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.
"Ask Howard" Blog
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
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
Population: 15,100
Work has started on the new commuter rail!
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
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)