A visiting international childhood expert says children should watch no television in the first two years of their lives.

The director of the Centre on Media and Child Health at the Harvard Medical School, Dr Michael Rich, says there is little benefit in putting a child under the age of two in front of a TV screen.

“There is no scientific evidence that children under the age of about 30 months, two-and-a-half years, can learn much of anything other than fairly rote imitation or mimicry from an electronic screen,” he told ABC radio’s The World Today program.

“What we know is that at least for national data from the United States that children under the age of two on average use electronic games for about an hour, a little over an hour a day,” he said.

“[We know] that 26 per cent of them have a television in their bedrooms and that it is very much integrated into their daily lives, largely in the format of parents using the television as an electronic babysitter.”

Dr Rich says TV screens do not provide the kind of stimuli most optimal for brain development.

“The best things are interaction with other human beings face to face, manipulating the physical environment, stacking up blocks, trying to get a raisin in your mouth and open-ended creative problem-solving sort of play,” he said.

“So a blank piece of paper and a crayon or a piece of clay to play with.”

Dr Rich says television and other media consumption should be restricted to about two hours a day for teenagers.

“It is really the school age years where kids start watching television on their own and actually teenagers, the data shows, use television less than school age kids,” he said.

“They start using more music and online media rather than television.

“But frankly there is no reason why young people, who have otherwise rich lives and homework to do and sleep to get, need to get more than an hour or two at most of media time each day.”

Source: ABC Online, Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/06/2412591.htm

Many parents don’t realize how easy and fun it can be to bring the family closer together while improving their children’s literacy skills.

“Spending time together and learning as a family can be a simple, inexpensive and easy activity. It just requires a little time, imagination and creativity,” said Sharon Darling, president and founder of the National Center for Family Literacy.

With this in mind, the center is offering some helpful tips for families to teach their children by using the world around them and maximizing time spent together:

1. Make science come alive at home by checking out science experiment books from the library and then trying simple experiments at home. For example, grow a vegetable with your child, chart the growth and talk about it.

2. Tie reading into an outing. If you’re going to a museum, bring home a book about dinosaurs, so they see reading as an experience.

3. Increase oral language skills by sharing stories of your childhood, suggest the experts at the center. You also can share stories about your child’s life, such as when they were born, their first Christmas, etc.

4. Use certain reading techniques that have been proven to increase effectiveness in reading time, including making sound effects to capture kids’ attention and changing your voice when different characters speak. You also should talk about the story to reinforce comprehension and memory skills, and read it again because repetition helps children recognize and remember words.

5. Teach math skills by letting your child count the money to pay at the store.

You will quickly be able to see the rewards of these activities, first-hand.

“As the father of three fantastic children, I so clearly and vividly recall many moments curled up with my children reading to them, at all times of day and night; on the kitchen floor, in their forts, on old sofas and beat up bean bags, in bed and in the car,” said David Murphy, president and CEO of Better World Books.

“Few moments in life can compare to the wonders of opening up the new world of language and communication, and wonder and awe to your child.”

Children also need good role models when it comes to literacy. According to the center, if kids don’t see parents reading for pleasure and for purpose, then they are less likely to view reading as a pleasurable experience.

For more recommendations from the center on literacy activities, visit www.famlit.org.

Source: Elmira Star-Gazette, NY
http://www.stargazette.com/article/20081105/LIFE06/811050304

Parents who want their preschoolers to eat their vegetables may need to take a hard look at their own eating habits, new research suggests.

The findings, reported in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, suggest that even very young children do not indiscriminately reach for candy when given the chance. Instead, they seem to already be forming food preferences — potentially lasting ones — based on their parents’ shopping carts.

“The data suggest that children begin to assimilate and mimic their parents’ food choices at a very young age, even before they are able to fully appreciate the implications of these choices,” write the researchers, led by Dr. Lisa A. Sutherland of Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

That, the researchers say, means that the grocery store can be like a classroom, where parents teach their children that foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains take priority over snacks and desserts.

For the study, Sutherland’s team had 120 children aged 2 to 6 years old each take a turn in a play grocery store. The children were told they could buy anything they wanted out of 133 items: “healthier” foods included fruits, vegetables, whole-grain cereals, bread and milk; “less healthy” items included desserts, candy, potato chips, soda and sugary cereals.

Parents completed questionnaires on how often they bought specific foods and beverages. All said they brought their children with them on grocery store trips.

Most of the children, the researchers found, bought some sugary, salty treats; on average, their carts were filled with equal parts healthy and unhealthy items.

Giving preschoolers a taste for healthy foods, the researchers add, could ultimately make it easier for them to keep up a lifetime of smart eating.

Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE4A26J920081103

With many grandparents baby-sitting their grandchildren during the day, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health wondered whether those children might be at a higher risk of injury in the care of older people whose parenting lessons were learned in an era where car seats weren’t the law and child-proofing wasn’t a multimillion-dollar industry.

The findings, published yesterday in the journal Pediatrics, surprised its authors. In some cases, working parents who chose to have grandparents care for their children cut the risk of childhood injury in half. Even when compared with organized day care or care by the mother or other relatives, having a grandmother watch the child was associated with decreased injury for the child.

“There are some grandparents you would not leave alone with grandchildren,” he said. But “you’re not going to hurt them if you do the right selection.”

Among other findings: The odds of injury were greater among children of parents who never married compared with those whose parents stayed married. The odds of injury were greater for children living in homes without their father.

Bishai and colleagues analyzed data collected about more than 5,500 newborns in 15 U.S. cities in 1996-1997, with a follow-up 30 to 33 months later. Bishai said he does not know whether the information would be different had it been collected more recently.

Delores Miller, 63, said she gladly volunteered to provide child care for her granddaughter Imani when Miller’s daughter returned to work at a Baltimore credit union. She bought Imani a toy mop, broom and vacuum so when it was time for housekeeping they did it side by side. And during trips to the grocery store, she made sure Imani always stayed close.

“Children can get more one-on-one attention, rather than in a group of people,” said Miller, who cared for Imani for six years until she started first grade this fall. “Imani was more familiar with me than anyone else. I know more about her behavior and well-being than any stranger would.”

Source: Baltimore Sun, United States
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-te.grandparents04nov04,0,6701080.story

St. Louis University researchers have received a three-year, $1 million grant from the Centers of Disease Control to expand their education of doctors about the risks of drinking during pregnancy and fetal alcohol syndrome.

“Drinking during pregnancy increases the risk of birth defects, which have lifelong consequences and can easily be prevented,” said Leigh Tenkku, an assistant professor of family and community medicine at the university. “It is very important to get the message out to health care professionals and to include this information in academic training settings.”

Research has shown that advice from doctors and nurses is one of the most influential factors in determining whether or not women drink during pregnancy. Yet many health care professionals are uncomfortable talking to their patients about alcohol use, are unsure about current guidelines or lack the necessary resources, Tenkku said.

“Only 50 percent of health care providers give information about the consequences of drinking during pregnancy to all patients,” Tenkku said. “Our goal is to educate as many health care professionals as possible about the very real dangers posed by drinking during pregnancy and enable them to help their patients.

In 2002, St. Louis University worked with the University of Missouri–Columbia and St. Louis Arc to establish the Midwest Regional Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Training Center to educate health care professionals and students. The grant will allow the center to set up satellite faculty teams in each of the eight Midwest states served by the center, including Illinois. (…)

Source: Belleville News Democrat, USA
http://www.bnd.com/living/health/story/529994.html

It is a question which worries every parent – what is the best way to prepare your child for their first day at school?
Now a psychologist has devised a checklist of 22 skills she believes children need to learn before beginning their formal education.

According to her findings, nearly half of parents would like more advice and information to prepare children for their first day at school.

Fewer than one in six parents have a clear idea about this, while one in five said they had no idea what skills children should have by the age of four or five. Only 18 per cent said they knew where to go for official advice.

Dr Spencer said: “Ensuring a child is adequately prepared for school is one of the most important things parents have to do.

“But it can be very challenging and daunting if the guidance and information needed is not there.

“A lot of the available material on pre-school development is focused on teaching child carers the skills, but can be difficult for parents with young children to access and understand.”

The list of suggested skills, called the Curricu-mum, was commissioned by the children’s television show Hi-5 which is designed to reflect pre-school learning guidelines.

Cecilia Persson, programme director for the Cartoonito network, which broadcasts Hi-5, said: “We believe the Hi-5 Curricu-mum is exactly what parents of pre-school children have been looking for.”

The list suggests that by the time they start school, children should be able to recite the alphabet, to count and use number and to write their own names. It also suggests children should know how to share, how to play with others and be able to dress and feed themselves.

It also claims children should be able to join in conversations, learn to sing songs, know which foods are healthy and be able to differentiate between past and future events and actions which are right and wrong.

However, Judith Gillespie, development officer for the Scottish Parent Teacher Council said she was concerned the list could create more anxiety and pressure for parents of young children.

“To a parent that is an incredibly daunting list. I think the trouble is it will make some parents feel like failures,” she said.

“Saying these are things children should be able to do is incredibly unhelpful. It would be more helpful to say that these are the kinds of things that many children learn to do before they start school. Children learn differently and develop differently and making it a requirement that they should be able do all these things is very bad news.”

Ms Gillespie said teachers did not expect children to learn the alphabet or to be able to count and use numbers before they started school and the list did not take into account the fact that boys tend to be more boisterous and learn at a different pace.

“In many respects, the most important things on the list are social skills like sharing – it is far more important that children go to school with social skills.”

Alphabet and dressing among 22 target tasks

These are the 22 tasks the report says children should be taught by the time they reach school.

1 Write their own name – a useful skill that helps confidence.

2 Know the alphabet. Being able to recite the letters of the alphabet will be a help when children begin to learn to read and write.

3 Sing/recite songs. Learning simple songs and rhythms helps children develop their learning skills.

4 Take turns and share with other people without a fuss. Learning to get along with other children is crucial.

5 Complete simple activities on their own.

6 Be sensitive to others’ feelings and know the difference between right and wrong.

7 Dress and feed themselves (even if they get it wrong).

8 Join in group activities with other children.

9 Make up stories (even if they make no sense).

10 Join in general conversation at home.

11 Tell the difference between past and future.

12 Be able to focus their attention on one thing for a prolonged period without becoming restless.

13 Count basic numbers and answer number-based questions such as: “How many carrots are on your plate?”

14 Complete simple puzzles such as jigsaws.

15 Ask lots of questions. Curiosity is a great asset in a pre-school child.

16 Know the difference between different groups; eg cats and dogs.

17 Experiment with basic technology, such as typing their name on a computer.

18 Have fun outside and be active.

19 Tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods.

20 Play “make believe” and use imagination.

21 Make things and get messy with paints and crafts.

22 Make music with toy instruments and experiment with different sounds.

Source: Scotsman, United Kingdom
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/The-key-skills-that-make.4652933.jp

The number of children who take medication for chronic diseases has jumped dramatically, another troubling sign that many of the youngest Americans are struggling with obesity, doctors say.

The number of children who take pills for type 2 diabetes — the kind that’s closely linked to obesity — more than doubled from 2002 to 2005, to a rate of six out of 10,000 children. That suggests that at least 23,000 privately insured children in the USA are now taking diabetes medications, according to authors of the new study in today’s Pediatrics.

Doctors also saw big increases in prescriptions for high cholesterol, asthma and attention deficit and hyperactivity. There was smaller growth for drugs for depression and high blood pressure.

“We’ve got a lot of sick children,” says author Emily Cox, senior director of research with Express Scripts, which administers drug benefit programs for private insurance plans. “What we’ve been seeing in adults, we’re also now seeing in kids.”

Type 2 diabetes was once known as adult-onset. But Cox says her records show kids as young as 5 being treated with prescription diabetes drugs.

Cox based her study on prescription records of nearly 4 million children a year, ages 5 to 19, covered by Express Scripts. She says her findings may not apply to the 40% of children who are uninsured or covered by government health plans.

Unless these children make major changes — such as eating healthier and exercising more — they could be facing a lifetime of illness, Cox says.

“These are not antibiotics that they take for seven to 10 days,” Cox says. “These are drugs that many are taking for the rest of their lives.”

Cox couldn’t explain one surprising finding: Most of the increase in drugs for diabetes, attention deficit/hyperactivity and depression was seen in girls. The gender gap was most striking in diabetes: While the number of boys taking medication grew by 39%, the number of girls using them climbed by 147%, Cox found.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-03-kids-meds_N.htm

Research shows that a walk in the park can be just as effective as drugs such as Ritalin for children with ADHD or excess energy levels.

It’s been a brilliant week off. Your children have adored Halloween; they’ve loved trick or treating, and have gorged themselves on sweets and goodies all week. You don’t mind. Isn’t that what the autumn break is all about? You may have noticed, though, that all the sugar has made your children hyper. It may have been tough getting them to relax and get ready for sleep.

And now that they’re back in their normal routine you need to calm them down a little, so they can concentrate through the school day.

Returning to a healthy diet helps. But what if your children remain hyper? What if their natural energy level borders on ADHD?

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a growing problem. Drugs such as Ritalin help ADHD children; and the number of children prescribed them has doubled in the UK since 2002.

New research, though, shows that there’s a more simple solution. And that a walk in the park is just as effective as a daily dose of drugs.

Walking

Researchers at the University of Illinois took 17 hyperactive children on a walk, dividing them between the park, a town centre and a residential area. They didn’t take their drugs that day, but those walking in the park showed hugely improved concentration. In fact, the effect was the same, or even better than the effect of their normal drugs.

“As little as 20 minutes in a park could potentially buy you an afternoon, or a couple of hours to get homework done,” said researcher Andrea Faber Taylor. And if it works for hyperactive children, think of the benefit to the normally boisterous child?

It’s something that Josephine Lara, mum to Thomas, 5, Max, 3, and Daisy, 8 months, has noticed.

“The boys have so much energy and sugar definitely makes them worse,” she says. “But if we’ve had a good walk, they are always calmer. I try to keep the TV off too. It can calm them down initially, but in the long run it makes them more hyper.

“The last Friday before Halloween the school said the children had eaten sweets all afternoon. I’d arranged to bring the boys to a playground. We were there for an hour and I didn’t have any problems with them. The parents who went straight home said their children were climbing the walls.

“We have family walks when we can. We’ll walk on a beach at Skerries or LoughShinny. Or we’ll go to a playground; there are some amazing ones around here; at Ardgillan Castle, Malahide and at Newbridge.

“We walk to school in the mornings. It’s not far and it’s a good start to the day. They’re allowed to run around at school — the Lusk Educate Together, so Thomas gets a good lot of exercise. And at home, if they’re hyper, I’ll send them out into the garden. That always helps.”

TOP REASONS FOR CHILDREN TO EXERCISE (From ACE- American Authority on Exercise)

1. Children who exercise are more likely to keep exercising as an adult.

2. Exercise helps children achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.

3. Regular physical activity helps build and maintain strong, healthy muscles, bones and joints.

4. Exercise aids in the development of important interpersonal skills.

5. Exercise improves sleep.

6. Research shows that exercise promotes improved school attendance and enhances academic performance.

7. Children who exercise have greater self-esteem and better self-image.

8. Exercise prevents or delays the development of many chronic diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

Source: Herald.ie, Ireland
http://www.herald.ie/lifestyle/health-beauty/better-than-ritalin-1518888.html

Babies are a lot more perceptive than we think, who begin processing language much before they start articulating by 12 months. By then they already know hundreds of words.

A study by Pennsylvania University (PU) psychologist Daniel SwingIey said infants have a unique ability to discriminate speech-sound or phonetic differences, but over time they lose this skill for differentiating sounds in languages other than their own.

For example, six-month-old babies who were learning English were able to distinguish between similar-sounding Hindi consonants not found in English, but they lost this ability by the time they were 12 months.

Since the 1980s it has been known that infants start focusing on their language’s consonants and vowels, sometimes to the exclusion of non-native sounds. More recently, researchers have increasingly focused on how infants handle whole words.

Recent research has shown that during infancy, babies learn not only individual speech sounds but also the auditory forms of words; that is, babies are not only aware of the pieces that make up a word, but they are aware of the entire word, said a release of PU.

These auditory forms of words allow children to increase their vocabulary and help them to eventually develop grammar. Although they may not know what the words mean, children at eight months start learning the phonological (sound) forms of words and are able to recognise them - and just being familiar with the words helps increase the children’s vocabulary.

Studies have shown that 18-month-old children who are familiar with a word’s form are better at learning what it means and are also able to differentiate it from similar sounding words.

Knowing word forms may also contribute to children’s inferences about how their language works. For example, 7.5 month olds do not recognise words as being the same if they are spoken with different intonations or by a man and a woman.

However, by 10.5 months of age, babies recognize the same words despite changes in the speaker or the intonation used. Another interesting finding was that although children learning a language can distinguish between long and short vowels, they interpret this difference according to the rules of their language.

For instance, Dutch 18-month-olds considered tam and taam to be different words, while English 18-month-olds did not - showing children’s early learning of how each language uses vowel length.

This new research in language acquisition indicates that infants learn the forms of many words and they begin to gather information about how these forms are used. (…)

Source: Siliconindia.com, India
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/48251

I’m no authority on all kids. I only know my own.

But from observation, I have deduced a secret “kid language” exists that they sometimes speak and comprehend that makes (at best) surface sense to any adult.

Actually, that isn’t accurate. Any adult would be totally confused, but an adult that was a parent of similar-aged children at some point might retain surface comprehension of preschooler speech in that parent’s most lucid and flexible moments.

The phrases that jump out of my sons’ mouths are so otherworldly it takes me many seconds on my best day to categorize them. One current common saying they began is, “I’ll go Cheezee Puffs and Whacko Cream!” This is repeated often, out of the blue and at volume, with giggles to indicate it is amusing.

Analyzing the sentence gave me the insight that the Cheezee Puffs came from a book we’ve been reading, called, “Llama, Llama, Mad at Mama.” When my younger son speculated as to what Cheezee Puffs tasted like in the course of this book, I heard retired nurse Nana tell him only llamas ate Cheezee Puffs, but they weren’t the right food for little boys.

I’m not sure what sparked the fascination with this “llama” food, but it was incorporated into the most popular statement in our house. There simply is no explanation for the “whacko cream” part of the proverb.

When staring at my children and dissecting their bizarre phrase, I thought to myself that Whacko Cream has been liberally applied to them at some point, but the contact moment isn’t clear. The expression came from nowhere I can fathom.

Our 3-year-old began repeating a brand-new saying one evening after bath. As I attempted to smear petroleum jelly on his nose and lips, he started repeating, “Dewey, dewey; I don’t have a trunk!” This was accompanied by a plucking motion with one hand, as if he was raising his arm to pick pretend grapes off a vine.

Anyone who has had extended time with youngsters knows repetition is the main path to hilarity. Over and over the “dewey dewey” phrase went, getting funnier and funnier to both boys.

It came up again the next day at the same time, instigated by our 5-year-old and snowballing into family participation. I made the mistake of repeating it as “Zooey, zooey,” instead of “dewey dewey,” and was forcefully and instantly corrected. Such a crucial detail …

Yesterday, my older son told me he was in a “poshy” mood. When asked to give more detail, he looked at me like I must be joking, and said, “I just told you, Mama! I feel poshy!”

Both boys have a tendency to announce that their names no longer are the ones we assigned at birth, but rather some new fabrication that is as idiotic as can be imagined.

Earlier this week, my eldest insisted his new name was “Bleaah,” and he said it with his tongue out and in exactly the same tone as the castle “Aaaargh” in Monty Python’s “The Holy Grail.” His younger brother was enamored of this fun and rather offensive sounding word, and immediately I had not one, but two sons now self-named “Bleaah!”

Until they come out with a dictionary or template for understanding these foreign phrases, I guess I’ll just keep going Cheezee Puffs and Whacko Cream.

Source: The Newark Advocate, OH
http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20081102/LIFESTYLE/811020343