Lying is something we don’t want our children to do because it undermines trust.

While pre-schoolers can mix up reality and fantasy, by primary school children should know the difference between the two.

There are many reasons why a child may lie. Sometimes it’s to avoid what they see will be unfair punishment. If children see others getting away with lying, they may try it.

Your child may tell stories to others to be cool. Children who tell boastful lies can be lonely, bored or have low self-esteem.

With younger children, it’s sometimes easier to tell when they’re lying. Their story doesn’t sound right or they break into a smile as their plot unravels.

A few simple questions can also reveal a lie. Asking how your child came to have $10 might include some calm, clear questions about when, where, who was with them, or the order of events.

To discourage lying, parents need to discuss it with their children. It’s important your child knows lying is unacceptable, and the effects of it. You could calmly tell your child: “I feel angry and disappointed when you lie. It makes it hard to believe anything you say. If you keep telling lies nobody will trust you.”

Give your child opportunities to be honest and praise them for it. Your positive response to their behaviour will encourage them to repeat their honesty. Tell them you will give them chances to be honest and try it out. For example, if you know they haven’t tidied their room, ask. You will know whether they are being honest.

If your child finds it hard not to tell lies, set up a written contract signed by you and your child. It should state what you expect your child to do and the rewards and consequences that will follow. Put it up on the fridge. If your child lies, the consequences are clearly listed in the contract. As your child learns to not lie, you will no longer need a written contract.

If your child owns up to doing something they know you would not have allowed them to do make sure you praise them for their honesty, before you deal with the misbehaviour. (…)

Source: springfield-news.whereilive.com.au - News Limited Community Newspapers, Australia
http://tinyurl.com/69cklf

‘A fox could bite my bottom’: Childhood worries and anxieties may be influenced by the anxieties of their parents

I grew up in the 1970s. To me it seemed a pretty anxious era. The Cold War, unemployment, staggering blindly around the house during power-cuts. Yet today, research shows, we are more anxious than ever. Children in particular are feeling the impact.

A recent report found that children as young as 8 are worried about the world today and a third of 10 and 11-year-olds are concerned about the credit crunch. And the Government has just announced that schools are to receive an extra £4.5 million to teach students about terrorism and violent extremism.

Against this backdrop, psychologists at Sussex University have embarked on research into the role that parents may play in transmitting anxiety to their children. At the Sussex University psychology lab, Isaac Maltby, 9, approaches with trepidation two cardboard boxes labelled “quoll” and “cuscus”.

A researcher asks if he’d like to stroke the animals inside. Isaac boldly puts his hand into the hole in the quoll’s box. Approaching the cuscus he is more circumspect, inserting his hand slowly, pulling it out again quickly.

His mother, Candida Maltby, 40, looks even more nervous when she comes into the room. “OK,” she murmurs, inching her fingertips in. “Feels still asleep to me,” she adds, swiftly pulling back.

Over the previous hour, Isaac and Candida have taken part in tests aimed at investigating how Candida’s feelings about these unusual animals might affect how confident her son is about them. When he was first told about the cuscus, Isaac sounded curious, keen to stroke one. As his mother’s trepidation became clear, so he, too, became more cautious.

Though the research is still incomplete, it looks likely to show scientifically what many parents feel instinctively: that children not only take seriously what their parents say about potential dangers, but are equally alert to more subtle, non- verbal clues. As Dr Andy Field, of Sussex University, puts it: “Do anxious parents give visual cues to their children that are anxiety-provoking? And do they overlook signs of anxiety in their children?”

Other adults can also let children down, particularly when it comes to social anxiety. “You have teachers saying things such as: ‘this child doesn’t really engage’. If I hear that, I think: they want to engage, but they’re anxious,” Dr Field says.

A child’s early environment can also be important, says Graham Music, child psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, London. “Recent research has shown that maternal anxiety can be transmitted in utero; stress hormones can be transmitted across the placenta. As they grow up, children are often emotional barometers of their environments.”

There are times, though, when a child can have extremely high levels of anxiety, but may not show it. Music says: “Attachment experiments show that one-year-olds who don’t cry when their mothers leave them alone in a room, and who seem not to care, often have the same physiological signs of stress as the babies who cry out when left.” While some children might go into a “cut-off, almost dissociated state”, others “become very reactive to almost every stimulus, and these often become out-of-control children”.

What’s the best advice for most of us, when we find ourselves confronted by a fearful child? Sam Cartwright-Hatton, of Manchester University, says that the first thing to do is to check your general parenting environment. “For a sensitive child, things need to be calm, clear, warm and consistent. Avoid shouting and smacking.”

Show confidence to your children, even if you don’t feel it. “If you’re scared of dogs, try not to leap 6ft in the air. Keep calm.” And monitor what you tell children - whether about the environment, the economy or creepy-crawlies.

If all else fails, contact your GP and ask for professional help. “Beware the advice that children just grow out of anxieties,” she says. “They usually don’t.”

ANXIETY TIMELINE

0-2 YEARS Unusual situations, water, heights, not being around care-givers, fears about survival.

3-5 YEARS Ghosts, goblins, nightmares, monsters under the bed, increasing awareness of threat in the immediate environment.

5-8 YEARS Animals, growing awareness of the real threat in the immediate environment. Children of this age are aware that, while very mobile, they are still small and vulnerable.

9-11 YEARS Personal injury, fears of injections, breaking arms and legs.

11-13 YEARS Social anxieties, social phobias, fears about one’s place in the hierarchy, fears of being cast out if you don’t have the “right” clothes or trainers.

What children really fear

Elsie, 3 “I get scared when someone says they don’t want to be my friend and they don’t want to play with me any more.”

Charlie, 5 “In the daytime foxes have gone to bed but when they come out at night, a fox could bite my bottom.”

Millie, 5 “I am a bit scared of carrots. I used to be scared of pear but now I know it is nice.”

Maddie, 6 “I always tuck the duvet under my legs when I go to sleep because I don’t want snakes to eat my feet. When I was little the snakes got in and ate my feet.”

Jess, 6 “In the night, when everyone’s asleep, I can hear footsteps going up the stairs and I feel scared. I think there’s kind of a monster creeping up the stairs.”

Josh, 8 “It’s scary to think of the pollution destroying all the rainforest so the animals haven’t got anything to eat and then the plants will die and the human race will die.”

Nye, 9 “I don’t like burglars. When there’s a loud noise upstairs I always think that there’s a burglar breaking in.”

Ira, 10 “I’m scared of hookworms and tapeworms. I hate the thought of having one in my body because they worm their way into you and live inside you.”

Tula, 11 “I worry about all the people in Africa dying and I feel I should be doing something about it. I also worry about my house setting on fire.”

Lemar, 12 “I want to drive a car when I’m older, so I worry about petrol prices and more people driving electric cars which are really dangerous and will cause road deaths because people won’t hear them.”

Amy, 13 “It scares me thinking that one day I might get so old that I lose my sense of humour and no one wants to be friends with me because I’m no fun.”

Source: Times Online, UK
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5124499.ece

On her back in a dark tube, Blair Smith held still as a scanner combed her brain with magnetic waves. Words flashed by her eyes: tack, vase, hope, glow, vague, cade.

The 11-year-old had been told to press the button in her right hand if the word was real, the button in her left if it was nonsense. The answer itself was less important than the map the scanner would make of which areas of Blair’s brain lighted up when she struggled with a word.

The aim of the study, said Laurie Cutting, director of the Education and Brain Research Program at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, is to understand the neurological differences among students who are skilled readers, those who have difficulties and those with diagnosed learning disabilities.

If neuroscientists can pinpoint which parts of the brain are activated when a reader puzzles over an unknown word, they may eventually help teachers tailor reading instruction for individuals.

That is only the beginning. Many educators hunger for scientific data to help them structure their lessons, and neuroscience is beginning to offer them broad guidance about what works best.

One of the most startling recent revelations in neuroscience has been that the brain’s structure is much more flexible (a concept called neuroplasticity) than was previously thought; this understanding may help teachers find ways to train the brain to better solve math problems or understand a book.

“There’s an awful lot that neuroscience can begin to tell us in broad strokes that’s relevant for education and that ultimately 10 or 20 years downstream can provide us with prescriptive information,” said Robert Pianta, dean of the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education.

“I think we’re looking at a period of five years of very rich territory for investigation here.”

Complex conditions

Brain research already is opening the way to help teachers detect and address complex conditions — such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia and its mathematical cousin, dyscalculia — that defy blood tests and other simple medical diagnostics.

Cognitive scientists are developing a theory of “micro-development” that could turn some lesson plans upside down. Studies have found that, on a minute-to-minute basis, children and adults learn in fits and starts, often going backward. That could indicate that students should be allowed to grope their way to understanding — for instance, by being asked to power up a light bulb using a battery and a strand of wire before having the theory of electricity explained to them.

How the brain functions remains deeply mysterious, with studies seeming to unfold at a glacial pace. One expert noted that it took decades for researchers, examining data from brain and behavioral studies and other sources, to confirm the belief of many educators that focusing on phonics helps youngsters who struggle with reading.

Still, top educational institutions have recently shown new interest in the link between brain activity and education. Harvard University founded its mind, brain and education degree program in 2002. Johns Hopkins University this year briefed the Maryland State Board of Education on a neuro-education initiative that aims to “explore how current findings have application to educational practice.”

Better ways of teaching

A study published in the journal Nature last month reported a link between a primitive, intuitive sense of the size of numbers and performance in math classes, a finding that could lead to ways to identify young students who may have trouble with math and develop better ways of teaching them. Advocates of expanding pre-kindergarten classes point to studies that show the importance of early education in molding young minds.

Pianta, of the Curry School, said neuroscience has also influenced the education of autistic students.

“Twenty years ago, you might have seen an intervention that was far more oriented toward trying to get those kids to be affectionate, let’s say. Or the therapist in that case would be promoting physical contact with kids who didn’t like physical contact,” Pianta said. “Now we would look at that (response) as sort of saying this kid’s behavior is a result of their brain’s ability to process social, emotional information. You would structure your interactions with an autistic child so as not to overwhelm their capacity to process that information.”

Kurt Fischer, director of Harvard’s mind, brain and education master’s degree program, warned that many educational theories claim to be based on science but are not.

“One of the major problems we face is that there are a whole lot of things that claim to be ‘brain-based education’ that are nonsense,” he said. “One of them is the belief that boys and girls have totally different brains and learn totally differently. That’s not what the evidence shows. Not at all. The other is kind of a rigid idea of sensitive periods: that after a certain age you can’t learn a foreign language. You’ve also heard that there are left-brained and right-brained people. Total nonsense, unless they’ve had their left or right hemisphere removed. All of us use all our brains.”

Craving information

Another example Fischer cited is the widely held but dubious notion that listening to Bach in the bassinet will make babies smarter. Still, Fischer said, the popularity of such ideas shows that educators and the public crave scientific backing for classroom innovations.

At Kennedy Krieger, Cutting gave a nifty copy of her brain scan to Blair, her young research subject. The research team prepared Blair’s identical twin sister to go inside the tube for a new round of scans. They are both perfectly good readers, but the data from their studies might help others.

“Creepy but cool at the same time,” said Blair, an aspiring veterinarian. “It’s good because you help other kids.”

Source: Monterey County Herald, CA
http://www.montereyherald.com/health/ci_10913995

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

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

I suspected it would happen; I just didn’t think it would happen so quickly. Shortly after the historic achievement of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, and just before the historic nomination of Sen. Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, a major newspaper ran a full-page story celebrating the news that single moms succeed in raising accomplished sons.

The article cited Mr. Phelps, Mr. Obama and others, including cycling great Lance Armstrong, to make the case that boys raised by single mothers are doing just fine, thank you. It also quoted a number of supportive experts, including Peggy Drexler, author of a book called “Raising Boys Without Men.”

Interestingly, Mrs. Drexler, who has been married for more than 36 years to the father of her son, asserts quite firmly that although boys do need men, they do not need fathers. Her position is essentially that one should not fret about fatherless boys because they have a way of finding the male involvement they need.

Well, yes and no.

Boys certainly will find male involvement, but since boys will be, well, boys, they often do not make the right choices. Case in point is convicted D.C. sniper Lee Malvo, who selected John Muhammad. And there are countless boys who join gangs to find the male involvement they so desperately crave.

That said, my biggest problem was less with the article than with the “straw man” - or rather, “straw father” - argument that it is “news” that single mothers can and do raise successful boys. As one who was raised by a single mother and has undergraduate and master’s degrees from two Ivy League universities, I am a bit of a poster child on this point. (Thanks, Mom.)

However, “Can single mothers do it?” is not the right question. There are more thoughtful ways of viewing the issue.

First, should single mothers have to raise their children alone? Remember, every child has an “involved” father at conception. I do a lot of speaking about the importance of involved fatherhood. No parent has ever come up to me after a speech to say they hope their daughter will become a single mother.

Second, this issue is not about what kind of a man a boy will become but, also, what kind of a father he will become. It’s difficult to be what you don’t see. Accordingly, as a nation, we have to ask this question - how does a culture that promotes and, too often, celebrates father absence, create an environment in which boys develop a desire to become present and involved fathers?

Third, in addition to the well-documented social and emotional costs of father absence for our nation’s children, it is also expensive. Recently, National Fatherhood Initiative released a report called, “The One Hundred Billion Dollar Man - The Annual Public Costs of Father Absence.” The report measured the federal expenditures on child-support enforcement and 13 means-tested benefits programs that support father-absent homes. The $100 billion cost represents nearly 4 percent of the 2006 federal budget. Indeed, in these difficult financial times, we cannot afford father absence.

Finally, I believe the way we look at smoking is the most appropriate and thoughtful way to look at father absence and the resulting single motherhood. Specifically, it is pretty clear the majority of people who smoke do not immediately get lung cancer. This is why it is so difficult to curb teen smoking. Nonetheless, we spend millions of dollars on campaigns and efforts to reduce smoking. Why? Because we know that those who smoke are at a higher risk for cancer, heart disease or worse. Knowing this, would anyone support celebrating the fact that many smokers beat the odds? I doubt it.

Social science data assert overwhelmingly that boys in father-absent homes are more at risk to be poor, fail in school, use drugs or be involved in the criminal justice system. Therefore, we should encourage responsible fatherhood and discourage a culture of single motherhood for the same reason - the increased risk to our sons. In my view, we do not have a fatherless boy to spare.

Source: Washington Times, DC
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/02/despite-successes-boys-need-fathers/

Spending some quality time with the children might seem the perfect antidote to a stressful day at the office.

Around 24 per cent of fathers sometimes even leave for work early or return late so they spend less time with their children.

More than 40 per cent become really stressed if they go straight home from work to a house full of rowdy youngsters.

The survey of 3,000 fathers was carried out by Bounty, a company which offers advice to parents.

Managing director Ian Beswetherick, who is a father of two young children, said:

‘Nowadays most modern dads are happy to share the responsibility of looking after the children and in doing so they now truly appreciate mums’ hard work.

‘The fact that dads are leaving for work early and not heading home to help with bath and bedtime can also be due to the pressures of working for old style ‘dinosaur dads’.

‘Traditionally supported by wives that stayed at home to raise their kids, these older dads hold senior positions and don’t appreciate the fact that they employ a different kind of dad who is struggling to get to grips with combining his work with the expectations of modern fatherhood.’

The survey also found that whilst 80 per cent of dads felt an instant rush of love when their baby was born, 28 per cent said it took them longer to bond with the newborn than their partner did.

Seventeen per cent said they bonded with their baby two days after it was born, 10 per cent said it took a week, and 8 per cent said it took a whole month before they finally felt close to the child.

A quarter of fathers said they felt completely left out when their partner was pregnant - which could explain why they took longer to bond with their new baby.

But 55 per cent tried to get closer to their unborn child by stroking their partner’s bump and 44 per cent spoke to baby in the womb.

More than a third, 34 per cent, attended all ante-natal classes and around 10 per cent stopped drinking and smoking.

Two-thirds of fathers admitted that when their partner was pregnant they were secretly hoping their firstborn would be a boy.

Overall, 57 per cent said they preferred boys over girls.

That said, 30 per cent of dads said they actually bonded better with their daughters than their sons, and 46 per cent feel much more protective of their little girls.

In an ideal world, fathers would like to have two girls and two boys.

Bounty conducted the survey to mark the launch of its website newdadssurvivalguide.com, which provides advice for fathers.

Mr Beswetherick said it is aimed at new and expectant fathers who ‘worry about asking the wrong thing at the wrong time’.

Source: Daily Mail, UK
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1081667/Stay-home-No-thanks-work-easier-say-dads.html