Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’

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The Result of Sleep Deprivation for Kids

May 29, 2011

A new study suggests that there is a clear correlation between kids with limited sleep time and weight gain:

Preschoolers who do not get enough sleep are at higher risk of becoming overweight, researchers in New Zealand have concluded.

Getting less sleep seems to be related to increased body weight in children but doctors aren’t sure how.

Prof. Rachael Taylor of the human nutrition department at the University of Otago in Dunedin and her colleagues followed 244 children between the ages of three and seven. Young children who don’t get enough sleep risk becoming overweight. 

The children had their weight, height, body mass index and body composition measured every six months. Parents filled in questionnaires about the sleep and diet habits of their sons and daughters at three, four and five years of age. At those ages, the children also wore accelerometers to monitor their movements.

The boys and girls averaged 11 hours of sleep per day at all three ages.


Each extra hour of sleep per night at age three to five was associated with a reduction in BMI of 0.49 times and a 0.61 times reduction in the risk of being overweight or obese at age seven, the team found.

The researchers said the differences in BMI were from fat mass, which points to how poor sleep harms body composition in children.

The link remained after taking factors such as gender and physical activity into account.

As for why, the researchers proposed that having more time to eat and changes in hormones in the brain could affect appetite.

“The study is a valuable contribution to the understanding of the causal pathway whereby reduced sleep duration may directly contribute to overweight and obesity in children,” Professor Francesco Cappuccio and Associate Professor Michelle Miller from the University of Warwick said in a journal editorial accompanying the study.

Strengths of the study included use of accelerometers and sleep diaries, which offered reliable, direct and repeated measurements of time in bed and time asleep, the editorial said.

“It would do no harm to advise people that a sustained curtailment of sleeping time might contribute to long-term ill-health in adults and children,” the pair concluded.

What the article didn’t say is how many hours of sleep is ideal for a child?  Does it depend on the child? Surely, some children can make do with fewer hours than others?

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Facebook is a Haven for Bullies

May 27, 2011

When you put the responsibility of having a Facebook page in the hands of young children, you will find that most will use it in the right way.  Unfortunately, it’s those that don’t who spoil it for the rest of them.

MELBOURNE schools and police are battling to remove a Facebook page that allows teenagers to post vile gossip about their peers.

Teachers feel powerless to stop the site, which has resurfaced in various forms over the past month and left students at schools in Ivanhoe and Heidelberg needing counselling.

Parents have been shocked by postings on the page, which include allegations of sex between teachers and students, girls who trade sex for drugs and boys who have been caught wearing their mothers’ clothing.

Most parents were unaware their children had been vilified until notified by their school.

The ”Ivanhoe Goss” page is filled with comments sent by members to the group’s creator, who reposts them anonymously. One page seen by The Age had more than 2300 members.

Schools including Ivanhoe Grammar School, Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School and Marcellin College are implicated in the gossip, but it is believed students from other parts of Melbourne are also members.

And similar Facebook pages have been set up for students in Essendon, Dandenong, Glenferrie and Caulfield.

Ivanhoe Grammar principal Rod Fraser said public and private schools in the region had banded together when the site was discovered on April 13 to raise the alarm with parents and students. The site is believed to have been created as a public page on April 10, but was re-created as a private page about a week later after schools warned students about being involved in cyber-bullying.

Mr Fraser said police and Facebook had been contacted about the page and were investigating those responsible. Three students and their families had been given support after gossip was posted about them on the page, and the school had developed a website to provide information on cyber safety.

”This great thing that we have, technology, can also be insidious,” he said.

Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School principal Heather Schnagl said ”less than five” students had been disciplined for being involved on the site. But no student had been suspended or expelled.

Two students had been counselled after being bullied.

”We deeply regret the poor judgment shown by any student who visits or posts a comment on a site like that one,” Dr Schnagl said.

”One of the biggest challenges … is many parents don’t understand the digital landscape today and … they trust their children rather than maintaining the role of the parent.

”We want to empower our parents to work with us to help students … They are shocked when they are shown what their daughter has posted.”

And some want to alter the age requirement  and allow kids less than 13 to get a Facebook page?

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Posted in Cyber Bullying, Social Media | Leave a Comment »

Talk About an Overreaction!

May 27, 2011

A school teacher expects her students to clean after themselves if they urinate on the toilet seat and is forced to take administrative leave!  It turns out that the child was allergic to bleach.  This story should have stayed in-house.  It is certainly not front page news, and even if you were of the belief that the teacher acted negligently, you would have to wonder how this story caused a media sensation and triggered emergency PTO meetings.

An elementary school teacher has been suspended and is being investigated by authorities after allegedly forcing children to scrub the school toilets with bleach.

For two years, Catherine Saur, from Hartford, Connecticut, would make any student who used the bathroom thoroughly clean the room after they were done, parents claim.

Some mothers and fathers said their children would wet themselves during the day to avoid the chore, while one eighth-grader had his hands seriously burned after suffering an allergic reaction to the bleach.

Last night’s emergency school meeting was called after principal Peter Dart sent a letter to parents to inform them the art teacher had been reported to authorities.

Principal Dart said he did not endorse or know about the practice until it came to his attention last week.

He said: ‘It is imperative that we pause, that we take stock in what we are doing. That we learn from this and that we move forward.’

Newsflash: Teacher’s make mistakes.  Some may consider this one to be a bigger one than I do, but for goodness sake, how unfair is it to this poor teacher to have her reputation muddied over what is fairly honest intentions.  Teacher’s should get their students to take an active and responsible approach to cleaning up after themselves from a young age.  Perhaps this teacher took the message a little too far, but she did not deserve the media frenzy she got.  Emergency PTO meetings?  Are you serious?  Seriously burnt?  That’s not what the mother says in the video?  Kids wetting themselves to avoid cleaning after themselves? C’mon media! Get your act together!

And Principal Dart, why don’t you come to the defence of your teacher?  By trying to minimise the negative PR of your school, you seem to be leaving your art teacher out in the cold.  I should be reading about how dedicated this teacher is and how she has a great rapport with her students and a genuine passion for teaching.  I should be reading about how she regrets her actions, has learnt from them and looks forward to resuming the job she loves so much.

Surely a statement like that will have raised the confidence of the public and helped to kill the story in the process.

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A Blueprint for Teachers on the Quest for Excellence

May 25, 2011

I stumbled across an interesting blog piece that provided an excerpt of a paper written by Horace B. Lucido, a retired physics instructor, author and educational consultant, and a founding member of Educators and Parents Against Testing Abuse.

In his paper, Lucido singles out 10 things teachers need to perfect:

So what are some key elements in teachers regaining the professional respect and trust they deserve? State, district and site practices and policies should:

1. Allow our teachers to use best practices in lesson design and pedagogy rather than canned programs that require rigorous adherence to step-by-step procedures without flexibility.

2. Permit teachers to adjust and modify their lessons to fit their students’ knowledge and skills rather than prepare them for high-stakes testing. Forgo all site and district high-stakes testing that is not required by state or national law. Do away with site and district tests used to prepare for more tests.

3. Test score ‘data’ can only become relevant when interpretation for individual students is corroborated by their teachers — individually or groups — who have evaluated said students using multiple sources of information. No judgments, placements or qualifications for individual students should be made solely on the basis of annual high-stakes testing.

4. Abolish all goal-setting based on annual high-stakes testing scores. This includes targeting students, teachers and schools for score improvement. Each should be evaluated using multiple sources of information before making plans for any corrective actions. Teams of educators, parents, psychologists and community members should be employed in developing helpful strategies.

5. Eliminate both scripted and paced lesson mandates. It is not in standardizing our classrooms that students learn to be creative and innovative-attributes that are highly prized in the world of work. Just as the diversity of plants and animals is the strength of the Earth’s ecosystem, our ‘edusystem’ should model that diversity in the manner in which teachers provide unique lessons using a variety of methods. Standardized sameness is not conducive to how students learn nor is it an attribute valued in our culture — otherwise we would all be driving only Fords and wearing only Levi jeans.

6. Eliminate all punitive policies that pronounce harsh judgments on students, teachers, schools and districts based on unchallenged interpretations of student test scores. Teacher evaluations of their students’ knowledge and skills should be the hallmark and cornerstone of valid conclusions about what students know and are able to do. They are the professionals in the classroom.

7. Codify regulations against administrative use of direct and/or implied threats of repercussions to those teachers who follow their State Standards for the Teaching Profession rather than curricular and/or pedagogy directives which utilize a script-like pacing without allowing for teacher modification and adjustments to fit the classroom clientele.

8. State Standards for the Teaching Profession should be the guiding principles for all teacher evaluation protocols used by administrators. Terminate ‘walkthroughs’. Thoughtful classroom visitations that respect the context of the lesson with pre and post discussion is vital to proper evaluation. Otherwise, walkthroughs become nothing more than “big brother” in a formal setting, keeping a critical eye rather than a supportive stance.

9. Teachers should have the freedom without fear of recrimination to express their professional opinions inside and outside of school sites regarding school practices and policies. Fellow teachers, parents and the larger community need to hear from the classroom professionals regarding the educational programs at their schools. This will provide open forums for discussion and the enhancement of the school environment.

 10. Develop an enhanced parent-teacher communication protocol complete with translators for second language learner parents who are not fluent in English. Ongoing and frequent parent-teacher communication will both improve understanding and appreciation of the role each plays in the education of their students and also foster a greater mutual respect.

Which of the ten do you agree or disagree with?  Would you add an eleventh element?

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Posted in Dealing with Parents, Education Policy, Planning | Leave a Comment »

Tips For Dealing With Cyber Bullies

May 24, 2011

Cyberbullying has never been more prevalent.  It is extremely important that parents, teachers and children are well versed with the symptoms and responses to cyberbullying:

Once relegated to schoolyard fist fights or cafeteria name-calling, bullying has taken on a new form in the digital age — it’s as simple as a hitting a few keyboard strokes or sending touch-screen texts.

But cyberbullying can have far more negative consequences than the schoolyard variety because it can be done anywhere and the damage can be widespread, said Merve Lapus, education program manager for Common Sense Media. The nonprofit is dedicated to providing information to families and schools for dealing with media and technology.

“On the schoolyard, when you’re being bullied to your face, you can leave and you can go home and be away from it,” he told a crowd of parents at Amador Valley High School on Thursday night. “When you have it on your mobile phone or online, it’s there all the time.”

The informational session was hosted by Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, the Pleasanton school district and the Pleasanton PTA Council.

McNerney, who said he was hoping to provide parents with tools and techniques as well as to learn more himself, has fielded concerns from constituents about the subject.

“There certainly has been a lot of interest,” he said.

Many parents have also requested help from their parent-teacher associations about how to deal with cyberbullying and ensure their kids are safe online, said Jodie Vashistha.

“The kids know a lot more about this than we do,” she said.

“There’s a need for more parent (education).”

Cyberbullying occurs when an offender sends or posts harmful materials or engages in other forms of social cruelty by using the Internet or other technology, Lapus said .

He said cyberbullies often feel some anonymity because the person they are harassing is not in front of them. And others can easily make it more harmful by forwarding on messages.

“A lot of kids that are being bullied are being bullied by bystanders that don’t necessarily know what’s going on. They’re just jumping on the bandwagon,” he said.

The main thing parents can do is empower students to make better decisions and educate them on how to properly use sites like Facebook to make them “upstanders,” Lapus said.

In Pleasanton, the majority of cyberbullying cases occur between fifth through ninth grades, said Kevin Johnson, the district’s senior director of pupil services.

That comes as no surprise to parent Paul Faris, a dean at Fallon Middle School in Dublin, whose children attend Pleasanton schools.

“They have the ability to put the gas on, but they’re not able to apply the brake,” he said.

Like several of those present, Faris said responsibility ultimately lies with parents to ensure their children use technology appropriately.

School district staff members are currently addressing the issue by developing a social media policy that will be brought to the school board for adoption.

  • Give kids a code of conduct. Tell them if they wouldn’t say something to someone’s face, they shouldn’t text it, instant message it or post it.
  • Ask if they know someone who has been cyberbullied. Sometimes they will open up about other’s pain before admitting their own
  • Establish consequences for bullying behavior.
  • Monitor their media use.
  • Tell kids not to share passwords with friends.
  • Use privacy settings.
  • Remind them all private information can be made public.
  • Tell kids what to do if they’re harassed: Block bullies and inform parents or trusted adults. Save evidence in case it is needed for reporting.

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Another Sickening Case of Bullying

May 20, 2011

No school should ever congratulate itself on any achievement until they have adequately tackled bullying.  I am sick of reading about horrific cases of bullying.  I hope those involved in the alleged incident below get a fair hearing.  But if they are found guilty of bullying, I advise the school to make an example out of them:

DALLAS – A 12-year-old special needs student in Dallas says he doesn’t want to finish the school year after he was allegedly wrapped in tape and beaten by a group of students.

The district is investigating the incident that apparently happened Monday at Bowde-Storey Middle School during Martin Mitchell’s science class. A substitute teacher was in the classroom.

“I went in the science room and people were in there acting crazy and stuff and throwing paper around and listening to stuff on the computer that they weren’t supposed to be listening to,” Mitchell said. “And the teacher, he was just sitting there watching them.”

With his mother and grandmother present, he described how he said four boys taped him up and beat him.

“They put me in a headlock and they had wrapped tape around my body and stuff where I couldn’t breathe at all,” he said. “They had hit me then I fell to the other side and they start kicking me and stuff. That’s when I start crying and one little girl she helped me get out of the tape.”

District officials said the students were allegedy involved in the incident will be disciplined according to the student code of conduct. The substitute teacher has been placed on the “do not call” list.

Police were at the school on Thursday interviewing students.

“I just didn’t realize what my child was going through at school everyday,” said Keneshia Robinson.

She said her son had complained about students taunting him because he has special learning needs.

“He was already getting beat up at school and I wish I had of listened and I wish them teachers had of listened,” Robinson said.

The boy said doesn’t want to go back to school.

“’Cause that school be out of control and stuff,” he said.

A video of the story is available by clicking on this link.

I hope the substitute teacher never teaches in the classroom again.  Additionally, I hope that girl who stripped away the tape and came to the boy’s aid gets commended for her actions.  I would love it if the media could giver her 15 minutes of fame.  She sounds like the perfect role model for young impressionable kids.


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Is There Any Benefit in Children Repeating a Year of School?

May 20, 2011

The findings of a study I came across recently claims that not only is there no benefit in making a student repeat a year level of school, but that it actually does some harm:

The study, by Deakin University’s Dr Helen McGrath, also found students who repeated a year were 20 to 50 per cent more likely to drop out, compared to similar students who progressed.

Dr McGrath reviewed dozens of studies by academics in Australia and the United States over the past 75 years comparing the outcomes for students with specific needs who were either held back or allowed to progress.

She said those studies failed to support the popular assumption among teachers and parents that repeating a year helped a student’s academic performance.

“There may be an occasional student who is the exception, but for most students providing them with more of what didn’t work for them the first time around is an exercise in futility,” she said.

“In fact, repeating a year confirms to a student that they have failed.

“They experience stress from being taller, larger and more physically mature than their younger classmates. They miss their friends who have moved on to the next year level.

“They also experience boredom from repeating similar tasks and assignments. Their self esteem drops. All of these factors ultimately lead many to drop out.”

There also appears to be no benefit in holding children back from starting school because they were not seen to be “school ready”.

“If a child is old enough to enter primary school, then holding them back and enrolling them in an additional year of preschool appears to provide no academic or social advantages and may in fact be detrimental in many cases,” she said.

Dr McGrath said simply promoting the struggling student to the next year level was not the answer either.

She said schools needed to consider more effective alternatives to support students who experienced social, behavioural or academic difficulties.

These included identifying problems at pre-school level and developing programs to address them, creating individual education plans, providing specialist support and adapting the curriculum to the needs of the student.

“Multi-age classrooms and peer tutoring also provide ways of supporting students who may be struggling,” she said.

Whilst I respect the findings of this study, the trend of promoting students for no other reason than to protect their self-esteem is quite challenging for teachers.  It means that the child is often far behind, is often missing basic skills and therefore cannot understand advanced concepts and sometimes disrupts the other students.  It means that there will be students that can’t read or write properly entering into high school.

How is that beneficial to the child?  How does being set vastly different work to ones classmates make that child feel any less of a failure?

Teachers will generally do anything they can to accelerate the divide between struggling students and the rest of the class.  The last thing they would ever want is for any of their students to suffer emotionally.

At the same time, the current closed mindedness of education experts when it comes to repeating year levels is a concern.  Surely, at some point, the child has a better chance repeating a year than they do being promoted on the back of under developed skills?

I am in no way an advocate for making children repeat year levels.  But I am also mindful that gaps can grow, and the result of a skills divide in the classroom can have a lasting effect on both class and struggling student.

I suppose it just goes to show the importance of good teaching in the early years, alertness in spotting any learning problems or difficulties and a well run and resourced Special Education/Remedial Education department.



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Posted in Child Development | 1 Comment »

Cyberbullying Even More Prevalent Among Girls

May 18, 2011

A recent survey found that girls are especially affected by cyberbullying:

Tweens and teens are both flocking to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to stay connected with each other. While used correctly this can be a positive thing the sites are also being used as weapons to facilitate cyberbullying.

Norton Canada recently completed a study called The Norton Cyberbullying Survey asking Canadian parents about their children’s online experiences. A quarter of the parents said that their child had been involved in a cyberbullying incident. Of those children 66 percent of the parents said their child was a victim and 16 percent admitted that their child was the bully.
More shocking is that 32 percent of parents are unsure of their children’s online behaviours but 44 percent fear that their child’s online behaviour could involve coming in contact with an online predator.

While on the schoolyard the victims of bullies often are male when it comes to the cyberspace playground girls are the ones being bullied. Parents revealed that 86 percent of those bullied were their daughters compared to a rate of 55 percent when it came to their sons.

Computers are not the only tools being used as a weapon for cyberbullying. Cyberbullies turn to cell phones with middle schoolers using this tool more often.

Even though it’s not legal for children under the age of 13 to access social networking sites 43 percent of parents are comfortable when their children aged 8-12 have an account as long as the parents can supervise them. While almost half of parents claim they have an open dialogue with their children about their online behaviour 32 percent feel that they can’t control all the environments where their children have access to social networking. This access includes what their children are doing in school.

One wonders how parents can be comfortable with their underage children on Facebook considering these damning statistics.  Firstly, aiding your children in breaking a law is not a good example to set, and secondly, supervising your child’s internet and social media use is easier said than done.  Why does an 8-year old need a Facebook page anyway?

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Parenting, Like Teaching is a Balancing Act

May 17, 2011

Society only knows two ways of dealing with a given problem.  The two ways I speak of, are the two extremes at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Take teaching for example. On the one hand you have the advocates for a teacher centred approach.  This philosophy maintains that the teacher must be strong, exact discipline and be emotionally distant from the students.  It considers empowering students to be weak and counter productive.

Pretty extreme, huh?

Well unfortunately, so is the alternate philosophy.  The child centered approach to teaching, puts the emphasis on the child to direct learning, make critical choices and set the agenda.  Discipline takes a back seat in this approach as does rules and the authority of the teacher.

Both approaches are extreme.  Both have good ideas, but miss the most important aspect of any philosophy – balance.  In truth, both approaches can be melded into one by a teacher who can incorporate both styles of teaching through constant adjustment and introspection.

Unfortunately, parenting experts tend to take on unbalanced and incredibly extreme positions.  A few months ago we had the infamous Tiger Mother, who postulated that restricting her children from enjoying play dates and leisure time helped instill happiness in their lives.

Of course, there will always be an extreme position, advocating the exact opposite:

MEET the “serenity parents” – pizza and cartoons are in, too much sport or trombone lessons are out.

A US author is urging parents to lighten up and let their children have more fun, instead of obsessing over their lives.

Dr Bryan Caplan said modern mums and dads worried too much, and should take a back seat.

He advocated “serenity parenting” as an antidote to tight control and a plethora of extra-curricular activities, saying they would make no difference when children grew up.

Dr Caplan gives guilt-ridden parents the nod to let their children watch more television, and quit activities they don’t enjoy.

The father of three, including twins, has penned the new book, Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids: Why Being A Great Parent Is Less Work And More Fun Than You Think.

Dr Caplan, an economics professor at George Mason University in Virginia, said research on twins had shown genetics was more important than upbringing in moulding children.

“The most prominent conclusion of twin research is that practically everything – health, intelligence, happiness, success, personality, values, interests – is partly genetic,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column.

“With a few exceptions, the effect of parenting on adult outcomes ranges from small to zero.”

South Morang mother of two Renee Mayne relates to serenity parenting, saying she strives to create a stress-free home for daughters Maddison, 4, and Milly, 2.

“If we can balance a relaxed environment, where we listen, create boundaries and instil good values it’s not only serenity parenting, but a balanced lifestyle,” she said.

Parenting is the hardest job in the world.  So-called parenting experts try to give us quick fixes that sound easy, but miss the mark on two crucial factors.

1.  No child is the same.  There is no perfect parenting technique that will work on all kids;

2.  These methods almost uniformly lack balance.  Whilst it wouldn’t sell books, the best approach to take is to try a whole series of common sense ideas, whilst continually modifying and adjusting ones style according to what works for a particular child at a particular time.

I find that the best experts don’t preach to others, because they are aware that every child responds differently to situations and parenting styles.  And every child presents a unique challenge to their parents.

No, Dr Caplan, parenting children effectively invariably isn’t  “less work  than you think.”

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Injecting Botox into Children Should Be a Crminal Offence

May 15, 2011

This is no joke.  This should not be treated like a one-off case by an unstable parent.  These awful child beauty pageants, which contribute not even an ounce of worth or purpose to this world, are responsible for the flagrant abuse of children.  They must be shut down!  They are horrendous excuses for entertainment and the practices they espouse from parents borders on the criminal.

Take the case of the mother that readily admits to injecting her poor child with  Botox to eliminate any possibility of a wrinkle:

How sick is that?  How do we allow these pageants to continue when they provide us with nothing and instead encourage parents to treat their kids like circus animals!  I totally agree with John Kass:

… when I think of little-girl beauty pageants — after the story last week about Kerry Campbell, the idiotic mom injecting Botox into the face of her 8-year-old daughter Britney — all I can think of are three little words:

Shut them down.

Shut all those kiddie pageants down.

It’s easy for us to slam one ignorant parent who lives vicariously through her daughter, or slam a few parents who treat their children as if they’re painted dolls. We pronounce such parents fools and think we’ve won a great victory.

But this really isn’t about isolated cases, or even the entire, weird little-girl pageant scene. The larger story is how we Americans feel about ourselves, how we define beauty in the age of facial injections and lip shots and tummy tucks and liposuction and breast implants and hair transplants.

And as millions endure all that poking and prodding and tying and cutting, can’t you hear America groaning, begging: Desire Me, Want Me, Please Want Me Forever.

We put all that pressure on women to be young and cute into their old age, until even an 8-year-old isn’t young enough or cute enough, if her name is Britney, getting Botoxed.

It all starts with those little girls painted with lipstick, sprayed with tanning powder, with big hair and heels. They strut down those runways with that JonBenet Ramsey pout, training to become princess victims.

And the parents cheer as their young are sexualized.

In today’s age. how do we let these blasted things continue?

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Posted in Child Welfare | 4 Comments »

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