Archive for the ‘School and Education’ Category

Often, when nutrition is taught in school, there is a heavy focus on “good foods vs. bad foods.”

• Youth are often taught how to read food labels and count calories.  The “destructive nature” of unhealthy foods is frequently discussed.
• Some nutrition classes also use tactics such as demonstrations of globs of fat to scare children into healthy eating.
• Often an implicit message that being thin equates with health, while being overweight equates with being unhealthy is conveyed.
• There are also often messages that a person who chooses to eat these “bad foods” is somehow failing to demonstrate willpower.

Nutrition education that uses scare-tactics, or shaming, or that make strong generalizations about health and nutrition, or that focus on body images and stereotypes all pile pressure on kids to approach food and nutrition in unhealthy ways.

While it is important to teach children about nutrition, it should be taught alongside body-image awareness.

• It is possible to teach nutrition in a body-positive way
• Nutritional education is a large part of eating disorders treatment.

It is possible to discuss nutrition in ways that reduce the risk of pressuring kids into making unhealthy choices by:

Avoiding scare tactics –

Help children learn mindfulness in their eating. This is a skill that can be utilized so that a person can comfortably listen to their body–and feed it so that it is satisfied, and never too hungry, or too full. As they learn about choosing a variety of foods, eating various foods in moderation, and making smart choices, they can learn to enjoy eating instead of fearing it. It is also appropriate to  promote a healthy lifestyle following the nutritional guidelines and age appropriate exercise.

Teaching parents as well–

Parents are in charge of grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking, and ultimately responsible for a child’s nutritional experience; they need to be on the same page as their children when it comes to nutrition.
Avoiding sweeping generalizations – Be mindful of your word choices and developmental level of your students. In early elementary school children, a brief sound bite on television or radio that talks about the relationship between eating red meat and heart attacks –  can be interpreted very concretely, so that they fear this food completely, for themselves and their family members.

Remain body positive –

Avoid comments about body weight, shape, and size when describing nutrition. Proper nutrition is not just about weight, shape and size. The goal should be to focus on overall wellness–healthy at any weight.

In a recent study  of patients at the inpatient eating disorders treatment program for children and adolescents at Rogers Memorial Hospital, 15 % traced triggers for their eating disorders to school programming.

As our nation becomes increasingly concerned with obesity, the desire to improve children’s nutritional habits is understandable. While attempting to help our youth avoid obesity, we must remain mindful that how we present this information can trigger disordered eating in children and adolescents.

This article by Laura Scholes, in which she interviews Dr. Jenna, appeared first on http://www.greatschools.org

Just when the tantrums have subsided and you think it’s safe to take your child on an extended shopping trip again, don’t be surprised if you encounter another land mine in the checkout line.

“Mommy, how did the baby get into that lady’s tummy?” your five-year-old asks in a loud voice, pointing at the very pregnant woman in front of you.

As unnerving as such questions often are for parents, they’re completely normal. “In preschool, kids start noticing and asking questions about how mom and dad have different body parts,” says Jenna Saul, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Auburndale, WI. “Then, by the time they turn five, the curiosity about body parts turns into a preoccupation with where babies come from.”

At my own house, the conversation began even earlier. At two, my daughter spotted a scar on my stomach, and I fumbled my way through a TMI explanation of a C-section: my first sex talk fail.

That first (uncomfortable) sex question

Whether the first sex question happens in private or very much in public, it catches almost every parent off guard.

Katrina Alcorn, an Oakland, CA, blogger, says she never worried about the “sex talk.”

“I didn’t think it would be a big deal,” says Alcorn, who has three children. “I’m progressive. I’m body positive. I’ll make sure my kids know what they need to know.”

Then, in the car one day, Alcorn’s second grade daughter announced that she wanted to marry a girl because she didn’t want to die in childbirth.

“I was just floored,” Alcorn says. “But I tried to gather my thoughts and address her concerns one by one. I said, first of all, it’s really rare that people die in childbirth, and I don’t think that would happen to you. Second of all, it’s fine if you want to marry a girl, and you don’t have to decide now. Finally, you can adopt a baby whether you’re with a boy or a girl.”

Alcorn was proud of herself for dealing with her daughter’s questions with such aplomb — but in the end her child got the last word. “She said, ‘I still want to marry a girl because I think kissing boys is gross and anyway, I don’t want to have sex.’ I couldn’t believe the sex talk snuck up on me without me being prepared for it!”

Why you should talk sooner rather than later

Although teenagers today are waiting longer to have sex, research shows that 13 percent have had sex by age 15, and by their 19th birthday, seven in 10 teens have had intercourse. And because young adults are not marrying until their mid-20s, on average, this means they’re at increased risk for unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

So even though talking to your young child — preschool to fifth grade — about sex may seem premature, it’s actually the ideal time to do it. As your child enters her tweens and teens and becomes self-conscious about her body and about personal matters in general, it will become increasingly difficult to raise the issue. Take advantage of this window of opportunity to create a foundation of openness and honesty with your child.

“This stuff is very hard and complicated to talk about, but for me it is a health issue,” says Robie H. Harris, a former teacher and now celebrated author of a series of children’s books about sex and the body, including It’s Perfectly Normal, and Who Has What. “I write these books because I feel that this is part of life, and it’s okay to wonder about it. It’s important not just to kids’ physical health, but also to their emotional health.”

Not one talk, but many

Most experts agree that “the talk” really isn’t a talk anymore, but an ongoing conversation, one that starts much earlier than it did even a few decades ago.

“Limiting your child’s education about sex to a single talk produces an atmosphere of shame,” says Wendla A. Schwartz, M.D., a child and adolescent psychiatrist and medical director of Solutions Psychiatric Associates in Los Gatos, CA. “Children will definitely ask, and if a parent has in his mind that a five-year-old isn’t ready for ‘the talk,’ then he gets flustered and says, ‘Go ask your mother,’ and then the mother gets flustered. Kids are great at detecting discomfort, so by the time ‘the talk’ comes around at puberty, they’ve got the idea that sex is shameful and bad, and that’s going to stick with them forever.”

Instead, make it an ongoing, low-key dialogue between you and your child that begins when they are very young and goes on throughout their tween and teenage years.

What to say, how to say it

When it comes to sex, the best strategy is to let your child lead the discussion, rather than giving her a full-blown, lengthy presentation.

“In the very early ages, parents need to focus their efforts on really listening to their children and answering their questions truthfully,” says Saul. “At first, using the child’s own language to describe body parts is a good way to make kids comfortable; then you can teach them the actual names — penis, vagina, womb — as it becomes appropriate.”

Schwartz agrees that parents should let kids take the lead. “The best approach with all kids is to only answer the question they ask,” she says. “One of the really beautiful things about young children is that they’re incredibly inquisitive. They have such a tremendous level of curiosity that you really don’t have to worry that they’re going to forget to ask. As they’re ready for the information, they will probe for it.”

So when the questions start coming, give as brief and as honest an answer as you can and know that when they’ve learned enough, they’ll tune out — and that’s fine. Be prepared by having some age-appropriate books on hand before your child starts asking questions. Robie Harris recommends reading through the books by yourself first, to make sure you agree with the information and the way it’s presented. Books can help neutralize a charged topic; they also give your child the opportunity to do additional research on her own.

Kids are resilient

Don’t worry if you flub the sex conversation the first time — or even the second.

“We all make mistakes,” says Schwartz, who has stumbled on the topic of sex with her own kids. “Don’t freak out if you don’t get things right. Remember: over the years you’ll get plenty of chances to ‘practice’ giving good information. Besides, lucky for us, kids are amazingly resilient.”

To see the article where it originally appeared, go to:

http://www.greatschools.org/parenting/sex-education/5288-how-talk-younger-child-sex.gs?page=all

Many teens enjoy keeping in touch with their friends on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, but there are both risks and benefits to the use of these sites.  Overuse/Misuse of social media has been linked to mental health issues including depression and eating disorders.

Now, a  report from the American Academy of Pediatrics describes a new phenomenon called “Facebook depression,” in which children and teenagers spend an inordinate amount of time on social networking sites, then develop symptoms of depression.

Facebook depression is UNCOMMON–most children benefit from the use of facebook because they are able to maintain ties with friends and feel a connection with their community, according to Scott Campbell, an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan.

Heavy use of  Facebook can have serious consequences, so it’s important that parents are aware of their children’s media use, as well as remaining aware of their social lives away from the computer.

Dr. Michael Brody, Chair of the Media Committee for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and who was involved with the American Academy of Pediatrics report,  notes that relationships with peers become critical during adolescence, and that Facebook facilitates social engagement with friends.  “Kids become are very competitive, and kids want to be chosen,” said Dr. Brody.  Since facebook allows adolescents to see the number of friends their peers have, some youth may perceive that they are not as popular if they have fewer facebook “friends”. They may also perceive by reading the status updates of their facebook “friends” that they are not having as much fun as their peers. “I think the idea of envy and jealousy becomes very magnified through this medium,” says Brody.

Dr. Brody points out that causation is not suggested by the study.  The evidence does not suggest that Facebook leads to depression. It could be that certain adolescents who are already depressed are prone to spending too much time online, Brody said.

The study is consistent with previous findings of internet use–that depression and loneliness are associated with extremely heavy users of the internet–and also linked with a much lower rate of OFFLINE social connections.

Humans are social creatures, and studies have continued to demonstrate that having a healthy “social rhythm” is protective against mood disorders. It is important to engage with other people in real, offline, socially interactive ways.

Dr. Brody advises that parents encourage their children to engage in a variety of activities, and this can facilitate a healthy social rhythm:

I think kids who have a balanced life, who do schoolwork, who do after-school activities, who are in teams, who are in clubs, who do community service have a much lesser chance of becoming depressed

The Department of Education held its first bullying summit in Washington, DC. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, child development experts and school officials discussed ways to end bullying in our nation’s schools and how to craft a national strategy to provide students with a safe learning environment.

Click here to view the video on C-Span Summit in Washington, DC : 3 hr. 48 min.

 According to the CDC 5 million children have received a diagnosis of ADHD

•  Some say it’s being overdiagnosed and children are being overmedicated
•  Some appreciate that their children’s day care facilities and schools have suggested that ADHD is a possible diagnosis
•  Although this is a medical condition with medical treatments available, doctors are not always identifying it.  

Many parents begin their struggles with treating their children’s ADHD with a suggested diagnosis from a school or day care setting.

• It is important to recognize that there can be many other factors contributing to a child’s behavioral difficulties, such as anxiety, depression, or psyhosocial stressors such as domestic vioence or abuse at home.  Thus, many physicians caution that children may be receiving medication for the wrong problem.  
•  Often parents ask their pediatrician for a prescription for ADHD medications based on a recommendation from school. It is important that the physician investigate alternative explanations to explain the difficulties with attention, concentration, frustration tolerance, listening to adult requests, etc.
• Experts agree that ADHD does exist as a real disorder, and that some children really do benefit from medication. Studies have shown a biological basis to the disorder and a genetic component, suggesting it can be passed down in families.

Teachers and related school personnel have an important role in identifying learning and social challenges faced by students, including those with ADHD, says Clarke Ross, CEO of CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder). But teachers should never give a diagnosis for the purpose of medication use, or advise the use of medications, he said.

Medication to treat symptoms of ADHD is only a part of the treatment.

• Some students benefit  from  special adjustments in school, a tutor, or a different environment for doing homework. 
• Children with ADHD may need more one on one attention, or they may need larger assignments to be broken down into smaller steps.
• There is also a relationship between learning disorders and ADHD, so that if a child is noted to have a learning disorder, they should be evaluated as well for ADHD, and vice versa, to make certain that they are able to achieve to their full potential.

It’s helpful for parents to get informed about the condition and become advocates for their children — but some may make the situation worse by having a closed mind to interventions and denying that there’s anything wrong.

• Without treatment, kids with ADHD may get a lot more negative feedback from the adults around them.
• They may want to behave and to do well in school, and  still they may receive negative feedback.
• They may be told they are lazy, or not working up to their potential.

Teachers have an excellent frame of reference for what is typical or normal development. They may see children start to anticipate failure, avoid tasks, and underachieve, so it is important for teachers to consider the possibility of ADHD in the children that they work with.

When there are kids with ADHD in a classroom, teachers can use various strategies to minimize their challenges, such as considering special seating arrangements, cueing transitions, providing homework modifications, providing more immediate feedback and reward about a child’s behaviors. Teachers are facing greater challenges when trying to provide  an environment conducive to helping kids with conditions such as ADHD, as budget-tightening schools are increasing class sizes, and decreasing resources that might help.

 Parents can help their children (both those with and those without ADHD) by helping with homework, assisting with organization, and communicating with teachers.

 In the ideal circumstances parents, physicians and teachers would be able to conference together to review impressions, appropraite interventions, and to review what efforts proved to be successful or unsuccessful. However, with the limited access to mental health providers who are stretched thin, and with the ever-increasing class sizes for teachers, parents must often serve as the mediator between clinician and teacher.  Often, checklists that allow teachers to provide feedback about symptoms can be a helpful way of keeping the physician informed.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood Reclaiming Childhood from Corporate Marketers

• 40% of 3-month-old babies are regular viewers of screen media[1]
• Preschoolers spend an average of 32 hours a week outside of classrooms engaged with screens?[2]
• 36% of center-based child-care programs include TV, for an average of 1.2 hours a day
• 70% of home-based child-care programs include TV for an average of 3.4 hours per day?[3]
• Excessive screen time for children is linked to negative outcomes such as childhood obesity[4] and poor school performance?[5][6]

This week, we have an important opportunity to help reverse these troubling trends.

• The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is updating its position statement on Technology and Young Children for the first time in 14 years and has issued a call for public comments.
• Because NAEYC is the nation’s premier professional organization for early childhood educators, the statement will have a profound effect on young children’s media use both in and out of classrooms.

Today, CCFC sent a letter signed by 70 leading early childhood educators, pediatricians, and child development experts urging NAEYC to join the American Academy of Pediatrics and the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity in taking a strong stand for limiting screen time in the lives of young children.

• The letter includes a list of research-based recommendations CCFC hopes the NAEYC will adopt, including that young children have little or no exposure to screen technologies in child-care, preschool or kindergarten settings.
• You can read the CCFC letter here.

• To submit your own thoughts or support CCFC’s recommendations, please visit http://www.naeyc.org/positionstatements/tech.
• Be sure to indicate if you’re a NAEYC member, an early childhood educator, or a parent of a young child.  And feel free to use CCFC’s core recommendations as a basis for your comment.

CCFC urges NAEYC to:

Recommend that children have little or no exposure to screen technology in child-care, preschool, and kindergarten settings.

Expand the focus of its position statement to include children younger than 3 and recommend that child-care settings for infants and toddlers be completely screen free.

Endorse the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity of no screen time for children under the age of 2 and limited screen time for older children.

Review the research on children and technology with a critical eye, asking who funded it and whether any reported gains can also be achieved through hands-on experiences proven to be beneficial to children, without the potentially negative consequences associated with screen media.

We realize the comment process is a little more work than signing your name to a pre-written letter, but we hope you’ll take the time.  Reducing young children’s screen time is an important step toward a commercial-free childhood.

[1] Zimmerman, F., Christakis, D. & Meltzoff, A. (2007). Television and DVD/video viewing in children younger than 2 years. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 161(5), 473-479.
[2] The Nielsen Company (2009). TV viewing among kids at an eight-year high. Retrieved July 19, 2010 fromhttp://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/tv-viewing-among-kids-at-an-eight-year-high/
[3] Christakis, D. (2009). Preschool-aged children’s television viewing in child care settings. Pediatrics, 124(6), 1627-1632.
[4] Jordan, A., Kramer-Golinkoff, E., & Strasburger V. (2008). Do the media cause obesity and eating disorders?Adolescent Medicine State of the Art Review, 19(3), 431- 449.
[5] Sharif, I. & Sargent, J. D. (1996). Association between television, movie, and video game exposure and school performance. Pediatrics, 118(4), 1061-1070.
[6] Shin, N. (2004). Exploring pathways from television to academic achievement in school age childen. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 165(4), 367-382.

Have you ever wondered how newborns can learn so quickly about the world, despite sleeping 16 to 18 hours a day?

It appears that part of the explanation for this is that they engage in a basic form of learning while sleeping.

Univeristy of Florida researcher, Dana Byrd, in collaboration with her colleagues, tested the learning abilities of sleeping newborns by repeating tones that were followed by a gentle puff of air to the eyelids. After about 20 minutes, 24 of the 26 babies squeezed their eyelids together when the tone was sounded without the puff of air.

Learned eyelid movement reflects the normal functioning of the circuitry in the cerebellum.

This study’s method may provide a unique non-invasive tool for early identification of infants with atypical cerebellar structure, who are potentially at risk for a range of developmental disorders, including autism and dyslexia.

The brain waves of 24 1- or 2-day-old infants were  compared with a control group using EEG and video recordings.

The brain waves of the infants were found to change, providing a neural measurement of memory updating.

This is the first study to document this type of learning in newborns who are sleeping, though past studies demonstrated this type of learning in awake infants.

The capacity of infants to learn during sleep contrasts with some researchers’ stance that learning new material does not take place in sleeping adults, Byrd said.

The immature nature of sleep patterns in infants, and the increased neural plasticity of infants’ brains, could help explain why infants have the capacity to learn during sleep

Byrd collaborated with William Fifer, Michelle Kaku, Joseph Isler, Amanda Tarullo, all of Columbia University; Inge-Marie Eigsti, of the University of Connecticut; Jillian Grose-Fifer of the City University of New York; and Peter Balsam of Barnard College.

On March 3,  the U.S. House of Representatives  passed the  Keeping All Students Safe Act (H.R. 4247, formerly the Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act). The legislation effectively declares the use of restraints and seclusion in schools to be an emergency safety measure, not standard practice for dealing with problem behavior. The bill passed in a 262-153 vote.

Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers,  were co-authors of the bill. A report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), released in 2009, spurred legislative action. The GAO investigators found widespread incidence of significant injury and even death as a result of harmful restraint and seclusion in school. A recent report by the Department of Education indicated significant inconsistency of state and local policies regarding restraint and seclusion.

“Proactive alternatives exist for handling problem behavior, without the detrimental effects associated with the use of restraint and seclusion.   All students — with or without disabilities– deserve an investment in effective prevention efforts,” said Laurel Stine,director of federal relations for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, citing the use of Positive Behavioral Strategies (PBS) as a a more appropriate intervention. PBS is

PBS improves student behavior by reinforcing desired behavior and eliminating inadvertent reinforcement of problem behavior. Once students realize that their negative actions no longer achieve the intended purpose, schools that have implemented PBS have seen a decrease in disruptive behaviors by individual students and groups.  Students learn to self manage their behavior by understanding the reason for their disruptive actions and how to address the underlying cause.

PBS is embedded in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the federal special education law. Federal rules require schools to consider PBS when a child’s behavior impedes his or her own ability to learn, or disrupts the learning environment for other children.

PBS has been shown to be most effective when implemented in a systematic, school-wide effort to help all students learn.
Children are already protected from inappropriate physical restraint and seclusion in other settings, such as hospitals, health facilities and non-medical community-based facilities.  H.R. 4247 ensures that minimum standards now exist to safeguard children in one of the most important settings– schools.

More and more schools are being challenged to deal with “sexting”  by their students. “Sexting” is the sending of sexually suggestive photos and messages by a cell phone. Some schools have depended on the legal system to manage these issues.

In the fall of 2008, the Tunkhannock Area School District in Pennsylvania discovered the (nude and seminude) images of 8 female students on the phones of several male students who were exchanging the images. School officials confiscated the phones, and turned them over to the district attorney to investigate.

The district attorney wrote to parents of at least 16 students–those who owned the confiscated phones and those who appeared in the photos,  and threatened to prosecute the students on child pornography charges. If the students enrolled in an education program covering sexual harassment, sexual violence and related issues, he said, they would not be charged.

The parents of three girls refused to enroll their daughters. The parents of one girl, who was photographed speaking on a phone in a white bra, said she was simply being a “goof ball.” Another girl was seen in a towel, looking like she had gotten out of the shower.

The parents sought a temporary restraining order to block the district attorney from bringing criminal charges against their daughters, and the court granted the order. The cases against two of the girls were dropped, and the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia, has upheld the lower court. The third student’s constitutional  claims are anticipated to succeeed.

The girls’ parents asserted their constitutional right to parental autonomy and their child’s First Amendment right against compelled speech (since the students in the antitexting program were required to write about how their actions were wrong). The appeals court ruled that the prosecutor’s threat to bring charges would be retaliation for the exercise of constitutional rights.

It is important that schools work to maintain an appropriate learning environment, but we need to help school officials identify ways to work with the youth that attend their schools, without resorting so quickly to criminalizing  misbehavior.