A lot of parents feel unhappy when seeing their children learning hard in early childhood, while others believe that early childhood is the best time to begin learning.

Most state-owned kindergartens do not teach English to pupils, while the Ministry of Education and Training does not have regulations on teaching foreign languages to small children. However, at people-founded kindergartens, foreign language lessons are a fixture.

Phuong, an expert at a scientific research institute in Hanoi, who has a daughter learning at the Kim Lien state-owned kindergarten, said that teaching English to small children is a kind of maltreatment.

Phuong said that she did not learn much when she was small, but she still became a PhD. She will not force her daughter to study hard. Phuong said that the most important thing now for a child like her daughter is good health.

Meanwhile, Thu, the owner of a limited company in Hanoi, does not share the same view. Thu learned about the syllabuses of many kindergartens before deciding to send her 2-year-old daughter to a kindergarten. There, Thu’s daughter has lessons in literature, music, games, English and many subjects to help children become cleverer.

“I want my daughter to get the most active education. As far as I know, in western countries, children begin learning when they are 2 years old,” Thu said.

Learning at the age of 3: good or bad thing?

According to Associate Prof Dr Nguyen Cong Khanh from the Hanoi Pedagogical University, a lot of parents worry that teaching children at the age of 3 will torment children. The parents believe that children at this age need more playing than learning. However, Khanh said that this is the wrong viewpoint.

Khanh said that if children have a suitable education, i.e. they can learn right in early childhood, they could have many more opportunities in their lives.

Source: VietNamNet Bridge, Vietnam
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/education/2008/10/809340/

Australian fathers spend only six minutes alone with their children on weekdays, according to new research which found that dads Down Under leave most child-raising chores to their female partners.

In a study which also looked at parenting roles in Denmark, France, Italy and the United States, researcher Lyn Craig found that Australian fathers were among the most traditional.

“The difference between men’s and women’s lives when they have children is particularly pronounced in Australia,” Craig told AFP.

“In terms of the total amount of child care that’s done within a household in Australia, 10 percent of it will be done alone by the father and 90 percent of it will be done alone by the mother.

“In Denmark, 17 percent of the household care will be done alone by the father. So it’s quite a lot better but it’s by no means equal.”

Craig, from the University of New South Wales Social Policy Research Centre, said that Australian fathers spent more time with their children on weekends, but this was mostly as part of a family group than as a solo dad.

And when they were alone with their offspring, Australian fathers were less likely to do the chores of bathing or feeding the child and more likely to take them to the park or play games with them, she said, adding that men are more prone to volunteer only for “the fun stuff”.

“That’s true worldwide really, but it’s slightly less true in Scandinavia,” she said.

Craig said Australia was quite traditional in comparison to the other countries, with only 18.5 percent of households having both parents in full-time work compared with 64.7 percent of households in Denmark.

“Part-time work for women and full-time work for men is the usual thing in households with children (in Australia), and other countries are a bit more equal in workforce participation,” she said.

“Just about all over the world, men spend relatively little time alone with their children.”

Source: AFP
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j3ao1sJAmC-dOJ-PEz4f79CsHxJA

Up to 56 per cent of trainee teachers now need multiple attempts before they pass, according to statistics.

The test is designed to drive up standards in the profession and it must be passed before students can qualify as teachers.

However, the trainee teachers are allowed to sit the test as many times as they need and record numbers are failing.

One student reportedly made 27 attempts. Meanwhile, up to a third of trainees need two attempts or more at a similar test in literacy.

The numeracy test takes 48 minutes and contains 12 mental arithmetic questions, to be completed without the aid of a calculator. There are several longer questions with data manipulation which can involve a calculator. The 45-minute literacy test is in four parts – spelling, grammar, punctuation and comprehension.

The figures, obtained in a Commons written answer by the Liberal Democrats, has reignited debate about whether the minimum qualifications for teaching was too low.

The basic skills tests are taken online in literacy, numeracy and ICT and the pass marks are 60 per cent.

In numeracy, the failure rate has risen particularly sharply since the tests were introduced in 2001. Then, trainees needed on average 1.28 attempts to pass.

Last year it was 1.56, with 34,360 trainees taking 53,600 numeracy tests between them.

For literacy, the average number of attempts required to pass was 1.14 in 2001. However, last year 35,150 trainees took 46,460 tests. Most trainees passed their ICT test first time – the average number of attempts required was 1.12.

David Laws, Liberal Democrat education spokesman, said: “The existing minimum qualifications for people wanting to become teachers are too low.

“As the number being accepted on to teaching courses rises, we need to be sure this is not being coupled with a decline in standards.

“Only if we attract the finest quality of young people into teaching will we really be able to drive-up standards in all our schools.”

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said trainees on some routes into teaching – such as on-the-job training programmes – were exempt from taking the skills tests.

“Ofsted tell us that the standard of teaching training has never been higher and big rises in results show that quality of teaching is improving massively year-in, year-out,” he said.

Soiurce: Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
http://tinyurl.com/556szn

Parents who have their children in their 30s and 40s, give them a better start in life, according to a new study.

Meanwhile children of young, poorly educated mothers are more likely to face health and educational problems before they start school, the report found.

The study is based on interviews with 15,000 families whose first child was born at the turn of the 21st Century.

It suggests delaying parenthood to get the best qualifications and a career first, gives children an advantage over those whose parents have no qualifications, who end up being a year behind in their vocabulary by the time they start school.

“Waiting until 30 to have children seems to be associated with a lot of benefits for the family.”

She said educated parents aged over 30 tend to be more interested in a school’s reputation, anti-bullying policy and class sizes than they are in raw school test scores.

And working parents with higher qualifications do more activities with their children, including reading, music, making things and playing outdoors.

But the report also found that less than two-thirds of children are living with their married natural parents when they enter school.

Pam Barnes, 35, manager of Tidy Towns Wales, from Rhoose in the Vale of Glamorgan had her daughter, Romi, now aged four, when she was 31 years old – and she is glad she waited.

“In my 20s I did a lot of voluntary work but by the time I had Romi I had been settled into my job for a few years, had sorted out my career, was financially stable and I was settled in myself,” she said.

“Romi’s father, Mark Rowles, is a boat pilot, and although we separated in the summer, when we were together, he looked after her two days a week while I worked so we only needed a child minder three times a week.

“It was a special time for them both and it worked well financially for us.

“My mother was a teacher and read to me from an early age and I’ve read to Romi since she was a few months old.

“She started nursery in January and I quickly noticed how socially interactive she is and she loves it, there are no problems. She picks up habits, good and bad – but that is part of life.

“When we get home I talk about her day and she shows me things she has made – and we always make time to read stories together every night.

“Romi attends ballet classes and we like to go into the woods and kick leaves or go to St Fagans and talk about how people used to live on our days off together.”

As was found by the report, Pam said the ethos and the feeling of a school was more important to her than where it sat in the league tables.

“Romi attends Rhoose Primary School nursery, where they have junior discos, get parents involved and the teachers seem very committed,” she added.

“My childminder’s children are in the school and I hear very good reports.”

Emma Brennan spokeswoman for the Family and Parenting Institute said: “You can be a good parent at any age. But we do know that many older parents tend to be better off, have careers and a good education.

“It’s important that all parents get the support they want and need, such as health visitors, when their children are young.”

Source: WalesOnline, United Kingdom
http://tinyurl.com/6s7nlw

Motherhood is thought to make women brighter, faster and more spatially aware. Now scientists believe that the birth of a baby also gives men a welcome boost

What transforms footloose, feckless men into switched-on, dedicated fathers? Science is starting to discover that, just as nature prepares women to be committed mums, it can also make dads’ brains significantly sharper and more empathetic. A study being presented next month to the Society for Neuroscience by researchers at Richmond University, Virginia, shows how hormone changes in motherhood seem to make women brighter, faster at solving problems and more spatially aware. But it’s not only mums’ minds that get chemically enhanced.

While the biology of fatherhood remains largely uncharted, a growing body of research shows how new dads undergo a series of hormonal changes that may boost their nurturing instincts, make them kinder, more concerned and attentive to the point of obsessiveness. And, because there’s usually a downside in nature, the changes may also induce phantom-pregnancy symptoms and attacks of the baby blues.

Fatherhood triggers hormonal changes

In a surprising series of tests by Canadian scientists, up to 90 per cent of dads have reported pregnancy-like symptoms such as nausea, cravings and weight gain. Anne Storey, of Memorial University, Newfoundland, analysed 31 expectant men’s blood and found that those with phantom-pregnancy symptoms had significantly raised levels of the hormone prolactin, which is named for its role in promoting lactation in women. It also prompts animals to build nests. Storey reports in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior how she also found that the boisterous male hormone, testosterone, falls in new and expectant fathers by as much as 33 per cent. It also decreases in response to an infant’s cries and when men comfort their own child. The reduction, she suggests, may serve to encourage fathers to relate, rather than compete, with their children.

Men become more alert to a child’s needs

The two hormones may boost male empathy in other ways. Research by the Toronto University researcher Alison Fleming shows that men with high prolactin levels are more alert to a baby’s cry. Fleming has also found that new fathers with lowered testosterone levels feel more of a need to respond to their infants’ bawling. The characteristically calming female hormone, oestrogen, plays a part, too, according to a report in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. It reports that new fathers have higher levels than other men.

“The evidence suggests there is a biology of fatherhood,” says Barry Hewlett, an American anthropologist who has studied Aka hunter-gatherers in Central Africa for three decades and considers them hugely attentive fathers. Aka men spend almost half their time either holding their babies or being within reach of them. They let their offspring suck their nipples for comfort, Hewlett says.

But they’re not just the tribal equivalent of metrosexual dads competing to know most about baby slings - Aka men take their babies with them when they go out to drink palm wine with their pals.

“They have their babies, but they are talking guy talk. It’s amazing to watch,” says Hewlett, whose Aka studies sparked his interest in the role of hormones in fatherhood. He ran a study in the United States that took blood samples from fathers before they held their infants, and again after they had them on their chests for 15 minutes. Their prolactin levels went up.

They feel a real sense of responsibility

Jack O’Sullivan, the author of the BBC Guide To Fatherhood and He’s Having A Baby, says his own experience and his discussions with thousands of dads make him a firm believer in paternal brain-shaping: “There are definite changes. I suffered an attack of ‘provider fever’ both times my children were born. I suddenly experienced a real sense of responsibility, of needing to work at having a secure job and a supportive income.” O’Sullivan, who founded the pressure group, Fathers Direct, adds: “These are instinctive feelings. I think that new dads should listen to those instincts, rather than be told by many parenting books that they don’t actually know anything about childcare.”

But what sets off these hormonal changes? Here the research is scant, but two mechanisms may be responsible: the first is the environmental fact that men are meeting a new range of social expectations that can alter their brain functioning. The second agent is pheromones: the chemical messengers that all animals emit.

But it’s not all good news

Classic studies show that women living together in dormitories have their menstruation cycles synchronised through pheromones. Similarly, a man and a woman who share intimate space may communicate chemical messages that cue a man to start getting parental. Certainly, men’s brain-patterns do change. James Swain, a researcher at Yale University, used an fMRI scanner to examine 25 new dads’ heads when they heard their infant crying or viewed a picture of their newborn. The scans showed activity strikingly similar to that seen in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms.

New dads aren’t mentally ill, but they do tend to fuss - often on typically male matters such as whether the car seat is strapped exactly right. Over-attentiveness can be one problem - and postnatal depression is another.

The Adelaide University researcher, Karina Bria, says about 10 per cent of fathers develop the disorder. “Many don’t acknowledge it,” says Bria, who has conducted a national study on depression in first-time fathers. One man who isn’t in denial, though, is Will Courtenay, a San Francisco psychotherapist who has launched Saddaddy.com after suffering the disorder following his son’s birth in June. “These hormones coursing through our bodies can really wreak havoc on a man’s functioning,” he says.

As far as Mother Nature is concerned that’s small price to pay for turning millions of men into smart, caring parental partners. (…)

Source: Times Online, UK
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article4962480.ece

Children who eat breakfast each day are half as likely to be obese as those who skip it, new research shows.

They eat less for lunch and tend not to snack between meals, experts say.

The study looked at 15,000 five year olds born in the first two years of the millennium who were weighed and measured.

It found children who were obese were about twice as likely not to eat breakfast as children of normal weight.

Researchers also found those with unemployed parents were almost three times as likely to go without breakfast as those whose mothers and fathers were both working.

The study found about one in five of the children was either overweight or obese when they started school. More than 17 per cent of girls and 13.5 per cent of boys were overweight and a further 6 per cent of girls and 5 per cent of boys were obese.

“It is also likely, of course, that parents who fail to give their children breakfast may be less organised about nutrition in general.”

But Prof Joshi, of the Institute of Education at the University of London, added that economic pressures, such as the inability to afford healthy food, do not appear to be key contributors to weight gain.

She said: “Poor children in our study were no more likely to be overweight and only very slightly more likely to be obese.”

Eating regular meals, other than breakfast, also appeared to have no influence on whether a child would be overweight or obese.

But the researchers did find an association between mothers’ education level and children’s weight. Just three per cent of the children of graduate mothers were obese, compared with eight per cent of youngsters whose mothers had no qualifications.

Dr Colin Waine, immediate past chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said: “”This confirms what we have suspected for some time that breakfast is a good way to start the day for all children and is associated with reduced obesity levels and also better performance at school.”

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
http://tinyurl.com/69zkck

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Almost a third of British children suffer from back problems before the age of eight because they do not exercise or carry school bags that are too heavy, doctors have warned.

A survey of more than 1,200 children by the British Chiropractic Association highlights a dramatic increase in those suffering from the increase in “slouch potato” lifestyles.

Carried out to coincide with World Spine Day, it found that 32 per cent of six and seven year olds had suffered some kind of back problem, rising to 45 per cent of children by the age of 11.

This compared to 29 per cent of 11 to 18 year olds who complained of back pain in a 2002 survey.

The BCA blames a combination of lazier lifestyles and heavy school bags for the increase in cases at a younger age.

It found that 45 per cent of children spent the majority of their half terms playing computer games or watching TV, while a tenth of eight and nine year olds said they didn’t do any sport at all.

A total of 72 per cent of children said they carried around heavy books and sports equipment on their backs, but only a third said they wore their rucksack on both shoulders to distribute the weight evenly.

The study follows Irish research at two Dublin schools which found that 13 year olds were carrying nearly 6kg (13lbs), or an average of 12 per cent of their body weight, on their backs every day.

The BCA’s Tim Hutchful said the results were alarming, since children suffering from bad backs were likely to take their problems into adulthood.

He said that parents should take responsibility for their child’s development by encouraging them to go outside and exercise.

“We are in no doubt that lack of exercise is children’s number one enemy,” he said.

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

Poor parenting is to blame for a major deterioration in the behaviour of primary school pupils over the past five years, a study suggests today.

Many pupils lacked the social skills required to get on in class, said the researchers, commissioned the National Union of Teachers. “Teachers describe ‘highly permissive’ parents who admitted to indulging their children, often for the sake of peace or simply because they had run out of alternative incentives and sanctions,” the authors added.

Examples included a mother who, after great effort, succeeded in getting her five-year-old to bed at 1am instead of 3am, and a boy of seven who smashed his Sony PlayStation in a tantrum, then would not behave for a week until his mother bought him a new one.

Professors Galton and Macbeath were also told of parents who would do anything to shut their children up “just to get some peace”. Their report says schools face “formidable challenges” – particularly in poor areas where there has been “an increase in the incidence of confrontation and conflict”.

The researchers, who visited schools they studied five years ago, added: “There appeared to have been a significant and inimical impact on school life from a rapidly changing social scene.

“Motivating certain children, it was claimed, had become more difficult because by the time they came to school many of these children had become expert in manipulating adults.”

According to Galton and Macbeath, the top five obstacles to teaching are poor pupil behaviour, lack of time for reflection, large class sizes, too many initiatives and an overloaded curriculum. “Children arrive at school knowing too much and not enough,” they said.

Source: Independent, UK
http://tinyurl.com/4yeyje

‘IT MAKES CHILDREN ANGRY’ | Expert urges end to corporal punishment

During a recent speech in Chicago, Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a Harvard psychiatrist, related how, when he was a child and misbehaved, his father would “smack me in the back of the head.”

“It was like shock treatment,” said Poussaint. “He had a theory that if you misbehaved, something must be wrong with your brain and you needed a correction.”

The story elicited chuckles from the largely African-American audience, but Poussaint’s point was no joke to him.

One way to help reduce violence in poor, black urban neighborhoods is to reduce it in the home, he says.

In his most recent book, Come on People: On the Path from Victims to Victors, co-authored with entertainer Bill Cosby, Poussaint cites one study that showed that 94 percent of black mothers agreed that “a good hard spanking” was a useful “disciplinary technique” compared with 65 percent of white women and 46 percent of Asian-American women.

Not all black parents who use corporal punishment create violent children, he noted. Poussaint grew up in Harlem, received his M.D. from Cornell and served as a script consultant to NBC’s “The Cosby Show.”

But, Poussaint said, “Violence begets violence — it makes children angry.”

“I think a lot of homicides relate to rage and anger and getting back at someone, even if it’s a nameless face,” he said.

Psychotherapist George Smith, whose Management Planning Institute works with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, said he sees the effects of spankings in preschool classes his group conducts: “Kids emulate their caregivers. They become physical.”

Psychiatrist Carl Bell, president of the Community Mental Health Council, said less educated people of all races tend to spank at higher rates.

“Poor black people — poor people in general — have no idea how life works. People who don’t know how life works think it’s best to bully people to get what they want,” said Bell.

Blacks are more religious, said Bell, and cite Proverbs: “He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.”

No single child-rearing factor leads to violent behavior, Bell says. “I wish [ending spanking] was the magic bullet,” he said.

But for Poussaint, it’s a start.

“If we think of violence as learned behavior, if you are using it on your child, what are they learning?” said Poussaint. “The black community [has] to put this on the table.”

Source: Chicago Sun-Times, United States
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/1219230,CST-NWS-spank14.article