Reporters can be a tad obnoxious at dinner parties. We’re experts on everything for about five minutes. But parenting good students? I won’t even begin to pretend. So I turn to those in the know: teachers.

Helena Van Rooyen recently retired from academe after 40 years, most spent at the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District. But she isn’t done helping students, as she is working on a project for the district, helping at-risk second- through fifth-graders improve their math skills.

Melinda Anaya is a well-loved kindergarten teacher at Holy Angels School in Arcadia, where she’s taught for eight years. My two nieces, ages 13 and 10, adore her and remember how fun her classroom was. My own 6-year-old cried on the last day of school because he said he’ll miss her. (Don’t show this to him when he’s 16, please.)

I posed this question to them: What should parents of young children be doing now in the run-up to school? And what we can do throughout the year to help our kids succeed?

Van Rooyen stated it simply: “Just be a parent.”

“That means, get involved in your child’s learning, teach (and live) consistency, respect for authority and for peers, the meaning of the word `no,’ fairness and that there are choices,” she said.

And not to put undue pressure on you, but what we’re doing with our kinders now will echo through the years.

“I do think that the primary grades are the most important,” Anaya said. “This is when they begin to develop their work habits and everything is a new learning experience.”

The good habits we help instill in our pre-K and kindergarteners are the foundation to that perfect SAT score later on. (OK, just a 2,300.)

So herewith, homework for us parents on how to grow good students:

Forget the preaching. Instill a love for learning by providing kids with a model. Don’t just tell kids to read when you never read or to be nice and not fight when all you do is scream.

Play learning games, even simple ones like name everything in the room that’s green, and provide kids with a variety of experiences beyond video games and TV.

Consider volunteering in your child’s classroom

Both teachers’ No. 1 activity is reading. Read to kids and later with them when they’re old enough to read to you. It can be hard with everything else we have to do, but it makes a difference.

“Talk up” school and all that can be learned there plus the new friends they’ll make.

Recognize learning and reward it.

Right about now, start waking the kids up early and getting back into the routine. Observe a wise bedtime. Have a daily schedule kids can count on.

Your Mama said it to you too: eat a healthy breakfast.

To help with first-day tears, it’s best for parents to say goodbye, kiss their child and leave. Two minutes after you leave, your kid is fine. We feel terrible all day.

After school, let them snack and indulge in a half-hour of active play (PlayStation doesn’t count, Anaya points out.) Then they can tackle homework.

Give students their own work space free of distraction. Give them all the materials they need.

Kids are apt to get sick when around other kids so keep them home when they are sick, and serve chicken soup (really.)

And lastly, both teachers remind us to love our kids, listen to them and spend time with them.

“Bottom line, learning requires attention and just plain old hard work,” Van Rooyen said.

Just like parenting.

Source: Whittier Daily News, CA
http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_10294073

Video games are wildly popular among children these days. With the widespread diffusion of handheld devices, it is not uncommon to see children quietly playing video games by themselves despite being outside at a park.

Many parents and other adults who see children playing video games without uttering a word feel uncomfortable that so much attention is directed at them.

In June and July, when The Yomiuri Shimbun carried a series of articles featuring the effects of video games on children in our lifestyle news pages, we received more than 150 letters from readers who said they were worried about their children being addicted to video games. Reading the letters, I realized that video games can present parents with serious problems.

In a survey conducted last summer by Goo Research via its Web site for primary school students, about 80 percent of respondents who were primary school students said they played video games.

Among the respondents, 30 percent of boys said they played for more than three hours a day.

According to the survey, while some families had rules for playing video games, including a limit on the amount of time spent playing, 35 percent of families had no special rules.

The survey also indicated that the age of players is getting lower.

According to an ongoing study being conducted by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry for children born in 2001, 15 percent of the children were playing games by the time they were 3-1/2 years old. The rate rose to 28 percent by the age of 4-1/2, and 51 percent by the age of 5-1/2.

The widespread use of video games has created a situation in which children who do not have a gaming device can become left out or ostracized by their friends. This can make it very difficult for parents who have adopted a policy of not buying gaming devices for their children to maintain their stance.

Many parents who have bought gaming devices for their children are worried that the playing of games has created various problems for their children.

The correspondence we received from readers illustrated the kinds of unusual behavior that demonstrate an excessive interest in video games.

Examples include a kindergartner who would rather wet his pants and continue playing a game than go to the bathroom and a primary school student who continually kicks a ball around while playing a video game on a handheld device.

Some neurologists and parenting experts are also concerned about the possible harmful effects of playing video games.

The biggest concern is the influence on children’s brains, but scientists have yet to produce any evidence of a detrimental effect on the brain.

Commenting on the matter, Shu Watanabe, a professor of health science at Tokyo Metropolitan University who is well versed in the functioning of the brain, said: “We can’t be certain that devoting hours of time to playing games doesn’t have a bad influence on [children’s] brains at an important time in their development. Children generally find that no matter how tired their brains get, they can’t stop playing because it’s fun.”

Watanabe added, “Even if children are allowed to play games, it’s necessary for parents to limit the time spent playing them.”

Child welfare specialist Fumiharu Yamagata, a professor at Osaka City University also is worried about possible adverse effects.

“Children may become less competent at building personal relationships with others if they spend too much time just playing video games,” Yamagata said.

When children play together, they have to learn how to communicate with one another to sort out what they are going to do, how they are going to play, what rules they are going to use and so on.

When it comes to video games, however, they only need to switch on their gaming devices and they can start playing immediately without having to worry about dealing with other people.

“These days it’s not unusual for children only to communicate when it suits them and for them not to know how to verbally approach others they want to play with [in the real world],” Yamagata said, expressing deep concern over the matter.

Even experts involved in the video game industry warn against the potentially harmful effects of the games.

“When playing video games, children can only play in a world that has been provided for them by the creators of the games,” said Ritsumeikan University Prof. Akihiro Saito, a game media specialist and a developer of popular video games.

“This may make it difficult for them to develop creativity and the ability to think independently. I want parents to find time to take their children out to play in the real world,” he added.

In many regions, children are still on summer vacation. Some parents let their children play games all day because it keeps them quiet and means less effort has to be made to look after them.

But if your children seem to be too wrapped up in playing video games hour after hour, maybe it is time to reconsider together with your children your gaming ground rules for the sake of their healthy development.

Source: The Daily Yomiuri, Japan
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080821TDY04302.htm

Some publishing houses are to start “age banding” their children’s books later this year.

Each book will carry a specific marking indicating whether they are suitable for readers aged 5+, 7+, 9+, 11+ and 13+/teen.

Research within the book industry suggests people buying books for children would welcome the guidance.

But it is a scheme which has already enraged a number of writers, leading to the creation of a website to protest against the plans.

Here are the opposing arguments.

The branding (for that is what it is) of every children’s book with an irremovable age suggestion is an idea that could only spring from people with no knowledge of children and little idea of how a reader is born.

Children read up and read down. They read over and over again. They read the same book at two different ages and get something totally different out of the experience each time.

They identify with characters who are older, and with those who are younger - the reason authors go to such trouble not to pin ages onto their characters.

Children differ. Some race ahead with interests and reading skills. Why should they be held back because, at eight, they want to read something that might be marked 11+? (”Are you sure that’s not too old for you, dear?”)

Why should the child of eight who struggles with dyslexia, or has English as a second language, or learning difficulties of any sort (and they are legion) struggle to the end of a book and feel their sense of achievement turn to humiliation as they see 5+ on the back?

This is why nearly 1,000 authors and illustrators have already shown their disapproval by signing up to www.notoagebanding.org, and over 2,000 professionally interested people are among the thousands who have also signed up to support them.

These are not stickers. They are clearly printed numbers. Children are taught to study covers. Age guidance is readily available already. This is merely a stupid, cruel idea invented by some marketing maven who thinks only of the convenience of supermarket shelf stackers and nothing of the way in which children come to books.

And it’s commercial suicide. If the British publishing industry were looking for the very best way to kill the goose that lays their golden eggs, this would be it.

Source: BBC News, UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7571152.stm

Guidelines for managing attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder have alarmed leading education researchers, who warn they will cause an exponential increase in children being labelled as having ADHD by schools chasing funding.

A group of 14 researchers in education, disabilities and ADHD from seven universities have written to the Rudd Government, criticising moves to instruct teachers to look out for ADHD and to allocate special funding to schools for students with the disorder.

The guidelines are being reviewed by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians at the request of the National Health and Medical Research Council. Draft recommendations were released for public comment.

In a letter to Education Minister Julia Gillard and Health Minister Nicola Roxon, the researchers say the recommendations will encourage over-diagnosis of ADHD and give schools an incentive to have children classified with the disorder to gain access to extra money.

“This risk is particularly acute for children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds.”

A survey of children’s mental health, conducted by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in 1998, found almost 8 per cent of 12- to 17-year-olds were diagnosed with ADHD.

A study of South Australian children taking medication for ADHD in 1999 found rates highest among children from families with low incomes and high unemployment.

The lead signatory on the letter, Linda Graham from the University of Sydney, said yesterday resources would be better spent on giving teachers the skills and support to deal with a variety of children’s behaviours rather than singling out disorders.

Dr Graham said diagnosing a child as having ADHD was sometimes medicalising normal behaviour and should be a last resort, but it had become the first step in dealing with challenging children. “The diagnostic criteria for ADHD over the past 15 years has been expanding and it’s now almost possible to diagnose one of my cats,” she said.

The chairman of the group writing the guidelines, David Forbes, said between 5 and 10 per cent of children had the features of ADHD and might need special intervention to help them learn at school. He disagreed that training teachers to recognise ADHD would increase diagnosis of the disorder.

Source: The Australian, Australia
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24203785-5013871,00.html

Facebook makes Mom and Dad kids’ mentors, spies and friends

Julia McGovern was shocked when her mom sent her a “friend” request on Facebook. She had been on the social-networking site for four years and had no idea her mother even knew what it was.

“It was my world,” says Julia, 18, of Hopkinton, Mass. “She was still just e-mailing.”

Not anymore. Parents are flocking to social-networking sites – sometimes to monitor their kids, and sometimes for the same reason teenagers signed up: to communicate and to share.

For some teens, this can feel like an intrusion on their virtual space. For others, it’s just a new way to stay in touch with mom and dad. It depends, experts say, on how well parents and kids communicate, online and off.

In general, teenagers are closer to their parents today than in previous generations, says Nancy Robinson, consumer strategist for Iconoculture, a cultural trends research firm in Minneapolis. Kids today often prefer hanging out with their parents to being holed up in their room, she says.

That can easily extend to social-networking sites, which – after texting – are the No. 2 way that teens communicate technologically, according to Don Tapscott, author of Growing Up Digital (1997) and the upcoming Grown Up Digital (both from McGraw-Hill Professional).

Dylan Akers, 17, of Cambridge, Mass., invited his mom, Carolyn Bailey, to join Facebook and helped set up her page. Bailey, 46, a health and fitness counselor, says she has had more conversations on Facebook with her son’s friends than with him.

“I think everybody views my mom as a cool mom,” Dylan says. “I’m pretty open with her about my life. I don’t have to be too careful. Whatever I put on there, I wouldn’t mind her knowing.”

Many parents believe they need to monitor their kids online. Some limit their teenagers’ online exposure to strangers by using the sites’ stricter privacy settings.

Rod Carveth, 53, of New Britain, Conn., made his teenage daughter include him as a friend when she signed up for MySpace and Facebook. He wanted to make sure she wasn’t posting anything inappropriate or revealing too much personal information.

He has had to ask her to remove messages that contained vulgar language.

“It started mostly as a check,” says Carveth, an instructor at the University of Hartford, whose daughter is now 16. “Since then, it has evolved to where I will leave messages, ‘Have a nice day. Don’t forget to do this.’ That kind of thing. And she’s responded to me as well.”

Some experts warn that parents who “friend” their kids without being invited to can send the teens a message that they don’t trust them. Michael Solomon, a professor of marketing at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, says teens who post suggestive photos or inappropriate messages will block their parents from accessing the information anyway.

“It can backfire,” Solomon says. “It can embarrass the kids and their friends and create resentment.”

Anastasia Goodstein, author of Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007), believes parents should keep a discreet distance on social-networking sites.

“I do think it can bring them closer together” by helping parents learn more about their children’s interests and friends, she says. “Where it gets tricky is, what’s happening on social-networking sites is really conversations between teens and their friends. You’re not just listening in on your own teen. Suddenly, you are hearing what all their friends are doing as well.”

Goodstein sees these sites as the new mall, a place where teenagers can hang out without authority figures.

Adults also should remember that teenagers are watching them back.

Liz Funk, 19, a senior at Pace University in New York City, says it was strange to see one of her high school teachers send a drink to another on Facebook.

Funk, who blogs about tween and teen girls, adds, “I really can’t recommend that parents get accounts for the sole purpose of monitoring their children. I think what’s more important is parents need to engage their kids in dialogue about what is and what isn’t appropriate to be posted online.”

Jeff Berman, president of sales and marketing for MySpace, says most parents are pursuing their own interests on the site, not just watching the kids.

“Other than the front door you come through at MySpace.com, you might never see the same content or have the same experience,” he says. “You might be on MySpace just to discover great music, share it with your friends. Your mom might be on MySpace to share photos and to blog, and never the two shall meet.”

At Facebook, which was originally created for college students, the number of users ages 35 to 54 more than tripled in the 12 months ending in July, according to the site’s survey of 3,100 users. The 13-34 age group doubled, and the number of users ages 65 and older grew by 150 percent.

Kel Kelly, 45, Julia McGovern’s mom, says she didn’t join Facebook to spy on her daughter or be part of her crowd. She doesn’t friend her daughter’s friends, and if one of them friends her, she makes sure to tell their parents.

Sometimes she sees photos or messages she doesn’t like, but she doesn’t intervene unless it’s something dangerous.

Julia says her mom never crosses the line.

“It’s become an easy way to interact with her, to keep her in my life,” says Julia, who is heading to Syracuse University in the fall and plans to use the site to keep in touch with mom. “It will be a lot easier than making phone calls.”

Source: Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, IN
http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080812/FEAT/808120371

Standards of reading among teenagers dipped this year, despite millions being spent to get pupils more interested in books.

Sats results reveal almost a third of 14-year-olds are unable to read to an acceptable level - three years after starting secondary school.

Just 69 per cent of pupils achieved the standards expected of their age, compared to 71 per cent last year.

Among boys, the drop was even more dramatic, prompting claims that high-profile attempts to boost reading skills had failed.

Ministers have already called for the creation of boys-only bookshelves in schools - stocked with spy novels and thrillers - to defeat the myth that reading is for girls. And £14m has been spent this year alone on booster classes in secondary schools and a greater range of books for all pupils.

But today, Jim Knight, the schools minister, appeared to point the finger at parents, saying they should play a bigger part by reading with their children.

Opposition MPs said the claims smacked of desperation.

“It is essential to teenagers’ academic progress that they continue to read for pleasure outside school,” said Mr Knight. “Reading should be fun and something children choose to do in their free time – otherwise, they will struggle when they move on to tackling more technically demanding texts in secondary schools.

“Parents have a vital role to play - reading and talking about stories together as children move towards secondary school and encouraging them to read everything from novels to magazines as they get older.”

Teaching unions branded the results unreliable following the marking fiasco surrounding this year’s Sats. Delays to the marking process mean up to one-in-six papers are not counted in today’s figures.

Results are also not broken down by local authorities as up to half the results were missing in some areas, with critics suggesting results could be inaccurate.

Nevertheless, the Tories seized on the figures, which they said proved standards had levelled out under Labour.

Almost 600,000 pupils sat tests in English, mathematics and science this year. So-called Key Stage 3 exams are seen as a key indicator of performance in the run up to GCSEs.

According to today’s figures, fewer pupils reached the expected level in English, which combines reading and writing. Despite improved writing results, 73 per cent hit overall literacy targets compared to 74 per cent last year.

Some 62 per cent of boys can read to the appropriate level, against 76 per cent of girls, as the gender gap widened.

Standards also fell in science, with just 71 per cent of 14-year-olds achieving the standard expected of their age, a drop of two percentage points on last year.

It comes just days after business leaders warned of a shortage of specialist engineers and technicians in the UK because pupils lack enthusiasm for science at secondary school.

In maths, 77 per cent of pupils made the grade, a one point rise on last year, but the same as standards achieved in 2006.

Performance also dipped in the three subjects combined, as just 61 per cent of pupils reached the required standard in the tests - level 5 - compared to 64 per cent in 2007.

It means an estimated 234,000 pupils are failing in the core subjects half way through secondary education.

Nick Gibb, the Tory shadow schools minister, said: “Yet another year has passed in which the Government has failed to raise standards in the basics of reading, writing and maths. The drops in English and science are particularly worrying.

“The Government continues to miss its modest targets and we are left with the unacceptable position that two out of five fourteen year olds are failing to achieve the necessary grades in reading, writing and maths that they will need to be able to achieve at GCSE.”

The Lib Dems called for Sats to be scrapped.

Annette Brooke, the party’s children’s spokesman, said: “After three years of secondary education, thousands of pupils are not reaching the expected level in key subjects. It’s a disgrace that on the day the results have been published, many schools will still not yet have received their marked papers.”

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “The Key Stage 3 tests are an irrelevance. No one will be interested in the results when young people apply for a job. In a year when Sats have collapsed under their own weight, cutting the Key Stage 3 tests would be an excellent way to reduce the excessive amount of testing our students face.”

Up to 100,000 results were not included in English because of the marking delays.

Government statisticians also said that figures were likely to be skewed following a change in rules this year, which stopped markers bumping up results for “borderline” pupils. In the past, all marks just below official targets were re-checked, resulting in many being improved, but the same criteria was not applied to those going just over the expected level. So-called borderlining was scrapped this year. It resulted in small increases in passes in previous years.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
http://tinyurl.com/54qe8d

For many adolescents, “screen time” is almost a full-time job that could lead to obesity, diabetes and other health issues, a Canadian researcher says.

Adolescents now spend an average of six hours a day in front of some type of screen, whether it’s a television or computer screen or one of the many portable devices now popular with young people, studies done by Dr. Ian Michael Janssen show. “They spend more hours daily in front of a screen than they do in a classroom in a given year,” said Janssen, a researcher at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, who is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Even if they are still playing with friends, children are increasingly likely to be engaging in more passive activities like playing video games, one reason why only half of Canadian children aged 5 to 17 get as much physical activity as they should each day, according to the Health and Stroke Foundation.

The result is a rise in obesity rates among adolescents. Twenty-six percent of Canadian children are overweight or obese, according to a government health committee report, representing a 15-percent increase over 30 years. In the United States, the obesity rates for preschool-aged children and adolescents has more than doubled over that time period, and more than tripled for children aged 6-11.

Unfortunately, fixing the problem isn’t as easy as simply cutting down screen time, Janssen cautions. While a sedentary lifestyle has been associated with childhood obesity, as reported in the Canadian Medical Association journal, Janssen says that physical activity and screen time are separate behaviors in children.

“Decreasing screen time will not automatically increase physical activity levels,” said Janssen, whose research examines how the two are related and what effects screen time may have above and beyond those on physical activity. Some active kids also spend a lot of time in front of television and computer screens, and some kids who have low screen times also have low levels of physical activity, he points out.

The long-term risk for children is that behaviors and health outcomes tend to track over time, Janssen said. “An obese youth is very likely to become an obese adult.” And because obesity-related health problems take time to develop, the longer a person has been obese, the worse off they’re likely to be. A 50-year-old who only recently became obese is in a better position than one who has been obese since childhood, he said.

Janssen’s real worry about the rise in childhood obesity rates is not that there are now rare cases of type 2 diabetes in kids, where once there were none, but the health problems these children are likely to face in the future as adults, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease. When today’s obese children are adults, baby boomers will all be seniors, he pointed out, placing a huge burden on the health care system. “That’s when I’m really frightened.”

Source: Reuters
http://features.us.reuters.com/wellbeing/news/FD5592F0-64B8-11DD-AA35-6CC02BCD.html

Children who are smacked or yelled at are much more likely to develop serious mental health problems by the age of three, research reveals.

A study of more than 700 toddlers found that those who were harshly disciplined by their parents were at much higher risk of depression and anxiety in later life. Disobedience and aggression were also common problems for infants who had been smacked or screamed at.

The study by Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute showed that parental stress could also have a huge impact on infant mental health.

Children from all walks of life were studied at the age of seven months, then followed up every six months until the age of three.

Researcher Jordana Bayer, a child psychologist, said up to 50% of early behavioural problems persisted through childhood. “In early childhood, behavioural problems such as hitting and kicking and biting and saying no are very common. But if they’re at high levels by preschool age then up to half will go on through childhood and lead potentially into adolescence with conduct disorder and drug use and depression and so on,” Dr Bayer said.

“It’s important for parents to pay attention to when young children behave well and actually reward that behaviour with praise and hugs.”

The findings, published in the latest edition of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, will be used to develop family support programs.

Murdoch researcher and pediatrician Harriet Hiscock said doctors working with children should always ask about the parents’ stress levels. “There are ways to help reduce this stress and help parents manage their child’s behaviour in more calm and consistent ways.”

Source: The Age, Australia
http://www.theage.com.au/national/childs-mental-health-at-risk-from-tough-love-20080729-3mvf.html

Young children spend an extraordinary amount of time moving about: an average of three hours a day at age 9, new research shows.

But in just a few short years, all that childhood energy disappears. By the age of 15, daily physical activity is down to just 49 minutes on weekdays and about a half-hour on weekends, according to the research, being published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Experts have long believed that activity wanes as children enter their teenage years. This study affirming that belief, one of the largest and longest ever undertaken on the subject, followed about 1,000 children from around the country and, unlike many previous studies, used monitoring devices to track the activity carefully rather than relying on reports from parents.

The findings, which measured everything from moderate walking to vigorous athletic pursuits, show clearly that even the most energetic young children experience a precipitous drop in physical activity as they reach puberty.

“I was surprised by the degree of the drop; it’s a dramatic shift,” said the lead author, Dr. Philip R. Nader, emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego. “Younger children appear to be naturally active, but as kids get older, they find fewer opportunities to be active.”

The research was part of the continuing Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a look at the health of American children that was begun in 1991 and is financed by the National Institutes of Health.

The authors had the children wear accelerometers, devices that measure movement, for a week at each of four ages: 9, 11, 12 and 15.

Over all, boys were more active than girls, moving an average of 18 more minutes a day.

Age 13 appeared to be a particularly vulnerable time. Though activity was not measured at that age, mathematical modeling showed it was at that point that daily weekend activity, for boys and girls alike, dropped below 60 minutes.

The percentage of children who met the government’s recommendation of one hour of moderate daily activity shifted markedly over time. At 9 and 11, almost every child in the study was moving at least an hour a day. But by 15, only 31 percent met the guideline during the week, and just 17 percent on the weekend.

The study did not measure reasons for the decline, but researchers noted that schools often curtail physical activity as children get older. Not only does recess stop, but many schools drop physical education as well. In addition, sports become more exclusive as children grow, allowing only the best athletes to compete.

“When you are younger, it’s much easier to go out and do things spontaneously,” said James A. Griffin, deputy chief of the Child Development and Behavior Branch at the national institutes’ Center for Research for Mothers and Children. “But when you get older, kids tend to play a video game or watch television with their friends. Parents need to be aware to help them balance that out a little better.”

Source: New York Times, United States
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/health/research/16exercise.html?ref=health

On the face of it, Luke Burton is a shining example of how someone from an economically disadvantaged background can succeed in education. His mum at one time was working in a chip shop and doing three other jobs to make ends meet, he didn’t go to a high achieving school and, by his own admission, he messed around in class more than he should have done.
Yet at 24 he is training to be an actuary with a big firm in London, has a maths degree from Oxford and an MA - the first graduate in his family. Why is it that some young people seem inoculated against less advantaged beginnings while others don’t? New UK and US studies are pointing the finger ever more clearly at particular kinds of parenting and home environments that do the trick. But the big money still doesn’t go into parenting education, despite research that proves it can be an enormous force for change. Yet stark facts suggest more finance for parenting education would be money well spent.

Attainment gap

Sizeable gaps in school readiness exist in the UK despite universal nursery education for three- and four-year-olds; in the US half the eventual gap in attainment between children from less advantaged and more advantaged homes exists when the child starts school. Here a bright but poor child can be overtaken in test results by a less bright child from an affluent home by age seven.

In England, poor children among the top performers in tests at 11 are much more likely to have lost that critical advantage by the time they take their GCSEs. All the money Labour has poured into the education system since 1997 has failed to increase the tiny numbers of young people from the lowest socio-economic groups getting into university. So why do Burton and others like him do so well?

Scratch the surface of Burton’s “disadvantage” and you soon start to see answers. He comes from Clevedon in Somerset and is the eldest of three. His father was a mechanic and his parents split up when he was small. Money was tight. His mum, Wendy Doig, had gone to what she describes as a “rubbish school - a Grange Hill type of school” where the idea of university was never considered, and she was seen as “posh” as she went on to work in an office rather than get pregnant or work in the local sausage factory.

But she chose to do part-time jobs rather than work full-time because she wanted to be in when the children came home from school. She also wanted money to pay for the Montessori nursery a friend told her was good. For Burton she feels that was a turning point. “Of all my children he was the most difficult to steer. It worried me how determined he was. I thought he was going to do something brilliant or terrible. I could see his strengths and the potential for disaster.

“I spent a lot of my time trying to find things to interest Luke. His playgroup lacked structure and it made him hyperactive. Joining Montessori was pretty key. That’s when the maths got off the ground.”

Burton remembers a male primary school teacher who told him he had potential and to stop mucking around. He remembers parents proud when he did well but who didn’t put him under pressure. He found it harder to respect teachers once he got to secondary school because there was less time to build relationships with them, but he does remember a maths teacher who took it as a given that he was going to university.

Burton’s mum remarried when he was 11, so he went to live with his dad for more freedom. His stepfather’s mother spotted a newspaper story about the Sutton Trust summer school at Oxford University for youngsters from families with no tradition of university. It was held at Magdalen College. “I thought: ‘This is quite nice. I’d like to come here.’ I didn’t know what other universities were like so it was not a big deal. It didn’t cross my mind that I wouldn’t get in once I’d decided to go.”

Doig says her own parents had been easy and supportive but she also read books on parenting to help her when the children were small.

Home learning

And it is that mindful attention to parenting style and home learning which is shown to be vital in a spin-off study from Europe’s largest piece of longitudinal research in this area - Effective Provision of Preschool Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE) - which for more than 10 years has been following the educational development of 3,000 children from the age of three for the government .

The study has proved that high-quality preschool can ameliorate the effects of social disadvantage and break the cycle of deprivation, but it needs to be coupled with a good home-learning environment.

This is backed by unpublished research carried out for the Equalities Review by Iram Siraj-Blatchford, professor of early childhood education at the Institute of Education in London and a principal investigator for EPPSE, with 24 of the families whose children were succeeding against the odds in their education. Half were on free school meals, more than half were living with a lone parent, and four out of five were living in deprived areas.

In-depth interviews uncovered strong evidence of an adult or adults in the child’s life taking parenting seriously and valuing education either in the immediate or wider family or the child’s wider community, such as a religious community.

She believes the shift towards sending reading books home with children, which began in earnest in the 1980s, may be having an effect now those children are parents. In the interviews, it is clear that parents and their children think success at school is down to working hard and concentrating on what is said in class; when they hit difficulties they are not deterred. By contrast, the children from poor home-learning environments put school success down to ability and feel helpless in the face of lessons they find hard.

The crucial importance of the home is also pointed out by a new study, which has documented income related gaps in areas such as literacy, numeracy and behaviour. It shows between one-third and half of these differences are the result of parenting style and home-learning environment. But it is a particular kind of parenting, described as “sensitive and responsive”, that works.

The research is based on data from 19,000 UK and 10,000 US children born in 2000 and 2001 analysed by Jane Waldfogel, professor of social work and public affairs at Columbia University in New York, and Liz Washbrook, a research associate at Bristol University’s Centre for Market and Public Organisation on secondment to Columbia. The analysis was delivered to a private summit on social mobility and education policy organised by the Sutton Trust and the Carnegie Foundation in New York in June. Ed Miliband, minister for the Cabinet Office, who leads the government’s efforts to tackle social exclusion, was one of the leading politicians and education figures who attended.

Detailed observation of children in the US part of the study found parenting style having the biggest impact on school readiness gaps between low-income and middle-income children, accounting for 19% of the gap in maths, 21% of the literacy gap and a massive third of the gap in language. Sensitive and responsive parenting had the biggest positive effect. Observational data was not available from the UK.

Waldfogel says sensitive and responsive parents are able to provide “warm, supportive and nurturing parenting” and can respond to a child’s changing needs. Experience of parenting received as a child may affect responses to your children as may personal temperament and stress, she says.

Parenting programmes can and do help. Sure Start has been found to improve effective parenting and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) announced last week that it was extending the pilot of the Family Nurse Partnership, which works with vulnerable young women expecting their first child. Early signs suggest improved aspirations among the mothers after an intensive visiting programme from nurses who work with them from pregnancy until the child’s second birthday, advising on healthier lifestyles, baby and childcare, and planning life goals.

Positive changes

Another successful and rapidly spreading UK scheme is the Peers Early Education Partnership (Peep), which has been proved to boost cognition and self esteem in pre-school children by promoting parents’ and carers’ awareness of very early learning and development, and supporting adults in their relationships with the children.

Peep programmes are delivered mainly in children’s centres but are gradually being taken direct to vulnerable parents in their homes. But the programme remains a charity rather than mainstream provision. The government is spending £1bn on its ambitious 10-year Children’s Plan to ensure a better deal for children - including making sure 90% of them are ready to learn when they go to school - but education in providing a good home-learning environment currently doesn’t figure in it.

Last week it was revealed that an 18-month government initiative aimed at helping parents of young children from disadvantaged families become effective supporters of their children as learners was successful in making positive changes to parents’ behaviour. The Early Learning Partnership Programme, funded by the DCSF and undertaken by researchers from Oxford University’s departments of education and social policy and social work, aimed to support parents in socially disadvantaged areas across England.

It brought together the main agencies in the voluntary sector working with the parents of children aged between one and three but, because it was only funded for 18 months, it could not show whether it made differences to children’s long-term learning.

One good piece of news came last week when the DCSF announced £12m in backing for the Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People’s Services, which will gather and analyse information about what works in tackling a range of issues linked to child wellbeing.

This kind of work can’t come a moment too soon. Parenting is harder to influence, but without it good pre-schools and schools can only go so far - and it could take decades for the most disadvantaged to catch up.

Parental dos and don’ts

Sensitive and responsive parenting is about tuning into what your child needs from moment to moment, and adapting your behaviour.

Your child gets a new toy
Do watch how the child responds to the toy and let him/her explore it alone if he/she seems to want to
Don’t automatically show your child how it all works

A father bounces a child on his knee to cheer her up
Do watch for cues that the child is enjoying herself
Don’t carry on if the child cries. Think about what else she might need and experiment with meeting those needs, for example feeding or cuddling

Source: guardian.co.uk, UK
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2290865,00.html