When are children responsible?

The childhood playfulness of attention comparative study between preschool and elementary school children had some very interesting results.

The fact that children under the age of six do not have the cognitive reasoning to realize that making a decision with insufficient information will statistically correlate in a wrong answer essentially gives them a moral free pass when deciding upon actions.

Therefore, children should not necessarily be responsible for their moral decisions under the age of 6, because attention and reason are not yet connected. So next time my 4 year-old cousin decides “wrongly”, it may not be his fault, yet, and it will be difficult for me to scold him.

Importance of Early Education

At age 19 I found myself teaching "headstart" in the urban village (slum) Savan, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.

The vital importance of this program was far more signicant to these children than their wealthier USA neigbors. It led me to a life long committment to "early childhood" experience to prepare people for the world of learning.

(side note) couple years ago my family stopped on a cruise for a day in St. Thomas, rented a car and found one of the schools I used to teach in. 45 years later, no longer a ramshakle shack with no running water, it was a modern elementry school that could have been in any us city. It had a huge sign that read PEACE CORPS ELEMENTRY SCHOOL! I got tearful and embaressed my sons.

Founded by Friedrich Froebel in 1840, the kindergarten-childcare center grew out of the necessity for children to experience careful nurturing which inhibited successful development. Pre-school programs in modern times follow three basic principles in order to maintain a developmentally sound atmosphere. The three princes are to understand each child develops on their own path, know children learn best through firsthand experiences, and recognize play is extremely important to overall childhood development. Furthermore, the child must be exposed to developmentally appropriate practices for their age in order to help, and not hinder, their development. For example, a child at a daycare allowing children to bully one another inhibits notions of learning empathy and compassion and eventually will lead to problems in emotional development. Overall, as long as they daycares strictly follow the three principles and use developmentally appropriate practices when instructing, childhood development should blossom successfully into the middle and late childhood.

Lake Mary, FL Home!

My wife and I bought a house in Lake Mary in 1994 and still live there. I opened the Lake Mary Counseling Center and raised our two boys here. One is currently in Law School and the other in Nursing School. There is so much to praise about living and working and raising a family in Lake Mary.

Its takes a village,

My son's are off on their educations but credit goes to the teachers at Rock Lake Middle School and Lake Mary High School. Thanks to the dedicated teachers, coaches, Band Directors, and Pop Warner Volunteers.

Lake Mary has been recognized as a great place to live by Money Magazine. Here are some of their comments and information about Lake Mary.





WINNER

Top 100 rank: 96
Population: 15,100

Nicknamed "the Little Silicon Valley," Lake Mary is home to an industrial park of computer software companies. The town is full of commuters on weekdays. On weekends, Lake Mary keeps residents together with community activities such as farmers markets, local artists' booths, and a 24-screen theater.

Work has started on the new commuter rail!

Job growth % (2000-2008)*	15.05%	19.58%
Median home price	$252,500	$262,148
Test scores reading (% above/below state average)	29.7%	25.6%
Test scores math (% above/below average)	21.1%	28.2%
Personal crime incidents (per 1,000)		1

Thoughts about baby crying!

Crying is one of the most basic reactions and communications skills an infant develops. Cries provide an array of information from “Change Me” to “I’m Breathing” to the caregivers supporting the infant and essentially allow infants to communicate with the world around them. According Dondi, Simion, & Caltran in 1999 babies have at leas three types of cries. The first type of cry, known as the basic cry, has a rhythmic pattern of a loud cry, followed by a silence, which then continues with a high pitched whistle, followed by another silence. This pattern will continue until the infant receives what he or she is looking for such as food. The second type of cry is the angry cry consisting of the same rhythmic pattern as the basic cry, but with the addition of excess air being forced though the vocal chords. The final type of cry is the pain cry which consists of an initial loud cry, followed by breath holding with no moaning present. This type of cry must be provoked from a very intense stimulus.

Thoughts about use of IQ tests

answer- not much value unless whole child is evaluated!!

Although IQ tests hold the ability to test an individual’s intelligence threshold, the tests tend to have a natural bias that needs to be forewarned. For instance, the stereotype threat occurs when disadvantaged groups within a society, such as the African American children of the 1960s, are tested and “expected” to earn a certain score on the test. The anxiety that comes along with expectations lowers the score averages and therefore nullifies the validity of the test as impartial. Furthermore, cultural differences open a fair amount of criticisms from researchers that believe the test is geared toward western, progressive, English-speaking, industrialized, children of a society. Overall, when taking the test, children should disassociate with the expected stereotypes, know that the test is not the sole predictor of intelligence, and know that full interruption of the score requires caution.

Texting May Be Taking It's Toll

I found this interesting article on texting and teens. Howard Sherman LCSW
	By KATIE HAFNER Published: May 25, 2009 The New York Times www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/health/26teen.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss They do it late at night when their parents are asleep. They do it in restaurants and while crossing busy streets. They do it in the classroom with their hands behind their back. They do it so much their thumbs hurt. Spurred by the unlimited texting plans offered by carriers like AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company — almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier. The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation. Dr. Martin Joffe, a pediatrician in Greenbrae, Calif., recently surveyed students at two local high schools and said he found that many were routinely sending hundreds of texts every day. “That’s one every few minutes,” he said. “Then you hear that these kids are responding to texts late at night. That’s going to cause sleep issues in an age group that’s already plagued with sleep issues.” The rise in texting is too recent to have produced any conclusive data on health effects. But Sherry Turkle, a psychologist who is director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and who has studied texting among teenagers in the Boston area for three years, said it might be causing a shift in the way adolescents develop. “Among the jobs of adolescence are to separate from your parents, and to find the peace and quiet to become the person you decide you want to be,” she said. “Texting hits directly at both those jobs.” Psychologists expect to see teenagers break free from their parents as they grow into autonomous adults, Professor Turkle went on, “but if technology makes something like staying in touch very, very easy, that’s harder to do; now you have adolescents who are texting their mothers 15 times a day, asking things like, ‘Should I get the red shoes or the blue shoes?’ ” As for peace and quiet, she said, “if something next to you is vibrating every couple of minutes, it makes it very difficult to be in that state of mind. “If you’re being deluged by constant communication, the pressure to answer immediately is quite high,” she added. “So if you’re in the middle of a thought, forget it.” Michael Hausauer, a psychotherapist in Oakland, Calif., said teenagers had a “terrific interest in knowing what’s going on in the lives of their peers, coupled with a terrific anxiety about being out of the loop.” For that reason, he said, the rapid rise in texting has potential for great benefit and great harm. “Texting can be an enormous tool,” he said. “It offers companionship and the promise of connectedness. At the same time, texting can make a youngster feel frightened and overly exposed.” Texting may also be taking a toll on teenagers’ thumbs. Annie Wagner, 15, a ninth-grade honor student in Bethesda, Md., used to text on her tiny LG phone as fast as she typed on a regular keyboard. A few months ago, she noticed a painful cramping in her thumbs. (Lately, she has been using the iPhone she got for her 15th birthday, and she says texting is slower and less painful.) Peter W. Johnson, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington, said it was too early to tell whether this kind of stress is damaging. But he added, “Based on our experiences with computer users, we know intensive repetitive use of the upper extremities can lead to musculoskeletal disorders, so we have some reason to be concerned that too much texting could lead to temporary or permanent damage to the thumbs.” Annie said that although her school, like most, forbids cellphone use in class, with the LG phone she could text by putting it under her coat or desk. Her classmate Ari Kapner said, “You pretend you’re getting something out of your backpack.” Teachers are often oblivious. “It’s a huge issue, and it’s rampant,” said Deborah Yager, a high school chemistry teacher in Castro Valley, Calif. Ms. Yager recently gave an anonymous survey to 50 of her students; most said they texted during class. “I can’t tell when it’s happening, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” she said. “And I’m not going to take the time every day to try to police it.” Dr. Joffe says parents tend to be far less aware of texting than of, say, video game playing or general computer use, and the unlimited plans often mean that parents stop paying attention to billing details. “I talk to parents in the office now,” he said. “I’m quizzing them, and no one is thinking about this.” Still, some parents are starting to take measures. Greg Hardesty, a reporter in Lake Forest, Calif., said that late last year his 13-year-old daughter, Reina, racked up 14,528 texts in one month. She would keep the phone on after going to bed, switching it to vibrate and waiting for it to light up and signal an incoming message. Mr. Hardesty wrote a column about Reina’s texting in his newspaper, The Orange County Register, and in the flurry of attention that followed, her volume soared to about 24,000 messages. Finally, when her grades fell precipitously, her parents confiscated the phone. Reina’s grades have since improved, and the phone is back in her hands, but her text messages are limited to 5,000 per month — and none between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. on weekdays. Yet she said there was an element of hypocrisy in all this: her mother, too, is hooked on the cellphone she carries in her purse. “She should understand a little better, because she’s always on her iPhone,” Reina said. “But she’s all like, ‘Oh well, I don’t want you texting.’ ” (Her mother, Manako Ihaya, said she saw Reina’s point.) Professor Turkle can sympathize. “Teens feel they are being punished for behavior in which their parents indulge,” she said. And in what she calls a poignant twist, teenagers still need their parents’ undivided attention. “Even though they text 3,500 messages a week, when they walk out of their ballet lesson, they’re upset to see their dad in the car on the BlackBerry,” she said. “The fantasy of every adolescent is that the parent is there, waiting, expectant, completely there for them.”

What is ADHD/Does exercise help?

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed as a disability in children who are inattentive, hyperactive, and impulsive. Children with ADHD suffer from acting with thoroughly thinking through a situation. Although a definite cause of ADHD has not being found, scientists believe a low number of neurotransmitters, heredity history, and environmental toxins play a large correlation with the disability. About 90 percent of children who have ADHD take a stimulant medication such as Adderall to stimulate the pre-fontal cortex which is responsible for attention and impulsivity. Research has also shown that exercise also plays a large role in stimulating neurotransmitters associated with ADHD.

Consumer Report study on Psychotherapy/Counseling

I found this very comprehensive study of the effectiveness of counseling. Here is the abstract and a link to the full study.

The Effectiveness of Psychotherapy

The Consumer Reports Study

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Martin E. P. Seligman
University of Pennsylvania

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Abstract. Consumer Reports (1995, November) published an article which concluded that patients benefited very substantially from psychotherapy, that long-term treatment did considerably better than short-term treatment, and that psychotherapy alone did not differ in effectiveness from medication plus psychotherapy. Furthermore, no specific modality of psychotherapy did better than any other for any disorder; psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers did not differ in their effectiveness as treaters; and all did better than marriage counselors and long-term family doctoring. Patients whose length of therapy or choice of therapist was limited by insurance or managed care did worse. The methodological virtues and drawbacks of this large-scale survey are examined and contrasted with the more traditional efficacy study, in which patients are randomized into a manualized, fixed duration treatment or into control groups. I conclude that the Consumer Reports survey complements the efficacy method, and that the best features of these two methods can be combined into a more ideal method that will best provide empirical validation of psychotherapy.



horan.asu.edu/cpy702readings/seligman/seligman.html

Thoughts about school sports.

Critics argue that, although sports programs allow children to be active and develop greater gross and fine motor skills, children are being forced into win-at-all-costs atmosphere driven by extreme pressure for figure heads such as parents, teachers, and coaches. When the sport starts to become the main focus of the child’s life then their development is especially at risk to these factors. Prevention from these highly stressful environments while still gaining the benefits of the athletic lifestyle would be to make sure the organization emphasize the right aspects of playing a sport. The emphasis must not be placed on winning while losing must be a positive learning experience to the coach. Parents must also make sure that they are not overly involved in the activity and express to their healthy outlets such as free-time if they seem overly stressed by the recreational activity.

How do I choose a therapist?

If you have made the decision to look for professional help you are beginning a journey that takes courage. Even looking for a therapist is an unfamiliar task for most people, and it can be a frightening thing to do. In fact, it can be very uncomfortable for almost anyone.

So where do you start? Ask around and get some feedback from others. Talk to your physician or lawyer, or a friend who has been in therapy for a situation similar to yours. Ask your pastor for a suggestion, or call a national association or a local support group that specializes in your area of concern. Google your area of need on the internet and add the word "psychotherapy." Try to get several names. Particularly look for names that come up more than once.

It is important to look for a therapist who is familiar with your area of concern. Go for a consultation and ask about the help you might need. Make a point of clarifying any questions you have about the therapist. Ask him about his training, or ask her if she is experienced with your type of difficulty. Ask directly about fees, how she might go about helping someone with your problem. Ask about specialty areas.

Ask yourself if the therapist seemed to pay attention to what you say. Does he answer your questions or beat around the bush? Does he seem at ease with you? Do you seem at ease with him? Look until you find a therapist in whom you feel confident. This is important.

Seek therapy that is within your financial means so that you will not have to quit prematurely. Good therapy can sometimes be found at community mental health centers, where fees tend to be lower than in the private sector. However, many community mental health centers are overloaded with work, and you may have be willing to wait for a therapist to become available.

Paying a high fee is no guarantee that you will receive good help, but if you do have to pay a high fee to get the help you need, then it is worth it. A good therapist can help you do lots of good work between sessions to shorten the number of sessions needed. Also, many people improve their effectiveness at work because of therapy to the point that they earn quicker promotions or find the courage to find a better paying job, eventually earning back the money they paid for psychotherapy.

Information about couples counseling

Couple’s counseling is based on the premise that individuals and their problems are best handled within the context of the couple’s relationship. Typically, both partners in the relationship attend the counseling session to discuss the couple’s specific issues. The aim of couple’s counseling is to help a couple deal appropriately with their immediate problems and to learn better ways of relating in general.

Couples therapy or couple’s counseling is a useful modality of help for couples who are experiencing difficulties such as repetitive arguments, feelings of distance or emptiness in the relationship, pervasive feelings of anger, resentment and or dissatisfaction or lack of interest in affection or in a physical relationship with one another.¹

According to the 2000 Census the majority of American society chose to reside or live with a partner. 52% of US households are maintained by married couples, and there is an increase in the number of couples living together from 3.3 million in 1990 to 5.5 million in 2000.² Nationwide in 2000, there were 21,000 marriage and family therapists helping couples work through and deal with their relationship issues.³

In a review of the literature through mid-1996, Pinsof, Wynne, and Hambright (1996: Pinsof & Wynne, 1995) concluded that significant data exists support the efficacy of family and couples therapy and that there is no evidence indicating that couples are harmed when they undergo treatment.⁴

Research outcomes on couples counseling suggest the following:

• At the end of couple’s therapy, 75% of couples receiving therapy are better off than similar couples who did not receive therapy.
• Sixty five percent of couples report "significant" improvement based on averaged scores of marital "satisfaction."
• Most couples will benefit from therapy, but both spouses will not necessarily experience the same outcomes or benefits.
• Therapies that produce the greatest gain and are able to maintain that gain over the long amount of time, tend to affect the couple's emotional bonds and help the spouse's work together to achieve a greater level of "differentiation" or emotional maturity.⁵

In determining as a couple what type of therapist that you wish to receive treatment from keep in mind that according to a large-scale survey of over 4,000 Consumer Reports readers showed in 1995, people in therapy generally rated psychologists, clinical social workers, and psychiatrists about as equally effective in helping their clients.⁶

Couples today feel increasingly isolated and are expected to manage their lives and families without the community supports that in the past were a primary resource in raising children and meeting family needs. Couples in our present culture are less bound by family traditions and are freer than ever before to develop relationships unlike those of the families that they were raised in.⁷

With the aid of a qualified clinician, couples can bring peace, stability and communication back into their relationship thus affecting their lives and the lives of those most impacted by them and their relationship.

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1. Center for Addiction and Mental Health. Couple therapy: Factors influencing a couple’s relationship. Available at www.camh.net/about_addiction_mental_health/couple_therapy_factors.html
2. US Census (2000). Available at http://www.census.gov/
3. US Department of Labor (2000), Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available at http://www.bls.gov/home.htm
4. Friedlander, M. (1997) The scientific basis of couples and family therapy research. Allyn and Bacon: Boston.
5. Wills, R.M (2001) Effectiveness of therapy. Available at http://www.marriagetherapy.org/dssbhmarriage127.html.
6. Consumer Reports (1995) Available at http://www.consumerreports.org/main/home.jsp?source=DG&AFFID=S145MC0
7. Carter B., McGoldrick M., (1989), The expanded family life cycle; Individual, family, and social perspectives. Allyn and Bacon: Boston.