Sometimes, even the most bitter moral debates evaporate overnight. In what might be thought of as a sudden, large exhalation of ideological hot air, scientists announced last week that they had solved the quandary of how to exploit the extraordinary potential of human stem cell research without using – and destroying – live human embryos.

In America, where concern about ethical manipulation of human life is mercifully greater than in Britain or Asia, the debate was transformed overnight. Or more to the point, the debate ended…

What struck me was how common this phenomenon is becoming. Increasingly science seems both to plunge us into irresolvable ethical quandaries only to rescue us shortly thereafter. Trade-offs of all sorts – moral, ethical and economic – that were once hard to fudge are increasingly rendered moot by technological or scientific advance…

We’ve seen this happen already in other areas. The eternal human trade-off between sexual pleasure and sexual morality was transformed by contraceptive technology in the 1960s. The biggest restraint on female sexual freedom for millenniums, after all, was always the risk of pregnancy, combined with the risk of childbirth.

Dramatically lowering those risks with the pill and medical science did not abolish the moral debate about when sex is legit; but it rendered it practically moot for vast numbers of women. Technology saved them from a debate that had defined them for ever.

On the other side of the procreative cycle, science’s advance keeps changing the debate over abortion. On the one hand, the increasing technological sophistication of methods of keeping foetuses alive outside the womb has intensified awareness of the preciousness of human life at all stages. Ditto the emotional power of seeing your child in early development on a blurry printout.

On the other hand, new technologies such as RU-486 and other emergency postcoital contraceptives have rendered legislative and collective responses to abortion increasingly irrele-vant. Passing laws to criminalise abortion doctors becomes much less salient when very early embryonic and foetal development can be halted within the privacy of your own bathroom without any doctor intervening at all…

People respond to shifting costs and benefits of any given behaviour – and technology is the biggest factor in those shifts. In many ways, sexual liberation of the past half-century should be seen less as a function of a changed moral climate than the simple consequence of humans responding to a technological revolution, allowing moral choices that were once fatal to become close to banal…

Genetics and neuroscience will also transform our worlds in complicating ways by making what is currently deniable all too transparent. And so we will soon find out for a fact whether there are measurable, genetic differences in IQ between different ethnic groups or how exactly men differ from women; health insurance companies will discover if their customers are predisposed to particular illnesses; we may live in the knowledge of diseases likely to kill us that affect the moral choices we make in life. All these lovely things await us.

But increasingly, the pace of expansion in human knowledge also provides unexpected technological palliatives to seemingly intractable dilemmas. As we wrestle with moral and political arguments, scientists increasingly hover around us, constantly poised to make some discovery that renders our frenzied debates suddenly moot. It just happened last week. May it happen again and again.

Source: Times Online, UK
http://tinyurl.com/262jpf

Boys brought up by their fathers during their early years are less well prepared for school, claims a Bristol University study.

The controversial finding comes as more men are taking on childcare responsibilities and schools, politicians and newspaper pundits are united in urging fathers to get more involved in their children’s upbringing.

After looking at the early childcare experiences of over 6,000 children born in the Bristol area in the early 1990s who lived at least their early lives in a household with both parents, Elizabeth Washbrook concludes that some fathers appear not to provide the same quality of intellectual stimulation to their young sons as the children’s mothers do.

Washbrook says there is “robust” evidence that boys who spent at least 15 hours a week in their fathers’ care as toddlers perform worse on academic assessments when they start school, she reports in the latest issue of the journal Research in Public Policy…

She speculates that when in charge, fathers may be more inclined to see their job as monitoring the child and seeing to their physical needs, and be less inclined to devise creative activities that develop the child’s intellectual skills.

But why do girls seem immune to the ill-effects of being looked after by dad? Washbrook says fathers may interact differently with sons and daughters, or daughters may simply be less sensitive to the degree of cognitive stimulation in the home environment…

To her surprise Washbrook found no significant effects on children of paternal involvement in childcare in the first year of life – she had expected breastfeeding and the formation of mother-infant attachments to be of key importance in this very early period.

“Rather, it is when children pass their first birthdays - and presumably become more sensitive to the nature of their environments - that parenting differences between mothers and fathers start to matter,” she adds…

Source: Guardian Unlimited, UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/nov/23/children.schools

Children’s lives are becoming increasingly “scholarised” as parents come under pressure to turn the home into an extension of school, a major report on primary education has found.

Teachers have cut back on play-times and ministers want children to spend more time at after-school and breakfast clubs, doing their homework or taking part in sport or drama.

The study, published by Cambridge University, warned that children were likely to fight such attempts by adults to control their activities “at all times” - even during their free time at home. The research by Berry Mayall, from London’s Institute of Education, forms part of the Cambridge-based Primary Review, the biggest inquiry into primary education for decades.

The report said: “English children attend school for six hours a day and are also asked to do homework for school, even in the first years of primary schooling. Children’s time outside formal schooling is increasingly spent under adult supervision in environments which can be described as ‘more school’.

“Thus in order to facilitate mothers’ paid work, more children now spend time in ‘breakfast clubs’ and in after-school care centres. This expansion can be understood as part of a general move to ensure that children are supervised by adults at all times; and that their activities are controlled by adults.

“Parents have an important function in helping their children to have some free time.”

The report followed repeated calls from ministers for parents to take a greater interest in their children’s education.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls recently suggested that all parents should spend 10 minutes a day reading stories to their children, and buy more books as Christmas presents…

Source: The Press Association
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jbU6NEWpi_7O9G7SuhmDXULFNnDg

Babies are good judges of character long before they learn to speak, according to a new study. Infants as young as six months preferred characters which helped rather than hindered others in a simple puppet show.

Researchers say the findings reveal that humans begin making social evaluations far earlier than previously thought.

“This is the very first experiment in anywhere near this age that shows babies develop preferences for individuals based on their actions,” says Karen Wynn at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, US, who led the study…

Wynn notes that earlier studies have shown that babies have shown a preference for beautiful faces.

She believes the results from her study indicate that babies have a preference for helpful individuals about a year earlier than previously thought. “They are an unbiased third party and they are not at all shy about rendering a judgement on social actions,” she says, adding that this tendency appears early in development because it is a strongly advantageous trait later in life…

Source: New Scientist, UK
http://tinyurl.com/2rwwsc

We are humans, and this species has a lot to be grateful for.

The first real human trait was bipedalism, walking on two legs, which appeared more than 4.5 million years ago. No one knows why we became bipedal, but walking upright allows us not only to cover a lot of ground in an efficient way; it also allows us to carry things, like shopping bags and purses, or a cooked turkey on a platter.

We also have very large and complex brains. All primates are pretty well endowed in this arena, but humans have the biggest brains of all in relation to body size. Although we might focus on some of the negative aspects of braininess—remembering embarrassing moments in the past, self-consciously wondering if our hair looks dumb, pondering death a little bit too much—all in all, being smart has got to be a good thing. It allows humans to solve problems, enjoy a good book and invent things to do with miniature marshmallows…

Humans also share with other primates a penchant for socializing. Monkeys spend hours grooming each other and humans spend hours talking about each other, mostly behind each other’s backs.

All primates also display complex layers of social relationships. We make strategic alliances with those around us, establish close friendships that are critical for survival and depend on kin, especially to bring the cranberry sauce.

We primates also have the same sort of kids—ones that are born dependent on their elders and stay that way for years. This might not always seem like something to be grateful for, from the parents’ point of view, but it also means human parents get to hold our babies, cuddle with them and try all sorts of funny faces to make them smile. Since primate kids can’t forage well on their own, parents also get to feed them interesting things such as mash potatoes with gravy and pumpkin pie, and see how it looks sliding down the walls.

Of course, we share another particular parenting trait with lots of other animals that, I’m sure, would like to join us in saying, “Thanks for the mammaries.”

Source: LiveScience.com, NY
http://www.livescience.com/history/071122-hn-thanksgiving.html

Call it kindercramming. These days one of the fastest-growing markets for after-school tutors is preschoolers and kindergartners, whose parents are hoping that if their kids learn to read before first grade, it will ultimately help them get into college and get good jobs. Anxious moms and dads are no longer satisfied with traditional nursery school, which many see as a glorified romper room that focuses too much on learning through play. And of course, after years of Baby Einstein marketing, some parents have become convinced that the more math and reading skills their tots master, the better. Srinivas Rao, a veterinarian in Columbia, Md., began sending his daughter Sanjana to after-school tutoring last summer, shortly before her third birthday. To his delight, he soon found she could not only count the 14 dots on her homework work sheet but also write 14 beside them. “I didn’t think kids could just learn that overnight,” he marvels.

The tutoring industry is marveling too. Franchises geared toward giving toddlers an academic edge are popping up across the country. A few years ago, Sylvan Learning Centers, which operates 1,100 tutoring sites in the U.S., started a pre-K reading program. Around the same time, Kumon, a Japanese company with nearly 1,300 centers in the U.S., launched Junior Kumon to teach kids as young as 3 how to add and read the alphabet. The latest glommer-on: KnowledgePoints, a 60-center franchise based in Lake Oswego, Ore., which last summer began a program for 3- and 4-year-olds.

The toddler-tutoring frenzy may be intensified by a study in the latest issue of Developmental Psychology. Researchers who examined longitudinal data on nearly 36,000 preschoolers in the U.S., Canada and Britain found that the best predictor of success in later school years wasn’t the ability to pay attention or behave in class but was in entering kindergarten with elementary math and reading skills. Experts caution, however, that these findings should not be taken as an endorsement of academic drills for preschoolers. Says the study’s lead author, Greg Duncan, a social-policy expert at Northwestern University: “The kind of skills that matter in affecting later learning are things parents can pretty easily convey to their children in the home.” These include such basics as the knowledge of letters and the order of numbers…

Source: TIME
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1686826,00.html

TV parenting programmes do not provide the best advice to parents worried about bringing up their children, a Government minister has warned.

Beverley Hughes, the minister for children, said mothers and fathers needed parenting classes and face-to-face advice from trained professionals to help them through difficulties.

She was speaking at the launch of the new National Academy for Parenting Practitioners, which will train professionals who work with parents in how to offer support. Ms Hughes said parenting TV shows were often “compulsive” viewing but did not provide the whole answer.

She said: “Parenting programmes make for fascinating television, but for real help that makes a difference, parents need support from someone who is properly trained. That is why the new national academy is going to play such an important role.” …

Ms Hughes continued: “There is a clamour from parents for support with their children, and we want them to know that at some stage while their children are growing up it will be perfectly natural to ask for help.”

Parents can often learn from each other while chatting with other mums and dads informally, she said.

“At the same time, parenting classes can replace some of the informal support that may be missing in today’s society,” she said…

Ms Hughes added: “Fathers and grandfathers are really important. We know that strong father figures are role models that can have a beneficial impact on a child’s development. We need to make sure that when children’s centres and schools talk about parents, they don’t just focus on mothers.”

Source: The Press Association
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hFKZXA25HXMcLTsVh1GS8yjLai9g

Mums too often use food as an emotional tool to reward, bribe, entertain or settle their toddlers, even when they’re not hungry, new research has found.

A study of more than 350 Queensland mothers has revealed that many use food to influence children’s behaviour or mood, and frequently misread babies’ signals.

About 25 per cent of mothers at least sometimes offered food if their child was bored, and around one third when a child was upset or to keep them occupied.

And almost half the mothers at least sometimes used food as a reward for good behaviour, said nutrition researcher Professor Lynne Daniels, from Queensland University of Technology.

“This emotional use of food is not related to hunger and satiety,” Prof Daniels said.

“In fact it is undermining a child’s ability to self-regulate and know to eat when they are hungry and not to eat when they’re not.”

The survey, involving 361 mothers of infants aged 12 to 36 months, concluded that many parents were not aware of, or were not reinforcing, positive eating habits.

“For example, we know children may need to be offered new foods about 10 times or more before they become familiar enough with the food to accept and like it,” she said.

“Only a third of mothers surveyed did this regularly.”

It was also common for mothers to offer food rewards and to encourage children to eat more after the child had signalled that they have had enough…

Previous research has shown that children’s food preferences are well developed by age five, leaving parents a short time to establish positive eating habits for life.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
http://tinyurl.com/2euvl3

The government is about to launch a £30m training academy for professionals in England who work with families with problems.

Ministers aim to make a parenting course available to anyone who wants one, the hope being this will result in fewer children veering into anti-social behaviour.

Any parent knows that the question, “How do you make your child do what you want?” is not so simply answered.

And if your child regularly displays extremely disruptive behaviour you will undoubtedly feel exhausted, defeated and hopeless…

Here is a summary of some of the messages conveyed to parents during the three-hour session:

* However resistant your child is, don’t be reluctant to give commands - children feel safer when they know there are boundaries
* Reduce the number of commands to the necessary ones
* Be clear in your instructions. “Be careful,” for example, is vague
* Give your children a reason to obey. For example: “Once you have tidied up your toys we can read a story together ”
* Warn your children if you are about to expect them to break off from an activity. For example: “When you have finished that drawing, we’ll go to the shops”
* Speak calmly and politely to convey your authority; a whining “Please pick up the towels” is less likely to work, and getting angry should not be necessary

And when none of this works? Ms Verney comforts her class by quoting research which suggests even the best behaved children only obey two out of three commands.

There will be some who feel all this should and does come naturally to a parent. Ms Verney is adamant that assumption is wrong.

“How many of us drive and how many of us took driving lessons? We could have just been handed the keys. I think it’s more effective to go on a course.

“Even people in high-flying jobs go on management training. It doesn’t mean they’re bad at their jobs…

Ultimately the government’s aim is to ensure parenting classes are available to anyone who wants them.

Ministers believe support should be there not just for extreme problems but for any parent who wants a bit of advice.

But there are critics whose message to the government is: “This is none of your business“.

Claire Fox, director of the think tank the Institute of Ideas, believes generally parents know best and when they do not she insists the state does not know better.

The institute brings together parents who are interested in the politics around the family. One member of that forum is Jennie Bristow who is mother to a one-year-old and a three-year-old.

“Parenting isn’t a skill that can be taught and learnt, it is an emotional spontaneous relationship that develops between parents and children in a very private context in the home and should be left that way,” she said.

“I also think that parenting classes are based on a very arrogant assumption that someone with a degree in child development is better placed than you are to tell you how to bring up your own child.

“I don’t think that is true and I think it represents a very dangerous attempt for the authorities to get into the most intimate areas of our family life.” …

Source: BBC News, UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7104376.stm

Harry Potter, James Patterson and Oprah Winfrey’s book club aside, Americans — particularly young Americans — appear to be reading less for fun, and as that happens, their reading test scores are declining. At the same time, performance in other academic disciplines like math and science is dipping for students whose access to books is limited, and employers are rating workers deficient in basic writing skills.

That is the message of a new report being released today by the National Endowment for the Arts, based on an analysis of data from about two dozen studies from the federal Education and Labor Departments and the Census Bureau as well as other academic, foundation and business surveys…

In his preface to the new 99-page report Dana Gioia, chairman of the endowment, described the data as “simple, consistent and alarming.”

Among the findings is that although reading scores among elementary school students have been improving, scores are flat among middle school students and slightly declining among high school seniors. These trends are concurrent with a falloff in daily pleasure reading among young people as they progress from elementary to high school, a drop that appears to continue once they enter college. The data also showed that students who read for fun nearly every day performed better on reading tests than those who reported reading never or hardly at all.

The study also examined results from reading tests administered to adults and found a similar trend: The percentage of adults who are proficient in reading prose has fallen at the same time that the proportion of people who read regularly for pleasure has declined…

In seeking to detail the consequences of a decline in reading, the study showed that reading appeared to correlate with other academic achievement. In examining the average 2005 math scores of 12th graders who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books, an analysis of federal Education Department statistics found that those students scored much lower than those who lived in homes with more than 100 books. Although some of those results could be attributed to income gaps, Mr. Iyengar noted that students who lived in homes with more than 100 books but whose parents only completed high school scored higher on math tests than those students whose parents held college degrees (and were therefore likely to earn higher incomes) but who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books…

Source: New York Times, United States
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/arts/19nea.html