While the connection between a child’s weight and the amount of sleep that child gets may not be immediately apparent, new research has found a strong correlation between the two.

Sixth-graders who averaged less than 8.5 hours of sleep a night had a 23 percent rate of obesity, while their well-rested peers who averaged more than 9.25 hours of sleep had an obesity rate of just 12 percent, according to a new study.

“We found that children who got less sleep were more likely to be obese,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Julie Lumeng, an assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan Center for Human Growth and Development…

Lumeng said there are three likely reasons why sleep might affect weight. First, if children don’t get enough sleep at night, they’ll be less likely to run around and get exercise during the day. Second, when kids are tired, they’re more irritable and may reach for junk food to help regulate their mood. And, finally, what Lumeng called a “hot area for future research” is the possible connection between sleep and fat metabolism. She said there have been studies done with adults that have shown that a lack of sleep may disrupt the secretion of hormones involved in appetite and metabolism, such as leptin and insulin…

Both Lumeng and Sheldon recommended trying to keep a consistent sleep schedule. Bedtimes and wake times are both important - for children and adults. Sheldon said it’s usually OK to vary your sleep times a little bit on the weekend, about an hour or so, but, he cautioned, “Letting you child sleep till noon or mid-afternoon is inviting trouble.”

Lumeng also recommended that children not have a TV in their bedroom, because it can make it more difficult to fall asleep.

Source: CBC News, Canada
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/HealthScout/071114/6111417AU.html

Family conditions seem to affect when young women reach puberty

For many young girls, a stable family life is one key factor to avoiding a number of serious health problems. New research by researchers at The University of Arizona and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, indicates that girls who grow up with supportive parents who themselves have a strong relationship are more likely to delay the onset of puberty…

Early puberty in girls is already known as a risk factor for a variety of health problems, including mood disorders, substance abuse, adolescent pregnancy and cancers of the reproductive system. Understanding these risks are also essential as a means to develop effective early intervention and prevention strategies.

Ellis and Essex based their study on a 1991 model developed by noted psychologist Jay Belsky and his colleagues of the role of family ecology in speeding up or slowing down puberty in girls. Belsky’s theory is that children’s early experiences affect how they mature. Certain stressors in and around the family create conditions that speed puberty as well as sexual activity. These stressors include poverty, marital conflict, negativity and coercion in parent-child relationships, and lack of support between parents and children. According to Belsky’s theory, children adaptively adjust their sexual development in response to the conditions in which they live…

The results of the study show that children living in families with greater parental supportiveness, from both mothers and fathers, less marital conflict and less depression reported by the fathers experienced the first hormonal changes of puberty later than other children. In addition, children whose mothers had started puberty later (a genetic factor), whose families were better off when the children were in preschool, whose mothers gave them more support when they were in preschool and who had lower Body Mass Index when they were in third grade developed secondary sexual characteristics later than their peers.

“Consistent with the theory, quality of parental investment emerged as a central feature of the proximal family environment in relation to the timing of puberty,” Ellis said…

Source: EurekAlert, DC
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/uoa-gwb110707.php

Children who arrive at school knowing letters and numbers do better

Children who start kindergarten with a basic grasp of numbers and the written word are the most likely to shine through elementary school, regardless of whether they start out with behavioural problems, says a new international study.

It’s believed to be the first major endeavour of its kind to show it’s what you know, not how you act, that determines success in the early grades.

Twelve university professors from the United States, Britain and Canada pieced together data from six studies, collectively tracking 36,000 children from kindergarten to age 13.

The study found that mastering informal math concepts –such as understanding that five pieces of chocolate are more than three pieces and subtracting two teddy bears from four leaves two — matter the most in predicting later success in school.

Language and pre-reading skills, such as understanding phonetics, recognizing letters and perhaps even simple words, are also important, but not as much as grasping rudimentary math concepts. The ability to concentrate while completing a task also had an effect on later success.

“The gold winner was the pre-math skills, the silver was reading, and the bronze was attention-related skills,”said Linda Pagani, a professor at University of Montreal’s school of psycho-education and one of the study’s authors.

The findings are published in the November issue of Developmental Psychology, a journal of the American Psychological Association.

The researchers also discovered, to their surprise, that difficulty getting along with classmates, or being aggressive, disruptive, sad, or withdrawn, did not detract from future success.

“We often think that early math and reading skills are important for later school success, but we also talk about behaviour skills and social skills,” said author Amy Claessens, a professor at Northwestern University.

Judith Bernhard, a professor of early childhood studies at Ryerson University in Toronto, said that economically advantaged children are the ones who are most likely to show up with pre-reading and math skills because they’re the ones who are most likely to have the benefit of preschool or have lots of books at home.

Source: The Province, Canada
http://tinyurl.com/2rlay8

There has been a recent flurry of news stories on “dropout factories” — high schools where no more than 60 percent students who start as freshmen stay in school through their senior year.

One in 10 American high schools could qualify for that label.

Questions abound. What’s happening in our classrooms? Why aren’t our children motivated? How is it that they are underperforming, and lack the incentive to stay in school?

Some say the government is failing kids, that there should be more programs to help boost learning skills. Others say society is asking too much from underfunded, overcrowded schools and from teachers who are underpaid and overworked.

While this may be true in some instances, for the real answers we must look closer to home.

Much closer.

It’s uncomfortable, but true: Parents must take responsibility for their children’s performance, and kids have to step up and take responsibility too.

Kids who struggle in school need parents who will be there to help seek out solutions: tutoring, homework help, specialized services that can help their child do the best work he or she can. No one knows a child better than his parent; no teacher can have the same influence a parent can…

Source: Journal and Courier, IN
http://tinyurl.com/3yz8hm

Childhood is full of truths and myths, some of them perpetuated by moms to get something done, but learning to read as soon as possible really can help students do better in English 101.

Earlier this year, in an effort to enhance student performance, the Utah Legislature passed a plan that made optional extended-day kindergarten available to more schools. Many Title I schools, which receive additional funds based on the number of students receiving free and reduced-cost lunch, already had the program.

“My kids love it. The first couple weeks were hard for them,” said Ashley Backman, the all-day kindergarten teacher at Sunset View Elementary in Provo. “They love being here, and when we don’t have school they hate it.”

The goal of extended-day kindergarten is to promote literacy and give students extra help so they will be better prepared for first grade.

“Our goal is for these kids to be on grade-level,” Backman said.

Backman said she is always working to get her students ready to read, “constantly working on the alphabet and letters.”

Early childhood literacy prepares students well beyond elementary school, said David Doty, an assistant state commissioner of higher education who also co-chaired the state’s task force on minority and disadvantaged students.

“The theory is that the earlier you can get children reading and proficient with literacy, the better off they’re going to do down the road throughout their academic career,” Doty said. “The foundation of all success is their ability to be a proficient reader and writer.” …

Source: Daily Herald, UT
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/243287/

An educational study unprecedented in scope finds that children who enter kindergarten with elementary mathematics and reading skills are the most likely to experience later academic success — whether or not they have social or emotional problems.

“We find the single most important factor in predicting later academic achievement is that children begin school with a mastery of early math and literacy concepts,” said Northwestern University researcher Greg Duncan and the study’s primary author. Attention-related skills, though more modestly, also consistently predict achievement.

But it is the seeming lack of association between social and emotional behaviors and later academic learning that most surprised the researchers — a lack of association as true for boys as for girls and as true for children from affluent families as for those from less affluent families.

“Children who engage in aggressive or disruptive behavior or who have difficulty making friends wind up learning just as much as their better behaved or more socially adjusted classmates provided that they come to school with academic skills,” said Northwestern’s Duncan. “We do not know if their behavior affects the achievement of other children.”

Appearing in the November issue of Developmental Psychology, the study findings are based on an analysis of existing data from more than 35,000 preschoolers in the United States, Canada and England.

“The paramount importance of early math skills — of beginning school with a knowledge of numbers, number order and other rudimentary math concepts — is one of the puzzles coming out of the study,” said Duncan, Northwestern’s Tarry Professor of Education and Social Policy and a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research.

Controlling for IQ, family income, gender, temperament, type of previous educational experience, and whether children came from single or two parent families, the study found that the mastery of early math concepts on school entry was the very strongest predictor of future academic success.

“Mastery of early math skills predicts not only future math achievement, it also predicts future reading achievement,” Duncan said. “And it does so just as reliably as early literacy mastery of vocabulary, letters and phonetics predicts later reading success.” The opposite — reading skills predicting math success — does not hold up…

Source: EurekAlert, DC
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/nu-eas110907.php

Scientists have found that the brain development of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is delayed but otherwise typical, according to a new study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Comparing brain scans of children aged 6 to 16 who had the common psychiatric disorder with scans of those who did not, researchers found that some areas in the ADHD brain — particularly those involved in thinking, attention and planning — matured an average of three years later than “healthy” brains, but otherwise followed normal patterns of development.

The results, which were published today in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), offer new insight into why kids usually seem to outgrow their ADHD, says Dr. Philip Shaw, who led the research team at the Child Psychiatry Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). “It doesn’t mean we can just sit back and do nothing,” Shaw says, but the findings complement “what psychiatrists have been telling parents for years,” that most kids with ADHD do get better…

Aside from the timing of maturation, the brains of children with ADHD appear to develop the same way typical brains do, from back to front. “Do [kids with ADHD] have basically have the same sequence of brain development? That’s a yes,” says Shaw. “Do they completely catch up with other kids? That’s what we’re looking at now.” …

Though the new study may eventually help scientists identify why ADHD causes the brain to develop slower and how kids can get better sooner, Shaw says it won’t help doctors diagnose the disorder today. ADHD diagnoses still have to made through clinical evaluations, and for now, treatment still means the widely used psycho-stimulant drugs, like Ritalin, and behavioral therapy.

As doctors continue learning about the ADHD brain, however, more and more alternative treatments, such as attention training and psychotherapy, are gaining traction. Research shows that the brain is not static — that it can physically change with experience. Studies reveal that the brains of some piano players, for instance, are more developed in the areas responsible for finger movement, while in the brains of people who have practiced meditation long-term, the attention centers are physically larger than average…

Source: TIME
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1683069,00.html

Results of a new study find that over the long haul, ADHD drugs are inneffective.

Furthermore the study states that the drugs are no better at treating children with ADHD after a 3 year period than is traditional therapy.

Over the last half a decade, the prescribing and usage of ADHD drugs has soared to the point of unseen heights, due to many health professionals believing the drugs to be a cure for all sorts of bad behavior.

In actual fact, these drugs are not only inneffective, but they can also stunt your child’s development.

Professor William Pelham, University of Buffalo, USA, believes that it is vital to educate parents of the risks associated with putting their children on certain ADHD drugs.

Pelham said “In the short run they will help the child behave better, in the long run it won’t. And that information should be made very clear to parents.” …

Source: Dog Flu Diet and Diseases, Canada
http://www.dogflu.ca/11122007/08/adhd_drugs_proven_inneffective

Our ideas about how to influence and respond to authority are largely a result of what we learned as children through our family upbringing. As adults in the workplace, we tend to recreate and respond in the fashion we were taught in early childhood.

Recall a recent workplace conflict and the part you played — what did you do or say? Did you avoid, blame, yell or threaten, acquiesce, compromise or work out a win-win solution? Now compare this with the family “rules” around conflict you learned as a child. Most people can recognize that their workplace conflict pattern stems from their family of origin.

We bring these lessons and patterns with us into the workplace. The first group we ever belonged to was our family. Our parents were our first “bosses.” How we relate and respond to a workplace “boss” is largely habituated from our own parental experiences. Common struggles with workplace power and authority (asking for a raise or challenging your boss) are likely connected to early childhood “interpretations” and experiences with authority. For example, some grew up with the message that it was not OK to challenge authority, with strong parental messages like, “Do what I say,” or, “You can sit there all night until those peas are gone!” or, “Don’t argue with me!” As adults, they may be reticent to tell the boss bad news, ask for what they want, disagree or give challenging feedback. As children, they learned it wasn’t OK to challenge authority…

… Our brains are “hard-wired” for how we react emotionally — our early childhood experiences determine how neural pathways are established. As adults, we react emotionally when something happens that causes these childhood neural pathways to “fire.” For example, if as a baby you experienced a parent as loud and frightening, you likely react with a conditioned fear response to a boss yelling. Perhaps you got the message as a child you were never “good enough;” then you may have intense reactions of sadness or anger when you hear disapproval in the workplace…

Most of us react to words or behaviors of others that get under our skin. For the sake of future workplace relationships and your career, identify and learn to recognize your hot buttons.

The primary reason for career derailment is a lack of emotional intelligence. The good news: It is possible to rewire your brain’s neural firing patterns. The bad news: It isn’t easy. It takes great attention, support and practice to learn to rewire new behaviors…

Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/339218_workcoach12.html

Parenting is fulfilling, but the financial burden can be overwhelming—and then there’s the crimp it puts in your leisure time

In her 1994 book Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children, Princeton University sociology professor Viviana Zelizer describes how in the 19th century, children were “economic assets” that contributed to farm work and other important tasks. Then, during the early 20th century, the U.S. established laws removing many children from hard labor, sparking the “rise of the economically useless and emotionally priceless child,” Zelizer says.

“As children have become less of an economic issue and people have fewer children and wait longer to have them, children have become precious, not in a economic sense but in an emotional sense,” says Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families & Work Institute, a nonprofit research organization in New York and author of Ask the Children: What America’s Children Really Think About Working Parents. “Having children is a meaningful thing to do in life—it’s not just passing on a legacy.” …

Parents are invested in children emotionally by being more involved in their lives, Galinsky says. There’s also hope that children will return the care when their parents are older and need assistance. “There’s much more interdependence now,” she says. “You’re investing in your own future relationship.”

All of that sounds nice, but what’s it going to cost me? The Agriculture Dept.’s latest survey found that households in the top-third income bracket (with average pretax income of $118,200) will spend $289,380 by their child’s 18th birthday—or about $17,000 a year (in 2006 dollars)…

Indeed, the USDA survey is probably understating the cost of raising kids. Considering extras like sports equipment, summer camps, private school, Disney vacations, and a full-time nanny, raising a child through age 17 could cost $1 million or more. Some parents throw extravagant birthday parties and won’t hesitate to buy their kids the latest video games and cell phones and splurge on Spanish and painting lessons…

Along with college, the USDA report doesn’t count “indirect” costs such as leaving the workforce to care for a child. &quotStudies have estimated that indirect costs, such as foregone earnings, oftentimes exceed direct costs, especially if one parent has to drop out of the workforce,” says Fino at the USDA. “Many parents forgo promotions to spend more time with their children.” …

The problem, experts say, is that U.S. lawmakers and corporations aren’t addressing many of the challenges facing families. Longman points to the continuing culture wars between work and family: “Everyone who wants to may join the paid labor force, but almost no one gets a family wage or enough help from government to defray the costs of raising children.” He figures the critical moment will emerge during the next decade, “as millions of Baby Boomers start crashing past the boundaries of old age, and as today’s teenagers find themselves saddled with massive student loans, rising taxes, and growing frustration over the difficulty of forming or affording a family.” …

Source: BusinessWeek
http://tinyurl.com/3cqr6r