“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

There are 70 million Americans with sleep disorders who would like nothing more than to relax at night. Now there’s more reason to keep you up late.

People who sleep fewer than six hours or more than nine hours a night are more likely to have health problems, according to the largest government study linking obesity to irregular sleep.

Health problems also include higher rates of smoking and alcohol use among those who sleep too little or too much.

The report finds that restorative value of sleep has been underappreciated in public health recommendations.

In time of stress, the body is known to hold onto fat stores. That’s why diets often result in weight gain. The lack of sleep may also create a similar stressful situation. Expect to see more emphasis on eight hours a night as a key to good health.

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics surveyed 87,000 Americans from 2004 to 2006.

Among the findings:

* Smoking rates were highest for those who got under six hours of sleep a night. 31 percent were smokers. Heavy sleepers included 26 percent who smoked. The average rate of U.S. smokers is 21 percent. Among those who slept an average of eight hours, 18 percent were smokers.

* Obesity rates for light sleepers were 33 percent, for heavy sleepers 26 percent and 22 percent for normal sleepers.

* Alcohol use among the light sleepers was the heaviest. Regular and heavy sleepers have about the same rate of alcohol use.

* Exercise rates were low for those who slept a lot, worse than regular or light sleepers. Health problems or being elderly age may account for that

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine finds an increasing number of obese youth are not getting enough sleep. Obesity rates among children and teens have doubled in the last 30 years and AASM says sleep may be as important a component in fighting fat as diet and exercise.

Infants to 11 months need 14 to 15 hours of sleep a night; toddlers 12-14 hours; preschool children 11-13 hours and adolescents 9 hours. Adults should get seven to eight hours of sleep a night.

For those who have trouble falling to sleep follow these rules:

* Find a consistent bed time to go to sleep and wake up

* Keep the room completely dark free of lights from clocks or cable boxes

* Keep the room cooler

* Do not consume caffeine, colas or chocolate before bed or in the evening

* Take a break of at least an hour before bedtime from electronics

Also for children:

* Avoid videos or TV shows that are not age appropriate

* Use a half hour before bedtime for a bedtime routine and to read, interact and be close

* Do not let your child fall asleep while being held, rocked or nursed

* Avoid hunger at bedtime

Source: InjuryBoard.com, FL
http://www.injuryboard.com/national-news/cdc-sleep.aspx?googleid=238656

Check-out marketing is genius - strategically placed goodies at the point of purchase, designed to entice the wandering eyes of children. Add parents who are tired, running late or too scared of a public tantrum to say no, and you’ve got yourself a sale.

My three-year-old son recently weaselled his way into a toy mobile phone at the register, but it was tech talent, not pester power, that earned him the score.

With the ease of an expert, he flipped open the phone and began an imaginary phone call to his grandmother, announcing he had a new “mobo” and arranging a time to visit. It was hard not to reward such creativity.

The gadget now joins his already impressive tech collection - a toy laptop, portable DVD player, digital set-top box, walkie-talkie and a Nintendo Wii, which his father argued would be great exercise thanks to its motion-sensing remote.

Granted, our junior geek comes from a tech-savvy family, but he’s not uncommon among his generation. Tots of the 21st century have been wired from the womb, with the rise of interactive tech toys such as LeapFrog’s learning system, computer tuition that now begins at kindergarten and “switched on” parents role-modelling the digital age of computers, mobiles and portable media.

The question is: how good is that early tech exposure for our kids, and are the bytes and buttons holding them back from important development that can’t be gained on a machine?

Private tech educators such as Computer Gym and ComputerTots, which run weekly half-hour computer classes at pre-schools across the country, argue there are educational rewards from the preschool PC program where three and four-year-olds learn how to open a document, surf the net and navigate through software.

ComputerTots director Sheri Borman, a trained psychologist and mother of three, says their computer classes are preparing pre-schoolers for primary education, introducing them to the building blocks of mathematics and reading.”

The menu that they navigate through is a left-to-right progression like reading, and you can give a character like a robot a sequence of instructions, which is an important part of mathematics,” Mrs Borman says.

The former crisis counsellor refers to more than a dozen research studies that demonstrate pre-school children who are exposed to technology in a structured way have better schoolreadiness skills, better verbal skills and better cognitive skills. In one US study, four-year-olds with computer skills had IQs that were on average 12 points higher.

“Most of the time it’s working on a computer, but it could also be using a digital microscope or a video camera.

“It’s about submerging the children in a technological culture because we don’t want children to be intimidated by (software such as) Adobe Photoshop; we want them, even at kindergarten level, not to be fearful of trying technology.”

Computer Gym’s director Chris Bouwmeester says its pre-school computer classes reach 2000 children nationally, but demand has changed very little in the past 15 years.

What has shifted is parental expectation that early childhood education will include computers.

“One of the biggest restrictions facing parents is having appropriate software that remains engaging for children. Parents might have one or two such titles, but it’s hard to cover the range of topics that we do - that’s one of the reasons parents appreciate the service,” Mr Bouwmeester says.

What both kiddie computer groups agree on is that the ultimate benefit of the tech classes for tots lies not in the curriculum but in the personal interaction and social experience.

“Our teachers are with the children and can build on the learning experience they are getting - very different from plonking a child in front of a computer and letting them go for it,” Mr Bouwmeester says. “The lessons are valuable for children because they are in a group - having a great laugh and sharing discoveries and experiences.”

Leading pediatric researcher and author Professor Frank Oberklaid, who is the director of the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital, says before the age of five a child needs one thing above all else to fully develop their brain - people.

“What children need more than anything in those early years is relationships so they can learn to socialise, take turns, deal with frustrations. That’s infinitely more important than anything else,” he says.

What concerns him about the rising interest in tech toys and tuition is the unfounded belief that parents are giving their children a head start in learning.

“Do children of today need to learn computer skills? Yes, of course. It’s the new literacy,” Professor Oberklaid says. “But there’s a real concern about “hothousing” - exposing two, three and four-year-olds to stimulating activities like Baby Einstein and flash cards that help teach your child to read by three. There’s no evidence that ‘hothousing’ makes any long-term difference (to education).”

He says the commercialism of “hothousing” is simply preying on the guilt of middle-class parents who want to give children the best of everything, with technology the latest arena in which to compete.

“I’m concerned about the pressure on parents,” Professor Oberklaid says. “Hugh Mackay calls it the ‘overscheduled’ child. I’ve seen it in my patients. Technology is one more pressure on guilty parents.”

Child psychologist Evelyn Field believes working parents and our culture of “busyness” has created a generation of passive parents, who often turn to “cyberia” for baby-sitting.

“Parents are scrambling towards technology. They’re busy and tired and under pressure and a lot of them don’t have the time or energy. They’re putting children in front of the screen, and you can’t blame them,” she says.

Ms Field says the problem with unsupervised tech time is that young children can miss out on wide-ranging experiences such as creative play, exercise and friendships.

“Life changes all the time. Even if you watch the fish pond or the clouds every day, it’s going to change, but you don’t have the same variety of combinations on a digital screen,” she says. “It’s so important that kids get sensory experience to build the brain in the first three to four years of life.”

Dr Joe Tucci, CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, says the latest research shows that excessive tech consumption by children can lead to depression, anxiety and aggression.

“Technology tends to be an isolating experience,” he says. “Some of the problems we’re seeing with aggression and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in kids can be traced back to socially limiting experiences that technology forces kids to have.”

Child psychiatrist Professor Philip Graham, of London’s Institute of Child Health, also notes an increase in children’s mental health problems over the last quarter of the 20th century - which coincides with the dawn of the computer age and rising consumerism.

He says a recent survey in Britain showed that adults are concerned about the negative impact of materialism on children, incuding devices such as iPods, computers and mobile phones.

“Children have always been acquisitive and always will be, but increasingly they are defined by what they own rather than what they are,” he told Livewire.

Dr Tucci says that while some of these tech toys offer important stimulation, they’re also priming toddlers to be consumers before their time. “Yes, it’s cute and it’s role-playing, but equally it’s also preparing children to be consumers, and that’s the rub.”

All the experts agree that the healthiest way to introduce young kids to technology is with supervision and limits - no more than two hours of technology time a day with a balance of activity both indoors and outdoors, alone and in a group, involving both structured and free play.

Dr Tucci warns that to combat ballooning rates of child obesity, brain games need to be curbed to allow for real life action. “Unlike activities like sport or reading, technology has the potential to swamp children because it is so exciting with all of the colour and movement,” he says.

“We have to ground children in the physical space to learn about their bodies. Otherwise we’ve got a job in front of us to make exercise as exciting and interesting as technology.”

Dubbed the “genius” in her play group, two-year old Annika displays the makings of an IT whizz, having already mastered redial on her mother’s mobile, the CD-ROM and the TV remote.

“If she wants to talk to her Nanny she just presses and holds number 3 on my mobile,” says her mum, Donna Evans.

“Yesterday she rang my mother-in-law. I have to put the mobile phone out of her reach now.”

While Annika’s parents are happy to foster the tech interest, they’re also wary of overexposure. “We make sure she’s not a drone in front of the TV. We also incorporate a lot of the imaginary toys, like the kitchen appliances, so that she’s role playing and not just pressing buttons.”

Ms Evans admits she likes the learning benefits of Annika’s tech talent - as long as it remains enjoyable.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m pushing her learning, but she has the potential to be bright quite young and the tech stuff really gives her an interest in learning. I just don’t want an expectation placed on her to perform.”

The couple are also considering the unstructured education of Montessori, which doesn’t introduce computers until primary level.

“The Montessori perspective is that young children before the age of six need to learn with their hands,” Montessori trainer Amy Kirkham says.

“Computers tend to be more abstract, which is why we don’t use them until primary school.” Young mum Sandra Griffin says her friends always joke that her three-year-old son, Matt, is going to be in IT when he grows up.

He’s already mastered the computer, he has a list of his favourite websites and performs regular virus checks on the PC.

Thanks to the online games he plays he knows his colours, the alphabet, patterns and some basic maths, including counting to 20.

“I honestly believe that computers are a valuable tool in teaching kids,” Ms Griffin explains.

“Not only has it helped with Mattie’s knowledge and brain development but it also helped his fine motor skills and increased his attention span to the point where at just three years of age he can concentrate on one activity for an hour.”

The only downside is what it’s costing the family in gadgets - including a Nintendo DS for the next birthday - and $70 for each game after that.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
http://tinyurl.com/3p7a7s

A positive parenting style can help protect young people from becoming involved with substance use, delinquency and violent behaviour, a new study suggests.

The 87-page report released Tuesday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information analyzed various research and policy initiatives and crunched data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth from Statistics Canada.

“One of the things we wanted to do with this is really sort of step back and through a lens of mental health examine some of the factors that are associated with youth delinquency and criminal behaviour,” said Jean Harvey, director of CIHI’s Canadian Population Health Initiative.

Young people who never reported engaging in aggressive behaviour had high self-esteem, good stress management and self motivation, she said.

“Those were found to be sort of the protective factors around not being involved with delinquent behaviour and criminal activity.”

In terms of risk factors, those aged 12 and 13 who reported hyperactivity and depression were more likely to report high levels of aggressive behaviours, and high levels of delinquent acts involving property.

When parents nurtured and monitored their children, those kids had fewer contacts with peers who were engaged in criminal behaviour, Harvey said.

And not surprisingly, kids who reported positive school experiences were more likely to report not being aggressive than youth who reported fewer positive experiences.

“Children that are connected to the school and they feel a positive bond to their community and their society … had reduced delinquency,” Harvey said.

She said the report, entitled Improving the Health of Canadians: Mental Health, Delinquency and Criminal Activity, is intended to help policy makers with decisions, but the findings would also be of interest to the general public, parents and the school system.

Source: The Canadian Press, TORONTO
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gx3K6tO23TUDYyQ5AkgmST3gaPcQ

I wrote a glowing review of the new Grand Theft Auto game in the Chronicle today. Like most of my video game coverage, the writing is aimed in large part for people who don’t play. I figured out a long time ago that there are a lot more non-gamer parents and grandparents reading the print edition of the Chronicle than 18-year-olds or even people my age.

I loved the game, and have long believed that the GTA series is grossly misunderstood and demonized by people who don’t understand it. It reminds me of the people who said that listening to Elvis would make us all sex addicts and that Dungeons & Dragons was going to make me a serial killer. Still waiting for that to happen …

When I started writing about video games in 2002, I felt like there was no one else in the mainstream media that felt the way I did. But now I can recommend a lot of places where parents can get video game coverage that doesn’t seem like it’s written in a foreign language and isn’t run by some right-wing religious nuts who just want to ban games that they haven’t played.

Here are some of my favorites …

Whattheyplay.com: Started by two guys who helped start the video game site 1UP.com, Whattheyplay is the only parenting site I know that was founded and is run by gamers. They stick to just the facts, clinically listing the specific sex, violence and other content in video games. They also run a lot of features to help demystify games for non-gamer parents — such as advice on how to get hard-to-find consoles like the Wii. Here’s an article I wrote about them.

Commonsensemedia.org: I don’t agree with everything they do, but their core mission — educating parents about games and other kid-oriented media — is extremely important. Politicians and anti-game activists should stop trying to criminalize video games and treat them like other forms of art. Common Sense seems to get that and advocates for parents with a minimum of judgement.

N’Gai Croal’s video game blog: I don’t usually plug the competition, but the fact is that maybe 10 percent of my job involves writing about games, and I’ll never do it as comprehensively or successfully as this Newsweek writer/blogger. N’Gai Croal’s blog Level Up has become an important bridge between the mainstream media and hard-core gamers, writing intelligently and concisely about important issues. He’s also a very entertaining writer. Whether you play games or have kids who do, bookmark his site.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, USA
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=29&entry_id=26113

As the graduating class of 2008 enters the workforce, they may be surprised to find that even before setting foot into an interview, they’ve already been judged.

Generation Y, the name given to people born predominantly in the ’80s and ’90s, has had somewhat of a negative connotation.

The attitude that today’s young people are more self-centered and narcissistic has been publicized by articles in newspapers and magazines with headlines that read, “For today’s kids, everything is all about them,” “Is Gen Y Really All That Narcissistic?” and “The Most-Praised Generation Goes to Work.”

Dr. Jean M. Twenge, associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has conducted research on Generation Y and has written a book based on her 13 years of research and the responses of 1.3 million young people who completed questionnaires, that have been given from the ’50s to today.

According to her Web site, “Generation Me” is different from previous generations in that it believes that individual needs should come first. “Generation Me” has grown up with phrases such as “Be yourself,” and “You must love yourself before you can love someone else,” she stated on her Web site.

The encouragement that “Generation Me” has grown up with contributes to the disappointment they experience when faced with the reality of a competitive world, Twenge said on her Web site.

Generation Y has received a lot of attention, but is this generation really that different? Are Baylor students anymore different then past generations of students?

Diaz-Granados couldn’t say whether students are really more narcissistic today, but recalled when he played sports as a kid and how rewards were given based on accomplishments.

“In my day and age, when I was playing sports, there were clear winners and losers,” he said.

Diaz-Granados acknowledged a difference with young kids in sports today.

Using his own children’s soccer games as an example, Diaz-Granados said, “Anybody that plays half the time gets a trophy.”

Dr. Sara Dolan, assistant professor in the psychology and neuroscience department and core clinical faculty member, remembered her childhood years as different from kids growing up today.

“My parents’ theory of my success is that if I work hard enough, I could achieve what I wanted to, but they certainly encourage me to do things that I have a natural talent for,” she said. “I do feel like students today are certainly more confident in themselves than the people of my generation.”

The pressure is on for today’s generation, who has grown up with a mentality that anything is possible, Dolan said.

“I do feel like there is a lot more pressure for students these days to achieve these goals whether they are attainable or not,” Dolan said.

When students realize that they may never be able to achieve certain goals, their reaction to reality may be catastrophic, Dolan said.

Cynthia Wall, staff psychologist, deals with eating disorder cases at the counseling center and has witnessed the downside to the can-have-it-all mentality.

Though she said she has seen conflicting data on whether or not perfectionism in body image can be associated with generational differences, Wall recognized that today’s youth face pressures that can lead to unhealthy eating habits to attain the “perfect” body.

“I do think there is a significant amount of pressure put on the younger generation to have it all,” she said.

Genetic differences play a role in the build of one’s body. Sometimes no matter what a person does, they may never be able to achieve the “perfect” body that they desire, Wall said.

Does this mean that parents should stop encouraging their children to shoot for the stars? Not always, Diaz-Granados said.

In the case of sport rewards, he sees the positive sentiment.

“You don’t want to make a child feel like a failure,” he said.

With that said, Diaz-Granados said he found encouragement of children to be a nice sentiment, but not always beneficial.

“I do think that it is a very nice sentiment to say that anything is possible, but I don’t think you can argue with the fact that there is a difference in aptitude,” he said.

There have been times where Diaz-Granados said he had to give students a reality check on their expectations.

For instance, when a student with a low grade point average decided that he was going to go to medical school, Diaz-Granados would have to tell him, “No, you’re not.”

“There’s some benefit in encouraging, but if it drives an individual to persist in something they aren’t good at, it can be very damaging,” he said.

There is definitely a distribution of talent among all people, Diaz-Granados said.

Diaz-Granados also said he tries to be realistic when students come to him with questions about their major.

“When students ask me what they should major in, I tell them that you should major in something that you have an interest in and then consider aptitude,” he said.

Rewards given that aren’t based on performance have been criticized with instilling a sense of entitlement among children. According to some, this attitude has carried on into the work force as these children become adults and could pose a problem in how Americans workers rank compared to foreign competition.

According to a 2007 study conducted by CareerBuilder.com, 87 percent of the 2,546 surveyed hiring managers and Human Resource professionals working in industries across the board concluded that “Gen Y workers feel more entitled in terms of compensation, benefits and career advancement than older generations.”

In comparison to other generation of workers, the survey also showed that 55 percent of the employers over the age of 35 feel that Generation Y have a problem responding to direction and authority.

In his book The World Is Flat, Thomas L Friedman calls attention to the problems of today’s American workforce.

In a section titled, “Dirty Little Secret #3: The Ambition Gap,” Friedman addresses the poor work ethics of American students by including correspondence from a college professor named Mike Arguello who worried that Americans are losing high-paying jobs to more qualified foreign competition who will work harder for less pay and benefits.

If the assessments of American workers are inaccurate, then the effects of such a label on an entire generation could be detrimental, Judy Bowman, senior lecturer in economics, said.

When little differences causes employers to assume something about an entire group, “It’s statistical discrimination, and it’s quite unfair,” she said.

Bowman sees some difference but not an extreme difference in the attitude of Generation Y from her generation.

“I don’t think you are more narcissistic than we were,” she said.

Instead of taking spring break to party, there are kids who go and volunteer, Diaz-Granados said.

“I see this generation being really aware of the planet, and that is not the case with putting me first,” he said.

New technology has given birth to Facebook and MySpace for Generation Y to use as a new form of self-promotion, but it does not prove that they are more self-centered.

It’s a different outlet for student to promote themselves, “but it doesn’t make a statement of wholesale personality change,” Diaz-Granados said.

A problem that Bowman does see with today’s students is their lack of class attendance.

“I have some classes where I have a hard time getting my students to come to class,” she said. “Certainly, we have a problem with work ethic and it is reflected in student absences.”

The gap in education has been attributed to parents who interfere with teachers’ curriculums because they feel that the course work is too difficult and that kids need time to be kids. Thus, they set low expectation for their children said a fifth grade teacher in a letter to Friedman.

Parental involvement not only exists in grade school, but has also extended into students’ time in college.

Wall noted a difference in parental involvement in students’ lives today as she described her personal experience with her own parents.

“The parental unit that I grew up with and parents then tend to be hands-off,” she said. “The authority of schools and teachers were respected.”

The calls that Wall has received from parents are at time in the best interest of the child, but sometimes it’s not.

“They [parents] are trying to pave the way for their child instead of letting them handle it on their own,” she said. “A lot of the time they are trying to affect a change somehow in the decisions that their child is making or will be making.”

The appropriate time for parents to become involved is when the student is becoming dysfunctional, Wall said. Otherwise, she takes the student’s needs and concerns into account over the opinions of the parents.

Diaz-Granados has also received calls from parents on a couple of occasions. Helicopter parents hold their children back by leaving them in a state of protracted adolescence, he said.

“Their independence is put off for a while, and the degree of independence, of self-reliance or accountability then is being delay or put off,” Diaz-Granados said.

Source: Baylor University The Lariat Online, TX
http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?action=story&story=50768

Coming of age in the wired world is entirely different from what you knew

Sexual experimentation has always been a part of adolescence, but in previous years it was confided to games of Spin the Bottle or Seven Minutes in Heaven. However, thanks to the Internet and the development of recent technology like camera phones, a new generation of teens are experimenting with sexuality in a whole new way.

Their first forays into sexuality no longer occur on a small scale within a circle of peers, but on a very large one, such as on MySpace and Facebook. From racy pictures posted on these online social networks to sexy photos being sent on camera phones, teens are making their first sexual decisions with an audience of thousands.

Even Disney star Miley Cyrus has received a barrage of press lately for photos that have surfaced on the web which feature her in flirtatious poses. (…) How can parents monitor this new wave of sexual experimentation and keep their kids safe from online predators or other serious consequences?

Talk to your teens

What seems like innocent fun to your teenager is actually potentially dangerous. Not only do online predators surf the web for vulnerable teens, but racy photos can serve to harm your teenager’s reputation. Many teenage girls see sexy photos as something harmless and totally innocent — after all, most of them have no intention of carrying out sexual acts with anyone in the audience. However, by displaying pictures such as these they are opening themselves up for attack and potentially putting themselves at risk, not just from strangers, but from people in their own peer groups who might not understand the pictures are just for show.

Realize there truly is a generation gap

Teenagers develop much more quickly from a physical standpoint than they do from a mental standpoint. In fact, the frontal cortex (which is the part of the brain responsible for judgment and decision-making) doesn’t completely develop until after adolescence. Therefore, teenagers are awash with burgeoning hormones and newly developed bodies, but they do not yet have all of the mental tools that adults have to regulate decision making.

This isn’t to say that teenagers are not smart and capable beings, but they do not have the life experience and brain development that adults have. This makes them more likely to make impulsive or rash decisions. But in the past, these decisions weren’t on display on the Internet for thousands to access. However, now that the Internet is part of almost every American teenager’s life, we need to find ways to address this new trend of adolescent sexual experience. The Internet is not going away any time soon, and neither is MySpace or the iPhone, so adults have to find ways to bridge this generation gap and warn teens about the dangers and responsibilities associated with this new technology.

Acknowledge their maturity

One of the biggest mistakes parents can make is not letting their teenagers have some form of freedom and right to self-expression. Although they are not adults yet, they still need some room to grow and make their own mistakes. It can be extremely helpful for parents to talk about this issue with their teens and play out the potential consequences. Acknowledge how much fun it is to flirt and how exciting it feels to realize others find you attractive. But if you send off a sexy picture to a friend, what would happen if they send it on to 30 others? What would be the reaction? How would he or she feel? Help guide them through the decision making process and lend them your own frontal lobe function without the judgement.

We can monitor our teens’ behavior to make sure they are behaving safely, but after a certain point, they still need a little bit of breathing room. By keeping the communication lines open and letting them know that they can always come to you with questions and concerns, you can help your teen safely monitor the new trend of growing up online.

Even though the platform is new, teenagers still face many of the same battles and life lessons that we did during our own teenage years. From questions about sex, body image and self-expression, teenagers today are still looking for the same acceptance that we were. Let’s help guide them through this process with patience and a watchful eye.

Source: MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24356473/

America’s increased focus on standardized test scores has meant more widespread use of drugs for ADHD—whether kids need ’em or not

Over the past few weeks, many thousands of Georgia elementary and middle school students sharpened their No. 2 pencils and waited for the teacher’s signal to turn over their answer sheets and hunker down to business on the Georgia Criterion Reference Test. Most did so without being under the influence of drugs, but some had been “juiced” for the test well in advance, perhaps even months or years in advance, through the use of drugs prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD).

Jennifer Fox, author of Your Child’s Strengths: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them, has seen the phenomenon herself. Fox, who is president of The Purnell School, a boarding school in New Jersey, describes a student she calls “Kate” (not her real name) who was extremely effervescent. She smiled a lot. She laughed a lot. She played a lot, even in class. Teachers complained that she wasn’t focused, so her parents had her put on a drug that was supposed to treat ADHD, and she lost that bubbly personality. It was as if the life “had been sucked out of her.”

“Kids are rushed to get diagnosed as learning-disabled so they can get extra time on tests and they can get put on drugs to perform better on tests,” says Fox, who is scheduled to sign her book at Wordsmiths in Decatur on Wednesday, April 30. “What we have in this country is a system that puts kids on drugs and gets them hooked on drugs for the rest of their lives.”

Though Fox acknowledges that there are children who definitely need medication, the problem, as she sees it, is an unhealthy focus on standardized test scores—a focus that parents often share with teachers, one that puts performance ahead of a child’s health and well-being.

“The schools are failing. The standardized tests are failing. And we are putting kids on drugs to try to overcome that,” she says. “That, to me, is like child abuse in a way.”

Fox points out that “Kate” had a strong suit—that bubbly personality that the drug erased. She says that she envisioned Kate someday working in a profession that required that kind of energy and vivaciousness. But since that strength was drugged out of her, who knows if Kate will ever make the most of the gift that she naturally had? Though Fox admits that there are kids who need medication to treat ADHD and other disorders, she adds, “I believe that it may be that these drugs are getting rid of the very thing that is best about these kids, something unique that the world needs.”

“Before You Take That Pill”

In his book Before You Take That Pill: Why The Drug Industry May Be Bad For Your Health, which hit bookstores in March, J. Douglas Bremner, a professor of psychiatry at the Emory University School of Medicine, explains that although its exact causes are not known, some scientists think that ADHD is related to alterations in the brain chemical dopamine, which modulates attention. Nonetheless, he views with skepticism the popularity of a plethora of stimulants used to treat ADHD, including Ritalin, Adderall and, a slow-release version of Ritalin, Concerta.

In his book, Bremner writes: “An entire generation of kids who cannot pay attention is being diagnosed more and more frequently (and sometimes inaccurately) with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD. It seems strange that it has been increasing so dramatically over the past few years. Certainly in the last generation many children with concentration problems were simply labeled unintelligent or ‘problem kids.’ However, with current competition for children to excel in school having reached such a fever pitch, it is no longer acceptable to let children fall behind. The elimination of recess, the lengthening of the school year, and the insistence that children remain rigidly fixed in their chairs without making a peep flies in the face of the realities of normal childhood.”

Bremner cites a three-fold increase in Ritalin prescriptions in the four years between 1991—which just happens to be the year that the U.S. Congress agreed that an ADHD diagnosis should qualify children for extra time on tests—and 1994. He goes on to point out that fully 10 percent of boys in America are prescribed some kind of stimulant for ADHD or other mental conditions.

On a recent weekday morning, Bremner, a soft-spoken man with a reserved demeanor, balances a laptop across his knees at a coffee shop, accepts an offered cheese cracker and explains his skepticism: “Do all of the kids who are taking Ritalin meet the requirements for ADHD? Probably not.”

There are reasons, not necessarily medical, that children might be prescribed a drug for ADHD, Bremner says. It may be that their parents want them to perform better in school, and those parents can pressure a doctor who is already pressured by pharmaceutical sales reps to write the prescription. It may also be the case that the child’s tendency to, well, be a child, is a problem.

“What we do know about these drugs and playfulness,” he says, “is that they tend to decrease playfulness.”

But how and why the drugs get prescribed isn’t the concern of the drug companies. The job of drug companies, he says, is not to make people well, but to sell drugs, and it’s a job that they do very, very well. Children, in particular, can provide a business boon, because once they’re on a drug, at what point is it OK to take them off? “Before You Take That Pill,” explores the risks of a wide range of drugs—not just those prescribed to children—and begins with the startling revelation that “Now, more than half of all Americans are taking a prescription drugs.”

All of the amphetamine-like stimulants used to treat ADHD, writes Bremner, act as appetite suppressants, and therefore may impede a child’s growth. They also “have been linked to approximately a doubling of heart-related deaths in children.” Such deaths are still rare, however. What he would like to see, Bremner says, is a little more skepticism on the part of Americans toward the extremely profitable drug companies.

Watching cartoons and drug commercials

Don’t count on the current crop of kids to be the ones to develop that skepticism. Rick McDevitt, executive director of the Georgia Advocacy for Children, says that drug use to solve problems has become an assumed part of American life, beginning when children are plopped in front of a television, where they view one pharmaceutical commercial after another. At school, he says, they are given to understand that if they do not do well on standardized tests, there might be something wrong with them that a drug can fix. Teachers tell parents their child isn’t focused and that they should seek help, and “help” turns out to be “take these pills.”

“The drugging of kids has become commonplace, the drug is a means of social control and the schools have become agents of that social control,” McDevitt says. “It’s about the test scores, it’s not about solving the problems at the source. The kids take the drugs, the test scores are better, and everyone says ‘They’re doing better.’ They’re not doing better. They are on drugs.”

Local child psychologist Sunaina Jain was listening to the radio recently when she happened upon a on a show on which people were talking about “our child-obsessed society.”

“I thought ‘What child-obsessed society?’ We don’t even like children in this society,” she says. “We do everything we can to make them become adults quickly.”

Jain, who has been in practice since before Ritalin hit the market in the late 1980s, says that the enormous use of drugs to treat ADHD is one more symptom of the need to make children become grown-ups. Although such drugs have helped many children, she says there is little doubt that they are over-prescribed. ADHD, she explains, affects about one boy in15 and girl in 25, but the number of prescriptions would seem to suggest that ADHD is epidemic in the United States.

“Part of the problem is parents who are looking for a way to improve their children’s test scores,” says Jain. “For these parents, these are ‘showcase’ children—their children’s success reflects on them. They want success, they want good grades, and if that can be obtained by popping a pill, that is what they do. There are also kids whose parents just don’t have time to pick them up from school and help them with their homework.”

The tendency to resort to drugs, she says, cuts through all economic classes. Like Fox, Bremner, and McDevitt, she points to a culture that makes it tough to be a kid. It’s a problem that affects the poor and the rich, though in different ways.

“If you have nanny-raised kids, you have the same problem that you have with poor, disadvantaged kids. With a nanny, they are not getting what they would from parents—they don’t learn how to connect with people,” Jain says. “Our strongest need is to connect with other human beings, and if you don’t learn how to do that, that’s a problem.”

The complaint she hears most from parents and teachers goes a long way in explaining what’s going on: “I don’t have time for this.”

The view of childhood as a time when competition makes or breaks one, as a screening process for winners and losers that needs to be gotten out of the way in time to join the adult world, is a view that distorts the children. Jain says the situation of children in America has steadily deteriorated since the 1980s. She believes that as a country, we have shifted away from seeing childhood as “practice” for adulthood and more as the game itself.

“But you know, you need practice to be good at the game,” she says. “A kid needs a coach, someone to say, ‘this is how you hold the bat.’ Then, after thousands of practices, one day they’re ready to go out into the world, to the game. A drug can’t tell them how to hold the bat.”

Source: Sunday Paper, GA
http://tinyurl.com/3o777x

We all know the story of a man named Brady and the group that somehow formed a family. But if the iconic ’70s sitcom about a “blended” family reflected reality, the Brady Bunch likely would have been dealing with much more than silly sibling squabbles.

Here’s the real story: On average, adolescents living with half- or stepsiblings have lower grades and more school-related behavior problems, and these problems may not improve over time, according to Florida State University Assistant Professor of Sociology Kathryn Harker Tillman.

“These findings imply that family formation patterns that bring together children who have different sets of biological parents may not be in the best interests of the children involved,” Tillman said. “Yet one-half of all American stepfamilies include children from previous relationships of both partners, and the majority of parents in stepfamilies go on to have additional children together.”

Many studies have focused on the structure of parent-child relations in connection to academic achievement, but Tillman’s study is unique in that it focuses on the composition of the entire family unit. Tillman studied data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a nationally representative study of more than 11,000 adolescents in grades 7 through 12 in the United States. Her study is published in the journal Social Science Research.

All stepfamilies are not equal — at least in terms of their impact on children’s academic performance. Surprisingly, teens who live in the most seemingly complicated family arrangement of all — those with both half- and stepsiblings fare better than those who live with only stepsiblings or only half-siblings. Tillman theorized that perhaps the decision of the parents in these families to have a biological child together reflects a stable relationship or one in which child rearing is especially important. Only 1 percent of youth in Tillman’s study lived in this so-called complex blended sibling composition, however.

Boys living with half- or stepsiblings appear to have the hardest time coping, with average GPAs one-quarter of a letter grade lower than boys who live with only full siblings. Girls with half- or stepsiblings also had lower GPAs than those living with only full siblings, but the difference was much smaller. Boys and girls in these types of families also had more school behavioral problems, such as trouble paying attention, getting homework done and getting along with teachers and other students.

Tillman looked at how long children had been living with their half- or stepsiblings and found that it didn’t really matter. Things did not tend to improve with time.

“We cannot assume that over time, children will naturally ‘adjust’ to the new roles and relationships that arise when families are blended,” she said. “This research indicates that the effects of new stepsiblings or half siblings may actually become more negative over time or, at the least, remain consistently negative.”

Part of what makes stepfamily life difficult for young people is the complexity, ambiguity and stress that come with having nontraditional siblings living in the same home, she said. Stepsiblings who are living together may also engage in, or at least perceive, more competition for parental time, attention and resources than full siblings.

“Lower social and financial investments may signal to children a lack of parental interest and lower expectations for academic achievement and college attendance,” she said. “In turn, youth in stepfamilies may be less likely to get academic assistance when needed, less likely to work for higher grades and more likely to act out at school.”

Source: Medical News Today, UK
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/105069.php

When it comes to sibling relationships, fairness rarely comes into play. If you’re the older sibling, you probably have quite a few grievances, like not being allowed to watch a PG-13 movie until you were actually 13, whereas little Bobby got to watch them at 10, having a 10 o’clock curfew which was pushed back to midnight for your younger sister, and the list goes on.

For the younger siblings reading this article, you can bask in the glory of that which is unjust: researchers at Hopkins’s sociology department recently published a study confirming this lack of equality in parental discipline.

The study, which was headed by Lingxin Hao, sought to determine whether parents punished older children more harshly for risky behavior, particularly dropping out of high school and having children in their teens.

Using game theory, Hao discovered that parents enforce stricter punishments on the oldest child so they can set an example for the younger siblings by indicating that they disapprove of such behaviors.

The greater the number of younger children in the family, the more likely are parents to enforce harsher punishments on the eldest child.

However, following through with these punishments declines with younger siblings when they become teenagers, as there are fewer children in the house and parents lose the energy and willpower to be the tough disciplinarians.

For only children, behavior mirrors that of the younger siblings: Parents cannot make an example of an only child by punishing her, so they punish her less often.

Compare Liesl, the oldest of seven in The Sound of Music (”You’re not going to tell Father, are you?”) with Veruca Salt, an only child in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (”I want an Oompa-Loompa and I want one NOW!”).

By measuring the the parental responses to teenage childbirth and dropping out of high school, Hao found that parents were more lenient toward younger siblings in these situations, providing them with more support into adulthood compared with their older brothers or sisters.

Furthermore, older children committed significantly fewer examples of such risky behaviors compared with their younger siblings. The common stereotype depicting the oldest child as the diligent, responsible one and the youngest as the class clown may actually have a scientific basis.

Even the declining number of children per family may contribute to the purported rise in spoiled kids. With fewer siblings around, discipline may be lacking because there are fewer younger kids who need an example.

So the next time you complain to your parents that they’re being unfair to you (if you’re older), pull out this article and prove you’re right.

Source: Johns Hopkins News-Letter, MD
http://tinyurl.com/4p2zuy