10 year old, Aaryan casually asked his mother, “What’s the big deal about vibrating condoms? Aren’t condoms the good guys who keep HIV out of the picture?” His parents were caught off guard. They had no answer to their son’s question. They were used to answering their 10 year old’s questions on the solar system and global warming, but talking about condoms with their 10 year old was something that they were not prepared. They knew that they had to ‘have the talk’ but the details of when and who were comfortably shelved back. Seema, his mother shockingly said, “10 is not an age to talk about sex!” Well, as parents, we always feel its not the right time. But our children are growing up faster than we realize. And they are more aware of their surroundings than we give them credit for.

We agree that talking about sex and puberty with your kids is difficult. Like Lena, a mother of two teenager children says, “I’ vent spoken to my children about sex. I assumed that with the constant bombardment by our media, they will pick up all that they need to.” A wrong approach, according to Dr. Sheetal Pradhan, a child psychologist, who says, “ Media tends to portray emotions in extreme – no doubt the young mind picks up all that’s there, but the child does not know the difference between the good and the bad. He watches the drama unfold between the hero and the heroine…he watches them run around trees and kiss under the stars. He sees everyone around him smiling…and assumes that it’s the right thing to do!” And when Lena was called by the school counselor because her daughter was caught ‘kissing’ in the empty class room, hell hath no fury! But it was too late. Maya, her teenage daughter was experimenting with all that she had seen. Her parents hadn’t spoken to her and she just assumed that it was ok!

Shocking! But more and more parents are faced with daunting challenge of fast forwarding the clock and having ‘the talk’ at an early age. Talking early helps to establish a relationship with your kids that will continue as they get older. So that by the time they reach the rebellious teens, they’ll not only know the facts, but they’ll feel they can be open with you about their feelings and what’s going on in their lives.

Why is talking about sex important?

Children will learn about sex whether or not you want them to. “The sources are many, but it may not always be the right information. A gallimaufry of information would leave your child confused and usually is a trigger to experimenting”, says Dr. Sheetal. She adds, “As a parent, you play a very important role in making sure that the information is right. While our children need to know the biological facts about sex, they also need to understand that sexual relationships involve caring, concern and responsibility. Very often the child sees a movie wherein two people meet and later end up in bed together. But you need to educate them that in real life there is time to get to know each other — time to hold hands, go bowling, see a movie, or just talk. Children need to know that this is an important part of a caring relationship.”

When should I start?

A dilemma faced by all parents…but child psychologists across believe earlier the better. When they are young, the first question that would crop up is “where do babies come from?” And before you know it, puberty would hit in and your child needs the right information before they start experiencing bodily changes.

I’m uncomfortable talking about sex with my child

“Thinking back, my parents never educated me about sex. My mother had an open woman to woman conversation only after I got married.” When I asked her, she said, she was uncomfortable. And I don’t blame her. It is difficult talking to your child about sex. How do you get down to the basics? But, avoiding it is not the solution. No one said parenting was going to be easy. The discussion is what is important and being honest about your awkward feelings shows your child how to face difficult situations. Its okay to say something like, “You know, I’m uncomfortable talking about sex because my parents never talked with me about it. But I want us to be able to talk about anything—including sex—so please come to me if you have any questions. And if I don’t know the answer, I’ll find out.”

Bringing it up

1. Use everyday situations to start conversations. TV programmes are often a good opportunity to talk about relationships, or talk when you’re doing something like the washing up. This makes your child feel that sex is a normal part of family life and not a special subject.

2. Children notice the tone of what you say as much as what you say. So don’t get cross or put them down.

3. If you don’t know the answer, say so but find out later.

4. Try to be truthful as stories about storks delivering babies just confuse children.

What if my child does not want to talk to me?

13 year Mia would roll her eyes every time her mother would broach the topic of sex! She would rather read about it from Mills and Boons and the net, because she says, “the information is so cool and talking to ma is boring”. Teenagers often find it much harder to talk to their parents about sex, so it’s important talk to children when they’re much younger, rather than leaving it until they feel really awkward. You may have to accept that your teenager doesn’t want to talk to you. Children need privacy and the chance to make their own decisions, but to have your support when they need it. You can help by making sure that they know where else to get advice if they don’t want to discuss these issues with you.

Source: MSN India, India
http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/relationships/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1695993

Children are struggling at school because they don’t know if they are left or right-handed

The proportion of infants arriving at school not knowing whether they are right or left-handed has trebled in the past decade, researchers say. The situation has been made worse by excessive parental fears, driven by cot death, about letting them lie or crawl on their front.

“The most important thing parents can do is ensure that when they are being observed during the day, they are given a chance to be on their front.” Previous research by Portwood has found that 57% of three-year-olds are unable to carry out tasks expected at their age. She cited children’s inactive lifestyles as “a major contributory factor”.

Other experts have also raised concerns about children’s development. “Brain development is at its most rapid between the age of zero and three,” said Aric Sigman, a psychologist and a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He pointed to research showing that for every hour a day a three-year-old watches television, there is a 9% rise in attention problems.

Sigman has described television as “the greatest unacknowledged public health issue of our time”. He also believes video games have led to children spending less time working with their hands and failing to grasp concepts such as weight, volume and measurement.

“By using your hands, you can actually become more civilised,” said Sigman. “These are problems likely to persist in life, they are rather indelible.”

The problem was highlighted at the Conservative party conference when a restaurateur told a session addressed by David Willetts, the shadow skills secretary, that she was unable to find British employees under 25 who had the dexterity to peel a potato.

Source: Times Online, UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article5114484.ece

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

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

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

We now have new evidence, after the publication of a study in Human Reproduction, that women who are severely depressed during pregnancy are at much higher risk of giving birth prematurely.

The recent report is one of a handful of scientific studies to document the association between maternal depression and premature birth. But it’s the most important to date because of its size and the large, representative group of women sampled.

Previous research suggests that 9 to 12 percent of women become clinically depressed during pregnancy. The question, of course, is why a mother’s mental state would affect the timing of a birth.

No one knows for sure. But experts speculate that depression affects a woman’s neuroendocrine system, which in turn affects the hormones circulating in her body, which in turn affects the functioning of the placenta that nourishes the infant.

“To sustain a healthy pregnancy, normal placental function is essential,” said Dr. De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatology epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California and lead author of the report. “Potentially, depression can lead to malfunction of the placenta,” he suggested.

Indeed, there is increasing evidence that something along these lines occurs with women who experience stress during pregnancy.

Dr. Diane Ashton, deputy medical director for the March of Dimes, notes that stress can alter a woman’s immune function, leading to “increased susceptibility to intra-amniotic infection or inflammation.” Research studies indicate these infections may play an important role in pre-term births.

Also, Ashton says, maternal stress can jump-start the production of “fight or flight” hormones like cortisol, which in turn can prematurely activate placental hormones that can set off a cascade of events leading to premature birth.

Even if a baby is born full term, being bathed in cortisol in utero can affect fetal brain development, research shows.

Dr. Laura Miller, director of the women’s mental health program at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center, said research shows that children of stressed-out pregnant women can be affected at least to age 10.

These children often have hyper-reactive responses, physiologically and emotionally, and have “greater difficulty dealing with stress,” she says. Also, infants of stressed mothers can be “more irritable and difficult to soothe” and demonstrate “poorer growth and increased risk of infection,” she notes.

As for maternal depression, it may operate through similar mechanisms – by altering similar hormones and producing similar physiological responses – or it may not. The research necessary to clarify what’s happening hasn’t yet been done.

We don’t know, either, if it makes a difference at what point during a pregnancy a mom becomes depressed (the Human Reproduction report studied only moms who reported depressed symptoms in the first trimester) or how long the depression lasts.

Miller suggests the take-home message for moms is “depression during pregnancy can be prevented, and if a woman suspects she might be at risk she really should strongly consider pre-conception counseling.”

Factors that can put women at risk include previous bouts of depression and a family history of maternal depression.

For women who are considering pregnancy but have concerns about mental health, there are several therapeutic options, including psychotherapy, strengthening social supports, and medication, Miller notes. For those who become depressed during pregnancy, these options remain, but the profile of potential benefits and risks differs, depending on the type of depression a woman has and other factors.

Since surveys show that most ob/gyns don’t feel comfortable treating depression, it’s important to find a medical expert who is prepared to help. Be honest about what you’re feeling and ask your ob/gyn directly if she’s the right person to offer assistance.

Among the questions that Miller suggests: “Have you had experience treating depression during a pregnancy?” “Do you have special training in working with pregnant women who are depressed?” “Do you refer people with these kinds of problems to a psychiatrist – and, if so, can I get a referral?”

Source: Chicago Tribune, United States
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/triage/2008/10/depression-and.html

Is our generation too heavily dependent on the Internet? According to a recent Wi-Fi Alliance and Wakefield Research survey, almost three out of five students would not go to a college that does not offer free wi-fi. In fact, “nine out of 10 college students in the United States say wi-fi access is as essential to education as classrooms and computers,” says the study.

Some scientists and writers suggest that spending a great deal of time on the Internet can significantly shorten a person’s attention span. The same survey states, “More than half [of the students surveyed] have checked Facebook or MySpace and sent or received e-mail while using their laptop in class.” I have seen, in my lecture classes, no shortage of high-achieving and academically motivated Brandeis students surreptitiously checking Facebook instead of taking notes. The temptation is strong. Is the Internet so addictive it prevents even the best students from concentrating in class?

The Atlantic Monthly recently published a popular article by Nicholas Carr titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” The Internet allows us a vast range of instantly accessible information; research used to entail hours spent in libraries poring over books, articles, newspaper archives and so on. Now we can click-click-click our way through the Internet, jumping from Web page to Web page, skimming through information from one hyperlink to another. In the article, Carr describes the effect years of doing so has had on his way of thinking: “My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

People who are used to reading on the Internet might find it difficult to concentrate on the linear narrative of a book. A New York Times article states: “Some traditionalists warn that digital reading is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories. Zigzagging through a cornucopia of words, pictures, video and sounds, they say, distracts more than strengthens readers.” Despite all the obvious advantages of having so much information at our fingertips, it is possible that the format in which it’s presented erodes our reading skills.

In general, it seems to me that spending so much time in the virtual world is slowly turning us into zombies. We are increasingly disconnected from real life. We spend less time outdoors or engaging in physical activity. We are so immersed in our technology we end up limiting our interactions with other people. Talking to friends on Facebook is not the same as talking to them in person. Talking to friends you’ve “met” on the Internet but not in real life doesn’t count at all. The more that technology advances, it seems, the more isolated we become; take the example of Netflix. Even the drive to the video store and the basic interaction with the guy behind the counter is no longer a necessary part of the process of renting movies. We can get them mailed to us directly, so we don’t even need to leave the house and make that tiny effort.

We seriously need to reevaluate our priorities. Do we really need wi-fi so desperately that we’re willing to cross colleges off our lists just because they don’t offer it in restaurants, classrooms, parks, coffee shops, even in our cars? Large percentages of students, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance, use the Internet in all these places.

Despite all its advantages, the Internet, when used so excessively, seems to impair our social skills and numb our brains. The survey even found that “If forced to choose, nearly half of respondents (48 percent) would give up beer before giving up Wi-fi.” For college students, that seems extreme.

Source: Justice, MA
http://tinyurl.com/5jcevc