How long could you wait to eat it?
Shy children are particularly vulnerable, the study found.
Shy children are particularly vulnerable, the study found.
Children who experience everyday conflict between their parents have problems processing emotions, new research shows.
These problems can cause anxiety and over-vigilance, leading them to see conflict even when an interaction is neutral.
Shy children are particularly vulnerable, the study also found.
Maltreatment and neglect have been shown to alter how children process emotions.
But this study shows a lower level of adversity can have a negative effect.
Dr Alice Schermerhorn, the study’s author, said:
“The message is clear: even low-level adversity like parental conflict isn’t good for kids.”
For the study, 99 children aged 9-11 were divided into two groups based on how much parental conflict they witnessed.
All were shown pictures of couples engaged in happy, angry or neutral interactions.
Those from high-conflict homes were more likely to see the neutral interactions as either happy or angry — they didn’t seem to know into which category they fitted.
Dr Schermerhorn said:
“If their perception of conflict and threat leads children to be vigilant for signs of trouble, that could lead them to interpret neutral expressions as angry ones or may simply present greater processing challenges.”
Alternatively, Dr Schermerhorn said:
“They may be more tuned into angry interactions, which could be a cue for them to retreat to their room, or happy ones, which could signal that their parents are available to them.
Neutral interactions don’t offer much information, so they may not value them or learn to recognize them.”
Parents of shy children found it hard to identify the neutral picture, Dr Schermerhorn explained:
“Parents of shy children need to be especially thoughtful about how they express conflict.”
Low levels of adversity in the home can have significant effects on children, Dr Schermerhorn said:
“One the one hand, being over-vigilant and anxious can be destabilizing in many different ways.
On the other, correctly reading neutral interactions may not be important for children who live in high conflict homes, but that gap in their perceptual inventory could be damaging in subsequent experiences with, for example, teachers, peers, and partners in romantic relationships.
No one can eliminate conflict altogether, but helping children get the message that, even when they argue, parents care about each other and can work things out is important.”
The study was published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (Schermerhorn, 2018).
There is something very strange happening to adolescence.
There is something very strange happening to adolescence.
The period of adolescence is lasting much longer than it used to, according to some psychologists.
Traditionally, the period of adolescence — when people transition to adulthood — ended at 19-years-old.
Now some researchers believe this transition is not happening until 24-years-old.
Many young people do not marry until their early 30s
A few decades ago many would be married in their early 20s.
Young people are also living with their parents longer than they used to.
They are having children later and spending longer in education.
Many young people in the UK do not leave home until they are 25-years-old.
Professor Susan Sawyer, the study’s first author, said:
“Age definitions are always arbitrary, but our current definition of adolescence is overly restricted.
The ages of 10-24 years are a better fit with the development of adolescents nowadays.”
The study’s authors write:
“An expanded and more inclusive definition of adolescence is essential for developmentally appropriate framing of laws, social policies, and service systems.
Rather than age 10–19 years, a definition of 10–24 years corresponds more closely to adolescent growth and popular understandings of this life phase and would facilitate extended investments across a broader range of settings.
The study was published in the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health (Sawyer et al., 2018).
Up to 1 in 3 people in the US report having been bullied during childhood — most often at middle school.
Up to 1 in 3 people in the US report having been bullied during childhood — most often at middle school.
Bullying is linked to mental health problems in later years, new research finds.
However, these tend to fade over the years, showing the remarkable resilience of many children.
The study followed 11,108 twins who were followed until they were 16-years-old.
Dr Jean-Baptiste Pingault, one of the study’s authors, said:
“Previous studies have shown that bullied children are more likely to suffer mental health issues, but give little evidence of a causal link, as pre-existing vulnerabilities can make children both more likely to be bullied and experience worse mental health outcomes.
We used a robust study design to identify causation.”
Bullying was linked to later conduct problems, depression, anxiety and other psychological problems.
However, five years later, most of these issues had faded away.
Dr Pingault said:
“While our findings show that being bullied leads to detrimental mental health outcomes, they also offer a message of hope by highlighting the potential for resilience.
Bullying certainly causes suffering, but the impact on mental health decreases over time, so children are able to recover in the medium term.
The detrimental effects of bullying show that more needs to be done to help children who are bullied.
In addition to interventions aimed at stopping bullying from happening, we should also support children who have been bullied by supporting resilience processes on their path to recovery.
Our findings highlight the importance of continuous support to mental health care for children and adolescents.”
Dr Sophie Dix, Director of Research at MQ: Transforming Mental Health said:
“This important research is further strong evidence of the need to take the mental health impacts of bullying seriously.
We hope this study provides fresh impetus to make sure young people at risk — and those currently being bullied — get effective help as soon as possible.
More than one in five UK young people say they’ve recently been bullied.
And now this unprecedented study gives the strongest evidence to date that bullying can directly cause many common mental health conditions — and have a serious effect on mental health in the long-term.
But the good news is that it shows that people can and do get better — demonstrating the importance of resilience.
Now we need to understand why this is and develop new ways, through research, to intervene and change lives.”
The study was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry (Singham et al., 2017).
The study is one of the few to follow children over a decade.
The study is one of the few to follow children over a decade.
Spanking can have negative consequences up to 10 years later, new research finds.
The study found that children spanked in infancy had worse behaviour and personalities in their teens.
The study is one of the few to follow children over a decade.
Professor Gustavo Carlo, one of the study’s authors, said:
“Long-term studies on the links among parenting, temperament and children’s social behaviors have been limited, especially among racially diverse, low-income populations.”
The data come from 1,840 mothers and children living below the poverty level.
African-American children were at particular risk.
Those physically disciplined at 15 months were more likely to be delinquent and aggressive in fifth grade.
In European-American children, early spanking was linked to greater negative emotions, such as irritability.
Professor Carlo said:
“Our findings show how parents treat their children at a young age, particularly African-American children significantly impacts their behavior.
It is very important that parents refrain from physical punishment as it can have long-lasting impacts.
If we want to nurture positive behaviors, all parents should teach a child how to regulate their behaviors early.”
The study was published in the journal Developmental Psychology (Streit et al., 2017).
The effect of pressure to be on social media 24/7 on young people’s mental state.
The effect of pressure to be on social media 24/7 on young people’s mental state.
Pressure to be available 24/7 on social media is linked to depression, anxiety and poor sleep amongst teenagers.
Adolescents who are emotionally invested in social media have worse psychological well-being, a new study has found.
They typically felt under pressure to react and respond to texts and posts immediately.
Dr Cleland Woods, the study’s lead author, said:
“Adolescence can be a period of increased vulnerability for the onset of depression and anxiety, and poor sleep quality may contribute to this.
It is important that we understand how social media use relates to these.
Evidence is increasingly supporting a link between social media use and wellbeing, particularly during adolescence, but the causes of this are unclear.”
The study included 467 teenagers who were asked about their social media use and levels of anxiety and depression.
Dr Woods said:
“While overall social media use impacts on sleep quality, those who log on at night appear to be particularly affected.
This may be mostly true of individuals who are highly emotionally invested.
This means we have to think about how our kids use social media, in relation to time for switching off.”
The study was presented at the British Psychological Society annual conference 2015 in Manchester, UK.
Social media image from Shutterstock
The change to the school week that surprisingly improves children’s academic performance.
The change to the school week that surprisingly improves children’s academic performance.
A four-day school week increases young children’s academic performance, a new study finds.
Researchers were surprised to discover that a four-day week did not have any detrimental effects on academic performance.
Dr Mary Beth Walker, one of the study’s authors, said:
“What interested me about our results is they were completely opposite to what we anticipated.
We thought that especially for the younger, elementary school kids, longer days on a shorter school week would hurt their academic performance because their attention spans are shorter.
Also, a longer weekend would give them more opportunity to forget what they had learned.”
Instead, though, math scores were higher for fourth- and fifth-grade students.
Reading scores were unaffected by a switch to a four-day-week.
Some schools in rural areas of the US already operate on four-day weeks to lower costs.
Typically, though, for the four-day week the school day was longer to meet minimum teaching requirements.
Dr Walker said:
“We thought the longer days might give teachers an opportunity to use different kinds of instructional processes.
We also speculated that a four-day school week lowered absenteeism, so students who had dentist’s appointments or events might be able to put those off until Friday and not miss school.
We thought there might be less teacher absenteeism.
My own personal hypothesis is teachers liked it so much–they were so enthusiastic about the four-day week–they did a better job.
There’s some evidence in other labor studies that four-day work weeks enhance productivity.”
The research was published in the journal Education Finance and Policy (Anderson & Walker, 2015).
Child image from Shutterstock
How parents can offset these damaging effects on their children.
How parents can offset these damaging effects on their children.
Growing up in poverty — as do 22% of children in the US — has alarming, long-term effects on the brain, new studies conclude.
This can lead to long-term problems with depression, anxiety, learning difficulties and issues dealing with stress.
Professor Joan L. Luby, one of the study’s authors, said:
“Our research has shown that the effects of poverty on the developing brain, particularly in the hippocampus, are strongly influenced by parenting and life stresses experienced by the children.”
Children from low-income families scored 20% lower on standardised tests, new research has found.
This lowered performance was linked to slow development in the frontal and temporal regions of the brain.
However, these damaging effects of poverty on the brain can be offset.
Parents from low-income families who nurture their children can reduce some of these negative effects.
Teaching parents these nurturing skills — especially those living on low incomes — may be extremely beneficial for children.
Professor Luby writes in an editorial:
“In developmental science and medicine, it is not often that the cause and solution of a public health problem become so clearly elucidated.
It is even less common that feasible and cost-effective solutions to such problems are discovered and within reach.” (Luby, 2015)
The research was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics (Hair et al., 2015).
Image credit: ferendus
Comparison of children in 12 countries reveals the most aggressive, and why.
Comparison of children in 12 countries reveals the most aggressive, and why.
Children who expect others to be aggressive are more aggressive themselves, new international research concludes.
Professor Kenneth A. Dodge, who led the study, said:
“When a child infers that he or she is being threatened by someone else and makes an attribution that the other person is acting with hostile intent, then that child is likely to react with aggression.
This study shows that this pattern is universal in every one of the 12 cultural groups studied worldwide.”
The research compared 1,299 children in the US, Italy, Jordan, Kenya Thailand, China — 12 countries in all.
Children were given scenarios to read involving common situations that could be interpreted ambiguously.
For example, when someone bumps into you it could be an aggressive move, but it’s more likely to be an accident.
Professor Dodge explained the results:
“Our research also indicates that cultures differ in their tendencies to socialize children to become defensive this way, and those differences account for why some cultures have children who act more aggressively than other cultures.
It points toward the need to change how we socialize our children, to become more benign and more forgiving and less defensive.
It will make our children less aggressive and our society more peaceful.”
Countries where children were the least aggressive included Sweden and China.
The most aggressive children were found in Italy and Jordan.
Professor Dodge thinks the way children are socialised is key:
“The findings point toward a new wrinkle to the Golden Rule,
Not only should we teach our children to do unto others as we would have them do unto ourselves, but also to think about others as we would have them think about us.
By teaching our children to give others the benefit of the doubt, we will help them grow up to be less aggressive, less anxious and more competent.”
The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Dodge et al., 2015).
Aggressive child image from Shutterstock
Study overturns long-held belief about how to treat kids with ADHD.
Study overturns long-held belief about how to treat kids with ADHD.
Excessive movement helps the learning of children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a new study finds.
Kids with ADHD often tap their feet, swing their legs and generally move around a lot.
This has often been considered behaviour that needs to be curbed.
New research finds, though, that excessive movement is key to their memory and helps them work on difficult cognitive tasks.
This suggests that traditional approaches to ADHD may be misguided.
Professor Mark Rapport, head of the Children’s Learning Clinic at the University of Central Florida, and one of the study’s authors, said:
“The typical interventions target reducing hyperactivity.
It’s exactly the opposite of what we should be doing for a majority of children with ADHD.
The message isn’t ‘Let them run around the room,’ but you need to be able to facilitate their movement so they can maintain the level of alertness necessary for cognitive activities.”
The study involved 52 boys, 29 of whom were diagnosed with ADHD.
All were asked to perform a series of tasks to check their working memory.
Working memory is vital to how we reason, learn and understand the world.
For example, the children had to sort out a series of letters and numbers.
While they performed the task, the children were observed and taped.
Professor Rapport explained that children with ADHD performed better when they moved around:
“What we’ve found is that when they’re moving the most, the majority of them perform better.
They have to move to maintain alertness.”
In contrast, children without ADHD performed worse when they moved around more.
The results tie in with a previous study finding that the excessive movement of hyperactive children is linked to their thinking.
When they are not thinking hard, they don’t move around so much.
The new study was published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology (Sarver et al., 2015).
Jumping child image from Shutterstock
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