Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’

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Misplaced Lego is Often Found in the Strangest Places

August 7, 2012

Cleaning up after a Lego session can be an intricate task. Often there will be a piece or two hiding somewhere you least expect. But one place I haven’t looked for Lego is in a child’s nose:

Isaak Lasson can finally breathe easy after three years of sinus problems.

The cause? A single wheel-shaped Lego piece that he got stuck up his nose back when he was 3.

At least that’s what his dad, Craig Lasson, said he thinks. His son started having a hard time breathing back then.

“I felt so bad,” the father told KSL-TV. Isaak “was sleeping with his mouth open, trying to breathe.”

Numerous doctors looked at isaak’s nose and prescribed antibiotics.

But last week, a new doctor noticed that Isaak seemed to have something foreign stuck up his schnozz and asked what it might be.

“I put some spaghetti up there, but that was a long time ago,” Isaak told the doctor, according to KTLA-TV.

But it wasn’t pasta that was up Isaak’s nose, just a ball of fungus encasing a Lego wheel.

“We think he bent it in half — it’s pretty flexible — and that it opened up once it got into his sinuses,” Isaak’s father told reporters.

Although Craig Lasson momentarily worried he was a bad parent for needing three years to figure out the Lego problem plaguing his son’s sinuses, he said he is happy that Isaak is eating and sleeping better than he has in years.

Click on the link to read The School Campaign Against Milk

Click on the link to read Teachers Should Stop Blaming Parents and Start Acting

Click on the link to read The Benefits of Reality TV on Kids

Click on the link to read Study Reveals Children Aren’t Selfish After All

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Teaching Children about the Curiosity Mars Landing

August 7, 2012

Courtesy of The Guardian is a list of teacher resources for teaching children about the Curiosity landing on Mars:

Landing on the Curiosity rover on Mars
This brilliant interactive tells us what’s going to happen on Monday (everything crossed for that landing) and beyond if all goes well. An innovative “sky crane” will lower the Curiosity Mars rover on the surface of the red planet. Explore the exact stages of the landing sequence and the what’s next when the Curiosity reaches its destination at the foot of a mountain inside Gale Crater. One of the hypothesis Curiosity is due to investigate is how a bunch of light-toned rock in this area could have got this colour – was it by interacting with flowing water perhaps billions of years ago? If all goes well Curiosity will be able to give us some answers.

Essential guide to Mars rover Curiosity
More information on the timings and the project as a whole, which is part of the Mars Science Laboratory mission.


Curiosity rover’s seven minutes of terror
Oooh this stuff is exciting… the Nasa ship carrying the space agency’s Curiosity will bear down on the red planet at more than 8,000 miles per hour (Wiggo eat your heart out) and attempt to land the rover. This article explains how the manoeuvres the spacecraft must execute are so complex that the slightest mistake could notch up just another grim statistic in the history of failed missions to Mars. Mission scientists are instead hoping Curiosity will follow in the footsteps of Spirit and Opportunity which touched down in 2004 (Opportunity is still operational eight years later!).

Animated preview of the landing
You can also check out this computer-animated preview of the planned landing.

Free downloadable game from Nasa
More info on Nasa’ s free game to simulate the descent of Curiosity through the red planet’s atmosphere on the journey that has been dubbed the “seven minutes of terror”.

Nasa’s Curiosity Mars rover the stakes couldn’t be higher
If this summer’s landing fails America’s and possibly the whole world’s exploration of the surface of Mars could stop for a decade or more.

Alien life on Enceladus?
If you and your students need an alternative to fantasizing about a trip to Mars, why not find out a bit more about Enceladus? It’s an icy moon of Saturn, which many scientists believe is a much better bet for finding alien lifeforms in our solar system

A “Goldilocks” planet
Another potential target for life is Kepler 22-b, a newly discovered new planet in the “Goldilocks zone” of its own solar system. It’s about 2.4 times the size of Earth with a temperature of a comfy 22C (72F). Only downside is it’s a bit of a trek at 600 light years away from Earth and experts aren’t sure if it is made mostly of rock, gas or liquid!

Habitable alien worlds
The Habitable Exoplanets Catalogue ranks alien worlds suitable for life. So far they’ve found only 15 planets and 30 moons that are potentially habitable.

Space images
This month’s pick of the best space-related images includes the likeness on a distant planet of Disney’s most famous creations.

Women hold up half the sky
China’s first female astronaut Liu Yang – part of the Shenzhou 9 crew taking China one step closer towards building a space station.

Gagarin and the space race
A Powerpoint aimed at key stage two illustrating Gagarin’s incredible voyage and other major milestones in the stages of space exploration and an associated lesson plan to go with it.

The Earth is space
An online science lesson on the position of the planets in the solar system and the concept of gravitational pull.

Human adaptation to extreme environments
How would our bodies cope with an extreme environment change? This lesson investigates

The solar system
An online lesson for key stage three.

Planets
Some lovely graphics for primary aged children exploring the position of the planets in our solar system, the phases of the moon and how the moon orbits the Earth.

Nasa’s Mars Science Laboratory Mission
Everything you need to know about Curiosity and Nasa’s mission to Mars. The site explains how determining past habitability on Mars gives scientists a better understanding on whether life could have existed on the red planet and, if it could have existed, as idea of where to look for it in the future.

Spirit and Opportunity
Nasa’s Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity were a huge success, let’s hope Curiosity can build on that! Opportunity is still sending in info and Spirit only gave up the ghost in 2010.

Online catalogue of habitable exoplanets
A cosmic directory listing the planets and moons most likely to harbour alien life pulled together by the Planetary Habitability Lab at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo – so far 15 planets and 30 moons have been labelled potentially ripe for life.

Science Museum space galleries
The next best thing to going to space is a visit to London’s Science museum.

Kepler
Nasa’s Kepler space telescope is working to spot more exoplanets.

Enceladus images
Awesome pictures of the Enceladus flumes captured by Cassini during its close flyby in November 2009 posted up with commentary by Emily Lakdawalla, planetary geologist from the Planetary Society.

Solar Dynamics Observatory
Stunning pictures from Nasa.

Hubble
Hubble is constantly sending us fascinating images and news – just last month astronomers using the NASA/ESA telescope found a fifth moon found orbiting icy dwarf planet Pluto. Here’s some guidance on using the Hubble images specifically in schools and also a series of astronomical exercises for secondary school aged students.

ARGOS
If we are going to go to Mars – or anywhere else in space – we are going to need some serious training, so check out ARGOS, no not that Argos, we’re talking about the Active Response Gravity Offload System designed to simulate gravity reduced environments such as Lunar, Martian or microgravity.

Click on the link to read Teaching Fractions: The Musical

Click on the link to read Six Tips For a Happy Classroom

Click on the link to read  Proposal to Adopt Shooting as Part of the Curriculum

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Raising Successful Kids Without Reading a Book

August 7, 2012


Clinician Madeline Levine has written an extremely compelling book entitled “Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success.” Based on her column in The New York Times this book has a lot to offer. Below is just a snippet:

The central task of growing up is to develop a sense of self that is autonomous, confident and generally in accord with reality. If you treat your walking toddler as if she can’t walk, you diminish her confidence and distort reality. Ditto nightly “reviews” of homework, repetitive phone calls to “just check if you’re O.K.” and “editing” (read: writing) your child’s college application essay.

Once your child is capable of doing something, congratulate yourself on a job well done and move on. Continued, unnecessary intervention makes your child feel bad about himself (if he’s young) or angry at you (if he’s a teenager).

But isn’t it a parent’s job to help with those things that are just beyond your child’s reach? Why is it overparenting to do for your child what he or she is almost capable of?

Think back to when your toddler learned to walk. She would take a weaving step or two, collapse and immediately look to you for your reaction. You were in thrall to those early attempts and would do everything possible to encourage her to get up again. You certainly didn’t chastise her for failing or utter dire predictions about flipping burgers for the rest of her life if she fell again. You were present, alert and available to guide if necessary. But you didn’t pick her up every time.

You knew she had to get it wrong many times before she could get it right.

My problem with parenting books is that they often take an all encompassing approach. Parenting isn’t a “one size fits all” exercise. Each child is different, with their own particular needs and unique talents.

It’s the same in the classroom. I can’t afford to teach every student in the same way. Some require more independence, some need more attention. I can challenge some more than others. Some thrive on competition others achieve better results without having to worry about winning or losing.

It is my firm belief that parenting, like teaching, is about understanding the child, connecting with them, setting achievable goals and monitoring their progress  against whatever approach you have identified as the best. It is a parents job to constantly reflect on how they are going and making adjustments along the way.  If you parent your first and second child in exactly the same way, you are likely to find that the results are sometimes very different.

This approach could never be properly written about in a book.

Click on the link to read Insensitive ‘Parent Bashers’ Take Aim at Grieving Colorado Parents

Click here to read ‘It’s Time to Get New Role Models’.

Click here to read ‘Schools Invite Kids to Parent-Teacher Meetings to Subdue Angry Parents’.

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Children Saved Lives in Milwaukee Sikh Temple Shooting

August 7, 2012

Amongst the tragedy of this awful incident it’s important to note the quick thinking of children who alerted adults to the danger, and in the process, saved lives:

Women at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin were busily preparing lunch in the community kitchen on Sunday when two children burst in and screamed frantically they had seen a man with a gun outside.

People began running in every direction, and 14 women, along with the two children, rushed into a narrow pantry in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek. There was no lock, and so the women pressed their bodies up against the door to keep anyone from entering, witnesses said.

“Everyone was falling on top of one another,” said Parminder Toor, 54, speaking in Punjabi as her daughter-in-law, Jaskiran Kaur, translated. “It was dark and we were all crammed in.”

The children — who were not immediately named, but who worshipers said were not yet teenagers — had been playing near a window in another room when they saw the gunman. Their parents had gone to a nearby grocery store to buy juice for the weekly community lunch, witnesses said.

Click on the link to read Insensitive ‘Parent Bashers’ Take Aim at Grieving Colorado Parents

Click on the link to read Explaining the Colorado Movie Theater Shooting to Children

Click on the link to read The Unexpected Rewards of Parenting

 

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The Pressure to be a Perfect Parent

August 6, 2012

There has never been greater pressure on parents to be perfect than there is today. Mothers, in particular, struggle with judgmental comments and unhelpful stigmas. It should not come as a surprise that parents have resorted to lying in order to seem more in control than they are:

A study found new mothers are under increasing pressure due to children waking up in the night, meaning they are not getting enough sleep.

However, parents are lying about their children’s disrupted sleep patterns, fearing it will make them look like bad parents.

A fifth of those who admit lying about it pretend their child is sleeping through the night, the survey by Netmums found.

Parents also frequently cover up how badly they were coping with sleep deprivation – 62 per cent of the third who lied, and one in 50 mums and dads are so desperate for sleep they have hired a specialist to help them – costing £1,000 a week.

The Netmums report showed a quarter of all UK kids wake up before 6.30am everyday – meaning their parents never get enough sleep.

Click on the link to read Insensitive ‘Parent Bashers’ Take Aim at Grieving Colorado Parents

Click on the link to read Mother Films Her Kids Fighting and Posts it on Facebook

Click on the link to read It’s Not Spying on Your Children, It’s Called Parenting

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Psychologist Claims Cyberbullying Concerns are Exaggerated

August 5, 2012

I can’t believe a psychologist would go on record claiming that the recent attention on cyberbullying is overstated:

Old-style face-to-face bullying is still the way most young people are victimized, even though it’s cyberbullying that seems to get all the headlines, an international bullying expert told psychology professionals Saturday.

Reports of a cyberbullying explosion over the past few years because of increasing use of mobile devices have been greatly exaggerated, says psychologist Dan Olweus of the University of Bergen in Bergen, Norway. He says his latest research, published this spring in the European Journal of Developmental Psychology, finds not many students report being bullied online at all.

“Contradicting these claims, it turns out that cyberbullying, when studied in proper context, is a low-prevalence phenomenon, which has not increased over time and has not created many ‘new’ victims and bullies,” the study finds.

The reason that such attention has been devoted to cyberbullying awareness is three fold:

1. Cyberbullying numbers are growing. Why should we dismiss something until it becomes a problem we are not prepared for?

2. Cyberbullying is, more than likely, the most destructive for of bullying. Unlike face-to-face bullying that happens in schoolyards and parks amongst a finite group of people, cyberbullying penetrates the safest room (the victim’s bedroom) and can be easily disseminated to an audience of thousands.

3. Teachers can deal with school bullying. It is much harder for significant adults to monitor cyberbullying.

Cyberbullying should never be diminished in any way.

Click on the link to read Social Media: A Playground for Bullies

Click on the link to read Teachers Who Rely on Free Speech Shouldn’t be Teachers

Click on the link to read Bullying is Acceptable when it’s Directed to a Teacher

Click on the link to read Punish Bullies and Then Change Your Culture

 

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The Toy that Stopped a Child Porn Ring

August 5, 2012

The child porn network that was exposed by a stuffed bunny rabbit:

The men came from different walks of life on two continents: a children’s puppeteer in Florida, a hotel manager in Massachusetts, an emergency medical technician in Kansas, a day care worker in the Netherlands. In all, 43 men have been arrested over the past two years in a horrific, far-flung child porn network that unraveled like a sweater with a single loose thread.

In this case, the thread was a stuffed toy bunny.

The bunny, seen in a photo of a half-naked, distraught 18-month-old boy, was used to painstakingly trace a molester to Amsterdam. From there, investigators made one arrest after another of men accused of sexually abusing children, exchanging explicit photos of the attacks and even chatting online about abducting, cooking and eating youngsters.

Authorities have identified more than 140 young victims so far and say there is no end in sight as they pore through hundreds of thousands of images found on the suspects’ computers. They are also trying to determine whether the men who talked about murder and cannibalism actually committed such acts or were just sharing twisted fantasies.

Click on the link to read Why are so Many Teachers Child Predators?

Click on the link to read Drunk Lecturer Forces Students to Sit 23-Hour Exam Without Toilet Breaks

Click on the link to read Shocking Video of a Student Being Beaten Up by a Teacher

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Ginger Beer Ad is Neither Funny nor Clever

August 2, 2012

I realise that this ad was aiming for controversy, but I can guarantee that kids will be bullied because of it:

An advertising campaign from a New Zealand company telling customers to swap their “ginger children” for ginger beer has been criticised on social media.

A media release from Hakanoa Handmade Ginger Beer yesterday gave “unfortunate” parents with red-haired children the opportunity to exchange them for ginger beer, starting today and running until the end of August.

“Parents with ginger spawn will be able to bring them into The Little Grocer on Richmond Road, Grey Lynn, where they will be able to swap them for a six-pack of ginger beer.”

However, people on the company’s Facebook page said the campaign was offensive.

Ross Ronald said: “Awful – who’s next? Kids with glasses? You’ve totally missed the point and have maybe created the world’s most un-inclusive ad campaign. Humour is best left to those who have some.”

“This is a disgusting but of bullying – towards children – and I hope you have some human rights complaints coming your way,” said William Robertson.

Click on the link to read Charity Pays for Teen’s Plastic Surgery to Help Stop Bullying

Click on the link to read You Don’t Fight Bullying With More Bullying

Click on the link to read It’s Time to Get New Role Models

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Sometimes the Parents are More Exhausted than their Athlete Children

August 2, 2012

It must be hard to be an athlete’s parent. On one hand, you are supportive no matter what the result is, on the other, you naturally want your child to give a good account of themself.

I prefer enjoying my child’s development away from the cameras.

Click on the link to read Insensitive ‘Parent Bashers’ Take Aim at Grieving Colorado Parents

Click on the link to read Mother Films Her Kids Fighting and Posts it on Facebook

Click on the link to read It’s Not Spying on Your Children, It’s Called Parenting

 

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Does ‘Stranger Danger’ do More Harm than Good?

August 1, 2012

If teaching children about ‘stranger danger’ prevents them from feeling safe then is it really worth it?

Research by the charity the National Children’s Bureau showed that under-15s are now less likely to enjoy outdoor play than in previous generations.

It was revealed that almost half of parents admitted that “fear of strangers” prevented them allowing sons or daughters from playing outside.

More than 46 per cent cited traffic concerns and a third were afraid that children would trip or get hurt while playing in parks, streets and playgrounds, figures showed.

The NCB – which published the research to coincide with its national Playday 2012 campaign – insisted that playing outside “should be a normal everyday event for all children”.

Click on the link to read Video of Woman Saving Children From Runaway Van

Click on the link to read Should This Movie Be R Rated?

Click on the link to read Sick Teachers Need to be Arrested not Fired!

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