New parents are crumbling under the weight of conflicting advice from experts, in-laws and mothers’ groups.

Grandparents, other parents and a stream of parenting books are offering confusing and often conflicting advice on everything from sleep to toilet training.

Parenting commentators say clashing advice can lead to family feuding and marriage tension…

Practical Parenting editor Lynne Cossar said the barrage of advice was a minefield for new parents…

Parenting author Kaz Cooke said the greatest potential for friction was between generations.

“You are getting advice that’s anything up to 60 years out of date,” the Kidwrangling author said.

“I think that it can often end up with grandparents feeling they’ve been snubbed because their advice hasn’t been taken.” …

Parenting Research Centre executive director Warren Cann advised parents to take ideas on board — but not to heart…

“Ultimately we have to weigh all this information up. When it comes to something as complex as parenting, there’s always going to be a diverse range of ideas.”

Parenting educator Michael Grose said conflict between parents often arose because fathers — who were traditionally in the background — now wanted their say on raising their children.

“It’s not a bad thing — just a new phenomenon.”

Source: The Herald Sun
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21642006-662,00.html

A submission to the Senate inquiry into the academic standards of school education from three of Australia’s leading literacy experts says most schools still fail to teach reading effectively, and accuses state and federal governments of being unwilling or unable to adopt evidence-based practice…

“(There is) in fact disturbing evidence that some of the initiatives that have been undertaken subsequent to this report are directly contrary to (its) recommendations,” it says. “What has been done has been paying little more than lip service to the report’s recommendations. Methods of teaching students in most Australian schools are not based on the scientific evidence relating to how children learn to read and the strategies that are most effective for teaching reading in the early years of school.” …

The inquiry’s Teaching Reading report, released in December 2005, recommended the dropping of the “whole language” approach to teaching reading, which is the most widely used approach in Australian schools.

The report recommended explicit instruction in synthetic phonics, under which children are taught letter-sound relationships and how to put them together to form words, and that teacher education courses include instruction in how to teach reading…

Source: The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21643278-2702,00.html

Rell joins other state leaders around the country in making historic funding commitments for pre-K programs. There’s a growing understanding that preschool is the crux of improving student performance and ending the gap in achievement levels between different populations of students…

“On average, children from low-income families enter school with a 3,000-word vocabulary. Those are the words a 6-year-old has heard in their life time,” Glass said.

In contrast, a middle-income student enters kindergarten with 5,000 words, and an affluent student comes with 7,000 to 10,000 words.

The lower-income student must double his vocabulary to level the playing field the first year, but since the affluent child will continue to learn at grade level, the poorer child will have a hard time closing the gap, Glass said…

“Now, what the children have to do in kindergarten is much more like what they used to do in first grade,” Ryan said. “That’s why they need preschool. They aren’t getting the chance to do the slow development in kindergarten.” …

“It’s a terrific time to be in education,” Glass said. “Folks are recognizing the inherent value of preschool. We have missed the boat for decades, but it’s better late than never.”

Source: NewsTimesLIVE
http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/story.php?id=1045926

It’s a culture clash, all right, and one that leaves parents on both sides anxious. The Chinese parents at my children’s British-style, international school in Beijing have exactly the opposite fears about their national school system from yours. Their worry is the cost of the Asian triumph in maths exams.

Confucian attitudes to authority mean schools nurture outstanding discipline, and an awe-inspiring ability to memorise facts, figures and theorems…

The personal cost is great, too. The parents I spoke to were concerned about their children being competitive. Their children, in some cases, were worried about their health and sanity, as they worked harder and harder to meet the ever more competitive examination requirements…

It’s a neat symmetry. I have often wondered why a happy medium, of rigorous, Chinese-style inculcation of the basics at primary level, followed by western-style encouragement of self-motivated, critical thought at secondary, is so hard to achieve…

Source: Telegraph.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/04/28/do2802.xml

A Ben-Gurion University scientist who is a research fellow at University College London has shed light on the factors involved in dyscalculia - a learning disability suffered by between two and eight percent of the population that makes it difficult for them to deal with numbers. The condition, similar to the way reading is difficult for dyslectics, is hard not only on children who fail math in school, but also on adults who have difficulty shopping, following a budget or making even the simplest calculations…

Although turning off an individual’s math skills by stimulating a specific part of the brain will not cure dyscalculia but merely trigger it momentarily, Cohen Kadosh thinks this knowledge will help diagnose the learning disability at a young age and ameliorate the condition with training, just as dyslexia can be eased at a young age…

Source: Jerusalem Post
http://tinyurl.com/yr7t4y

Parents are tuning into TV shows more than they think and tuning out their children’s eating habits…

Released on Thursday, the survey found that 57 per cent of parents reported watching two hours or more of TV a night. The number rose to 66 per cent when children were asked about their parents’ viewing habits.

Kids and parents also differed about the amount of time they spent together on a family physical activity.

Sixty per cent of parents said they participated in a common family physical activity at least once a week — only 27 per cent of children agreed.

Dr. Gary Pekeles, a pediatrician at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, wasn’t surprised that parents think they’re better role models than their kids do.

“I think that we all want to give a positive spin to our individual behaviours,” he said…

The survey found that parents weren’t healthy role models.

Only 28 per cent of parents said they eat the recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables and only 17 per cent said they got nine hours of sleep or more per night.

Survey responses also indicated that parents had a better opinion of their children’s health habits than their children did.

It found that 89 per cent of parents said their children eat breakfast every day; however only 72 per of children said they did…

Source: Leader-Post
http://tinyurl.com/2du36f

A PEAK principals group has launched a blistering attack on parents, blaming them for the blowout in the number of children taking drugs for ADHD.

The primary principals accuse parents of “opting out of their responsibilities” by making drugs their first option – not a last resort – to help children suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Primary Principals’ Association president Geoff Scott said schools across NSW were deeply worried about the trend of putting young children on powerful stimulants such as Ritalin.

“It’s a fact that prescriptions have escalated in recent years. Schools see this as a major problem . . . it’s too easy to prescribe medication rather than improve parenting skills,” he said.

“Parents are saying children – and it is mostly boys – are badly behaved at home and the school is saying the same, they are going to see the paediatrician and then popping some pills.” …

The principals’ criticism came as parents contacted The Daily Telegraph and talkback radio to accuse teachers of suggesting to parents that their children had ADHD and should be on Ritalin…

“If you have concerns about your child’s behaviour you should set up good discipline, look at nutritional issues and ensure your child has a good breakfast. Lock all of that in before making any diagnosis (of ADHD)…” …

Source: Daily Telegraph
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21631995-5001021,00.html

I never thought any charity could be so irresponsible as Alcohol Concern was today in suggesting that parents should be banned from letting their children drink at home. It amounts to punishing parents for giving their children one of the most important lessons you can have in life, learning to cope with a potentially dangerous but wonderfully enjoyable drug. Thank goodness the outcry has been quick and strong, but I want to add to it, for we all need to stand up to the creeping progress of the Just Say No meme…

… The last thing we need is a war on drink to add to the war on drugs. The result wouldn’t be a decrease alcohol abuse but - as has happened with so many other drugs - an increase. We should encourage all the best in good parenting, be thankful that so many parents do teach their children how to use alcohol safely, and help others to do the same, not make the very best practice actually illegal.

Source: Guardian Unlimited
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sue_blackmore/2007/04/dont_just_say_no.html

The Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) has completed a ground-breaking study on the feasibility of creating Kindergarten programs for four year-old youngsters. The programs would focus on the child’s educational development rather than on simple child care, as day-care centres tend to do. A number of programs funded by the Ministère de l’Education, du Loisir et du Sport, operate currently, as do some community-initiated projects within the nine English school boards. The QESBA proposal goes much further.

“We are taking the ambitious step of inviting our school boards and, ultimately, the Ministry and all Quebecers to begin a serious public discussion about getting our kids started in school at four years-old,” said QESBA President Marcus Tabachnick. “The evidence is there: high-quality pre-Kindergarten programs have important and lasting effects on children’s development and success in school and beyond. I have heard of studies in the United States suggesting that for every dollar invested in children in these programs, eight dollars will be saved down the line in services otherwise required to address academic and behavioral difficulties. We’ve put together a feasibility study to instigate some activity on the subject, and we hope it will get things moving.” …

Source: CNW Group
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/April2007/27/c2329.html

Effective literacy programs that target both adults and children can have profound effects on the health and well-being of families, according to a panel of educators and analysts…

The doctors, nurses and public health workers who administer Reach Out and Read “give parents advice about how important it is to read to their young children,” she said. “We give the child a book to take home at every visit. We start when the children are only 6 months old, and we continue until they are 5 years old and ready to start school.”

It is widely recognized that children develop literacy skills long before they learn to read, just as they develop language skills before they begin to speak…

Klass cited the concepts of mother/child literacy and also literacy and health as “very important in the work that we do with young children and their families and with health care workers.” Reach Out and Read encourages parents to read aloud to their children “so that children grow up with books and a love of reading,” she explained. “Health care providers … have a remarkable opportunity to reach parents when their children are very young.” …

Source: USINFO.STATE.GOV
http://tinyurl.com/ywr29u