Recession onset spurs harsh parenting

The onset of the Great Recession and, more generally, deteriorating economic conditions lead mothers to engage in harsh parenting, such as hitting or shouting at children, a team of researchers has found. But the effect is only found in mothers who carry a gene variation that makes them more likely to react to their environment.

The study, conducted by scholars at New York University, Columbia University, Princeton University, and Pennsylvania State University's College of Medicine, appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"It's commonly thought that economic hardship within families leads to stress, which, in turn, leads to deterioration of parenting quality," said Dohoon Lee, an assistant professor of sociology at NYU and lead author of the paper.

"But these findings show that an economic downturn in the larger community can adversely affect parenting—regardless of the conditions individual families face."

Dohoon Lee

The researchers found that harsh parenting increased as economic conditions worsened only for those with what has been called the "sensitive" allele, or variation, of the DRD2 Taq1A genotype, which controls the synthesis of dopamine, a behaviour-regulating chemical in the brain.

Deteriorating economic conditions had no effect on the level of harsh parenting of mothers without the 'sensitive allele'. Just more than half of the mothers in the study had the sensitive, or T, allele.

Likewise, the researchers found that mothers with the 'sensitive allele' had lower levels of harsh parenting when economic conditions were improving compared with those without the sensitive allele.

Irwin Garfinkel

"This finding provides further evidence in favor of the orchid-dandelion hypothesis that humans with sensitive genes, like orchids, wilt or die in poor environments, but flourish in rich environments, whereas dandelions survive in poor and rich environments," said Irwin Garfinkel, a co-author of the paper and the Mitchell I. Ginsberg Professor of Contemporary Urban Problems at the Columbia University School of Social Work (CUSSW).

The findings were based on data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFS), a population-based, birth cohort study conducted by researchers at Princeton and Columbia of nearly 5,000 children born in 20 large American cities between 1998 and 2000.

Mothers were interviewed shortly after giving birth and when the child was approximately 1, 3, 5, and 9 years old. Data on harsh parenting were collected when the child was 3, 5, and 9 years old. In Year 9, saliva DNA samples were collected from 2,600 mothers and children.

Harsh parenting was measured using 10 items from the commonly used Conflict Tactics Scale—five items measured psychological harsh parenting (e.g., shouting, threatening, etc.) and five gauged corporal punishment (e.g., spanking, slapping).

The researchers supplemented these data with measurements of economic conditions in each of the 20 cities where the FFS mothers lived.

Specifically, they examined city-level data on monthly unemployment rates, obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Local Area Unemployment Statistics, and the Consumer Sentiment Index, obtained from the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.

In their analysis, they controlled for age, race/ethnicity, immigration status, educational attainment, poverty status, family structure, and child gender and child age (in months) at the time of interview.

The results showed that, contrary to common perceptions, harsh parenting was not positively associated with high levels of unemployment among those studied.

Rather, these behaviours were linked to increases in a city's unemployment rate and declines in national consumer sentiment, or confidence, in the economy.

The researchers concluded that it is the anticipation of adversity i.e the fear of losing one's job due to deteriorating economic conditions, that is a more important determinant of harsh parenting than poor economic conditions or even actual economic hardship a family faces.

Sara McLanahan

"People can adjust to difficult circumstances once they know what to expect, whereas fear or uncertainty about the future is more difficult to deal with," said Sara McLanahan, Princeton's William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and a co-author of the paper.

In the past, researchers have focused on "bad" or "risky" genes and difficult environments without giving enough attention to how people with these genes may perform in high-quality environments, McLanahan said.

More information: www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1306440110

Sibling Rivalry: Children are stressed when fathers play favourites

Research by Megan Gilligan, a Purdue doctoral student in sociology, and Jill Suitor, a professor of sociology, found that sibling Baby Boomers are likely to be more stressed by their fathers' favouring one over another than by their mothers' doing so. 

Credit: Purdue University photo /Mark Simons

"It didn't matter who fathers favored. When favouritism was perceived there was tension among siblings, especially daughters," said Megan Gilligan, a Purdue doctoral student in sociology who is lead author on the article.

"Often the role of fathers is overlooked in these older relationships, but what we found shows dads do matter."

This research, which is published in the July issue of the Journal of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, looked at 137 later-life families with both parents still alive when the data was collected in 2008.

The average age of the 341 siblings was 49, and they were asked about tension among each other and the perceived favouritism by their parents.

The parents were in their 70s and 80s, and the fathers were an average of three years older than the mothers.

"The importance of fathers' favouritism may come from these older adults noticing many of their friends' fathers no longer living, so they may value their dads even more than before; they realise their time together is limited," said Jill Suitor, a professor of sociology and article co-author.

Previous research by Suitor, Gilligan and Karl Pillemer, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, showed that if mothers favoured a child, it caused sibling tension.

However, that work focused only on mothers' favouritism. By looking at both living parents in this recent article, the researchers were able to evaluate the consequences of favouritism from both parents.

This research is based on the survey data from the Within-Family Difference Study, led by Suitor and Pillemer to evaluate the role favoritism plays in adult family relationships.

The data for the 13-year project were collected in the Boston metropolitan area. The project is funded by the US National Institute on Aging.

"The implications of these findings will be important to practitioners," Pillemer said. "We often think of the family as a single unit, and this reminds us that individual parent and child relationships differ and each family is very complex. Favouritism from the father could mean something different than favouritism from the mother. We suggest that clinicians who work with families on later-life issues be aware of this complexity and look for such types of individual relationships as they advise families on care giving, legal and financial issues."

The difference in this research could be the result of the role fathers played in this older generation.

"Fathers are important figures in families, and the father-child relationship is sometimes more tenuous than the mother-child tie," Suitor said.

"Mothers are often more open and affectionate with their children, whereas fathers have sometimes been found to be more critical, leading offspring to be more concerned when fathers favour some children over others."

This also could play a role in why daughters experience more tension with their siblings when fathers favour them.

"The gender difference may occur because fathers, as other studies have shown, often invest more in their sons, thus, the favouritism shown toward daughters may violate these norms and result in greater sibling tension," Gilligan said.

"For these reasons, when adult children perceive their fathers as engaging in favouritism, there may be greater concern about competition for his affection and support, resulting in higher levels of sibling tension."

Gilligan and Suitor also said that these values and norms may have changed since the Baby Boomer generation.

Suitor, Pillemer and Gilligan plan to extend the present project to include interviewing the Baby Boomers about their own adult children.

More information: Differential Effects of Perceptions of Mothers' and Fathers' Favoritism on Sibling Tension in Adulthood, Megan Gilligan, J. Jill Suitor, Seoyoun Kim, and Karl Pillemer, Journal of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 2013.

ABSTRACT
Objectives. We examine the differential effects of perceived maternal and paternal favouritism in adulthood on sibling tensions in adulthood.

Method. Data used in the analysis were collected from 341 adult children nested within 137 later-life families as part of the Within-Family Differences Study.

Results. Adult children's perceptions that their fathers currently favored any offspring in the family predicted reports of tension with their siblings, whereas perceptions of mothers' favouritism did not. Fathers' favouritism was a stronger predictor of daughters' than sons' reports of sibling tension.

Discussion. These findings contribute to a growing body of research demonstrating the consequences of parental favouritism in adulthood. Equally important, they demonstrate that perceptions of fathers' current favouritism plays an even greater role in shaping their adult children's sibling relations than do mothers' favouritism.

Mindfulness: Increasing Wellbeing and Reducing Stress in UK school children

Mindfulness – a mental training that develops sustained attention that can change the ways people think, act and feel – could reduce symptoms of stress and depression and promote wellbeing among school children, according to a new study published online by the British Journal of Psychiatry.

With the summer exam season in full swing, school children are currently experiencing higher levels of stress than at any other time of year.

The research showed that interventions to reduce stress in children have the biggest impact at this time of year.

There is growing evidence that mindfulness-based approaches for adults are effective at enhancing mental health and wellbeing.

However, very few controlled trials have evaluated their effectiveness among young people.

A team of researchers led by Professor Willem Kuyken from the University of Exeter, in association with the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and the Mindfulness in Schools Project, recruited 522 pupils, aged between 12 and 16 years, from 12 secondary schools to take part in the study.

256 pupils at six of the schools were taught the Mindfulness in Schools Project's curriculum, a nine week introduction to mindfulness designed for the classroom.

Richard Burnett who co-created the curriculum said: "Our mindfulness curriculum aims to engage even the most cynical of adolescent audience with the basics of mindfulness. We use striking visuals, film clips and activities to bring it to life without losing the expertise and integrity of classic mindfulness teaching".

The other 266 pupils at the other six schools did not receive the mindfulness lessons, and acted as a control group.

All the pupils were followed up after a three month period. The follow-up was timed to coincide with the summer exam period – which is a potential time of high stress for young people.

The researchers found that those children who participated in the mindfulness programme reported fewer depressive symptoms, lower stress and greater wellbeing than the young people in the control group.

Encouragingly, around 80% of the young people said they continued using practices taught in MiSP's mindfulness curriculum after completing the nine week programme.

Teachers and schools also rated the curriculum as worthwhile and very enjoyable to learn and teach.

Higher activity levels may protect children from stress

Children with lower levels of daytime physical activity (PA) have higher hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis activity (HPAA) in response to psychosocial stress, suggesting that PA may help children cope with stressful situations, according to research published online March 7 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Silja Martikainen, of the University of Helsinki, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study of 258 8-year-old children to evaluate whether PA levels affected HPAA activity and HPAA response to psychosocial stress. PA was measured using a wrist accelerometer.

Stressors included doing arithmetic and being assigned to tell a story to an audience.

The researchers found that, after exposure to everyday stressors, children with the highest levels of PA or vigorous PA showed very little, if any, increase in salivary cortisol levels when compared to more sedentary children in the lowest and intermediate PA groups.

"Our study shows that increased levels of PA are associated with decreased HPAA reactivity to stress in a community sample of 8-year-old children," the authors write.

"Although children with different levels of PA show similar diurnal patterns of salivary cortisol, the children with the lowest activity levels are more responsive to psychosocial stress. Consequently, PA may contribute to the psychological well-being of children by regulating their neuro-endocrine reactivity to stress."

ADD vs APD: When an Attention Issue is Really an Auditory Issue

When your child is struggling in school, you want to get to the root of the issue as quickly as possible. Nowadays there is more awareness about a wide spectrum of learning problems.

Most teachers receive some training about the major diagnoses, and educational psychologists have a full toolkit of diagnostic assessments.

Once you have a name for the symptoms you are seeing, plans can be made to ensure that the education provided is appropriate for a child’s needs.

But what happens if you suspect that the diagnosis your child receives is the wrong

ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is a familiar term to most parents. ADD diagnoses have been on the rise for the last few decades. However, there is a lesser known disorder, with a similar list of symptoms, which may be overlooked: APD (Auditory Processing Disorder).

APD may initially present as an attention deficit issue, but in reality it has nothing to do with a child’s ability to sit still. Rather, APD stems from a weakness in the ability of the brain to process the sounds it receives.

This specific weakness can be either acquired through brain injury or illness, or genetically inherited.

Symptoms

• ADD and APD share a number of symptoms, such as:
• Struggling to focus in a noisy environment
• Fidgety and easily distracted
• Showing some aggression or even isolation socially
• Difficulty following directions
• Lower academic performance
• Zoning out in a conversation

Each of these external symptoms has a different internal cause, depending on the diagnosis. Both can in turn cause reading problems, and both appear in the 7 Main Causes of Reading Difficulty (video).



Children with ADD struggle with the above symptoms because there is insufficient activity in the frontal lobe to regulate the strong neuronal activity in the cerebral cortex.

Without the necessary control over the cerebral cortex, the activity there is just unregulated ‘brain noise’ of neuronal chaos.

Children with APD, on the other hand, struggle with these symptoms because the world around them sounds ‘foggy’ or unclear.

A child with APD will have perfect hearing; the problem lies in the brain’s interpretation of incoming sounds, not the hearing mechanism itself.

You can imagine how not being able to properly understand what people are saying could lead to all of the above behaviours, and then some!

You can read the full article here at Easy read System

The Power of a Mother's touch

Mothers who stroke their baby's body in the first few weeks after birth may change the effects that stress during pregnancy can have on an infant's early-life development, researchers have found.

Researchers at the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester, and Kings College, London have been studying whether stress in pregnancy can lead to emotional and behavioural problems in children for many years.

Attention is now moving towards how parents might alter these effects after birth.

Researchers are aiming to improve understanding of the issues to help enhance information services for pregnant women and their partners.

Scientists believe that stress in pregnancy can have an effect on an infant in later life by reducing the activity of genes that play a role in stress response.

Studies of early care-giving in rats have found that high levels of mothers' licking and grooming their pups soon after birth can increase the activity of these genes and may reverse the effects of prenatal stress on their offspring.

Some studies suggest that impacts of prenatal stress on an infant's development can be either positive or negative depending on the type of environment a child encounters. It is thought that some children may experience the effects through being more prone to high levels of fear or anger.

The team at Liverpool, Manchester and London followed first-time mothers from pregnancy through to the first years of their children's lives as part of Medical Research Council (MRC) funded research, The Wirral Child Health and Development Study.

It showed that links between symptoms of depression in pregnancy and subsequent infant emotions of fear and anger, as well as heart rate response to stress at seven months of age changed by how often a mother stroked their baby on the head, back, legs and arms in the early weeks of life.

The results suggest that stroking may alter gene activity in a similar way to that reported in animals.

Dr Helen Sharp, from the University of Liverpool's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, explains: "We are currently following up on the Wirral children in our study to see if reports of early stroking by their mothers continue to make a difference to developmental outcomes over time.

"The eventual aim is to find out whether we should recommend that mothers who have been stressed during pregnancy should be encouraged to stroke their babies early in life"

The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Stress may delay brain development in early years

Stress may affect brain development in children, altering growth of a specific piece of the brain and abilities associated with it, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"There has been a lot of work in animals linking both acute and chronic stress to changes in a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in complex cognitive abilities like holding on to important information for quick recall and use," says Jamie Hanson, a UW-Madison psychology graduate student.

"We have now found similar associations in humans, and found that more exposure to stress is related to more issues with certain kinds of cognitive processes."

Children who had experienced more intense and lasting stressful events in their lives posted lower scores on tests of what the researchers refer to as spatial working memory. They had more trouble navigating tests of short-term memory such as finding a token in a series of boxes, according to the study, which will be published in the June 6 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Brain scans revealed that the anterior cingulate, a portion of the prefrontal cortex believed to play key roles in spatial working memory, takes up less space in children with greater exposure to very stressful situations.

"These are subtle differences, but differences related to important cognitive abilities" Hanson says.

But they maybe not irreversible differences.

"We're not trying to argue that stress permanently scars your brain. We don't know if and how it is that stress affects the brain," Hanson says. "We only have a snapshot -- one MRI scan of each subject -- and at this point we don't understand whether this is just a delay in development or a lasting difference. It could be that, because the brains is very plastic, very able to change, that children who have experienced a great deal of stress catch up in these areas."

The researchers determined stress levels through interviews with children ages 9 to 14 and their parents. The research team, which included UW-Madison psychology professors Richard Davidson and Seth Pollak and their labs, collected expansive biographies of stressful events from slight to severe.

"Instead of focusing in on one specific type of stress, we tried to look at a range of stressors," Hanson says. "We wanted to know as much as we could, and then use all this information to later to get an idea of how challenging and chronic and intense each experience was for the child."

Interestingly, there was little correlation between cumulative life stress and age. That is, children who had several more years of life in which to experience stressful episodes were no more likely than their younger peers to have accumulated a length stress resume. Puberty, on the other hand, typically went hand-in-hand with heavier doses of stress.

The researchers, whose work was funded by the National Institutes of Health, also took note of changes in brain tissue known as white matter and gray matter. In the important brain areas that varied in volume with stress, the white and gray matter volumes were lower in tandem.

White matter, Hanson explained, is like the long-distance wiring of the brain. It connects separated parts of the brain so that they can share information. Gray matter "does the math," Hanson says. "It takes care of the processing, using the information that gets shared along the white matter connections."

Blood Test Diagnoses Depression In Teens

Diagnosing depression may soon include a simple blood test, according to research published Tuesday. new study. Researchers developed a blood test to identify markers for depression in teenagers that maylead to better treatments and lessen the stigma surrounding the condition.

Doctors currently rely on patients coming forward with symptoms to diagnose depression. However, differentiating between types of depression can be difficult without an objective diagnosis, researchers said. Instead, using a diagnostic blood test could allow for more personalized treatment.

"Right now depression is treated with a blunt instrument," Dr. Eva Redei, study author and professor of psychiatry at Northwestern University, said in a statement. "It's like treating type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes exactly the same way. We need to do better."

Previous studies identified 26 potential genetic markers for depression in rats. Redei and her team found 11 similar markers in depressed teens that they did not find in the control group.

"These 11 genes are probably the tip of the iceberg because depression is a complex illness," Redei said in a statement. "But it's an entree into a much bigger phenomenon that has to be explored. It clearly indicates we can diagnose from blood and create a blood diagnosis test for depression."

Some doctors remain skeptical of the findings since the study examined only 28 volunteers. Skeptics said research needs to show whether the markers can test a wider population and whether the markers are present in adults as well before the test can be considered viable.

"I think people are looking for a magic bullet, a single answer," Dr. Carol Bernstein, an associate professor of psychiatry at New York University, told ABC News. "But these disorders are much too complicated."

One in 20 Americans over the age of 12 reported feeling symptoms of depression between 2005 and 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms include hopelessness, feeling like a failure, poor appetite and lack of interest in activities.

Depression affects approximately 1 percent of children under the age of 12, researchers said. But as children enter their teenage years, depression affects almost 25 percent. Depression that sets in during the teenage years has a poorer prognosis than depression that sets in in adulthood, increasing the risk of substance abuse, suicide and physical illness, researchers said.

Being able to diagnose depression with a blood test could mean more people getting treatment. None of the teens who were diagnosed with depression over the course of the study opted for treatment, most likely due to the stigma that comes with it, Redei said.

Depression is treated through a combination of medication and therapy, but many people see the disease as a defect and think it will make people view them as "broken", Dr. Jonathan Rottenberg, an associate professor of psychology at the University of South Florida, said in a Psychology Today blog post.

 The journal Translational Psychiatry published the study on Tuesday.

Xmas Holiday Stress - Don't Sweat it!

Click on the Image to show a larger view!

Free Vision and Learning Guide - Download

Dr. Kellye Knueppel noted that what a client's daughter was experiencing was not uncommon. Letter and /or word reversal.

“From approximately age 5 to age 11, directionality concepts are developing, so reversals are normal at younger ages,” she said. 

Dr. Knueppel also shared that educators are usually taught that reversals are normal until age 8, and typically, no action is taken even if the child at ages 6 or 7 reverses things more frequently than his or her peers.

“We have tests to determine if the amount of reversals the child is doing is actually age appropriate or not,” Dr. Knueppel said. 

“If it is, we would just monitor the situation. If the reversals are more frequent than they should be, we would work on laterality and directionality concepts.”

If you notice frequent reversals, as she did with her client's daughter, consider a Functional Vision Test. 

You may find out that, as Dr. Knueppel noted, your child’s word reversals are normal.  However, if you find there is a problem, you can pursue the treatment that will allow for healthy visual development.

The Vision and Learning Guide is filled with information that can help parents and teachers determine if a child has a vision problem.

It provides an overview of how vision can impact learning, and includes:

• The Vision Quiz to help you quickly assess a child's symptoms.
• Samples of what schoolwork looks like from a person with vision problems.
• Classroom stress points and modifications to help students.
• Links to studies on the efficacy of vision therapy.

The Vision and Learning Guide provides the critical first step to determining if a child has a vision problem.

Download Your Free Vision and Learning Guide

Does BPA make girls anxious, hyperactive, etc

Girls exposed before birth to high levels of the estrogen-like chemical BPA are more likely to be anxious, depressed and hyperactive at age 3, according to a study in today's Pediatrics.

Boys' behaviour was unaffected by BPA, the study says.

Scientists in recent years have linked BPA, or bisphenol A, to a wide variety of health problems, from breast cancer to diabetes. 

BPA is found in countless consumer products, from plastic bottles to dental sealants, medical equipment, receipt paper and the linings of metal food and drink cans.

Virtually everyone is exposed to BPA. Authors of the new study found BPA in the urine of more than 97% of the 240 pregnant women studied, as well as 97% of their children. 

Being exposed to high BPA levels after birth didn't appear to affect behavior, says study author, Joe Braun, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.

That could be because BPA, like lead and other toxins, causes the greatest harm before birth, when the fetal brain is developing, says pediatrician Philip Landrigan, a professor at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who was not involved in the new study. "Parents should be concerned about these findings," Landrigan says.

About 12% of boys and 6% of girls have been diagnosed with ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Girls are about twice as likely as boys to be depressed or anxious, Braun says. Few kids in the study were depressed or anxious enough to meet the requirements for a clinical diagnosis, says Braun, noting that only 2% to 3% of children this age are diagnosed with these problems. 

But Braun says the differences in behaviour between children in his study are comparable to the effects seen with high exposure to toxins such as lead, mercury and pesticides.

Steven Hentges, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, says the study's "conclusions are of unknown relevance to public health." He notes that regulators in Europe, Japan and the USA "have … reviewed hundreds of studies on BPA and repeatedly supported the continued safe use of BPA."

Yet Landrigan says studies like this are precisely why the FDA needs to act to protect people from BPA. In the meantime, he says pregnant women should try to reduce their exposure.

How to Encourage Resilience in Children

It seems that certain people are just made to handle adversity. No matter what comes their way they find a solution and don’t seem overly concerned.

Though, resilience doesn’t come out of nowhere. These people learned somewhere along the way how to deal with problems and find value within life’s difficulties.

Why is resilience important?
Resilience offers protective factors against mental and physical illness, providing a buffer against stress, strain, and anxiety. When it comes to children, helping them understand risk factors in their life and how to face these competently is cruical to raising a confident and self-discplined children.


Resilience in children
A resilient child is able to adapt when faced with adversity and feels competent when solving new problems. They view obstacles as challenges to rise to, instead of stressors to avoid. From a parenting perspective we must show children unconditional love and support, and be a figure to help them grow and learn.

Here are a few building blocks for developing resilience and self-reliance in children.

Problem solving - Having a Growth Mindset
Resilience can be seen through Carol Dweck’s research on school children and their perception of intelligence and ability. Children answered a series of questions and were praised with different comments steering the child’s focus to either intelligence or effort.

For instance:
“You must be really smart!”
“You must have worked really hard at this!”

The students were then offered a choice of doing a harder or easier assignment. Students who’s feedback was highlighted with hard work were willing to try the more difficult task.

The children who focused on effort were explained to have a growth mindset, where as children which had a focus on the stable nature of intelligence and ability tended to have a fixed mindset.

Someone with a growth mindset knows that learning takes hard work and practice, and is willing to put in the necessary effort to find a solution.

Someone with a fixed mindset on the other hand will assume that how they performed predicts a fixed ability. If they didn’t know the answer to a math problem, this means they aren’t good at math. If they aren’t good at math what’s the use in trying?

We need to help children have a growth mindset by emphasizing hard work, a willingness to try, and the importance of practice.

Responsibility and achievement
Help children to understand that behaviors have consequences and to learn to do things on their own. Don’t solve all their problems or give them the immediate solution. By letting children take an appropriate amount of responsibility they can begin to develop self-confidence and build self-efficacy through gradual success.

Helping children gain mastery from experiences plants the seed for ambition, motivation, and learning.

A few suggestions to help children gain mastery:

• Help children explore the what? how? and why? of their experiences
• Encourage and invite them to contribute by trying new things they can do
• Celebrate when you see success
• Always show respect when helping to learn lessons

Adaptability and flexibility
Help children to understand that things don’t always go as planned. Being flexible and able to change is an important characteristic of resilience.

When a child is going through a life transition or big change, this can be a great learning opportunity to show how change can be dealt with and perceived in a positive way.

Help children to:

• Gain a perception of personal control over the environment.
• Try something new and understand there are many ways to solve a problem.
• Recognize that different environment require different behavior.

Everyone wants their kids to be happy and successful in life. A major part of this is instilling the wisdom that life will have ups and downs, and that despite this, everyone is valuable and capable of accomplishing their goals. It may just take a little hard work and persistence.

Shaken-Baby Cases Rising During the Recession

Shaken-Baby Cases Rising During the Recession - TIME

The stressful effects of a faltering economy, skyrocketing unemployment and precarious personal finances can be dire. People take up smoking or use alcohol to cope, they become depressed or suicidal, and they develop stress-related illnesses like heart disease.

Now researchers report that the harm may be spreading to children too, when parents' stress leads them to injure their children, inadvertently.

Presenting May 1 at the Paediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in Vancouver, a team of researchers led by child-abuse expert Dr. Rachel Berger at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh reported a significant increase in cases of shaken-baby syndrome, in which youngsters are shaken violently by an adult, since the start of the current recession.

Researchers analysed data on 512 cases of head trauma in the children's centers of four hospitals (in Pittsburgh, Pa.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; and Seattle) and found that the number of cases had increased to 9.3 per month as of Dec. 1, 2007, compared with 6 per month prior to that date — a rate that had held steady since 2004.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/

Self Esteem and Stress Management

Individuals with learning disabilities often struggle with self esteem because of poor academic performance or difficulties with social relationships.

Most parents want to help their children develop self esteem. For the child without special needs it’s a challenge—but for the youngster with extra issues, it can seem like an overwhelming task.

There are some essential facts to keep in mind. Self esteem is not static. It can fluctuate depending on one’s state of mind and circumstances. Parents can only do so much to help their child. After a certain age, a parent’s input, while still crucial, is only part of the confidence equation.

As children age, peer input as well as their ability to accomplish become an important part of how they develop self confidence. Still, it’s our job as parents to try to bolster our kids when they feel low.

Building Self-esteem and confidence

Here are 7 easy tips that will help you build self esteem.

• Be generous with affecion; lots of hugs and kisses.
• Take plenty baby pictures. Everyone wants to see how they looked as a baby. Too often parents of children who look different avoid talking pictures of their kids as babies and as they grow.
• Don’t allow your child’s condition to define him e.g. he’s not an autistic child; he’s a child who suffers from autism.
• Be a compassionate listener and do not be judgemental. Try to understand who your child is and where they are coming from, even if you initially disagree with his or her perception of a situation.
• Use honest, open communication at all times. Kids know when you’re lying and hiding things from them.
• Don’t compare your child unfavourably with other children. Be happy with and focus on, his accomplishments.
• Become aware of your own attitudes of people’s appearances and their limitations. If need be, tone down any negative comments. Parents who make positive and negative comments about other people send the message that physical perfection is important and has a high priority.

Ultimately, it’s important to parents to understand their own feelings about appearance, disability and imperfection, so they can fully accept their child for the wonderful gift he really is.

Click the link below for more articles that provide tips for parents for developing healthy self esteem in their children, as well as resources for ways to talk with kids about learning disabilities.

Full article and additional information here..........