 1993.

These numbers suggest that the world is a much safer place than it was when we were children and were free to run wild with our friends. You didn’t know how dangerous it was because you probably weren’t being constantly bombarded with reminders of how terrible everything was. Furthermore, the preferred helicopter style of parenting is potentially the true danger for your kid. Studies have shown that this style of parenting causes anxiety, depression and poor school performance in children during their K-12 years.

Child neglect laws in the U.S. has also helped fuel the helicopter parent movement while also becoming a source of frustration due to the inconsistent standards between states. In Illinois, it is illegal to leave a child under fourteen unsupervised for an “unreasonable period of time.” However, in our home state, a thirteen-year-old is considered old enough not only to care for themselves, but also to babysit infants. According to the Utah Law Review, these statutes when combined with “media-distorted perceptions of risk”, have created a culture of oversheltering and overscheduling the lives of children.

It’s ok to have a plethora of extracurricular options to ensure continued growth of their minds, but its the unsupervised time that is equally essential to their growth as a person.

Solo trips to school and back, making plans with friends, and good ol’ alone time are necessary to develop the self-confidence and self-sufficiency that will help our little ones become happy adults. It’s on us to give them the tools they need to be safe and successful and then grant them the space to operate in this grand world. ◊

Photograph Courtesy of Dan Eisenhauer

“When you let children out, all the good things happen—the self-confidence, happiness, and self-sufficiency that come from letting our kids do some things on their own.�

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Screen Play With the media and technology landscape changing rapidly and parents having less free time, our children are finding themselves in front of screens more than ever. As long as it’s educational, it’s ok right?

by Brandon Parker

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CONSUMPTION

‌‌of media is at an all-time ‌high

and it’s increasingly common to find our eyes locked on the

warm glow of the various screens in our homes, workplaces, and pockets. So of course, our children would emulate this type of behavior. Thanks to advances in technology and media availability, everyone’s screen time usage is rising.

What exactly is screen time? It’s the amount of time using a device such as a computer, television, phone, tablet, or video game console. According to Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that focuses on media and technology use in children, screen time has become a standard part of a kid’s day. Teenagers spend roughly nine hours a day with media while tweens (8-12-yearolds) engage in media for six hours a day. As parents, we help introduce this process to them. We’ve all planted our little ones in front of a television while cooking dinner or used tablets to keep a group of rambunctious tweens calm on a long road trip.

This has become a norm in modern parenting.

How bad could it be that I’m using technology to keep my kids engaged? Many in the science community believe that screen time and device usage is actually harmful for children. Between 1999 and 2015, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) suggested that kids under 2 years old be prohibited from watching any television and that those older than 2 watch no more than 1 to 2 hours a day of quality programming. A 2014 study published in Computers in Human Behavior, found that children with regular access to phones, televisions, and computers had a harder time recognizing human emotions than children who didn’t receive this access. However, with

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the changes in the media and technology landscape, experts have grown to be more flexible in their recommendations for media consumption. The AAP now suggests “infants can use media as long as a parent or caregiver is present to interpret and repeat educational content” and parents should be the ones setting the limits.

So should I let my kid have screen time or not? Like many issues in our daily lives, the answer lies somewhere in the middle and depends on the context and situation. For example, the aforementioned study from Common Sense Media that identified the number of hours that children engage in media also warns parents not to take the totals at face value. According to the authors of the study, “the variety of activities that fall under the rubric of media use—especially screen media use— makes it less important to measure the ‘total time’ spent with these media.” While a teenager spends roughly nine hours a day in front of a screen, that screen time is broken down into television, social media, gaming, and educational/creative uses.

Teenagers’ having a variety of screen uses does not fit as neatly into the lethargic, pound packing, and couch potato narrative of yesteryear. Regardless of age, it’s more important than ever for parents to be the gatekeeper between children and screen usage and media consumption. Parents have to set limits, be jointly engaged with a child’s media consumption as well as monitor their own usage while in the presence of their children.

Without parental involvement, young children have trouble translating what they see on a two-dimensional screen to our three-dimensional world due to “their immature symbolic, memory, and attentional skills.” According to Dr. David Hill of the AAP’s Council On Communications and Media Executive Committee, “An adult’s perspective greatly influences how a child processes what they’re seeing on the screen—and playing remotely with someone may not count.” Developers are beginning to heed this notion as more apps are encouraging parent/child interactions. The phenomenon of Pokémon Go encouraged parents and children to locate pocket monsters in their local neighborhoods while the newly released Play-Doh

“An adult’s perspective greatly influences how a child processes what they’re seeing on the screen—and playing remotely with someone may not count.”

Touch has parents scan in the real world creations of their children for further digital play. PBS Kids and Fisher Price also have parent/child playtime apps available for phones and tablets.

It’s important that whatever content that children are engaging in is rich in educational material. Media should be treated in the same manner that you would treat the food that your children consume. Dr. Michael Levine, the executive director of the Sesame Workshop’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center, says that you should be feeding kids “more nutritious content that teaches colors, shapes, empathy and culture…less unboxing videos.”

Setting limits and creating tech-free zones provide you with more opportunities for one-on-one play and talk time.

This time away from technology will allow you to insert more variety in your child’s life. Joining them in unstructured play and having conversations stimulates creativity and language development in ways that interaction with screens can’t.

Tech-free zones can also be used to provide a limit to your family’s media use. The dinner table, social gatherings, and the bedroom could be potential places to prohibit screens. According to the AAP, these zones “encourage more family time, healthier eating habits, and better sleep, all critical for children’s wellness.” Need help shutting down all of that tech use?

The cleverly named app ScreenTime blocks app usage, sets time limits, and pauses screen activity at the push of a few buttons from a parent’s device.

At the same time, there’s no need to be ridiculously strict with online access. Social media and other online interactions

help teens and tweens discover and explore more about themselves and the world. However, it’s important as parents to monitor online spaces in the same fashion you would monitor real world ones. The places your child visits, the people they are interacting with, and appropriate behavior are as important online as it is in the real world.

Parents also need to monitor their own usage of technology. The tech zones you create to slow down your kids’ screen time are needed for yourself as well. Children naturally mimic our actions. If our faces are steadily planted into a device, it’s unreasonable to expect your little one or teen to not want to replicate those same actions. Also, while technology can be used to keep children calm and peaceful, it shouldn’t be the only thing that pacifies them when stressed. The AAP says that “children need to be taught how to identify and handle strong emotions, come up with activities to manage boredom, or calm down through breathing, talking about ways to solve the problem, and finding other strategies for channeling emotions.”

So now what? You have to determine what’s best for you and your family’s situation. Whether you are a stay-at-home dad who has all the time in the world to play and follow AAP recommendations, or a working mom who uses a tablet or television to grab a moment of peace and quiet, it’s fine. Too much of anything is bad so regardless of your situation, it’s important to note that a healthy balance of screen time and real-world interactions are crucial to your child’s development and a meaningful relationship with them. ◊

The AAP now suggests “infants can use media as long as a parent or caregiver is present to interpret and repeat educational content” and parents should be the ones setting the limits.

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