‘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

In India, students compete for admission into cram schools, where they study intensively in order to compete for admission into India’s highly regarded technology colleges. Their families pay as much as $1,500 a year for this opportunity, which, for many, is a great hardship. In Korea and Japan, students attend after-school classes to boost their chances for college admission.

In the U.S., by contrast, school districts and philanthropists are embarking on ever-more elaborate efforts to persuade students to care about school and to learn basic skills.

Traditionally, educators have tried to awaken intrinsic motivation in students, to engage them in the joy of learning for its own sake and, if that fails, to convince them that getting a good education is crucial to their future success.

Trying to motivate reluctant students, the New York City Department of Education has opened over 200 small high schools with catchy themes, hoping to stir student interest. The newest proposal is the Game High School, where students will play videogames that teach them the skills they need. School will, supposedly, be fun and games, instead of a series of daunting challenges with some occasional drudgery thrown in for good measure.

An even more ambitious bid to motivate low-performing students has been launched by Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad, who has provided seed money for a scheme to pay students to show up for school, behave in classes and lift their test scores. Broad has established a $44 million research center at Harvard to design and evaluate pay-for-performance plans for students in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. The Broad plan is the brainchild of Harvard economist Roland Fryer. Critics predict that student motivation based on cash will end when the cash ends, but the cities involved have jumped on the incentivizing bandwagon.

Hopefully, Fryer will calculate the costs of implementing his ambitious plans–not only in these cities, but across the nation. Chester E. Finn Jr., of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, D.C., has estimated that the Chicago portion alone would cost $187 million annually if brought to scale in that city. Add in New York City, Washington, D.C., and a few other cities where performance lags–like Los Angeles, Cleveland and Detroit–and the annual costs are likely to soar into the billions.

This is money that might otherwise be spent reducing class size (New York City has the largest classes in the state), improving test scores and technology and refurbishing obsolete facilities.

Interesting, isn’t it, that while students in other countries are paying $1,500 a year for the chance to learn more, many American students will be paid that same amount just to do what they ought to be doing in their own self-interest?

Does the future belong to those who struggle to better themselves, make sacrifices to do so and work hard? Or to those who must be cajoled and bribed to learn anything at all?

Diane Ravitch is research professor of education at New York University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Brookings Institution.

Source: Forbes, NY
http://tinyurl.com/6pq7e7

Kelly and Tim are a lovely young couple with two beautiful children. One of the things that makes this young family especially nice is the behavior of their children. When Tim and Kelly go someplace, they can take their children along knowing that their children won’t disrupt others or play the obnoxious card.

But Kelly says it wasn’t always that way. There was a time when their daughter, Madison, at age three, was a tantrum thrower and as Kelly describes her, a beast. She would throw her hands up in the air and collapse to the ground sobbing. Her behavior would get beyond comprehension and for the finale the shower of tears rained over what had become a major meltdown.

“We tried everything,” says Kelly. Then they decided that her behavior did not go together with all the things that she enjoyed in her little world, so they decided to withdraw her toys and her games and the things she loved to do and show her that tantrums and toys did not go together.

Kelly and Tim slowly emptied her room of every single toy, every single activity down to a bed, a dresser, and one doll to sleep with. Everything went into their garage and was off limits to the child.

If her behavior was good for a day, she could earn a toy back. If she threw a tantrum, she would lose a toy. It was that simple. The child was able, by her own choices, to either enjoy what her parents had graciously given her, or forfeit her luxuries in favor of a tantrum.

Now what does this teach a child? Critics would say that this was cruel and unusual punishment, and that it won’t work because such a punishment holds a child to a level of competence she doesn’t understand.

On the other hand, Kelly is a teacher and Tim has counseling training, and in this very proactive and non-violent scheme, they have taught Madison to control her temper for her own sake. “If you want your toys, you have to make good choices.”

This wonderful educational scheme allowed Madison to make choices and see the result. She traded up - the tantrums for a beautiful life. The training is proactive because it eliminated temptations, excuses, and interference. It simply and completely said, “Here’s the deal. You live up to your end of the bargain, and so will we one toy at a time.”

What Madison learned is that’s the way life is. If you play by the rules, you get the life rewards of doing well. If you let others always take the blame, take the brunt of your temper; nobody will want to play with you.

And what is the result of this three years later? At the time, it took Madison four months to earn all her toys back. Because of this loving training engineered by her parents, she has become a workhorse. Madison works hard at everything she does. She loves being at big school now, and she loves the challenges in front of her, and at the same time, her parents are very proud of their beautifully behaved young lady.

(Editor’s note: Judy Lyden has worked with very young children for over thirty years. She’s been a preschool teacher for over twenty. She co-owns the Garden School, an early childhood academic center, with Edith St. Louis.)

Source: WFIE-TV
http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=7486189&nav=menu54_2/Global/category.asp

When it comes to instilling a love of reading, husband and I have done everything right — or so we thought. We read together with the boys during the day and at bedtime. We go to the library regularly as a family. And through the years, the boys have shown their love of books by falling asleep with piles of children’s page turners on their beds.

But when it comes to getting 6-year-old to actually read by himself, well, that’s another matter entirely. Early reading books simply aren’t engaging him. We’ve tried “Little Bear” books with some success. “Frog and Toad” are stories he likes, but not if he has to go it solo. “Amelia Bedelia” makes him laugh, but again … he’s got no desire to pick it up like his Legos, for instance.

And so, we’ve lowered our expectations. A few paragraphs in a Star Wars sticker book … great! Signs on roads and buildings … sure. The Lego catalogue … um, is he actually looking at any of the words? Do the instructions on math worksheets count?

According to Jon Scieszka, I’m not alone in having a boy who is not finding reading material that truly engages him. Scieszka, who spent years teaching, is the author of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and is the Library of Congress’ first national ambassador for children’s books. He’ll be in Washington this Saturday for the National Book Festival on the mall from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

“We’ve had this problem with boys not achieving and reading for a long time,” Scieszka says, noting that although we’re generalizing about boys, there are always exceptions. “For the longest time, you couldn’t even say boys and girls were different. It was taboo in the educational world.” But different they are, biologically and socially, he asserts. Boys need “move time,” which they’re getting less and less of in school these days. “That’s how they’re built,” he says.

The biggest change we can all make in giving boys a love of reading is to expand our definition of reading beyond fiction, Scieszka says. Research shows that boys will read with their friends and want to be readers, but they want it on their terms. “They’d rather read nonfiction or humor, graphic novels, science fiction, action adventure, audio books, or online reading and magazines,” Scieszka says. Much of this reading, boys don’t even think of as reading, he notes. Also key: Include boys in choosing their reading material. Often books that were favorites of mom or teachers (who are mostly female) and librarians (also, mostly female) will feel like “going to the dentist” for boys, Scieszka asserts.

Great new titles are coming out every year, Scieszka says. He recommends Sterling Point Books’ redone autobiographies for older kids and Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggy for younger ones. Other winners in his book: Tony DiTerlizzi’s “Kenny and the Dragon”, “Fog Mound Chronicles” by Susan Schade and Jon Buller, Eoin Colfer’s “Artemis Fowl” books; Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s “Neverland”, Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book” and Corey Doctorow’s “Little Brother”.

In the graphic novel realm, the publisher First Second has a whole range of graphic novels that appeal to younger guys and older ones. Particularly good is the Robot series for younger readers, Scieszka says. For middle readers, try Jeff Smith’s BONE series. And some boys really like Captain Underpants. Finding graphic novels can be a challenge, Scieszka says, because teachers, librarians and parents need to read through them rather than scan them for age appropriateness. Some publishers are starting to recognize this, though, and are putting age recommendations on the books.

And for nonfiction, Scieszka recommends Timothy Bradley’s “Paleo Bugs” and “Paleo Sharks”.

What reading material — particularly alternative reading — engages your sons?

Source: Washington Post
http://tinyurl.com/3gutut

American taxpayers invest heavily in education. Last year, spending on public K–12 education totaled $553 billion, about 4 percent of gross domestic prod­uct (GDP) in 2006. For each child enrolled in a pub­lic elementary or secondary school, expenditures averaged $9,266 that year—an increase of 128 per­cent, adjusted for inflation, since 1970.

Despite this increase in public spending, student achievement and educational attainment over the last four decades has remained relatively flat. In 2007, a significant portion of students, disproportionately from disadvantaged backgrounds, scored “below basic” in reading and math on the National Assess­ment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Sadly, in many of the nation’s largest cities, fewer than half of high school students graduate.

While academic research has consistently shown that increased spending does not correlate with edu­cational gains, the research does show a strong rela­tionship between parental influences and children’s educational outcomes, from school readiness to college completion. Two compelling parental factors emerge:

2. parents’ involvement in their children’s schoolwork.

Consequently, the solution to improving educa­tional outcomes begins at home, by strengthening marriage and promoting stable family formation and parental involvement.

The Erosion of Family Stability in America

“Perhaps the most profound change in the American family over the past four decades,” writes sociologist Paul Amato, “has been the decline in the share of children growing up in households with biological parents.” In 1960, 88 percent of all children lived with two parents, compared to 68 percent in 2007. In 1960, 5 percent of all children were born to unmarried mothers. That figure rose to 38.5 per­cent in 2006. Demographers have estimated that, overall, one child in two will spend some portion of his or her childhood in a single-parent family.

Studies show that children raised in intact families, i.e., with two con­tinuously married parents, tend to fare better on a number of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral outcomes than children living in other family forms. Not surprisingly, the changes in family structure over the last 40 years have affected child and adoles­cent well-being. In 2002, nearly 7 million children between the ages of 12 and 18 repeated a grade. Based on this figure, Professor Amato estimates that if the share of two-parent fami­lies had remained unchanged be­tween 1980 and 2002, some 300,000 fewer teens would have repeated a grade. Some 750,000 fewer students in 2002 would have repeated a grade if the share of two-parent families remained at the level it was in 1960.

Social science research over the past decades suggests that family structure affects children’s school outcomes, from preschool to college. Some of the variations in school performance could be explained, in part or in whole, by the differences in family resources such as time and money, family dynamics and parental characteristics that are asso­ciated with the various family forms. These are mediating factors, or mechanisms through which family structure affects schooling outcomes. Family structure may also exert a direct influence, inde­pendent of mediating factors. Thus, depending on the outcome, family structure’s total effect may con­sist of one or more mediating influences or a com­bination of both direct and mediating influences.

Though various methodological research issues— e.g., data quality, inconsistent definitions of family structure, the selection effect (e.g., are individuals who possess better parenting qualities more likely to choose marriage and stay married, or does mar­riage per se bolster children’s well-being?)—limit the findings, the evidence, nonetheless, is strong: Fam­ily structure matters.

School Readiness. A number of early-childhood outcomes contribute to children’s eventual school readiness. The evidence suggests that potentially important early-childhood outcomes vary by family structure. One study, analyzing 1,370 mothers in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study who were continuously married or in cohabiting rela­tionships from the child’s birth to age three, found that three-year-olds born to cohabiting mothers tended to exhibit more aggressive, withdrawn, and anxious or depressive behavior than children born to married mothers. For aggressive and with­drawn behaviors, the association was explained by income differences. For anxiety and depressive symptoms, even controlling for income, the cohab­itation effect remained.

Studies show that reading to young children aids their literacy development. Toddlers and preschool-age children in married-parent families are read to more often than peers in non-intact families. One study of 11,500 kindergartners living with two par­ents orparent figuresreported that, accounting for parental education and income, children living with married parents averaged higher reading achieve­ment test scores than peers living in cohabiting or stepparent families.

Elementary and Secondary Education. The research on family structure and elementary and secondary educational outcome is extensive. Studies have reported that:

1. First-graders whose mothers were married when they were born are less likely to engage in dis­ruptive behavior with peers and teachers than those whose mothers were single or cohabiting at the time of their birth.

2. Children aged three to 12 who live in intact fam­ilies have higher average math scores than peers whose mothers live in cohabiting relationships.

3. The association between family structure and nine-year-olds’ science and math achievement appears to be cross-national.

4. Children aged seven to 10 who live in continu­ously intact families tend to score higher on read­ing tests than peers who have lived in other family structures.

5. Children aged six to 11 who live in intact fami­lies tend to be more engaged in their schoolwork than peers in other family structures.

6. Eighth-graders in two-parent families perform, on average, better on math and science tests than peers in single-parent or stepparent families.

7. The predominant family structure of a school’s student population appears to be linked to the individual science and math scores of eighth-graders.

8. Ninth-graders whose mothers were married when they were born are more likely to complete an algebra course than are peers whose mothers were single when they were born.

9. Middle school and high school students who expe­rience a parental divorce tend to suffer declines in their grade point averages and are more likely to fail a course one year later compared to peers of married parents; the evidence suggests a causal link.

10. Among middle school and high school students, the portion of childhood spent in a single-parent family is associated with declines in GPAs over time; and living in a single-mother family with a cohabiting partner is associated with a greater likelihood of suspension or expulsion from school at a later time.

Finally, studies have also shown a robust link between family structure and high school dropout or graduation rates, and the evidence suggests that the relationship may be causal.

Higher Education and Educational Attainment. The impact of family structure on educational out­comes appears to last into young adulthood. Throughout the college entrance process, students from non-intact families tend to fall behind their peers from intact families. The gap increases when the process involves selective college admission. Overall, children from intact families complete more years of schooling and achieve higher educational attainment than do peers from other family forms.

One study, analyzing two nationally representa­tive data sources, reported that longer durations in single-parent or blended families during child­hood appear to have a negative impact on college attendance and graduation. Though family income and parental education explained the association between single-parent families and lower college attendance and graduation rates, the disparities in these outcomes between children in intact families and those in blended families persisted.

Similarly, another study showed that, accounting for family income and estimated financial aid, an average student from a non-intact family was 5 per­cent less likely to attend a four-year college and 6 percent less likely to graduate from college than an average student from an intact family.

Parental Involvement

Parental involvement emerges as another robust influence on educational outcomes. It is multi-dimensional. Examples include monitoring chil­dren’s activities outside home and school; setting rules; having conversations about and helping chil­dren with school work and school-related issues; holding high educational expectations; discussing future planning with children and helping them with important decision making; participating in school-related activities such as meeting with teach­ers and volunteering in the classroom; and reading to children or engaging in other enrichment or lei­sure activities together.

A meta-analysis of 77 studies, consisting of 300,000 elementary and secondary students, found that parental educational expectations are a particu­larly important aspect of parental involvement. Parenting style, reading to children, and, to a lesser extent, participation in school-related activities appeared to be influential as well. Furthermore, parental involvement is associated with multiple measures of student achievement, for the entire stu­dent population as well as for minority and low-income student populations. Overall, “the academic advantage for those parents who were highly involved in their education averaged about 0.5–0.6 of a standard deviation for overall educational out­comes, grades and academic achievement.”

Parental Involvement and Family Structure. The level of parental involvement varies by family structure, and the relationship between parental involvement and educational outcomes depends on the family context as well. One study, for exam­ple, found that compared to high school students from intact families, those from single- or step­parent families reported less parental involvement in their school work, supervision, and parental educational expectations, which, in turn, affected school outcomes.

Early Childhood. Studies show that a sensitive, warm, and respon­sive type of parenting and engaging in play activities with young children bolster their social and emotional development, communication skills, and ability to focus. Doing arts and crafts with children, reading to them, showing them how to write words, and using a more complicated vocab­ulary around them also aid their liter­acy and language development. One study reported a link between these types of parental engagement and a range of school readiness out­comes such as “children’s motivation to learn, attention, task persistence, and receptive vocabulary and…fewer conduct problems.”

Frequent contact between parents and their children’s preschools as well as parent participation in school-related activities, such as volunteering in the classroom or meeting with a teacher, appear to benefit children on a num­ber of dimensions, including classroom performance and social interaction with peers and adults. One study reported that children whose teachers per­ceived more parental involvement tended to exhibit fewer problems and higher language and math com­petencies compared to children whose teachers per­ceived less parental engagement. The evidence also suggests that parental school involvement’s pos­itive influences buffer against some of the negative effects of poverty.

Elementary Education. Parental involvement during elementary school affects children’s school­ing outcomes as well. The quality of the parent-child relationship is significant. Middle school stu­dents who received sensitive, supportive parenting from their mothers during kindergarten tend to per­form better in school. Children of parents who frequently praise and show affection to them are less likely to require classroom attention for behavior and socio-emotional issues.

Studies also show that parental involvement in school-related activities during elementary school is associated with long-term educational gains. One study reported that among low-income African-American families, children of highly involved par­ents during elementary school were more likely to graduate from high school. In the same study, children of parents who were involved in school-related activities for three or more years completed more years of schooling compared to peers of less involved parents. Involvement, specifically by fathers, is significant as well. Children of fathers who visit their classrooms and meet with teachers tend to fare better in school than peers whose moth­ers are the only involved parent.

Reading with children and the way in which par­ents read to their children affect children’s reading ability. The research shows a distinction between reading storybooks to children, which contributes to their literacy development, and teaching children to read and write, which aids their language devel­opment. Both types of activities affect third- and fourth-grade performance.[50] Furthermore, parents’ use of vocabulary and their attitude toward home­work appear to influence corresponding outcomes in their children. Not surprisingly, children of parents who provide appropriate help with their homework tend to fare better in school.

The home environment in which children are raised plays a role in schooling outcomes. For ex­ample, in a study of middle-class families, elemen­tary students whose parents offered them math and science learning materials showed greater incli­nation toward and interest in math and science activities. Finally, parental expectations of achieve­ment, particularly adolescents’ perceptions of such expectations, appear to strengthen their actual mo­tivation and ability in school.

Secondary Education. Parent-child relation­ship quality continues to be an effective factor in schooling outcomes throughout adolescence. For example, in one study, youths who felt bonded to their parents and enjoyed good communication with them tended to have higher grades and physical well-being. In another study, among low-income youths, those whose parents encouraged individual decision making in their children during early ado­lescence were more likely to graduate from high school and attend college. Beyond academics, teens who receive more support from their parents are more likely to participate in structured after-school activities, which, in turn, are positively corre­lated with achievement and social competence.

During adolescence, parental monitoring to the extent to which parents know their children’s activ­ities outside of home and school, plays a crucial role in adolescent outcomes, particularly when children and adolescents perceive genuine care from their parents. Parental monitoring is associated with fewer school problems, less substance use, and reduced delinquency. Moreover, parental monitor­ing is positively linked to social development, school grades, and school engagement, such as pay­ing attention in class and being motivated to do well in school. The evidence also suggests that paren­tal monitoring may have different effects on boys and girls.

Not only does parental involvement in their chil­dren’s school-related activities send a positive mes­sage to students and teachers, such involvement is also related to high school completion. The research also suggests that minority students benefit from their parents’ participation in formal leader­ship roles at the school district level. The effects of parental involvement, however, may vary by par­ents’ education. One study showed that involve­ment from more-educated parents was associated with fewer behavioral problems in students, which, in turn, affected achievement and aspirations. Among students whose parents are less educated, parental involvement was related to student aspira­tions but not achievement.

At the secondary education level, high parental expectations continue to yield significant schooling benefits. In one study of high school seniors, “parental expectations for achievement stand out as the most significant influences on [their] achieve­ment growth, high school credits completed, and enrollment in extracurricular academic high school programs.” High parental educational expecta­tions are also associated with math and reading scores, interest in school, academic self-discipline, future planning, and motivation for school work. In one study of African-American families, when parents taught that success originates from effort rather than surpassing peers, their expectations had a strong effect on eighth- and ninth-grade math grades. Overall, parental expectations appear more influential than peer effects.

Finally, discussions with parents about the future and pursuing further education support teens’ aspi­rations and college preparation. One study of high-achievement Latino college students found that their parents imparted strong encouragement and values that emphasized education as a means to escape poverty.

Policy Implications

Social science research over the last few decades indicates a strong relationship between family struc­ture, parental involvement and children’s educa­tional outcomes, with enduring influences from early childhood to young adulthood. The empirical evidence points to several policy implications:

* Family policy intersects critically with education policy. Fortifying the intact family structure may lead to improvements in individual student out­comes as well as the American education system as a whole.

* Policies that strengthen healthy marriage and stable family formation may bolster child well-being, including school outcomes, both at the individual and aggregate levels.

* Conversely, policies and laws that facilitate fur­ther family breakdown may have adverse impacts on children’s educational outcomes and provide additional stress on the education system.

* In education reform efforts, greater emphasis on parental involvement and parental choice could yield significant gains in student achievement and attainment. Importantly, the research shows consistent benefits of high parental involvement for minority and low-income students, which deserves serious consideration in light of the achievement gap.

* On the other hand, education initiatives that dis­regard the importance of families and parental involvement, instead focusing on strategies such as increased expenditures, are likely to continue to prove less effective or ineffective altogether.

Conclusion

American taxpayers invest heavily in education, with annual public education spending totaling $553 billion. The average annual expenditure per child enrolled in a public school amounts to $9,266. Though per-pupil expenditures have increased dra­matically over the past few decades, student achieve­ment has remained relatively flat. A significant portion of students attending public schools score “below basic” in reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In some of the most disadvantaged central cities in America, fewer than half of high school students graduate.

While numerous education reforms over the last quarter century have demonstrated little impact on overall student achievement, the research clearly shows that the intact family structure and strong parental involvement are significantly correlated with educational outcomes, from school readiness to college completion. Instead of favoring proven ineffective education policies, policymakers seeking effective education reform should consider policies that strengthen family structure in America and bol­ster parental involvement and choice in education.

Christine C. Kim is Policy Analyst in the Domestic Policy Studies Department at The Heritage Foundation.

Source: Heritage.org
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/bg2185.cfm

The addition of Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Brothers to the ranks of Robert Burns and Robert Louis Stevenson is helping Scottish schoolchildren become enthused about learning and reaping ground-breaking educational results, according to researchers and teachers.

Experts say in games-based learning, using technology such as the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS in the classroom, Scotland leads the world.

According to the Consolarium, the Scottish centre for games and learning which is funded by Learning and Teaching Scotland, the number of pilot schemes around the country has grown exponentially. Last year 10 local authorities were using games-based learning. At the start of the new school term, 27 are investigating its possibilities.

As further evidence of growth, Derek Robertson, head of the Consolarium, points to this week’s Scottish Learning Festival at the SECC in Glasgow. With titles ranging from Thinking Out of the Xbox to Scotland’s Got Game: How Scotland Has Embraced Games-Based Learning, there are 10 seminars sharing examples of how classrooms are using computer games. Last year there were only four related talks.

“I don’t think there is any other place in the world that has done what LTS did,” said Robertson. “I’m continually asked who does my job in England, and there isn’t anyone. For LTS it was a risk, a maverick idea from the left field that has moved into the mainstream. It’s even mentioned in the Curriculum for Excellence. That’s the impact we’ve had.”

The world is now looking to Scotland. Robertson has been asked to speak in Germany, Australia the US. He has already advised the Singapore government. A section of the influential Handheld Learning Conference in London will be given over to what is happening in Scotland.

“People recognise that Scotland is a place that is keen to integrate these things into the curriculum,” said Robertson.

Teachers are reporting that by using games such as Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Guitar Hero, Wii Sports and Endless Ocean, pupils’ motivation, attendance, personal skills and academic performance have improved, particularly among young boys and hard-to-reach children.

Meldrum Primary school in Aberdeenshire employed the game Endless Ocean as a hook for cross-curricular project for its P7 class. After playing the game on the Wii, which involves controlling a diver exploring a seascape, the pupils learned about bio-diversity, wrote stories and staged a debate about developing the a section of the ocean for tourists.

“It got so heated the person acting out the part of the tourist development person was in tears,” said Kim Aplin, the deputy-head teacher. “The quality of the learning that took place was tremendous. There is no doubt at all it improved their academic ability.”

Other examples around the country include West Lothian nurseries and primary schools using dance mats as a way to develop early-years phonics and reading skills, with “huge success”, according to Laura Compton, the authority’s information and communications technology development officer.

In Elrick and Banchory primary schools in Aberdeenshire, P2 pupils learned how to be responsible for looking after a pet using the Nintendogs game on the Nintendo DS.

In Clepington Primary School in Dundee, Jo-Anne Bell used Mario and Sonic at the Olympics on the Wii as a hook to teach her P6 class about the solar system. Pupils were placed into teams named after planets, wrote stories about the creatures that would live there, and competed against each other every morning on the Wii.

After last year’s trial involving a Dundee primary school class using Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training on the Nintendo DS for 20 minutes a day, which sparked a 10% improvement in their basic arithmetic, the project was rolled out to 16 other schools. The results will be revealed on Thursday at the Scottish Learning Festival.

The head teachers’ organisation, School Leaders Scotland, said while it welcomed the rise of Nintendo and Sony consoles in the classroom, it had reservations.

“It’s a great extra resource, a great motivational tool, but it has resource implications and you have to keep it in perspective of the other things that you really need to do in terms of education,” said Ken Cunningham, the general secretary. “The projects are product-dependent and not readily available to everyone all the time. They have to balance all that with all the more traditional style of teaching, the interpersonal skills. So it’s about getting the balance right.”

Source: Sunday Herald
http://tinyurl.com/42tzq2

When my daughter was 10 she would sometimes say, “You’re not the boss of me!” This would always make me stop and think about the tone of voice I was using with her. Was I demanding that she do things or was I asking her politely?

Being bossy has nothing to do with setting rules. You can have rules and expect your children to follow them without treating them as if what they think doesn’t matter.

“I am my children’s mother and I should have the right to tell them what to do and have them snap to it,” a mother said to me the other day.

For starters, no one likes to be told what to do. And no one likes to do what they are told if the person bossing them around has the “I’m-the-big-dog-deal-with-it” kind of attitude.

Unless children understand what is expected, they won’t know how to act.

Parents need to be aware of how often they point out to their children all the incorrect things they say and do.

Just like in business, when you don’t let the people around you know you appreciate their hard work and only point out the mistakes they make, the group will get discouraged.

I’ve heard parents say, “How can I say anything positive to my child when his behavior lately is mostly negative?”

It might not be easy, but by finding at least one positive thing to say to your child every day, you will be changing the course of his behavior.

And most importantly, they are always willing to give and accept apologies, which creates a more peaceful home environment. (…)

Source: Monitor
http://www.themonitor.com/opinion/children_17315___article.html/say_know.html

So much of what babies do - and how their parents react - is a relic of our hunter-gatherer past, says Desmond Morris in his new book, writes Mary Russell

He has published some 50 books, enjoys a parallel career as a surrealist painter, does one drawing every day without fail, has a theory about the office of the future (it will be a huge televisual voice-activated screen occupying one whole wall of your living room, on which your work colleagues will appear in hologram form), and because he is entranced with the subject matter, is unashamedly enthusiastic about his latest book, called simply Baby. Yes, Desmond Morris is back again with an examination of that most intriguing of animals, the human infant.

It is 41 years since he first hit the headlines with The Naked Ape. “If I wrote that book now,” Morris tells me in his Oxford home, “I’d call it ‘The Talking Ape’, because that’s what sets us apart from other animals: we can make symbolic equations. I might say to you, ‘look at that tree’, and the sound of the word bears no relation to a tree, yet you immediately visualise a tree. I know we’re only divided from apes by two chromosomes, but they’re pretty big chromosomes.”

An instant bestseller (12 million copies sold to date) it allowed him and his wife, Ramona, to buy a house in Malta, where she had their son, Jason.

“We were married for 16 years,” he says, “and people were asking why we didn’t have a child. They thought I should be studying a human child rather than other animals, but we were living in a flat in London and an urban environment with all that concrete is no place to raise a child. Then, when he was born, people said ‘now you can study him’, but I said, ‘no, I’m going to love him’. You can get too scientific.”

Jason, now himself the father of four children, lives with his wife in Co Kildare, where he is director of racing at Horse Racing Ireland.

This latest book, Baby, is gorgeously illustrated, with the text covering every aspect of human growth from conception through to the second year, thus taking in that minefield of childhood: the terrible twos. Not that Morris sees it like that at all: “What happens is that a small baby who is secure and loved can do very little for the first year or so, but then that very security allows him to try things out and sometimes it gets out of hand.”

Thus the terrible twos go through what he benignly describes as the “eccentric phase”. Does he tell us how to deal with such matters? “No. I just give people the facts about the child’s development, and after that it’s up to them,” he says.

He has great sympathy for the young single parent - it’s usually a mother - coping on her own in an urban setting. “That’s a very lonely place to be. It’s part of our birthright to come together in groups and that doesn’t happen any more,” he says.

And then he gets to it - the hunter-gatherer bit - about how in the old days, and we’re really going back here, the male could display his manliness by hunting and killing and so forth, and thus, his masculinity recognised and established, he could return home to display tenderness towards his children without anyone calling him a girl’s blouse. The other thing was that when we lived in small tribes, the mother could take her child with her to work, swaddled on her back or placed in a hanging basket on a tree so that the two were always within sight or hearing of each other. “Now,” Morris says, “that’s gone. You can’t breastfeed in the boardroom - unless you’re Karren Brady .”

His other concern is with what he calls “yes parents” and “no parents”. A controlling one (a no parent) robs the child of the feeling that the world is full of possibilities. These children grow up to be over-cautious and conservative in their outlook, whereas a child with a yes parent is adventurous and non-conformist. I can tell from this that his own mother was a yes mother and he agrees.

“When I was about five or six, I asked if I could have a tame fox for a pet, and I got not one but two.”

And lots of other creatures as well, which was very noble of his mother, he remarks, because we all know it’s the mother who ends up looking after all these pets.

Mothers rate big with Morris and this is partly because the female is pre-programmed to relate to babies. Come, I can’t help interrupting, surely nurture is a big player in the ping-pong game of gender bias. But he is unperturbed.

“I’m not so sure,” he says, far too genial to contradict me outright. “Children will make a choice. They’ll filter things.”

And so I tell him of my son who, when small, was given a doll’s house to play with and the doll family always ended up on the roof of the house awaiting rescue by a fire engine or a helicopter because some action-packed drama was taking place below. He nods. “Yes, the child will make a choice that accords with its gender,” he says.

But I’m still not convinced by his pre-programming theory. How can he say for sure, I ask, feeling like Doubting Thomas. After all, this is a man who has spent his life studying animal behaviour.

“Well, there’s the pupil test,” he explains. “You have a device that measures pupil dilation, which, as we all know, is an indication of how much you like something. When you show a female an image of a baby, her pupils will dilate whether or not she has had a baby. But do the same with a male who is not yet a father and there is no response. No emotional bonding. However, do it with a male who has become a father and the pupils dilate just like a female’s.”

Sitting in Morris’s wonderfully comfortable library, its walls lined with books (all catalogued), masks and whatnot on the wall, rugs on the floor and a soft, low sofa that just begs to be sat upon - it’s a joy to watch the show as he acts out a woman’s pupils dilat- ing to an alarming size, popping his own eyes to emphasise his point. And because, in this dark world of bank crashes and credit crunches, he’s so smilingly positive, you’d almost want to hug him. But of course I don’t, because this is a serious interview, and so instead I ask him which creature might act as the best role model for a would-be parent.

“Birds,” he says promptly. “They have to make a nest and keep the egg warm, and both parents feed the young, and that’s what’s important: pair bonding. It demonstrates that human babies need two parents just as birds do. This is partly due to the fact that humans have serial litters. They need someone else there. In the animal world generally, a cat or a bitch will have a litter but won’t have another one till those babies have grown up and left the nest. The human mother will have a second litter before the first one is even weaned, sometimes.”

It’s not like monkeys, which cling to their mother’s fur and go wherever she goes. Incidentally, in the human baby, there’s what’s called the Moro reflex. Check it out. It occurs in very young babies when they fling their arms out and then bring them together again as if embracing something. They do the same with their legs.

“It’s a relic gesture,” says Morris’s book, “from when a baby felt itself falling from its mother’s body.”

Although Morris doesn’t tell parents how to behave, he does hint: “The relic gesture alerts the mother to the fact that her baby is suddenly feeling unsafe and physically insecure.”

So do something about it, is the gentle hint.

The baby book, says Morris, was a gift, as it allowed him to do what he’d trained as a zoologist to do: observe. “I’m not an experimenter. I just watch. You can’t ask babies questions or give them a questionnaire to fill in. You just watch them.”

There are gender differences that he outlines but doesn’t emphasise. Boy babies cry less because in the hunter-gatherer period they couldn’t make much noise or their prey would run away. Men are focused on one goal while women multi-task, though that doesn’t mean one can’t do the other.

” Ramona,” he says, “can multi-task, but so can I. It just means I have to try a little harder.”

The book is full of observations that we once knew but have forgotten. Small children’s feet are best left unshod, so only put shoes on them when they go outside. Tests have shown that toddlers rarely stray more than 60 metres from their mothers, so you don’t have to yank them back, they’ll come of their own accord. Unless they’re going through their eccentric phase, of course. At which point, you may find you’re giving yourself a hug. This, as Morris notes in his book, People Watching, is a comforting device employed by adults in moments of stress. Well, it’s better than reaching for a bottle of mother’s ruin.

• Baby: The Amazing Story of the First Two Years of Life, by Desmond Morris, is published by Hamlyn

Source: Irish Times, Ireland
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2008/0912/1221138432919.html

Whether to spank children as a method of discipline is hotly debated. Some evidence suggests spanking predisposes children to behave aggressively. Others say spanking does no harm if it’s carried out dispassionately.

A study published today in Archives of Disease in Childhood shows that mothers are more inclined to spank their children if they are depressed, live in a home where they are exposed to violence or if their children are difficult to control.

Researchers at Boston Medical Center studied almost 13,000 mother-child pairs as part of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort. The mothers answered survey questions on whether they had serious disagreements with their spouses that involved hitting or throwing things at one another. They also completed a depression assessment. The children’s behavior was assessed by their kindergarten teachers.

Among mothers with neither depression nor exposure to violence at home, one in four said they spanked their children. Among mothers who said they were either depressed or exposed to violence, one in three spanked. But among those with both depression and exposure to violence, one in two spanked. Moreover, children who had trouble controlling their own behavior got walloped more. Among mothers with depression, 33% of children with good self-control were spanked compared with 53% of children with poor self-control.

That last finding is important because there is a lack of data that reveal how a child’s behavior affects the risk of physical punishment. Indeed, any research that helps explain the causes and ramifications of spanking is valuable considering the lack of evidence that spanking is more effective than other forms of discipline. Spanking is discouraged by the American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, see the AAP’s web page for parents on discipline and spanking.

Source: Los Angeles Times, CA
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2008/09/research-sugges.html

When it comes to fruits and vegetables, kids can be picky.

“I like blueberries and blackberries,” says toddler Brady Lawrence.
“We tried red raspberries,” adds his mother, Kristen Lawrence of the North HIlls. But Brady didn’t like them.

Having a grandchild who doesn’t like vegetables worries this grandma.

“I think it’s good for children to get a more rounded diet,” says Arlene McCray of the North Hills. “But his dad wasn’t a good eater, either.”

Children are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables if their parents do, according to a study of more than 1,300 families in the journal Preventive Medicine.

“Children, like adults, will eat what’s available when they’re hungry,” says Dr. Goutham Rao, an obesity expert at Children’s Hospital’s Weight Management Center.

All of the families were in a parenting skills program. With five one-hour long home visits, half the families also got extra education in nutrition. They learned about how to get kids to eat fruits and vegetables. They ate the food in front of the children and allowed them to choose which ones they wanted to eat.

“The way they did it is just too expensive. We couldn’t do that here,” says Dr. Rao about this intense approach.

This group had a higher fruit and vegetable intake — for both the parents and the children.

“I think it’s better to do it through the schools, and actually incorporate it into school curricula, with something the kids can take home to their parents, to educate the parents as well,” Dr. Rao suggests.

There was no increase in fondness for fruits and vegetables for children who were already overweight. “There’s a critical period where kids develop their tastes and preferences, and that’s between age 2 to 5 or so. As they get older, it gets extremely hard to change that. And fruits and vegetables just don’t appeal to them,” the doctor explains.

He recommends that parents start introducing vegetables and other healthy foods as early as possible. Try them over again at a later time if your child spits it out at first. Gradually changing the diet by swapping a less healthy food with a more healthy choice, one at a time, can be helpful if your child has already made his or her favorites clear.

Source: KDKA, PA
http://kdka.com/seenon/Children.fruit.parents.2.803678.html