Don Katz has a vision for the kids of America: He wants to take the technology that brings the Jonas Brothers to their ears and use it to deliver the Brothers Grimm.

Nearly a third of children ages 6 to 10 are regular users of digital audio players, according to market research firm the NPD Group. And thanks to entrepreneurs like Katz, they now can use them to listen to bedtime stories.

In March, the Audible.com founder launched AudibleKids.com, where children can download books directly onto their digital audio players.

“I hear lots of people talking, saying that when they put their kids to bed, they put them down with an audiobook,” said Audio Publishers Association president Michele Cobb.

Kids’ and teens’ books accounted for 13 percent of national audiobook sales in 2007, according to the Audio Publishers Association. That’s a relatively small number, but it’s nearly double the 7 percent that was estimated by the group in 2004.

AudibleKids, which offers books for preschoolers on up, aims to stoke their interest further by offering a social networking community where they can talk about books with each other and with parents, teachers and even authors such as R.L. Stine of Goosebumps fame.

Random House’s Listening Library has been producing audiobooks for kids for more than 50 years. What’s new is the digital technology — companies such as Fisher-Price and Disney now sell kid-friendly digital audio players for children as young as 2.

Katz believes that reaching kids through digital media may inspire them to have a lifelong love of books — even the old-fashioned printed kind.

“The world of reluctant readers is huge,” he said. For many children, Katz said, “reading outcomes tend to fall apart around third grade,” which is often the same time that parents stop reading to their kids.

Digital audiobooks, especially those narrated by talented artists, can “extend the pleasure of being read to by your parents into fifth, sixth, seventh grades,” he said. And talented artists are lining up to narrate — Macmillan Audio launched a children’s list this spring with narrations by Gwyneth Paltrow and Tony Shaloub.

“Listening is a powerful method to retain the meaning of the story and to turn people on to the concept of well-chosen words,” Katz said. “The interpretation of the reader, that adds layers to it. If you ever enjoyed Charlotte’s Web , to hear Edmund Wilson read it is a transcendent experience.”

For some moms and dads, the idea of kids chatting online about Holden Caulfield instead of Hannah Montana is pretty compelling. But for those who spent their own childhood summers reveling in the crisp pages of paperbacks, there are real concerns about what may be lost if their offspring tackle a summer reading list via MP3.

Even among today’s multitasking teens, listening instead of reading might cause them to lose focus as they half-listen while attempting to reach the next level of Halo 3 and text messaging a friend.

Katz said he isn’t aiming to discourage parents from reading to their children. But with kids so fully embracing the digital age, he believes it’s the best way to reach them.

Source: The Courier News, IL
http://tinyurl.com/6ko9qj

Young children whose parents read aloud to them have better language and literacy skills when they go to school, according to a review published online ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Children who have been read aloud to are also more likely to develop a love of reading, which can be even more important than the head start in language and literacy. And the advantages they gain persist, with children who start out as poor readers in their first year of school likely to remain so.

The authors explain that the style of reading has more impact on children’s early language and literacy development than the frequency of reading aloud. Middle class parents tend to use a more interactive style, making connections to the child’s own experience or real world, explaining new words and the motivations of the characters, while working class parents tend to focus more on labelling and describing pictures. These differences in reading styles can impact on children’s development of language and literacy-related skills.

The Reach Out and Read programme in Boston has improved the language skills of children in low income families by increasing the proportion of parents reading to their children.

The programme provides books and advice to the parents about the importance of reading aloud. Parents who have been given books were four times more likely to say they had looked at books with their children or that looking at books was one of their child’s favourite activities, and twice as likely to read aloud to their children at least three times a week.

Source: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080512191126.htm

“Boring” sums up Josh Bullock’s entire high school experience. The 17-year-old got in trouble and recalls spending time in in-school suspension, a practice he said confined him to a small room with no windows where he was supposed to do his schoolwork without any interaction.

He eventually dropped out.

“I’m intelligent,” he said, leaning forward then slumping back again, tapping his foot and moving his hand. He can’t sit still.

Neither can state officials who want to find a way to keep kids in school.

Mississippi’s dropout rate is 24.1 percent - similar to the rest of the nation. On average, only 70 percent of American students will graduate from high school. In Mississippi, only 63 percent will. State officials are determined to reduce the rate by 50 percent in five years.

Gov. Haley Barbour and State Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds agree that high school dropouts pose an economic development hurdle for Mississippi.

“They are not going to have the same opportunities,” Bounds said. “They are more likely to get engaged with illegal activity. Dropouts are more likely to have children who will drop out.”

The economic reality of an undereducated class is staggering.

# Dropouts from the Class of 2007 will cost Mississippi almost $3.9 billion in lost wages and taxes over their lifetime, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education, a national policy and advocacy organization based in Washington.

# Dropouts cost Mississippi $458 million each year, Bounds said. The number comes from money spent on social services, including medical care and prison. It also figures in lost revenue in taxes based on what all those dropouts might have made in income had they completed high school.

# More than 13,000 students drop out every year in Mississippi, according to the Mississippi Department of Education.

# The dropout rate for black and Hispanic students is close to 50 percent nationwide, according to the America’s Promise Alliance, a Washington-based nonprofit collaborative chaired by Alma Powell and founded by her husband, Gen.Colin Powell. In Mississippi, about 57 percent of blacks graduate compared to 71 percent of whites.

# Dropouts earn about $9,200 less per year than high school graduates.

‘Moral obligation’

The state’s new focus has not come about because things are suddenly worse in Mississippi.

“The graduation rate is probably better than it’s ever been,” Bounds said.

And it’s not that Mississippi is worse than any other state. Nationwide, dropout rates are similar to the state’s numbers.

The problem is more complicated than dropping out of high school, though. High school itself just isn’t enough anymore to make it in a global economy based on high technology and ever-evolving transformations.

“Now that we are really understanding this issue, we can understand and see what the real problem looks like,” Bounds said. “I just think I have a moral obligation to make this a focus of the state, to wage this war.”

While politicians, educators, pundits and other adults debate how to solve the dropout crisis, the kids are angry.

“Teachers actually say ‘They don’t pay me enough to do this.’ They don’t want to be there,” said Adam Dearman, 17, who dropped out of Seminary High School earlier this year.

Cameron Clark, 16, wanted to move on with her life. She wants to be an embalmer and plans to attend junior college to meet that goal. Forrest County Agricultural High School already taught her everything it could, she said, and she left school this year.

“I don’t count myself as a dropout. I withdrew from school - I didn’t drop out.”

But Mississippi does count her as a dropout.

High school obsolete

A Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded study that explored why kids drop out found 47 percent of dropouts said classes were not interesting and 69 percent said they were not motivated.

Gates got the shocked attention of the nation’s governors in 2005 when he told a gathering of them that high school was obsolete.

Students are not learning what they need to learn to work for international companies immersed in high technology, he said. The problem goes beyond secondary school - more Americans need to finish college and engage in intellectual challenges to propel the nation into the future.

But before that need can be addressed, more kids must finish 12th grade, experts say. To keep them engaged and make them marketable, a major overhaul is needed. American high schools need updating - call it High School 2.0.

Mississippi is in the middle of a high school redesign. Bounds said it is a move that will make high school relevant.

“There will be lots of strands that look alike - what we do with technology, what we teach teachers to counsel students and explain opportunities,” Bounds said.

Some things will vary for each school district. Schools are different sizes and different regions in the state have their own needs. For example, Lamar County schools are incorporating economics into the curriculum at every level to help students make better choices.

The experts

Part of the redesign has to include more guidance for students, even building it into the required curriculum, national experts say.

Effective comprehensive guidance has three components, said Norman Gysbers, an expert in the field and a professor at the University of Missouri.

First, the curriculum should include knowledge about career opportunities. Second, the school should work with each student and his parents to develop a personal plan of study in middle school. Third, the school should provide special help when it’s needed on a short-term basis.

“The focus is on a living plan initiated in high school,” Gysbers said.

An example is Navigation 101, a program in the state of Washington that has had great success. A program of comprehensive guidance should be an ongoing quest, not a one-time determination, Gysbers said.

“Plans change,” he said. Guidance should never lock students into only one option they can’t escape. Kids have to feel as if school matters in their life and actually makes a difference, Gysbers said.

“If students feel connected to school, they are going to do better,” he said.

Different programs and curricula are available based on the research of Gysbers and others who have examined the need for decades. An example is the extensive yet intuitive Career Choices course used in many schools across the nation, but not in Mississippi because strict state guidelines don’t leave room for a new subject. Career Choices incorporates English and math skills with “life planning.” That program promotes the idea of a 10-year plan starting around eighth grade with dreams and visions and morphing into a strategy for the next phase of learning after high school. By contrast, many existing programs just concentrate on getting through the four years of high school.

The challenge is getting comprehensive guidance implemented into the curriculum.

“If we have to concentrate on basics, how do we get extras in?” Gysbers asked. He said that is a common concern of school administrators already loaded with heavy state and federal requirements.

Ideally, the developmental process begins in elementary school.

“It’s really too late by high school,” Gysbers said. “That kind of effort takes a lot of time and resources.”

Other experts agree. It takes parents as well as teachers and schools that care about the individual kid.

“When you connect a student to an adult, it builds relationships, it helps him build goals,” said Gene Bottoms of Atlanta, senior vice president of Southern Regional Education Board and founding director of High Schools That Work.

Any dropout prevention plan has to be more than about holding more students in school, but at the same time that is one of the obstacles.

“You can’t do much to get them engaged if they aren’t in school,” Bottoms said.

“We have a very high failure rate in grade nine,” he said, adding that part of this is because of a high student-to-teacher ratio and part of it is because it’s often teachers with the least experience who teach freshmen high school classes.

The more experienced teachers often teach Advanced Placement classes to smaller classes in higher grades. Bottoms wants to turn the whole system around.

He thinks one reason for the dropout rate and the ninth-grade failures is because current high school requirements load up on academics in the ninth grade. Some students have to take two math classes, for example. One is remedial if their math scores are too low and one is required for them not to get left behind.

Keeping boys interested is another large problem, Bottoms said.

“We’re losing male students at a higher rate than young ladies,” he said.

Schools need to change the experience for teenagers. In the ninth grade, there should a practical class with hands-on applications, either in fine arts or technology that allows kids to get up out of their seats and interact as they put academic skills to work. That’s one idea.

Another idea Bottoms has is to offer catch-up classes so students have another opportunity to pick up a required class without becoming so hopelessly behind they don’t choose to stay.

Hattiesburg High is considering something along these lines with online courses that could meet the need.

“We have got to redesign the curriculum in ninth grade,” Bottoms said. “Do less tracking and sorting. Enroll more kids in AP classes. Don’t wait until 11th grade to start tech classes. Improving the high school completion rate is as much about changing adult behavior as it is about changing student behavior.”

Bottoms describes a high school in San Antonio, Texas, that had bullet holes in the walls and looked and felt like a prison. The school administrators eventually turned to Boys Town, a Nebraska-based nonprofit organization, for help.

“They did a 180-degree turnaround,” Bottoms said. The difference? Treating the students as individuals.

“They don’t sense adults respect them,” Bottoms said.

Schools that want to change need a district that supports them. Mississippi’s dropout prevention program is a step in the right direction, Bottoms said.

“Hank (Bounds) has a handle on things. Accountability has to give as much importance to completion as to achievement.”

Where are parents?

A lack of parental involvement is at the root of many dropout stories.

“Parents do not get involved,” Bottoms said. “And there’s not very good mechanisms for poor parents to get involved. Better-off parents who are educated know how to work the system.”

It’s not only one thing that needs fixing. It’s many things. Bottoms suggests leadership training for principals and teachers to start.

“This will cost some money,” Bottoms said. “Look at your prison costs. You are either going to make your investment now or pay for it later.”

Josh Bullock, meanwhile, is still angry but not unmotivated. The former Oak Grove student is getting his GED, looking for a part-time job and planning to attend junior college to study computer science, maybe something in game design.

School just got in the way of his plans.

Source: Hattiesburg American, MS
http://tinyurl.com/6mot7g

Children whose fathers are depressed have smaller vocabularies than those who do not, a US study suggests.

But the Eastern Virginia Medical School study of 5,000 families found language development in children whose mothers had similar symptoms seemed unaffected.

Researchers said by the age of two, children with depressed fathers used 1.5 fewer words than the average of 29.

This could be because depressed fathers spent less time reading to their children, they wrote in New Scientist.

The researchers, led by paediatric psychologist James Paulson, surveyed about 5,000 families.

When the children were nine months old, 14% of the mothers and 10% of the fathers were clinically depressed.

The researchers assessed the impact on language development by measuring what proportion of 50 common words the children were using at two years of age.

On average the children in the study were using 29 of the 50 words by the time they reached two.

‘Significant difference’

However, those children whose fathers were depressed when they were nine months old used an average of 1.5 fewer words than those whose fathers were fine.

Dr Paulson said the difference might seem small, but when scaled up across a child’s complete vocabulary it might make a significant difference.

In contrast, there was no difference in the size of the vocabulary of children whose mothers were depressed, and of those whose mothers were not.

The researchers found that depressed mothers did not reduce the amount of time they spent reading to their nine-month-old baby, but depressed fathers read on average 9% less than those who had no problem.

Dr Paulson, who presented the findings to a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, said he hoped the study would encourage depressed fathers to seek help.

He said: “Men may not be likely to seek help for themselves but when other people who depend on them become affected, that may change the landscape.”

Ruth Coppard, a psychologist with an interest in child development, said depressed people tended to withdraw and go quiet, but that women often had no choice, but to continue with child care duties regardless.

BBC News, UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7388367.stm

Schools are responding positively to the recommended phonics method of teaching reading, suggests a snapshot survey by inspectors.

Ofsted inspectors say there is a “virtuous circle” of improved reading skills and higher expectations.

The report from inspectors also concluded that children were enjoying phonics lessons.

This survey tested the progress of the Rose Review of reading, which called for a more systematic use of phonics.

‘Raised expectations’

Ofsted inspectors found schools using the recommended phonics method had “raised their expectations of how quickly and well children could learn to read and write”.

“Teachers have been ’surprised by the joy’ shown by children as they master phonic skills,” says the report.

The principle behind phonics is that children learn the sounds of letters and of combinations of letters and use them to decode words.

The report, based on visits to 20 schools and responses from a further 43, found that teachers were putting into practice the recommendations for improving the teaching of reading.

In 2005, the government-commissioned review of reading by Sir Jim Rose called for “relatively short, discrete sessions, designed to progress from simple elements to the more complex aspects of phonic knowledge”.

Phonics had already been taught in many primary schools, but the Rose Review emphasised the need for a rigorous and systematic use of from the earliest years.

And this snapshot survey shows that in 16 of the 20 schools visited such sessions of teaching phonics were taking place every day.

It also found that 19 of these schools had adopted a systematic approach to phonics teaching.

However, it also found that this was not an easy subject to explain to parents.

Meetings for parents about phonics were poorly attended and teachers said there were difficulties in “conveying the subtleties of the programme”.

Source: BBC News, UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7391948.stm

Over the last decade or so there has been mounting concern about the effect of television and videos on young children.

A huge increase in television programmes now available which are particularly aimed at young infants has occurred, despite warnings from experts that children younger than 2 years should not watch any television at all.

Along with the plethora of such programmes has come more and more evidence of the potential adverse effects of television exposure on young children.

Researchers in the U.S. are now saying because infants in low-income families are watching television or videos, with a supposedly ‘educational’ basis, their mothers rarely speak to them.

Lead author Dr. Alan L. Mendelsohn says many of the programmes marketed as educational have limited data to support such claims and these claims were even less so if no co-viewing with a parent took place.

Dr. Mendelsohn and his colleagues set out to measure the verbal interaction between mother and infants associated with media exposure and maternal co-viewing; to do so they carried out an analysis of 154 low socio-economic status mothers-infant pairs who were taking part in a long-term study on early child development.

It was revealed that over one 24-hour period, 149 of 154 mothers reported that their 6-month-old infants had a total of 426 exposures to television or videos.

These included 139 exposures to educational programs for young children; 46 to non-educational programs for young children; 205 to programs for school-aged children, teenagers or adults; and 36 to unknown programs.

The researchers found that of those 426 television and video exposures, mothers talked to their infants during only 101 of them.

They say their findings support their hypothesis that interactions were most commonly reported in association with educational content, especially programs that had been co-viewed; however half of the exposures consisted of programs not intended for young children.

Even when they were intended for young children they did not involve frequent interactions when they were co-viewed.

The researchers say the findings are important, because parent-infant interactions are associated with long-term developmental-behavioural outcomes and they say verbal exchanges happen more often with reading and playing with toys.

The researchers say given the large amount of media exposure and low verbal interaction, more research is called for to determine whether such media exposure is of benefit to young children.

They say programs with educational content were no more likely to be co-viewed than were other programs and the research does not support the development of infant-directed educational programmes on the basis that they increase co-viewing and interaction.

The study is published in the current issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Internal Medicine.

Source: News-Medical.net, Australia
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=38136

Poorer children are more likely to fail their exams than their richer peers according to new figures, raising fears about increasing inequality in state education.

Britain’s poorest children are at a greater risk of attending a failing school than pupils from the wealthier backgrounds, Government data suggests.

A new analysis of official data by the Conservative party indicates that the achievement gap in education between rich and poor children is increasing.

Those from the most deprived backgrounds have more than a 50 per cent chance of ending up in a school that the Government considers to be failing because it has not reached the target of 30 per cent of pupils gaining five A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and Maths.

This compares with just three per cent of children from the most well off homes attending a failing school.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said that Ed Balls, Schools Secretary aimed to tackle the problem in two areas with a history of ingrained disadvantage, lower educational achievement and wide variations in children’s attainmaint. The programmes launched this week in Manchester and the Black Country will aim to raise the number of schools reaching the Government’s target of 30 per cent A* to C grades at GCSE.

Mr Balls said: “Every parent wants their child’s school to be a great school, where pupils get good grades in their GCSEs. That’s why it is right for us to focus extra support on those schools where less than 30 per cent of the pupils get five good GCSEs including English and maths.”

Across the board, the numbers show a strong link between a child’s background and their chances of educational success in the state sector. They also provide evidence that the poorer the child the higher the probability of them attending a failing school.

The figures were released in answer to a parliamentary question put to Jim Knight, the Schools minister by Michael Gove, the Shadow Education Secretary and show Britain has a long way to go before achieving a classless education system. They were compiled from the School and College Achievement and Attainment Tables from 2007.

Mr Gove said: “There is a growing gap between the standard of schools in richer and poorer areas. We must give teachers the powers they need to keep order, improve reading teaching, and have more teaching by ability.”

Dr Lee Elliot Major, Director of Research at The Sutton Trust, a charity which gives educational grants to children from underprivileged backgrounds said: “Unless we address such deep-rooted educational inequalities, the UK will continue to languish at the bottom of the international league table of advanced countries when it comes to social mobility. Breaking the link between poverty and academic attainment is a major challenge, but one that needs to be addressed both for reasons of economic prosperity and social justice.”

David Laws education spokesman from the Liberal Democrats said: “We simply can’t accept a situation where over half of the schools in the most depressed areas are failing to get the overwhelming majority of their pupils up to a good exam standard.”

“These figures reinforce the case for introducing a Pupil Premium which would target extra money on young people from more deprived backgrounds, bringing their level of education funding up to levels in the private sector.”

In the scramble for the best schools parents are prepared to lie and cheat the system according to a Local Government Association report in March. Out of 31 councils surveyed 24 said they had seen an increase in cheating. The figures for 2007-08 were nine times higher than two years ago.

Source: Times Online, UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3881278.ece

A tide of recent research on early childhood development is inspiring prominent scientists and politicians to argue for an unprecedented investment in schooling that begins virtually at birth.

But as decades of academic studies on brain development start to land in the real world, experts are divided on whether to focus new funding on infants and toddlers, or conventional preschool. Many now think some policies popular with politicians and the public, such as universal prekindergarten, may fail to reach at-risk kids at a young enough age.

The scientific controversy also is spilling into the presidential contest, where the Democratic candidates have taken divergent positions on universal preschool and other early childhood issues.

Studies have suggested that intervening before children start preschool improves academic outcomes for low-income kids and may reduce the risk that they will end up in prison. Such interventions stem from the theory that experiences in the first five years of life set a lifelong course for brain development.

Chicago has become a national proving ground for schooling during the first three years and is home to prominent advocates such as Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman of the University of Chicago, who said reaching kids before preschool could offer the best long-term economic return.

“Even at age 4 or 5, you may be starting too late,” Heckman said. “I wouldn’t say it’s hopeless to help kids after those early years, but it’s extremely expensive.”

Backers of universal preschool say the evidence for even earlier intervention is not yet solid and offering conventional prekindergarten to everyone would help build popular support for early education.

In theory, starting to intervene soon after birth should help kids more because that’s when experience starts to shape their brains, many experts said.

Children’s brains change more between conception and kindergarten than at any other time. University of Chicago neuroscientist Peter Huttenlocher showed in studies over the last 30 years that connections between cells in most brain areas peak by age 3, then decline gradually as experiences mold the brain’s circuitry.

The zero-to-3 period is not necessarily a magical and irreplaceable window for teaching children. But studies show that babies raised in poverty get fewer of the early experiences that spur vocabulary growth and good social judgment, making it harder for them to catch up later.

For example, toddlers whose parents speak more words to them develop bigger vocabularies than children who hear less speech, studies have found. One University of Kansas study concluded that kids from upper-income backgrounds hear 30 million more words by age 3 than those from poor families.

Early intervention with enrichment programs can narrow that gap, researchers and advocates say.

“The basic science of brain development says you need to start as early as possible for kids in the greatest danger to get the best outcomes,” said Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California-Berkeley, said he feared focusing on universal prekindergarten — making preschool a middle-class entitlement — could divert help from low-income families that need it most.

“Why would we use scarce public dollars to subsidize all families if we know the biggest impact is with poor kids?” he said.

Source: Detroit Free Press, United States
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080502/NEWS07/805020328

Parents have some homework to do, according to new findings presented at the Pediatric American Society meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, this weekend.

The research shows that 31% of U.S. parents know very little about the pace of a typical infant’s development, whether it’s when a child should start talking or begin potty training. The data is based on an analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study’s Birth Cohort, a nationally representative sample of more than 10,000 9-month-old babies and their primary caregivers. Parents were asked to answer 11 questions, where those who got four or fewer correct were considered to have low-level knowledge.

While it may not sound like a big deal, experts say that this lack of knowledge can negatively affect parents’ interactions with their babies.

We asked study author Dr. Heather Paradis, a fellow in pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, why so many parents don’t know what to expect after expecting and what they need to know about their babies’ development.

Why do so many parents lack knowledge about infant development?

I think that parents get parenting information from a variety of sources, from reading magazines and books … most importantly, parents look for information from their child’s doctors.

There’s a lot of information that’s out there about what to expect when people are pregnant, but I don’t know that there is quite as much information on what to expect about how your child grows and develops in the first years of life, and there’s a tremendous amount of change. This study was surprising in just how many parents don’t have knowledge of normal infant development.

Do you have a sense as to whether this is a new trend?

I think that a lot of emphasis in the past has been placed maybe on what we would call “high-risk” parents–those with a lower education, lower socioeconomic status. But one of the surprising things that this study showed is that it’s not only those parents we should be targeting, but it’s something we should expand to the general population of parents. Everyone could benefit.

What was one of the most surprising things the study revealed in terms of parents’ confusion?

The most surprising thing to me was not necessarily what knowledge they did or didn’t have, but how that knowledge translated into actual behavior, or observed interaction with the child. That connection is something lacking in previous studies. This study showed that parents who have higher knowledge of normal infant development were shown to have higher (quality) observed interactions with their children.

The other thing is that we looked at not only parent/child interaction but parents’ reports of frequency of what I would call enrichment activities, such as reading books with a child, singing songs. We know early enrichment activities with kids leads to higher IQs, earlier reading, better school preparation. The parents with the higher knowledge of normal infant development also had a significantly higher reported frequency of doing those enrichment activities with their kids.

What are the potential negatives?

Parents who have unrealistic expectations could misinterpret a child’s normal behavior and could respond inappropriately. An example would be like a mom who expects an 18-month-old child to sit still during an appointment. Eighteen-month-olds are normally curious. I would expect them to be wandering around the room. If parents are expecting a child to sit still on a chair for an entire appointment, they may take normal curiosity and interpret it as intentional defiance, rather than the normal curiosity it is. That could lead to inappropriate harsh discipline or the withdrawal of affection.

I think quite often parents maybe underestimate a child’s ability to pick up language skills. A lot of parents don’t think that it’s worthwhile to read a book to their infant, to their 2-month-old, and they definitely should be doing that, even if it’s to look at pictures and let the child hear the normal qualities of voice. They might not understand the words the parent is saying but they definitely understand what’s going on and the interaction going on between the two of them.

How should parents go about educating themselves?

Certainly, I think it’s an opportunity for pediatricians that, even during our brief office encounters with parents, we can potentially do something that can have a large impact on the way that parents and children interact. I do think that getting information from reputable sources, asking a child’s doctor for recommendations on books and Web sites to get high-quality information, is something parents could do.

Source: Forbes, NY
http://tinyurl.com/68hrk2

Parents should be paid to spend time with their children to stop toddlers as young as two being sent to schools and nurseries, a leading head teacher has said.

Clarissa Williams, the new president of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that parents were being separated from their children too early.

“Why do we feel the need to send children into an education environment at the age of two? Are parents so distrusted that we want to separate them from their children at the earliest opportunity?” asked Ms Williams, the head of Tolworth Girls School in Surrey.

Speaking at the NHT annual conference in Liverpool, the head said parents should be rewarded financially for staying at home, playing with their children, reading to them and bringing them up well.

“There needs to be a contract between the receiver of the benefits that if they stay at home to do quality things with their children, they will be rewarded.

“Lots of mothers stay at home and deal with a single income and we should respect that.”

Ms Williams said some young children reacted badly to intuitional settings, echoing research that suggests that putting toddlers in nurseries for a long amount of time can lead to aggression.

“Lots of children react well to nurseries, others are more anxious and that manifests itself in their behaviour, said Ms Williams.

The head suggested that child allowance as well as benefits should reflect the effort parents put in with their children.

The proportion of working mothers has risen steadily over the last decade.

Thousands of babies are now looked after by nurseries. Government vouchers giving free child care places to 3 and four year olds have also led to a rise in the number of children in pre-school settings.

Children in the UK also start formal education at age 5, much earlier than the rest of Europe where 6 or 7 is the norm.

In her speech Ms Williams also criticised school admissions.

She said choice was limited “mostly to those able to exercise it.” She suggested that allocating secondary school places by lottery could be fairer.

The controversial distribution of school places by ballot has been adopted by Brighton and Hove, several schools in Hertfordshire and a few in London.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
http://tinyurl.com/4oce7j