Connecting the Dots Between Infant Temperament and Future Success

• August 18, 2011 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

What factors will ultimately determine a child’s ability to succeed in life? While measures like socioeconomic status might allow a child to start off on the right foot, current research is delving into the nature of temperament and how that affects a person’s ability to successfully navigate life’s many challenges.   If temperament is pre-determined, there’s not much a parent can do, but if nurture plays a role, then how can parents help their child have the best quality of life?

While temperament has long been thought of as something innate, recent research has demonstrated that only some aspects are genetic, while others are environmental.

On the genetic side, as any parent will agree, much of an individual’s personality manifests very early on in the infant’s life. Parents with more than one child often note that one of their children seems easygoing from day one, but another child is demanding. One child may be outgoing and social, while their sibling may be more shy or withdrawn.

As we consider how these seemingly innate traits develop, we cannot ignore the fact that the environment – from parental attention to nutrition – exerts a strong influence on a child’s personality development. Current research tells us that a pregnant mother’s iron levels can affect the disposition of her child. Emerging data gleaned from animal research indicates that the quality of maternal parenting styles, such as the way a mother nurses her infants or the amount of maternal grooming, affects the temperament of her offspring.

An interesting question arises: How do these early manifestations play out as the child matures? For example, will an infant who is able to self-calm herself in stressful situations by turning away from aversive stimuli or sucking her thumb, for example, continue to exhibit self-regulatory behaviors as she gets older?

Considering the interplay between innate versus cultivated aspects of temperament, what actions can a parent take to affect the development of a child’s personality to give that child the best chance at personal satisfaction, academic achievement and successful relationships later in life? As the above research – and our own parental gut instincts – suggest, we can set them up by providing:

• Excellent nutrition
• Logical, predictable rules for living with others
• Optimal environments and schedules for sleep
• Lots of interactive play with family and friends
• Less screen time
• Lots and lots of parental love and affection

 

With parents providing these positive factors for their children, every child – from shy to outgoing, from tense to easygoing – will have the best chance at developing a balanced temperament as they mature.

For further study, read: Child Temperament and Parenting, by Samuel Putnam (University of Oregon), Ann Sanson (University of Melbourne), Mary Rothbart (University of Oregon). 

References:

Feder, A; Nestler, EJ; Charney, DS.  Psychobiology and molecular genetics of resilience.  Nature Reviews  Neuroscience 10 (2009) 446 – 457

Related Reading:

Building a Foundation for School Readiness for Low Income Children

The Magical Combination of Love and Limits: Tips for Teaching Positive Behavior

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Categories: Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, behavior, brain development, cognitive skills, decision making, early learning, how children learn, infant brain, Innate abilities, learning environment, learning through play, play

The Need for Physically Active Learning

• July 7, 2011 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

The human mind is most engaged to react and perform at optimal capacity when our hearts are pumping and our blood is flowing. Any athlete will tell you that he or she feels most alive and sharp when they are in the midst of the contest, heart beating hard, mind alert and ready. Given the interconnected nature of how our brains and bodies function, how the brain gets more oxygen and works better when the heart is pumping, it’s easy to see that we are designed not only to learn, but to think best “on our feet.”

In fact, this concept extends far beyond circulation alone; physical activity has been shown to have substantive affects on brain chemistry. In 2003, Sibley and Etnier demonstrated that, for 4-18 year-olds, exercise positively impacts perception skills, IQ, achievement, verbal and math scores, development and academic readiness.^[i] Exercise can affect the release of neurotransmitters key to the learning process, such as norepinephrine (which increases blood flow to skeletal muscles as well as to the brain) and acetylcholine (which can slow the heart rate and contribute to sustained attention).

With these concepts in mind, now imagine the modern classroom. The average student sits for hours a day usually sitting still.  She shouldn’t stand up and stretch, or worse, walk around the classroom. (For goodness sake, that’s distracting to the other students and disrespectful to the teacher.) Physical education programs are getting cut due to shrinking budgets, and recess time is being cut to create more opportunities for test preparation. Obesity and diabetes are dangerously on the rise. Since the early 1970s, the number of overweight students has quadrupled from four percent to seventeen percent. (American Heart Association)

In general, the classroom becomes a place where we expect students to focus the mind and quiet the body. What we’re learning is that this is just not necessarily the best way to go. A new trend in classroom management is bringing this tradition into question. Through what is becoming known as “physically active learning,” educators are not only experimenting with integrating more physical activity into classroom lessons, but they are generating positive results.

According to Jena Mee, a physical education and school health education consultant for the Department of Education, “Research is showing us very persuasively that if students exercise for sustained periods of time before they do challenging work, they perform cognitive tasks better, they remember things better, they can apply their skills better.”^[ii]

In theory, the idea is to break up lessons with short breaks of physical activity that get students up out of their seats and moving around the room. According to eSchool News, “The approach also has been shown to improve attendance and student behavior and reduce discipline referrals.”

As educators under pressure to maximize student academic performance, we often focus on the material and forget that our real goal is to help the whole child. This research is just one more reminder that we need to attend to the body as well as the mind. If we can do both, we will help our students become all that much more successful.

While the research is still developing, you can get the story as reported this past May on eschoolnews.com.

And if you want to explore one idea to bring more physical activity into your classroom, how about using exercise balls instead of chairs?

[i] Sibley B.A. and Etnier J.L. (2003). The relationship between physical activity and cognition in children: a meta- analysis. Pediatric Exercise Science, 15:243-256.

[ii] ‘Physically active learning’ improves test scores, sharpens concentration. eSchool News. May 16, 2011.

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Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: attention, behavior, cognitive skills, effort, elementary school learning, emotions in learning, exercise, health and well being, how children learn, learning environment, learning through play, memory, motivating students, physical education, play, self-esteem, student growth, teacher impact

The Magical Combination of Love and Limits: Tips for Teaching Positive Behavior

• June 9, 2011 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

Young children have so much to learn about life.  One crucial skill they work very hard at learning is how to get what they want or need in a positive way. 

Toddlers do not have very much control and for the most part cannot “think out” appropriate ways to handle frustration or anger. Your little one year old will act impulsively when he is angry with you or other children and may use inappropriate or unacceptable behaviors in response. This often becomes even more exaggerated when your child is tired. The calm, consistent and measured way that you and other caregivers respond to negative behaviors will shape your child’s ability to gradually develop self-control and learn appropriate ways to handle stressful social situations.  

Hitting and biting, as well as pushing, throwing toys, books, sand or mud, and yelling or temper outbursts continue to be treated as unacceptable behaviors you want to handle by enforcing time-outs immediately after the event occurs. Waiting even a few minutes to enforce a time-out makes it difficult for a toddler to understand what the time-out is for. Once your child has calmed down you can bring her back into the situation she was removed from. As she plays appropriately you can provide a little praise to help her understand the difference between positive behaviors and her prior unacceptable behavior.

By 18-20 months of age, begin to teach your toddler the word “sorry” so that if she does show an unacceptable behavior toward another child or an adult, she learns to pair an apology to the offended person with the behavior.  This provides a verbal scaffold with the action so that the child is building language to help his learning.  

You may often find that because of your fatigue and frustration with a young child who does not yet have very much self control you become tempted to yell or spank your child. You are human just as is your child and these are natural tendencies.  But, try to avoid yelling at your child or resorting to slaps, shaking or spanking in response to a negative behavior. By using a calm but firm voice with your toddler and the consistent response of moving your child to a quiet area removed from the current situation (time-out) you will model the kind behavior you are trying to instill in your child and give him, and yourself, time to calm down.

If your toddler seems to show temper outbursts very frequently or does not respond to timeouts and the undesirable behaviors continue, consult your physician to rule out physical problems that might be causing pain or discomfort. If those do not seem likely or have been ruled out, you may want to consult with a behavior specialist. These professionals can help you develop consistent, constructive approaches for managing the behavior of your toddler. A few sessions with a good child behavior specialist could save you time and money in the future if the negative behaviors persist or increase during the toddler years.

As your child progresses through the first year, continue to set limits for special types of play activity and behaviors that might be appropriate in some situations but not in others. For example, a child needs to have plenty of exercise but there are situations where your child may have to sit still. A dentist’s chair, the first haircut, airplane take-offs and landings are situations where your child needs to limit physical activity. Similarly, restaurants and other public places provide excellent opportunities to teach your child polite behavior and consideration of others. There are situations where it is acceptable to play with toys and others where it might not be, like a church service or solemn occasion, for example.

Setting limits teaches your toddler to be considerate and thoughtful of others and helps build social skills.  When your toddler learns how to use constructive behaviors to reach her goals, she will feel happier and more in control, and so will you.

Related Reading:

Traveling with a Toddler

Early Learning Success Leads to a Leg Up in Life

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Categories: Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: behavior, early learning, how children learn, play, self-esteem, toddler

Limiting Young Children’s Screen Time for Long-Term Health

• June 1, 2011 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

Technology, in the form of videos, television, computers, tablets, and video games increasingly dominates our entertainment time.  In the United States, there are videos and other technology products available for children as young as a few months old. For many, as soon as babies have the coordination to sit up by themselves, we have them looking to screens for entertainment. The success of these videos geared towards babies and toddlers speaks to our growing parental dependence upon screens to entertain our children.

The problem is that, while this media does entertain our children and can even be educational, too much can create serious, lasting issues. According to the Mayo Clinic, too much screen time can lead to obesity, irregular sleep, behavioral problems, reduced play time (obviously), and other problems. (See Children and TV: Limiting your child's screen time, Mayo Clinic.)

So, living in this modern, media-addicted world, what are some ways to that we can mediate appropriate access to technology?

 

1. Limit time. Pediatricians recommend that toddlers continue to limit TV time and exposure to baby videos.  A little time each day (1/2 hour to an hour), especially before dinner, when your child may become cranky or your need to do chores or prepare the meal, will probably not be detrimental.
2. Choose educational content. Try to find age appropriate educational programming on PBS. Public broadcast companies work very hard with child development experts to make certain their content is appropriate and beneficial for young audiences.
3. Avoid highly commercial programming. This is a tough one, but the commercials on network television can “glorify” toys that your child really does not need, and create expectations around “buying” new toys that are neither necessary nor constructive for your child. As your child gets older and plays with other children, which you do want to encourage, he will probably be exposed to plenty of commercial television. This is your chance to keep it to a minimum, at least in these formative young years. 
4. Unplug your toddler to free their creativity. Try to avoid toddler computers and electronic books for children this age. A one to two year old needs to master walking, running and climbing as well as speech and language. Electronic books, toys and games do so much on their own that they leave little opportunity for your child to “invent” new ways to play with them or new things to do.

In the grander scheme, it comes down to a question of time. Every minute of childhood spent in front of a screen is a minute not spent doing other things. Imagine what those “other things” could be: playing outside; riding a bike; building a castle out of rocks and twigs; reading a book; creating a piece of art.

The more mindfully we can help our children manage their time when it comes to screens and how that balances with their other activities, the better off they will be in the long run.

Related Reading:

Fun Science Experiments for Classroom or Home

Fit Bodies Make Fit Brains: Physical Exercise and Brain Cells

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Categories: Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: behavior, exercise, health and well being, learning through play, play, student growth, technology in education, toddler

Why Your Brain Loves Chocolate

• February 10, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

As mid-February rolls around, two subjects, hand in hand, start winding their way into our societal consciousness. Like it or not, you probably have two items “on the brain” these days: love and chocolate.

Now, I sincerely hope you have an affinity for love. Likewise, probability indicates that you most likely have an affinity for chocolate. But what is it about chocolate that has all of us running to the store on Valentine’s Day to procure those shiny red boxes for our loved ones?

Consider the sensations that love creates in the brain. When we are in love, what do we feel? What are the elemental feelings and emotions that a true, heart-felt loving relationship create?  Think about the sensations associated with a budding romantic bond; being with that other person creates feelings of well-being and centeredness. We feel stimulated and awake in their presence, aware of their every word and move. We feel pleasure just being in the same room with them.

Now, consider chocolate. As it turns out, there are an extensive number of compounds in chocolate – about 380 – a number of which can have profound effects on our brain chemistry and contribute to these same feelings and sensations that accompany courtship and love.

Imagine that you have just received that delightful box from your loved one. You lift off the flimsy, red cardboard top, slip off that sheet of paper, and within you find a dozen small brown paper cups, each gently holding one of these delicious trifles. You pick the darkest one in the box and pop it in your mouth. Then what happens?

As you chew, savor and swallow, your body begins to digest and metabolize those 300+ compounds. Here are a few of them and their affects:

• Tryptophan and serotonin: They create feelings of relaxation and well-being.
• Caffeine: This psychoactive substance creates temporary alertness.
• Xanthines: This mild stimulant occurs naturally in the brain and, like caffeine, increases wakefulness.
• Theobromine: This stimulant and vasodilator increases blood flow.
• Phenylethylamine: This compound stimulates the brain to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of pleasure and motivation.
• Anandamide: This neurotransmitter activates pleasure receptors in the brain.
• Flavonols: Found also in foods like red wine, blueberries and green tea, these compounds boost blood flow to key areas of the brain for two to three hours after being metabolized, creating effects similar to those of a mild analgesic (painkiller) like aspirin.[i]

While a great number of researchers continue to unravel the details of how the compounds in chocolate affect brain chemistry, in reading this list, the simple question that comes to my mind is this:

If you were in a courtship situation, wouldn’t you take actions to engender these same sensations in your prospective mate? If in having the object of your desires consume a cocoa-based gift you can create associations within their mind connecting you with feelings of stimulation, pleasure, wakefulness, relaxation, well-being and even relief of pain, doesn’t that bode well for the development of love?

To be accurate, many of these compounds must be metabolized in large quantities to create noticeable effects. For example, Christian Felder of the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that a 130-pound person would have to eat 25 pounds of chocolate at one time to experience an intoxicating effect.[ii] (Please, no matter how tempted you might be, don’t try this at home.)

Of course, in the end, we cannot ignore the simple sensations of eating chocolate that make it such a widely-loved experience. Researcher Daniele Piomelli, in his studies of chocolate, speculates that the ingredients, smells, tastes and textures of chocolate alone can be enough to induce feelings of pleasure.[iii]

So with those thoughts in your brain, make it a wonderful Valentine’s Day.

For additional reading, check out Brain Cannabinoids in Chocolate(published in Nature, August 22, 1996), Prescription-based Chocolate by Jon Marino (2004), and Why Women Need Chocolate by Debra Waterhouse (1995).

[i] ”Boosting Brain Power – With Chocolate,” Science Daily (2007, February 22).

[ii]Ellen Kuwana, “Discovering the Sweet Mysteries of Chocolate,” Neuroscience for Kids (2010, October 1).

[iii]Ciampa, Linda. “Researchers say chocolate triggers feel-good chemicals,” CNN (1996).

My Favorite Chocolate:

TCHO

Related Reading:

Food and the Brain

Educating Kids about Nutrition and the Brain

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Categories: Brain Research

Tags: behavior, health and well being

How Much Sleep Do Children Need?

• February 1, 2011 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

Sleep is essential to health and well-being as well as performance in work and play. Sleep and wake cycles appear to be regulated by the brain. And, although sleep allows for renewal of organs of body, it is also vital to cognitive skills in children and adults. Just a small amount of sleep deprivation affects performance for days thereafter.

There are two kinds of sleep that adults and children cycle through during the night, non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREMS) which accounts for about 80% of sleep and occurs more frequently during the first half of the night and rapid eye movement sleep (REMS) that accounts for the other 20% as is more prevalent during the second half of the night.. Rapid eye movement occurs when we dream as our eyes dart back and forth under our closed eyelids. Despite this complex nature of sleep performance during the day is dependent on the total number of hours of sleep.[i]

Children need much more sleep than adults and it is important that they have schedules and an environment that conducive to adequate sleep. There is a great deal of scientific evidence regarding the importance of sleep to the developing brain yet our nations’ children are not getting enough.

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) conducted a Poll in 2004 to determine the amount of sleep our nations’ children are receiving and factors that are affecting the quantity and quality of sleep our children receive.[ii]  In general they found that our nations’ children from birth through adolescence are sleep deprived: infants are getting one to two hours per day less sleep than experts recommend and toddlers through school aged children average from one half hour to two hours less per day.

Expert recommendations are provided below with U.S. averages in parentheses.

• 14-15 hours sleep per day for children aged 3-11 months  ( U.S. infants average is 12.7)
• 12-14 hours of sleep a day for children aged 1-3 years (U.S. toddlers average 11.7)
• 11-13 hours per day for children aged 3-5 children  (U.S. preschoolers average 10.4) 
• 10-11 hours for 1st through 5th grades children (U.S. children average 9.5)  

Children who do not get adequate sleep are more likely to develop problems getting to sleep and staying asleep at night. But most important, when children do not get adequate sleep experts report that, unlike adults who act lethargic during the day, children exhibit hyperactivity.

Two problems that experts say decrease the amount of sleep children get are consumption of caffeine during the day and having a television in the bedroom. The poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that 43% of school-aged children, 30% of preschoolers and 18-20% of infants and toddlers have televisions in their rooms.

Another reason some children have trouble staying asleep is sleep apnea (brief stoppage of airflow at night that causes a child to awake). Doctors and parents may not suspect sleep is being affected by snoring because children do not exhibit the same behaviors as adults when they get insufficient sleep. Unlike adults suffering from sleep apnea who complain of fatigue and sleepiness, children may exhibit hyperactivity and aggressive behavior. So parents should tell their pediatricians if their child snores or wakes frequently during the night but also check for sleep deprivation when their child is showing increased activity or aggressive behavior that seems out of character for the child.

Related Reading:

The Imperative of Cultivating Healthy Adolescent Sleep Habits

Sleep: An Essential Ingredient for Memory Function

[i] Kruger, J.M., Rector, D.M., Roy, S., Van Dongen, H.P.A., Belenky, G. and Panksepp, J. (2008) Sleep as a fundamental property of neuronal assemblies. Nature Reveiws Neuroscience. 9, 12, 910-919

[ii] The National Sleep Foundation website contains a paper which summarizes the 2004 poll.www.sleepfoundation.org.

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Categories: Family Focus

Tags: behavior, health and well being, sleep, toddler

Considering the Consequences: The Development of Childhood Decision-Making

• January 27, 2011 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

One of the key lessons that children learn in school—as in life—is how to make good decisions. In so many ways, life is a sequence of decision-making moments, with every possible path bifurcating into new results, lessons and experiences.

But how does a child’s mind work in approaching and processing decisions? How does the difficulty of a decision—as well as the anticipated consequence of punishment or reward—affect future choices?

In the 2005 study, "Characterization of Children’s Decision Making: Sensitivity to Punishment Frequency, Not Task Complexity", Crone, Bunge, Latenstein and van der Molen researched and discussed this exact question.

Using a computerized variant of a standard task, the researchers studied how children of various ages approached decision-making moments. Here’s how it worked:

• The Task: Children were asked to perform two versions of a computerized decision-making task that varied in complexity.
• The Consequences: Researchers varied the frequency of how long the consequences of a decision (i.e., punishment) were delayed after each decision.
• The Results:
  • Sensitivity to consequences increased only when punishments were presented infrequently.
  • The complexity or difficulty of the task did not appear to have an effect on the child’s ability to perform it.
  • Generally boys outperformed girls by making better choices.
  • Overall, older children (ages 7-12) appear comparatively unconcerned about the future except for when the potential for future punishment is high.

Now, this is all very interesting scientifically-speaking, but what about the practical insights we can glean from this study?

In school, students face decision-making moments throughout the school day, in choosing right answers in the classroom, in selecting materials in the library, and in making activity choices on the playground. In each situation, their minds—in different ways at each developmental stage of childhood—are predicting consequences and weighing outcomes.

As educators, the more aware we are of their developmental abilities in how those decisions are made, the better we can help guide each individual child’s development and learning for success.

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Categories: Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: behavior, decision making, executive function

Ok, so you made a mistake. But look what you learned!

• January 26, 2011 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

As an educator, I want to see students putting forth the absolute best effort they can, each and every time they attempt a task. But what might happen if we created a classroom culture where making mistakes were more integral to the learning process? What if failure were discussed openly and positively as a key part of the learning experience?

In most traditional schools today, when we look at the grade system,
A-B-C-D-F, we see the F at the bottom of the scale. It says, “You’ve attempted this task and not performed up to standards.” There is little to no upside to the grade. It is the label we give to an effort that has delivered a less than satisfactory performance. For the person who has received it, it is a dead end. It can be painful and embarrassing, dragging down his self-esteem and reinforcing an image of himself as a failure.

As educators, the trick for us is to turn each of these moments--each of these mistakes and failures--into a beginning and a learning opportunity, and cultivate that same perspective in our students’ minds as well. Scientifically speaking, at the moment of failure, the brain is primed to absorb the information needed to perform the task successfully the next time around. In short, when we have the perspective that we can learn from our mistakes, parts of the frontal lobe are engaged when we make errors and that helps draw attention to those errors. (See Motivation to do Well Enhances Responses to Errors and Self-Monitoring, Bengtsson, Lau and Passingham, 2009.)                                         

What if we became more cognizant of these ideas and harnessed their power in the classroom? 

For a moment, suspend your image of the classroom where statements like “I must always get the right answer” represent the mindset. Instead, imagine a classroom designed around statements such as:

• “While I will learn by studying and listening, I will learn the most by doing.”
• “I will demonstrate my abilities through successes, but I will learn through my mistakes.”
• “Mistakes are a way for me to get feedback so I can do it right the next time.”
• “This classroom is a safe place where I am encouraged to try, to experiment, to fail and to use those failures to learn even more.”

Interestingly, these statements embody a “growth mindset,” which we wrote about last year. In short, based on the research of Carol S. Dweck of Stanford University, if we teach students to be go-getters who face challenges as learning opportunities with open-mindedness as opposed to a fear of failing, their brains are more apt to learn effectively.                                                                                                                         

It is essential to note that in such a classroom, making mistakes would be clearly differentiated from carelessness and lack of effort, which would not be tolerated.

What would it be like to learn in such a classroom? Students would be encouraged to develop and try new ideas. Getting a wrong answer on a math test represents an opportunity to go back and learn a better way of solving the problem. Students in this classroom learn science by getting out and experiencing material directly in the field. They learn to USE the scientific method as opposed to reading about it in textbooks or performing formulaic lab demonstrations.

What kind of professional might that person grow to be?  Imagine the mindset of the student who comes out of a system founded on these ideas. This person is an innovator who has little fear of trying new ideas. This is someone who has been encouraged to think outside the box. This is also a person who, when she makes mistakes, sees them as a moment to learn and improve. Each failure represents a look ahead to the future. This person sees herself as a problem-solver.

As countless economists, sociologists and other thinkers have posited, the future will be owned by those who can innovate, to try new ideas and, certainly, risk failure. These are skills that we can and must impart to our students. And we can start doing so by more highly valuing the making of mistakes and transforming them into powerful teachable moments.

For further reading, check out:

1. The Value of Mistakes, by Jeffrey Agrell
2. You’ve Made a Mistake. Now what?, by Amy Gallo

 

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Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, behavior, emotions in learning, how children learn, learning environment, motivating students, self-esteem, student reading growth

10 Ways to Reduce Holiday Stress

• December 23, 2010 by Carrie Gajowski

The holiday season is upon us once again!  This is typically a busy time for a lot of people.  The music, the enticing foods, gifts to buy and wrap, parties, family time – all of these things make the holidays both fun-filled times and times of high stress. 

I seem to remember the more stressful times better than the fun times, especially when it comes to flying home from San Francisco to New England each year.  There was the year that my luggage got lost; arriving just in time to fly back to the bay area after the holidays were over.  That was the year that I learned to pack more in the bag that actually gets carried on the plane with me.    Or the year I got everything packed and arrived at an airport jammed with other holiday travelers only to find out that my flight had been cancelled.  Fortunately, it was re-scheduled to get me home just in the nick of time to get together with my family.   These were definitely anxiety-producing times for me around the holidays!

I found a great article written by the staff at the Mayo Clinic that outlines 10 ways to help with the stress around the holidays and perhaps even help you make all of the challenges around the holidays fun and enjoyable.  Some of the suggestions take a bit of thought and pre-planning but might be worth trying! 

I will try idea # 6 when I head to airport just before the New Year to fly from New England back to San Francisco.  By planning ahead, I will get the airport 2 hours early to make sure I have enough time to check in and be at the gate well before the plane takes off.  I will also take a deep breath and be ready for anything that happens!  I hope these tips are helpful in creating a wondrous, magical holiday season this year and for years to come.  Happy Holidays!  

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Categories: Family Focus

Tags: behavior, health and well being, stress

Beating Bullying for Better Learning

• December 16, 2010 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

In March of 2000, nine year-old Verity Ward of Great Britain had been pushed to the limit. She had been physically and emotionally bullied by fellow students at her school. They had repeatedly kicked, slapped and otherwise abused her for over eighteen months.

At the time, after she and her family tried unsuccessfully to have the problem addressed by the school, she said, “"I just want them to stop. I can't take it anymore. I used to love coming to school, but now I hate it." (BBC News, 2000)

Sadly, Verity’s experience is somewhat common. In a 2001 survey funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, sixteen percent of U.S. school children reported being bullied sometime during the current term. (National Institute of Health, 2001) Bullying is something we tend to think of as taking place between individuals or small groups. The reality is that such destructive interactions not only affect the lives and learning of those directly involved, but those affects can ripple outward, negatively affecting the  across classrooms and even the entire school.

While bullying can encompass any number of behaviors, the general definition involves one individual using an imbalance of power to dominate another. While this imbalance can be real or perceived and exist between individuals or groups, it manifests in a combination of three ways: physical, verbal and psychological abuse. Interestingly, males tend to be bullies and/or bullied more often than females. Between males, physical and verbal bullying is more prevalent. Among females, verbal and psychological forms tend to be more common. (U.S. Department of Justice, June 2001)

Bullying can create a stressful, anxiety-filled environment where it becomes difficult for individual victims, classrooms and even the whole of a school population to learn effectively. Studies have already shown that victims of bullying are more likely to have cognitive deficits than their peers and score lower on tests that measure executive function. Researchers suspect that the lower academic performance in such individuals may be a result of the chronic stress that can actually kill brain cells. (Seattle Times, March 2010)

So what can an institution do to remedy the problem? In the 1980s, researcher Dan Olweus of Norway implemented a multi-level intervention program to address bullying:

1. At the school level, he surveyed the bullying problems, increased supervision, held school-wide assemblies, and offered staff training to increase awareness.
2. In classrooms, he helped to establish rules against bullying and helped conduct classroom meetings--including parents--to discuss the problem of bullying at school.
3. Finally, he performed individual interventions with those identified as bullies and victims. (Limber and Nation)

The results of Olweus’s work were more than promising. In just two years, reported incidents of bullying had dropped by half. What is more, students reported drops in truancy and vandalism and theft, and, maybe most importantly, they characterized their school environment as “more positive as a result of the program.” (Ibid.)

While bullying is an extremely serious and prevalent problem in schools across our nation, work such as that of Olweus gives us as educators a clear response. The fact is, we must respond. We cannot let bullying go un-addressed as it so often is. In taking actions that involve whole school populations as opposed to just the bullies and victims, we make the issue a public one. We give the victims a voice, and we give every member of the school community the tools to talk about and deal with the issue head-on.

In the end, we can relieve the victims of their pain, freeing them to take advantage of all the school has to offer. We can also help bullies build self-esteem and positive relationships. As educators, it is our responsibility to help every individual--bully as well as victim--to find their positive life path and achieve success.

For more information, check out these articles:

1. Bullying Widespread in U.S. Schools, Survey Finds, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, April 24, 2001.
2. Addressing the Problem of Juvenile Bullying, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Fact Sheet, June 2001.
3. Bullying Among Children and Youth, Limber, Susan, and Nation, Maury.

 

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Categories: Brain Research, Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic problems, behavior, cognitive skills, emotions in learning, executive function, health and well being, learning environment, self-esteem