‘Safe’ playgrounds could be stunting emotional development

Jungle gyms have evolved over the years.

Once ten-foot-tall, bare-bones metal contraptions set in bare grass or dirt have given way to colourful, shorter, purportedly safer (and less lawsuit-prone) wonderlands padded underfoot by materials such as rubber or wood chips.

But psychologists are raising concerns about the negative psychological impacts of these “safer” models even as studies about their physical safety benefits remain inconclusive.
Ellen Sandseter, a professor of psychology at Queen Maud University in Norway says:

Children need to encounter risks and overcome fears on the playground. I think monkey bars and tall slides are great. As playgrounds become more and more boring, these are some of the few features that still can give children thrilling experiences with heights and high speed.

She and other psychologists believe that protective playgrounds have the opposite of their intended effect: instead of making children feel safer, and therefore braver, they actually make them more anxious and fearful.

Read more here: ‘Safe’ playgrounds could be stunting emotional development

First Aid: Epilepsy Scotland

Simple Partial Seizures

A simple partial seizure could affect the person's movement, smell, taste, hearing, sight, breathing, heart beat, digestion or any mixture of these. They may experience, for example, twitching of an arm and nausea. The person does not lose consciousness and is fully aware of, but cannot control, what is happening.

What to do

• Stay with the person and offer reassurance until the seizure has passed
• Sometimes a simple partial seizure can act as a warning or 'aura' that a second seizure (usually a tonic-clonic or a complex partial seizure) will soon start.
• If this is the case, the person may need help in getting to a quiet and safe place.

Complex Partial Seizures

The person may experience strange or unusual feelings, lose their sense of time and appear distant from who and what is happening around them. This type of seizure can make someone behave in an odd, random or inappropriate way, such as lip smacking, plucking at clothes, moving aimlessly or compulsively around a room. Unlike simple partial seizures, there will be some loss or alteration of consciousness.

What to do

• Gently lead them from any source of danger
• Do not restrain or interfere unnecessarily with the person
• The seizure should be allowed to run its natural course
• Speaking softly and calmly may help
• Offer reassurance afterwards

Absence Seizures (previously known as petit mal)

Absence seizures consist of a brief loss of consciousness and are easily mistaken for daydreaming. The person (usually a child) stops what they are doing, remains motionless, blinks, and stares into space. Soon, the person will recover and may not be aware that a seizure has occurred.

What to do

• Absence seizures are usually very brief and often pass unnoticed
• If you witness an absence seizure stay with the person for a while to make sure they do not suffer any injury
• Tell the person what has happened
• If a child is in the classroom, repeat any information they have missed

Tonic-clonic seizures (previously known as grand mal)

The tonic-clonic seizure is the most widely recognised seizure. The person will lose consciousness and fall to the ground.


The person will stiffen (the tonic phase) and then jerk (the clonic phase).
Breathing may become irregular and as a result the person could turn slightly blue. The person may also make grunting noises, bite their tongue or cheek, or be incontinent.
After a couple of minutes the jerking normally stops and the person will slowly regain consciousness. They may feel groggy, sleepy and confused for some time afterwards and have a headache or aching limbs. How long it takes to feel ok again varies from one person to the next.

What to do

• Keep calm and note the time the seizure starts and how long it lasts
• Clear a space around the person and prevent people from crowding round
• Cushion the person's head with whatever is available
• Loosen any tight clothing round the neck and gently remove glasses (if worn)
• Watch the seizure carefully and if possible let it run its natural course
• Turn the person into the recovery position as soon as the jerking stops
• Be reassuring during the recovery period and tell the person about the seizure
• Stay, if possible, until the person is no longer confused

What not to do

• Do not try to lift or move the person while the seizure is happening unless there is an immediate danger (e.g. they are on a busy road, at the top of stairs, at the edge of water, near a fire or hot radiator)
• Do not try to stop the jerking or restrain the person
• Do not put anything in the person's mouth or between their teeth
• Do not offer the person something to drink until they are fully conscious
• Do not fuss around the person while they are recovering from the seizure

There is no need to call an ambulance unless:

• It is the person’s first seizure
• One seizure follows another without any recovery in between
• The convulsive or jerking part of the seizure lasts more than 5 minutes or longer than is usual for the person
• The person has been badly injured

Children's coats and car seats

Parents of small children, we know it takes a lot of effort to get your kids ready to go out in the summer, but in the winter it seems like an eternity, especially for those who have to park on a busy street.

Unfortunately, the latest safety measure for kids and cars recommends taking off your child’s coat to make sure they don’t slip out of their safety harness, in the event of an accident.

Here are some tips for keeping the wee ones safe this winter and at the same time making the whole operation a little simpler for the parent:

1. Put your child into the car seat without their thick jackets, before tightening the harness to a safe but snug setting.

2. Now you can leave the harness set to the same setting, or tightness, when you put your child in with their jacket on.

3. Pull the jacket off the child's shoulders a little and unzip or open it down the front; push the harness to the inside of the jacket so that most or all of the straps contact with the child's regular shirt instead of the jacket.

4. Check that the harness still buckles, at the same tightness you set it at, when the child was only wearing it's shirt. Now you can be content that it's tight enough, even with your child's jacket on.

5. To keep your child warm, you can now zip or fasten the front closed, over the harness and straps.

In this way the child's coat or jacket seems to be concealing the harness but the child is held comfortably and safely in place.

Child Soldiers: Acceptance, social support, and educational access provide safety net

Acceptance, social support, and educational access provide safety net for former child soldiers — Science Blog

The Child Soldiers Global Report 20081 estimates that more than 300,000 children are engaged as soldiers around the globe, and more children are recruited every year in ongoing and new conflicts.

Although a number of multinational coalitions are aligned to stop the recruitment of child soldiers, some countries persist in not only the recruitment of children but also in exposing children to both the psychological and physical dangers associated with combat.

In the June issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Harvard researchers report on the mental health outcomes of former child soldiers in Sierra Leone, finding that community acceptance, social support and school attendance can help mitigate the damaging influences of the children’s wartime experiences and post-conflict stigma.

The article, titled “Sierra Leone’s Former Child Soldiers: A Longitudinal Study of Risk, Protective Factors, and Mental Health,” draws on a longitudinal study of 260 male and female former child soldiers in Sierra Leone, ages 10-17 at the start of the study. 2 Betancourt and colleagues evaluated these youth at three time points in order to determine the long-term course of internalizing and externalizing problems and adaptive/prosocial behaviors, and investigate whether post-conflict factors contributed to adverse or resilient mental health outcomes.

Virtually all of the subjects were children who were recruited by force or abduction to join the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the rebel force which was one of the main actors in the 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone. At the time of the first evaluation (2002) 55.3% of the youth lived with a least one biological parent, although the percentage decreased to 34.1% by the third evaluation (2008).