Given children no longer play unsupervised any more, is it time we started to grow them in hothouses like plants?

That way it will be easier to keep them fed and watered - all safely under the one roof and doting parents can watch them flourish via CCTV.

Playing a game of street cricket or, god forbid, climbing a tree in a suburban park are childhood joys as extinct these days as the Tasmanian tiger.

To some, letting your kids play outside is considered a sign of neglect.

While animal rights activists rant about the physical, cognitive and social problems other species suffer as a result of being bred in captivity, few seem fussed that’s how we now raise our children.

So it was with great delight to read the latest book by one of the world’s most respected writers and thinkers on childhood, whose work focuses on schoolyard behaviour and children’s play.

A former adviser to the British government, Tim Gill believes children have the potential to be more resilient, capable, creative and able to learn than we give them credit for.

Yet their lives are becoming ever more scheduled, controlled and directed.

In his book No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society, Gill said children needed to be teased and called names so they can toughen up. I’m sure this will shock many parents.

He also says the level of playground bullying is being exaggerated and teachers and parents are over-reacting to it and over-intervening…

“Activities and experiences that previous generations enjoyed without a second thought have been relabelled as troubling or dangerous, while adults who still permit them are branded as irresponsible.” …

“Children are not always nice to each other, but people are not always nice to each other. The world is not like that. But what we are left with is a generation of bubblewrap children who will be unable to cope with similar squabbles in adult life.” …

Source: NEWS.com.au, Australia
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22675144-5007146,00.html

As Halloween approaches, the latest research into fear suggests that the neurological systems in our brains that are stimulated by fear are the same as those associated with pleasure. So while you’re watching Saw IV or playing Resident Evil, you get the gratification of real fear without any of the danger.

Scientists say that while watching a scary movie, or playing popular games like Bioshock and Dementium, information runs from your eyes and ears to an almond-shaped clump of neurons called the amygdala. Located front-and-center in your brain, the amygdala has long been understood as vital to instantaneous emotional processing, especially of love and pleasure…

So as the zombie breaks through the door or the murderer leaps from the closet, your amygdala gets juiced just as it would by a home run in the bottom of the ninth, unleashing a brain- and body-energizing cocktail of hormones. But while this is happening, information also travels to your prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for consciously evaluating danger. It tells you that the movie is just a movie…

Scientists also admit that the focus on basic neurobiology doesn’t explain other aspects of pleasurable fear. As Ressler noted, experiencing fear and coming out unscathed is itself satisfying — an observation that stems more from psychology than neuroscience.

Psychologists say that watching scary movies is a way of testing and overcoming our limitations, similar to bungee jumping and other extreme sports.

“That could be why scary movies and games are so popular with children. They’re at a point in their lives when they’re testing their boundaries,” said Kansas State University psychologist Leon Rappoport. “By the time they get to college age or later, they’ve had enough of them. Their development proceeds in more substantial directions.” …

Source: Wired News
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/10/fear_neurology

If you’re a parent, would you like it if your kid’s school gave you a grade on your child’s performance? Or if you had to fill out a form asking questions about how well you were preparing your kids for school?

In an effort to forge better communication between teachers and parents, some schools are sending parent report cards home to identify kids that are slipping through the cracks and need extra attention both at school and at home…

If a teacher notices that a kid isn’t doing their homework or doesn’t seem to be properly prepared for school, call the kid’s parents. Make sure the parents are showing up for parent-teacher conferences. Do the usual things to make sure the parents are involved. But sending home a checklist to ask if their kids are properly fed before they come to school? I don’t think that makes a lot of sense.

To be sure, the school administrators in Manchester shouldn’t be faulted for taking an interest in their students. But it seems like there’s a lot of wasted effort and energy in sending checklists for parents to fill out to defend their parenting skills.

Would it take much time for parents to fill out? Probably not. But the parents who have kids that need extra attention probably aren’t going to fill out those checklists anyway. And if the teachers and administrators aren’t seeing the warning signs of kids falling through the cracks, then they aren’t doing their jobs.

Source: MSNBC
http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/10/30/437321.aspx

Quite a lot - according to teachers in a recent survey commissioned by The Innovation Unit and carried out by researchers at the University of Bristol.

Although current teacher training programmes generally omit the science of how we learn, an overwhelming number of the teachers surveyed felt neuroscience could make an important contribution in key educational areas. The research was undertaken to inform a series of seminars between educationalists and neuroscientists organised by the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Dr Sue Pickering and Dr Paul Howard-Jones, at Bristol University’s Graduate School of Education, asked teachers and other education professionals whether they thought it was important to consider the workings of the brain in educational practice. Around 87 per cent of respondents felt it was. Teachers considered both mainstream and special educational teaching could benefit from the neuroscientific insights emerging from modern scanning techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)…

Dr Paul Howard-Jones, who is leading several research initiatives in this area and co-author of the report, said: “Much of what teachers perceive as brain-based teaching, such as educational kinesiology, is promoted in very dubious pseudo-scientific terms and we still don’t really know how, and even if, it works.

“Other programmes, such as those involving learning styles, draw on some meaningful science but, when children get labelled as “a visual learner” or “an auditory learner” and are only ever taught in either a visual or auditory way, then the science is being seriously over-interpreted and misapplied. The good news, however, is that efforts to bridge the gap between neuroscience and education are debunking many of these ideas, and opening up fresh opportunities for valuable and exciting initiatives that are both scientifically and educationally sound.” …

Source: News-Medical.net, Australia
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=31858

Children should be screened for autism twice by the time they are two years old to look for symptoms such as babies who don’t babble at nine months and one-year-olds who don’t point to toys.

That’s the advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics in two reports the group presented at its annual meeting in San Francisco Monday.

The advice is meant to help both parents and doctors spot autism sooner so that therapy can begin as soon as possible. While there is no cure for autism, experts say early therapy can lessen its severity.

The reports list numerous warning signs that are absolute indications for immediate evaluation. They include:

* no babbling or pointing or other gesture by 12 months;
* no single words by 16 months;
* no two-word spontaneous phrases by 24 months;
* loss of language or social skills at any age.

Earlier, subtle signs that that could lead to earlier diagnosis include:

* not turning when the parent says the baby’s name;
* not turning to look when the parent points says, “Look at…” and not pointing themselves to show parents an interesting object or event;
* lack of back and forth babbling;
* smiling late; and
* failure to make eye contact with people.

The doctors also want to warn parents that not all children who display a few of the symptoms are autistic. They note that just because a child likes to line up toy cars or likes to repeatedly stroke a favourite stuffed animal doesn’t mean they have the developmental disorder - especially if they’re also interacting socially and also communicating well…

Source: CTV.ca, Canada
http://tinyurl.com/yvrbyu

Trainee psychiatrists are sometimes tempted to prescribe medications not because they are likely to help a patient but because reaching for the prescription pad fills their unconscious need to look “doctorly” and eases their anxiety when they face a challenging situation. At such moments, a senior physician will help the trainee by conveying the medical maxim “Treat the patient, not yourself.” Like new doctors, new parents are also susceptible to letting their anxieties drive them to do something that is allegedly helpful, but in fact may have no benefit: For example, plunking their infants down to watch “brain enrichment” DVD/videos.

“Brainy Baby” and similar DVD/videos are typically promoted with promises that they will help infants learn about shapes, words, patterns and the like. But a recent study of 1,008 parents and children published in the Journal of Pediatrics found that among infants ages 8 to 16 months, the more hours spent watching allegedly educational baby DVDs/videos, the fewer words the infants knew. This pattern held whether infants watched the videos alone, or with their parents.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no media viewing at all before age 2. This cutoff is to some extent arbitrary, as science hasn’t established that anything unique happens in brain development precisely at 24 months versus, say 21 months or 27 months. Later in childhood, research shows, high-quality educational programs such as “Sesame Street” and, yes, “Barney” can facilitate children’s cognitive and language development. But in infancy, staring at the flickering screen does not turn babies into little Einsteins.

Pediatricians continue to debate whether extensive viewing of electronic media actively harms an infant’s rapidly developing brain or whether it’s simply “empty calories” that take away time from more engaging activities that stimulate brain development. However, neither side in the debate thinks that parents should uncritically accept marketing claims made by corporations that produce infant enrichment DVDs/videos.

New parents can liberate themselves from doing something that probably doesn’t really help their infants by figuring out, much like new psychiatric residents, what needs of their own are being served by showing their infants enrichment videos. If it’s the understandable desire for a break now and then, a friend, relative or hired sitter is a better way to give Mom and Dad some rest without turning baby into a couch potato…

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, USA
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/28/CM1OSM6U8.DTL

Women who have children later in life make better mothers, according to a study.

They are more likely than younger counterparts to be financially secure and in stable relationships.

They are also happier to put their jobs on hold because they have already achieved many career goals.

Older mothers also tend to enjoy better health and live longer.

The findings, which appear in a book by Professor Elizabeth Gregory, will be welcomed by the growing numbers of women who are choosing to delay motherhood until well into their 30s.

The average age at which women in Britain are giving birth has slowly risen to 29 while there has been a much sharper increase in the numbers choosing to start families in their late 30s and early 40s…

Professor Gregory, who is director of women’s studies at the University of Houston in Texas, said: “I have found an overwhelming number and range of reasons why what I call the ‘new later mothers’ are absolutely right to delay motherhood.

“For one thing, they have a stronger family focus rather than trying to juggle priorities because they have achieved many of their personal and career goals.

“They also have more financial power because new later mothers have established careers and higher salaries.

And they they have more career experience and their management skills often translate directly into managing a household and advocating for their children.” …

Source: This is London, UK
http://tinyurl.com/2h24eu

I really have nothing against bottles when they are properly used to provide breast milk or formula for infant nutrition. I do encourage parents of both breast- and bottle-fed infants to introduce sippy cups just for practice, soon after the child turns 6 months old. Some pick it up more quickly than others, but eventually all children do learn to drink from a cup.

Infants who drink from bottles should not be put to sleep with them or be given bottles while in bed. Pediatric dentists note that once teeth come in, even unrestricted overnight nursing can lead to problems. It’s unlikely that parents will wipe or brush babies’ teeth after they fall asleep, and this prolonged overnight exposure to “fermentable carbohydrates,” as my dental colleagues like to refer to these sugary liquids, can lead to baby bottle caries or tooth decay.

A good time to get rid of bottles and switch to full-time cup use is around the first birthday when the transition to whole milk is also recommended. Parents can drag this process out a bit longer, but parting with the bottle will not get any easier as the little baby turns into an opinionated toddler. While you can quickly wean an infant off the bottle, toddlers are much like 50-year-old smokers — they usually resist and will need to go cold turkey to break the bottle habit.

Bottles, and sippy cups for that matter, should be used when the older infant or child is seated for a meal. Walking around with bottles or cups filled with any sweet substance, whether it be milk or juice (or pop!), leads to overconsumption of calories and constant exposure of the teeth to sugar…

Toddlers and older children should be offered water between meals. Water is a great thirst quencher, has no calories, doesn’t fill kids up and won’t cause tooth decay.

Source: Chicago Daily Herald, IL
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=65793

In her first interview as head of a government review of video games’ effect on children, TV psychologist Tanya Byron tells David Smith that being a mother will help in her new role

Later, in her first interview about the review since her appointment last month, Byron made clear that, while she is not due to report to Brown until March, she already has strong opinions. She told The Observer why she believes portable games devices should be part of daily schooling, suggests a likely link between violent games and violent behaviour in certain cases, and stresses the need for parents and children to balance virtual world risks as they would real world dangers such as crossing a road or talking to strangers…

Her conversation is refreshingly free of jargon, and her insights are rooted in her own daily experience. ‘I’m a parent like everybody else and I strive to be a good parent,’ she says. ‘I’ll say to my son, “OK, this is the time now. By half past you’ve got to be back downstairs,” and most of the time he nails it, and most of the time I nail it, but some of the time I’m thinking, “Crikey, it’s quarter to, he’s still up there.” That’s the challenge of parenting.

‘He’s nine and tends to use the computer mostly when I’m in the room with him doing my own work, so we have more of a shared space with him. My older child, who’s now 12, keeps a diary, and in the way I wouldn’t read her diary I respect that she’s at the age where she understands more so she has more privacy. I also trust in our relationship that hopefully she can come and talk to me, and she does if she comes across stuff.’ …

‘Children seem to know quite a lot more than we think they do, and they know a lot about the technologies that they’re using. I was with a group of older kids recently in a school and most of them were saying if you’re 14 and you want to go and get drunk with your mates you’re an idiot, if you want to play these games that are just really gross you’re an idiot, if you don’t protect your profile on MySpace and you let anybody see your name and address you’re an idiot. So these are net and game savvy. But there are a lot that aren’t, and they’re more vulnerable because their parents don’t really understand the technologies either.’

‘Balance’ is possibly Byron’s favourite word, and the government can expect a nuanced report sensitive to both sides of an argument. That doesn’t mean it will be bland…

Source: Guardian Unlimited, UK
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,2200641,00.html

In the early 1990s, I was taken aback to overhear my 3-year-old son insisting to his 6-year-old cousin that he went to “ABC school,” not to day care, as she condescendingly referred to it. (He was spending a few sociable hours a week at a children’s center chosen because it was around the corner.) I had no idea where he got that term, or when he decided his educational credentials needed upgrading. And, given that alphabet drills weren’t in fact part of the program, I wasn’t sure what he was really boasting about.

But with universal prekindergarten (UPK) emerging as a campaign issue, it’s now clear to me that he was a kid ahead of his time. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have recently joined a chorus of early-childhood-education advocates, governors, foundations and social activists who have been promoting the cause in notably wonky, rather than warm and cuddly, terms. Calling for an overhaul of the current patchwork of uneven preschool programs, UPK proponents invoke neuroscientific evidence of brain growth rather than child-care needs. They cite the long-term economic benefits of an early investment in boosting “cognitive skills” and “school readiness,” especially for low-income children. There is little mention of, say, pretend play in the pitch for government-subsidized pre-K, which supporters argue should be affordable and available (though not necessarily mandatory) for all.

The hardheaded rhetoric conveys an important message: expanding access to early education is serious business, not baby stuff. The universal-preschool mission, too often dismissed as nanny-state meddling, capitalizes on the inclusive No Child Left Behind drive to close the K-12 achievement gap: the moment is ripe to reach downward to the post-diaper and pre-backpack stage, where disparities between white and minority students start. Yet aligning with an ethos of no-nonsense academics inspires uneasiness among UPK crusaders themselves, as the Berkeley professor Bruce Fuller points out in “Standardized Childhood: The Political and Cultural Struggle Over Early Education.” After all, for your bouncy 4-year-old — “wild and wonderful” is the epithet one classic parenting book applies to the age — how much ABC school do you really want? …

Source: New York Times, United States
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28wwln-lede-t.html?ref=magazine