(…) This year, Read Across America Day will be celebrated on March 3, with more than 45 million participating from coast to coast.

NEA’s Read Across America offers the following tips to encourage children to read:

• Start Early. Begin sharing books with children during infancy, even as young as 6 weeks old. Also, encourage young children to talk about favorite books and to add new story lines and endings to stories they already know.

• Speak Up. Children who report that their parents encourage them to read are more likely to read a higher volume of books than those who say that their parents leave it up to them.

• Stock Up. Have a supply of newspapers, magazines and books around the house to persuade children to read instead of turning on the television or playing a video game.

• Build Skills. When you read aloud, stop to discuss unfamiliar words and pause to ask questions to help your child predict what is coming next. Ask children about characters in stories and why characters might act the way they do.

• Create Habits. Make reading a daily exercise, and set and reward reading goals. Build enthusiasm by providing a special treat when a reading target is reached. Positive reinforcement can help boost motivation. (…)

Source: North American Press Syndicate, NY
http://www.napsnet.com/lastweek/57224.html

Childhood obesity is a growing epidemic, and as many as 1 in 5 children are overweight. Many factors affect children’s weight, including genetics, level of activity and emotional wellbeing. Most parents are well aware of this, but many don’t realize that their overall style of parenting also appears to correlate with obesity in their child.

Today’s parents work hard to be loving, kind and pleasant moms and dads. But many parents don’t practice enough “tough love,” and don’t place many demands or expectations on their children. (By demands I mean expecting them to behave properly, be polite, avoid having tantrums, entertain themselves at times and tolerate some frustration.)

The demand-free style of parenting is called “permissive.” If you think you are a permissive parent, watch out: Though you may be warm and loving, you are not teaching your child to manage his or her desires and wishes — in other words, your child is not learning to tolerate the idea people don’t always get what they want when they want it.

This style of parenting correlates with childhood obesity, but so do other styles. On the opposite end of the parenting style spectrum, an authoritarian style (having high demands for self-control but without being warm or loving) and a neglectful style (having few expectations for self-control but also not being warm or loving) also correlate more highly with kids being overweight.

So what’s the healthiest style of parenting, then? It’s something called authoritative parenting (not to be confused with authoritarian, explained above). In this school of parenting, moms and dads expect their children to exhibit self-control, but at the same time, remain warm and loving towards them. This method is the only style not linked to weight issues in children, and it also helps kids develop the ability to manage self-control and frustration (which as you can imagine helps in many areas of life).

Many parents think they can be “friends” with their child and are therefore adverse to having conflict with their child. If that sounds like you, consider that you are ultimately doing both of you a disservice. Kids need clear limits and they benefit from being taught how to manage their desires and wishes. When these limits are placed in an environment that also says “ I really love and value you,” then you have a recipe for an adult who will be able to exert self-control and not suffer too much in the process.

Eating behavior is very emotionally charged and equipping your child with his or her own inner voice that says, “I can’t eat more of that” or “I really shouldn’t have that junk food, and I can find another way to soothe myself” will help prevent them from being overweight as adults. Childhood obesity is becoming a serious national health crisis — help your child to be happy and healthy by setting limits and telling them you know they can do it.

Source: MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22668242/

Researchers from the Department of Pediatrics of the University of Granada, in collaboration with another 38 universities and companies from 16 European countries, will study the effects of children’s nutrition on the onset of cardiovascular problems, diabetes, obesity, allergies, weak bones, neuromotor functioning and children’s behavioural aspects.

The EARNEST project (The Early Nutrition Programming Project) aims to help in the development of policies, information campaigns, documents, guides and recommendations on the nutritional components of children’s food, for the improvement of children’s formulas. It also collaborates in the design of plans preventing and avoiding nutrition effects on the metabolism. (…)

This project aims to answer the question about the extent of nutrition effects of prenatal, postnatal, and infant diets of someone among the current European population in critical periods of development as well as the efficiency of actions preventing and avoiding long, medium and short-term metabolic effects on health. (…)

The researchers hope to find the genetic mechanism of diseases such as diabetes and obesity with this project. “Obesity, a growing global epidemic, begins, partly, during child development –explains professor Campoy Folgoso-. It is known that breastfed children’s growth kinetics differ from those fed with commercial foods. These children easily gain weight and height. Considering these consequences, linked with eating habits, the purpose of this project is to study whether breastfeeding can prevent a later risk of obesity. (…)

Source: HULIQ, NC
http://tinyurl.com/2xayk2

(…) “Four boys are diagnosed as emotionally disturbed to every one girl,” says Michael Gurian, a psychotherapist and author of the The Wonder of Boys. Adolescent boys are four times more likely than girls to commit suicide.

Boys bear brunt of absent father

Little girls doubtless miss absent or indifferent fathers profoundly too, but the weight of growing up fatherless weighs most heavily on the male child. In most cases, girls will at least be constantly exposed to female role models and have little difficulty developing a clear idea of what it means to be a woman.

Until about 150 years ago, dads weren’t distant. Most men worked at or near home and were expected to participate in their children’s’ upbringing. Professional educators of boys were also nearly always male, and the social environment boys inhabited was predominantly masculine. It’s still that way in most of the world’s surviving traditional cultures, where boys tend to spend lots of time with their fathers and with other adult male role models, and are nurtured into manhood surrounded by positive male energy.

In the West, the Industrial Revolution demolished traditional family dynamics. The domestic sphere became feminized, with fathers, increasingly absent from the home, becoming marginalized as parents.

In postmodern culture, men receive the message that they’re not really trusted in parenting, and that their role in family life beyond biological necessity and financial support is largely disposable.

Mothers are assumed to be the primary parent by educators, social agencies, the courts, and society at large, with fathers taking a subsidiary role - if any role at all.

Anyone who imagines you can develop fully formed men without exposing them to bona-fide maleness is deluded. Boys who grow up in a predominantly feminine environment risk low self-esteem, excessive and unhealthy dependence on females, emotional immaturity, and rigidity.

Men suffer dysfunctional culture

Even when mothers or other female care-givers proceed with the best of will and intent, as poet and author Robert Bly observed: “Women can change an embryo into a boy, but only men can change the boy into a man.” Only men can confer a sense of soul-union with other men. Only men can understand and truly empathize with the particular fears, anger, sadness, and sometimes despair that are part and parcel of being male, although in our present dysfunctional culture, men too often fail each other miserably.

Men are better equipped to teach children that life in the real world makes stiff demands and often deals harsh consequences. Male parental approval is more qualified than mother-love. Fathers tend to discipline more by rules than by emotion. Our society’s general drift toward collectively seeking emotionally satisfying, rather than logical and analytical, solutions to problems reflects the declining influence of male parenting and masculine cultural values. Daughters also suffer from paternal ineffectualism. According to research cited by Time magazine, kids whose fathers actively participate in their early development tend to have higher IQs, get higher marks in school, and possess a better sense of humour.

Most of all, kids need fathers they can trust to be there for them; fathers who are comfortable and confident in their masculinity, without the compulsive insecurities about their role that lead to the darker, dysfunctional side of male energy becoming dominant.

Consequently, it’s encouraging to hear that the importance of fatherhood is beginning to be acknowledged again in academic circles. (…)

Source: The Daily News, Canada
http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=97710&sc=93

(…) There are many ways in which parents work toward getting their children and teens to be self-motivated.

Young children receive encouragement and little rewards for appropriate behavior and for doing a job well.

As children grow into teens, the hope is that the adolescent himself will function more independently. This should happen without great deals of direct intervention from mom and dad. That doesn’t mean that Joe Teen now has total freedom. Parents should still take away the car keys for a while if grades drop or curfews are ignored.

Responsible parents supervise and do those things that moms and dads need to motivate kids. That isn’t a bad thing, but motivating kids means more than offering a new iPod for good grades. Though recognizing our kids’ accomplishments is certainly fine, self motivation comes from true success experienced by your son or daughter.

So, how do you promote successes that perpetuate continued motivation? Make note of your child’s current motivation. Now, I realize some of you would exclaim, “I guess my child is motivated to breathe!”

It may seem that way, but look closely and see what makes your child tick. What is it that he likes doing? Why? Assist him to build on that in order to be motivated in other areas. In other words, help your child see that since he is motivated over here, he can be motivated over there.

Motivation can extend from areas your child feels good about himself to those areas where he has less confidence. Sit down and explore these areas together.

Parents will have to leave their comfort zones in order for their kids to experience success. That’s putting it in nice, psychological terms. In truth, some parents are going to have to give up their life’s passion — doing everything for their kids and demanding that others do the same. (…)

Finding motivation as a lifetime characteristic is something that comes from successes that are truly earned by the child, not the parent. (…)

Source: Gaston Gazette, NC
http://tinyurl.com/yw3lcu

Children should be banned from playing computer games until the age of seven because the technology is “rewiring” their brains, it has been claimed.

Bombardment of the senses with fast-pace action games is said to be causing a shortening of attention span, harming the ability to learn.

The concerns emerged as technology industry experts gathered this week at a special summit discussing the development of children at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Educational psychologist Jane Healy said research indicated that computer games fuelled the development of basic “flight or fight” instincts rather than considered reasoning.

She believes parents would be wise to keep children away from computer games until at least the age of seven to allow their brains to develop normally.

Researchers from the Joan Ganz Cooney Centre, which investigates the relationship between children, the media and technology, said the average age that US youngsters started to use electronic gadgets had fallen from just over eight to just over 6 1/2 since 2005.

The researchers looked at more than 300 products including computer games, toys, virtual worlds for children and supposedly educational software to be run on home computers. Of these, only two educational video games employed proven learning techniques. (…)

Source: NEWS.com.au, Australia
http://tinyurl.com/2u9dpk

(…) Parents are pushing their children too hard to excel academically at very early ages, says Professor Yang Xiong, director of the Institute of Youth and Juveniles with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

“Parents, many of whom are white-collar workers with good educational backgrounds, place excessive expectations on their children,” he says.

“Some kids are even deprived of a happy childhood since they are trained and supposed to be ‘geniuses.’ Yet a wise approach is to let children be children.”

He warns that though kids today, overwhelmingly in one-child families, are smarter or more knowledgeable than those in the past, they are also facing new problems such as lack of sleep and free time, anxiety over performance and pleasing their parents and even retrogression in their daily-life abilities and skills.

“It’s sad that some primary-school students still don’t know how to tie their shoes or take a bath on their own,” says Yang. Because of all the attention focused on them, he says, “they are also likely to become selfish and self-centered.”

Education these days is overwhelmingly exam-oriented. “Teaching for examination and learning for examination” has been the motto for years, and it’s difficult to change the mindset. The system is much criticized for turning out good test-takers but relatively few well-rounded students who are curious, inquiring and who take the initiative. Passive, not active learners.

The concept of “quality-oriented education” or quality education has been around since the 1980s and Chinese educators have tried to gradually put it into practice since the 1990s, encouraging students to think for themselves and be creative.

Turning out well-rounded, physically and emotionally healthy people is a slow process. Parents push their children to score high, and teachers still focus on the tests. (…)

Source: Xinhua, China
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-01/14/content_7416264.htm

New research suggests that we think not just with our brains, but with our bodies

When you read something confusing, or work a crossword puzzle, or try to remember where you put your keys, what do you do with your body? Do you sit? Do you stand? Do you pace? Do you do anything with your hands? Do you move your eyes in a particular pattern?

How you answer questions like these, it turns out, may determine how long it will take for you to decipher what you’re reading, solve your puzzle, or get your keys back.

The brain is often envisioned as something like a computer, and the body as its all-purpose tool. But a growing body of new research suggests that something more collaborative is going on - that we think not just with our brains, but with our bodies. A series of studies, the latest published in November, has shown that children can solve math problems better if they are told to use their hands while thinking. Another recent study suggested that stage actors remember their lines better when they are moving. And in one study published last year, subjects asked to move their eyes in a specific pattern while puzzling through a brainteaser were twice as likely to solve it.

The term most often used to describe this new model of mind is “embodied cognition,” and its champions believe it will open up entire new avenues for understanding - and enhancing - the abilities of the human mind. Some educators see in it a new paradigm for teaching children, one that privileges movement and simulation over reading, writing, and reciting. Specialists in rehabilitative medicine could potentially use the emerging findings to help patients recover lost skills after a stroke or other brain injury. The greatest impact, however, has been in the field of neuroscience itself, where embodied cognition threatens age-old distinctions - not only between brain and body, but between perceiving and thinking, thinking and acting, even between reason and instinct - on which the traditional idea of the mind has been built.

“It’s a revolutionary idea,” says Shaun Gallagher, the director of the cognitive science program at the University of Central Florida. “In the embodied view, if you’re going to explain cognition it’s not enough just to look inside the brain. In any particular instance, what’s going on inside the brain in large part may depend on what’s going on in the body as a whole, and how that body is situated in its environment.” (…)

Source: Boston Globe, United States
http://tinyurl.com/2pvzwn

(…) At this time of year we typically consume more energy then we use through daily movement or exercise. New research shows that this is true for youth too. It’s pretty well known that it’s not just how much we eat, but also the calories — the food energy in the portions served — that make weight control a challenge. However, until recently, the role that food energy density plays in young children’s physiological response to portion size has been unproved.

Now a study at the Agricultural Research Service Children’s Nutrition Research Center in Houston, Texas, has shown that serving large portions of energy-dense foods at meals equates to substantial extra calories consumed by U.S. preschoolers.

Since the 1970s, average portion sizes of foods consumed both inside and outside the home has been steadily increasing. Previously reported research suggested that doubling the portion size of a preschooler’s entree would increase the child’s total calories consumed at a meal by 15 to 39 percent. For this CNRC study, 53 children were selected from the Houston area — 28 girls and 25 boys, ages 5 to 6 and representing a wide range of body mass indexes.

The researchers recorded each child’s weight and height and noted each participant’s food preferences at the beginning of the study. Over the next four weeks, researchers served a special macaroni-and-cheese entree to the children in either one- or two-cup portions and prepared with either a traditional energy density of 1.3 kilocalories per gram, or a high energy density of 1.8 kilocalories per gram by adding extra fat.

Results showed that children ate one-third more entree calories when either the energy-dense version or the large portions was served. However, combining the larger portions with the higher energy added the most calories to the meal. When children were served a large portion of the energy-dense entree, they ate 75 percent more entree calories and 35 percent more total calories at the meal.

These findings provide new evidence that portion size and energy density act additively to increase caloric intake at meals among preschool-age children. Help youth learn the proper portion of individual foods they consume. (…)

Source: Hutchinson Leader, MN
http://www.hutchinsonleader.com/node/6031

Small class size, teacher breaks and mental health consultants for kids can make a big difference in reducing the number of expulsions for the group most likely to be expelled from school: 3- and 4-year-olds.

That’s the finding of the latest study by Walter Gilliam, director of Yale University’s Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy.

Two years ago, Dr. Gilliam learned that preschoolers were more than three times as likely to get expelled from their state-funded preschool program compared to students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Dr. Gilliam said that one of the goals of preschool is to get children ready for school.

“If there were ever a child needing help being ready for elementary school, it’s a child whose behavior problems were such to cause a [preschool] teacher to no longer want that child in the classroom,” he said.

The newest study, released yesterday, said that the expulsion rate increases as class size grows. Of teachers with fewer than eight children per adult in a class, 7.7 percent reported an expulsion in the past year. But of those with 12 or more pupils, 12.7 percent reported an expulsion in that time.

The report recommends a preschool class size of no more than 10 children per teacher, which is the standard in Pennsylvania for state-funded as well as state-licensed preschool.

Providing teachers with access to early childhood mental health consultants makes preschool teachers half as likely to report expulsions as those without such support, Dr. Gilliam said. (…)

The report also calls on preschools to provide “adequate time for teachers to relax during the school day, especially for teachers in extended-day programs.”

The expulsion rates increase in programs with longer days. Of teachers in half-day programs, 7.1 percent reported an expulsion in a year while 13.2 percent of those with programs lasting eight or more hours a day noted expulsions.

Stress also played a role. Only 4.9 percent of teachers who felt “low stress” reported an expulsion in the past year, compared to 14.3 percent of those under “high stress.” (…)

Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette, PA
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08011/848350-298.stm