Self Blame

Victims of bullying go through a variety of emotions as a result of their continued battled will over time. Feeling responsible and deserving in some cases, victims get used to being physically and mentally broken by bullying and some accept their whipping-boy label. Self-blame results when the victims spirit is dead and they have embraced the treatment they recieve what they are meant to always be. I think self blame in some cases is pathetic and should be called cowardice. However, if this kind of terrorizing others occurs at school, then the victims need to be helped by adult faculty.

Self-blame

The issue of self blame with victims from bullying is intriguing because it further raises questions as to whether this may be a positive way of handling a situation, or if it may have negative outcomes further on. This type of distraction/avoidance style seems that it may be a temporary fix for the immediate emotions that are present. But this may come back and be negative further down the road.

If a child goes about blaming something they are doing or how they are acting, they are still not thinking they are good enough. They will constantly find explanations or reasoning for a bad outcome and still be continually the one to blame. Essentially it seems it eventually will lead back to having problems because they are the way they are. If children are constantly trying to control or change their actions, they make outward changes as to who they are. And essentially this could be negative because they could lose their sense of self or individuality. This may be more confusing in the long run when they can't even identify who they have become because they were constantly trying to control the situation to avoid the feelings or emotions that had arose from the bullying.

Multiple Intelligences

I like the theory of multiple intelligences. I have known many people whose intelligence couldn’t be measures by academic testing alone. Many of these people had almost super intuitive spacial relation skills, yet they could not chart it out in mathematical form. Or another person had a knack for divergent thinking, but was scolded when her ideas, though sound, were not the “correct” answer.

I think as a whole our society understands that there are different intelligences, but it has yet to figure out the importance, and possible application of each, I think we should make a push for education toward professionally recognizing these intelligences, possibly leading our society into a greater tomorrow.

Piaget

Piaget seemed to pave the way for modern day psychology and how to incorporate children's thinking/learning processes. Allowing this new theory into the field has changed how studies have been conducted when using children as the subject.

The step by step learning process by children that Piaget proposed disproved the blank slate theory where children are not completely copying the environment around them. He proposed that children are "built" to learn and not forced to learn on their environment.

This may also have partially played into the development theory of genetics...meaning a child is pre-disposed or pre-determined to an outcome no matter their environment. Piaget is significant in the developmental progressions that has allowed us to come so far in the modern psychology field.

Childhood obesity and onset puberty in young girls

I find it quite compelling that evidence shows the increased obesity rates are correlating with female girls entering puberty at younger ages that were once considered to be abnormal. With obesity continuing to increase this is another negative side affect that should strongly be presented when trying to convince parents to take control of the childhood obesity problem.

I believe there is also a cultural correlation when dealing with childhood obesity because, especially in the south, their cooking is viewed as an important part of their culture and not viewed as a bad thing. Obesity rates were shown to be more common in african american girls compared to white girls, which can show a correlation in the differences in culture.

The fact that young girls are entering puberty at younger ages could possibly have negative outcomes. However, longitudinal studies over a long period of time would need to be done in order to determine how entering puberty at a younger age could effect them when they are older.

The Kid's Aren't All Right? Catch a Wave!

I found this article to be very interesting. I think stress can lead to many neurological problems and can affect the development psychology of all ages. Stress management is a very important activity to follow to help control stress, help calm our minds so that we can figure out how to avoid it in the future. But what is the first stepping stone? Exercise? In today society it is hard to find the time or the space to spend for an hour of exercise if we can’t afford it in the first place. Meditation could be a technique to employ, but let’s take that to another level. Why not add simple mental exercises? Think of focusing on a relaxing place or calming objects, maybe something that makes us happy.

I think that we should take more time to not only exercise physically but also mentally. Maybe we should do what some European companies do and make three month vacations mandatory, so that we don’t burn out in life. I think this would help stress of all ages.

Surf's Up!

Bilingual Baby Word Development

After the test today (yeah I know I’m slacking) I was caught up in the world of bilingual learning concepts and did some extended research on the topic from a few weeks ago. I stumbled on an article from 2007 that outlined a study on differences in cognitive learning process of syllables and words between monolingual babies and those who were bilingual. The researchers found that bilingual babies took longer to understand words or pick up on differing syllables theoretically due to attention be spent on associations between words and objects rather than the sound information that makes up a word.

Here’s the Link if anyone wanted to check it out : http://www.physorg.com/news110174233.htm

Kids Aren't Alright

The rapid increasing frequency of stress in today's youth is troubling, but not surprising. Hardships are present all over the country as many Americans continue to be unemployed. The youth of today are faced with many obstacles while growing up. Parents around the country are struggling to put a roof over their families and food on the table, and many parents who are strapped financially and stressed themselves, have as a result, cut family time. This trend is disturbing because in trying to better their families lives, parents are neglecting their relationships with their children. I think that many people are afraid of losing employment, and are putting money ahead family. Despite the current bleak reality, I think many kids and young adults are stepping up and rising to the challenges of today's tough economic demands. On the flip-side, many Americans will continue suffer financially, and psychologically.

No Child Left Behind

I know I'm not the only one that did something on the No Child Left Behind Act but I feel like this has affected me kind of or more of my mom the most for she is a teacher at a Jr. High and she has to deal with the NCLB Act all the time. The Act, that George W. Bush passed, had good intentions but in all reality it became a major problem for most public schools today. It created a lot of stress on teachers to change their style of teaching so that they can keep their jobs. For most teachers that meant teaching for the test rather than teaching for the gaining of knowledge. This also meant that their was a bigger use of standardize testing than testing that was giving by the teacher that probably knew how the students learned better than the government would. This also brought a bigger stress on school district advisors who had to keep making sure that the requirements were always met or they had to do a radical change and bring in new teachers for the whole school. This usually meant that the teachers that a lot of students felt comfortable with and were able to learn from were fired because of some bad test scores. The NCLB Act was literally probably one of the most detrimental Acts that effect public school usually resulting in a lot worse teaching and more stressful learning enviroments.

Cyberbullying and Growing Up Online

Frontline put out a few videos on the topic of children and growing up online. The first article "Growing up Online", dealt with the prospect of the internet being its own social environment. One section that I found relating to my research for my debate was a section on cyberbullying and the case of Ryan Halligan's suicide in 2003. After Ryan's suicide his father was able to piece together some information about his sons death that led him to a boy with whom Ryan was conversing about suicide. The boy denied the conversations ever took place. When Ryan's dad confronted his parents they were completely oblivious to the fact that their son was even online let alone talk about the topic of suicide.

I bring this up because I believe that social internet behavior has not been correctly taught or even taught at all to a younger generation which is contently connected to the cyber world. I think this would be a good opportunity for schools to dive into this subject and teach civil behavior for internet use to its student at a mainstream level.

The second Frontline video investigated the hyper-connectivity of today's society, the part that interested me the most was the internet addiction treatment centers in South Korea and China, who has seen a lot of trouble stemming from the fact of people being hyper-connected.

It anyone finds the time here are the two videos to watch:

Growing up Online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/view/
Digital Nation : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Sex Ed.

Sexual Education in schools has probably been the most undermined idea on how to lower teen pregnancy for years. Barely any schools have a "sex ed." program in their schools. It might be a reason of morals or just that there is really no concrete way to teach kids to either have safe sex or just do abstinence until marriage. Many people think that abstinence would be the smarter way to do that. But, there is really no effective way to teach abstinence without scaring the "sex" out of them. Sex between teens is going to occur despite the protests of most parents. It would be a smarter way for schools to encourage safe sex for the teens. Safe sex is the smarter way for teens to practice safe sex. It is a better and more effective way. It makes the students feel more comfortable with using contraceptives when having sex and it might even make the urge to have sex leave the teenager. Safe sex is just a lot more effective than saying no sex. It would at least educate a lot more teens about the consequences of unsafe sex and also make them more aware of themselves and their actions.

Parents or Pop Culture

Always the conflict between Pop culture and parents have been around sense the creation of T.V. and the increased the emphasis on pop culture that television tends to have most of it's focus on. Especially on a lot of controversial people of pop culture. It seems that most media today is getting their ratings from focusing on the negatives of the world rather than the positives in the world today. This kind of focus seems to be what the media perceives as the way to keep watchers. Also the media seems to be doing a lot of focusing on making someone perfect. Such as the woman with the hourglass figure and shiny, silky hair with perfect complexion. Today it seems that media has started to become unrealistic even to say a fantasy with real life characters. Pop culture tends to take a kind of move towards how the old ways of thinking. Such as focusing on a white male as a dominant figure.

The white male is used a lot more today in media than many would expect. It even kind of seems normal to most people. You rarely see more groups of different ethnic groups or women in television series, music videos, or even video games. It seems like media that is being exposed to children constantly is almost a giant fantasy for every kind of morals and movements, that have been created in the real world, to be discarded and forgotten about. To many parents this almost seems like a kind of a destruction of the things that they have been trying to teach their kids from toddler years. This kind of destruction of morals and movements is kind of created through a wide spread ignorance and straight up turning the other cheek towards the change. It seems like media is moving back to the old ways of repression slowly moving closer and closer to the line that is set by the people that control what is being seen and heard.

Antisocial Adolescents and Facial Recognition

Recently we talked about the sociometrics of adolescent peer group relations and the different levels that the theory entailed. I recently found an article on a preliminary study done on antisocial behavior in adolescent girls. The study done by researchers at University of Cambridge was based around the idea of facial recognition, focusing on the difficulty of recognizing anger or disgust over the other four basic expressions (fear, surprise, happiness and sadness). The results were pretty well summed up with this statement.
“The study also shows that although girls and boys with severe antisocial behavior have the same problems recognizing emotions, the girls - whose problems began when they were teenagers - more closely resembled boys whose antisocial behavior began in childhood.”
There will be a follow up study that will focus on brain imaging to expand the research on the antisocial behavioral differences between adolescent boys and girls.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news192377654.html

Rule Domains

Establishing parental rules is easy for parents who remember their own childhood (assuming that they turned out okay). Now its their turn to have the authority and wield the power. Although every family establishes their own unique code of laws, all parents will hear their children cry, "That's not fair"! I feel that parents that need to give children certain freedoms in order to get them to listen when they don't want to later. I believe that kids respond to parents inversely to the way that their parents address them. Parents need hold the authority while not being too overbearing and controlling. It takes time and experience to learn what is too strict and what is too lenient. I believe that using dual perspective is necessary for parents to gain respect and to effectively communicate teachings to their children. Kids get hung up on what is fair, and they see their private domain being violated by one or both parents. Good parents know what is fair and appropriate, kids think they know. It is important for parents to effectively communicate to their children in a manner that the children will respect their judgements. In my opinion, this mutual understanding between children and parents can be achieved and develop into a strong, trusting, and lasting union. In the end, the parents will win. When their children get older and know that they can tell their parents anything, it will make a huge difference in the course their lives

Babies Emotional Perception

Babies have always seemed to amaze scientists with the abilities that they are able to do. Espeically in the field of emotional recognition and output. For example when Sybil Hart started doing experiments in Texas Tech about babies emotions that they experienced. She was able to find out that they were able to experience to Jealousy, extreme jealousy also. It is interesting how we always thought of babies as these simple human being living life in blur of confusion. It was almost like we couldn't believe that humans in such a early stage of life couldn't be able to experience such things or even be able to notice such emotions. Babies have been proven to be able to even feel empathy for fellow babies that are crying next to them ,usually resulting in both babies crying as an act to help soothe the distressed baby. This made a interesting kind of thought and almost make many scientists start to disbelieve many of the old theories they believed to be true.

Divorce affecting our children

Divorce is a big problem in developing children's life. Over half of marriages are doomed to failure after just a few years. This statistic is upsetting because not only is marriage sacred, but we are putting our children through tough times during this period. Children that go through divorces have to deal with family drama, depression, and it really is a confusing time for the children. Most kids end up getting a new step family, which may cause even more stress on the child because it is an uncomfortable experience. Divorce is a problem that adults put on themselves, but it negatively affects their relationships around them especially their children. I feel as if more parents should take responsibility for their children during a divorce being there for their child no matter what, to help them cope with this painful time. I believe if this is done that more children will be have a positive attitude, handling the pressure and stress from a parents divorce and not letting it affect them ngatively.

No Child Left Behind and Homeschooling

I have two nieces and one nephew that are home schooled. I know that NCLB is controversial. The whole purpose of it was to better children's education. I was shocked to find out that home schooled kids do not need to take any standardized tests or any aptitude test in order to receive a high school diploma. I realize that to get into colleges they need to have SAT or ACT scores. I just wonder if not having them take any type of test puts them at a disadvantage. There are few key areas that do really concern me.
I feel that sometimes the home schooled children are not as socialized as well as public school children. At the same time, it does protect them from bullying and peer pressure to an extent. I don't really know if this is a positive or negative effect.
I also am concerned about their actual education. Even if home schooling parents don't follow NCLB, I still believe some type of standardized tests should be used to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching. What if someone was saying they were home schooling their children, but they really were not teaching the child? I just think it is so scary because these kids could be put at a major disadvantage for the rest of their lives if their parents are not doing a great job.
Lastly, I do not think that home schooling prepares kids very well for college. If there is not a set schedule, the children do not learn a routine of classes very well. Also, I think with not having to sit in classes and try to get information from lectures puts the children at a disadvantage for college classes. In addition, I do not think that it is very common for the children to receive homework. So, the children never really learn the concept of homework.

Dumbing Down our children

Recently we have discussed how in this day in age we are dumbing down our children. Congratulating them for just mediocre work, when a lot of children cannot read, write, or add. I believe that if we put more pressure on our rising students to be better that we would see great results. With more discipline to strive for better grades I feel as if we could push most kids and the effort is there that they will develop way beyond their potential. If schools try and push students to the moon we may not reach our destination, but may land on a star. Thats how I think the children will turn out if we stop dumbing them down and start pushing them past their potential.

Spanking

Of course violence is something wrong to do especially to your own child. That is what many believe is the problem with spanking. Introducing your kids to spanking for something they did wrong, or against the rules of the house. Spanking though seems to be effective for most kids. In our society there is spanking and non-spanking that goes on in most households for punishments. For most cases, especially in present day America, most parents prefer not to spank their child. I personally believe that only certain kind of children should be spanked, and only certain kind of households. A household that is filled with violence already or a child that is around violence, spanking wouldn't be as effective for a child that lives in a house that isn't exposed to violence that often. The violence in the household even includes violence on T.V. or even violence during play time. Most children themselves find violence to be horrible thing to be part of and when they are spanked they don't want that pain to happen again so they stopped that action that caused the spanking to take place. Other children find violence invigorating so even if they were spanked they probably would get more of a rush of excitement than a rush of guilt and sadness. It really all depends on how the child perceives violence and the effects of violence that makes how effective spanking can be.

Stress and the Developing Child

Throughout a child’s day they will encounter positive, tolerable, and toxic stress. The first two a child can deal handle but the toxic can have detrimental affects. The first is changes in the brain structure itself. It can cause the brain to be smaller and not have as many neural connections. The brain circuits are vulnerable during development and disruption of this development can cause an individual to develop a low threshold for stress. This can cause the child to become overly reactive to adverse experiences throughout their life. Also high levels of stress hormones, such as cortisol, can repress the body’s immunes system. Also high levels of cortisol can damage the hippocampus, which is responsible for learning and memory. These deficits can continue into adulthood.

Parents Treating Autism Specrum Disorder with Marijuana

While doing my blog about kids and medication I kept coming across something interesting. Some parent's are taking it into their own hands to treat a their child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. To treat their children they are giving them medical marijuana. As young as the age of 9 these parents are giving their child this drug. I don’t condemn nor advocate drug use for adults, but in a child as young as 9. They’re still in the cognitive development stage and are psychoactive drug what parents should resort to. Marijuana can have negative affects on the central nervous system and can hinder the memory and movement of the user’s brain. Marijuana contains 400 chemicals 60 of which are cannabinoids. The most active cannabinoid is THC, which affects the brain by binding to and activating specific receptors. These receptors control memory, thought, concentration, time and depth, and coordinated movements. They also affect release and re-uptake of various neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters can affect personality disturbances, depression, and chronic anxiety. Another problem I have with parents’ actions is that this has not been tested: that I could find.

Implementing Prevention Programs

After reading the suicide prevention hand out, I found it to be alarming. Suicidal preventions have traditionally been implemented by things such as suicidal hot lines, which there are over 1,000 in the United States. These hot lines are equipped with trained personal to talk with the distressed or someone showing concerns for someone who may be contemplating suicide. An additional prevention that is utilized is awareness programs implemented in the schools that discuss risk factor, warning signs, and what to do if you feel that a friend or a peer may be showing these alarming signs. What is alarming to me is that despite the increase of implementation on these prevention plans there has not been a significant amount of decreasing suicides rates. I feel that this could be a very hard thing to detect at times but many who are contemplating suicide do show warning signs. Again I feel that with stronger communication ties between teachers and parents this would ultimately help parents stay more connected with their children when away from home. Some of the warning signs of someone contemplating suicide are withdrawal from peer, delinquency or truancy from school, and possibly an increase in aggression. My idea on the truancy and frequent absences from school are factors that are very easily to pick up on due to the fact that not only are the teachers aware of this but other administers are as well. When this is occurring, I believe that this is an opportune time for the student counselors to maybe schedule a few times to meet with the student as well as up the parents. I do agree with the increase implementations of school programs that teach students awareness and severity of suicide but maybe along with that, a reach out program can be preformed multiple times throughout the year, almost like a mental wellness check. This could be a very standardized multiple choice questionnaire with this simple questionnaire it could be possible to identify students that maybe a risk of symptoms leading to suicide. This maybe already in practice but we need to look into ways to identify these at risk students. Most who ultimately commit suicide have shown warning signs and it was not picked up on. Even if this questionnaire saved one life it would be worth it.

Nap Time

Earlier in class we were discussing how different people learn, memory and most other things that go along with that. I came across an article that relates sleeping to better memory and learning. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100422153753.htm

"...after nearly 100 years of debate about the function of dreams, this study tells us that dreams are the brain's way of processing, integrating and really understanding new information," explains senior author Robert Stickgold, PhD, Director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "Dreams are a clear indication that the sleeping brain is working on memories at multiple levels, including ways that will directly improve performance."

I tried relating this information to what we have learned in class this year. At the start of the year when discussing babies we learned that babies sleep quite a bit and continue to for quite a while. This is nature's way of letting them take in their surrounding's and grow physically and mentally. The first few years of life are very critical for learning new things and this new study shows sleeping can help that. I also tried to relate this to adolescent behavior. I know when I was in high school, sleeping was a rarity in my life and seemed to be for others as well. We would usually just "wing it" on test and homework but somehow at least manage to pass the class with a respectable grade. But maybe if we gave ourselves the chance to sleep more, school wouldn't have been so hard and we would have processed what we learned in classes better, making tests and homework not so bad after all. (Well, kind of.)

Multiple Intelligences

The theory of multiple intelligences just makes sense. We all know people that would be strong in some intelligence domains and weaker in others. I would put myself primarily under the logical – mathematical intelligence. I am a math major, and math has always just come easy to me. However, I cannot even conceive composing a complete symphony, or writing a 500 page novel. On the other hand I don’t think Mozart or Shakespeare would’ve done very well in calculus, but that is purely objective.

Our understanding of multiple intelligences is vital for many aspects of our society. We could more accurately judge people and go into careers that we would succeed in. Also the structure of the education system can be greatly improved if this theory is correct. There is no doubt that more research on this subject is needed, but the possibilities are immense.

Adolescent Suicide Prevention

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death between the ages of 15 and 19, and over the last two decades the rate a suicide has increased 2 fold. Since this rise in suicide attention has shifted to focusing on prevention at a local level. Concern for adolescents has increased over the past decade, and it is well justified. There are almost as many suicides are there are homicides. The rate of suicide has increased by nearly 200 percent. Women are more likely to kill themselves than men, but men are four times as likely to complete it.

The most popular form of suicide prevention is suicide hotlines. There are more than 1,000 suicide hotlines in the US. They offer counseling services 24 hours a day usually by trained volunteers. These forms of prevention however are minimally effective in preventing suicidal behavior. A relatively new approach to prevention is a curriculum-based program. Although this program has been running for a while, the program was fairly ineffective. It did not impart knowledge or change the attitudes of many of the participants.

While the paper I read about adolescent suicide was not necessarily cheery, it was quite interesting. The differences in males and females was mostly interesting to me and rather confusing. The article said males complete suicide about 4 more times as often as females, but females attempt suicide at least 3 times as often as males. I could only guess this might have something to do with externalizing and internalizing emotions. Males are typically more aggressive and these aggressive behaviors, towards themselves or others, seems to be very cathartic for most of them by letting our aggression by physical means. Also, when something bothers them, males are known to usually just put it to the back of their mind and forget it so it doesn't bother them anymore. When upset, females tend usually keep their problems in and deal with it in other ways. When I was in high school, girls let out anger and emotions by being rather sneaky. They were more into the "mind games" mode. It reminded me alot of the movie "Mean Girls." Obviously that movie was taken to the far extreme and unrealistic, but the basic ideas that girls can deal with emotions that way is still there. However, those mind games could potentially cause some emotional damage that would probably last for a while, especially when internalized. I guess this is why femals attempt suicide more. Internalizing the mental effects of mind games is hard. The Phoebe Prince story is a good example of what can happen.

God Girls Gone Bad

Today we see sex on TV and in the movies like its no big deal. Little girls see these famous women getting drunk showing some skin and getting a lot of attention for doing these things. These girls want to be just like then because they look up to celebrities, such as, Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton . The things they do impact what the younger generations will do. We see you girls only wanting the designer clothes and purses that the celebrities have. The put on the slutty clothes that are shown on TV and movies. These women have to much influence on young girls. There really isn't that goes by that one of these women are in the news. It's not just teenagers that are under their influence now. It's starting to show that girls as young as first and second grade are starting to fall under their influence. They are beginning to talk and act like these women.

It's the thought that counts

I was watching a show the other night called "Bones." Maybe some of you have seen it. As i was watching a few lines from the show caught my attention and made me think of some of the discussions we had in class about parenting. A main character in the show is an FBI agent with a 8 year old child and he's not married. He had been worried about his "dad" abilities and talked to the psychiatrist on the show. He asked if he was a bad dad for not sending his kid to private school. He was answered "No. You'd be a bad dad if you didn't think that." To me this added a new kind of level to our discussions in class. Now granted it is just a TV show but it is something more to think about. Even if parents don't have the abilities or resources to give their kids all they want, the fact that they still want to, or even think about it, still shows a greater level of caring that should translate to their children. Just because they can't offer the best doesn't mean they wouldn't if they could. As long as the child knows their parents would do more for them if possible should basically count as doing that act because the love or caring that would come out of the situation is still basically there in thought.

Piaget's Legacy

In my mind Piaget is one of the greatest minds when it comes to psychology. He asked questions that no one had asked before. Questions that made people ask why they had ever asked the old questions in the first place. After Piaget people never looked at children and they way they developed in the same way ever again. Although he did most of his work in the 50's, they didn't catch on till the 60's.

Today almost anything to do with developmental psychology has something to do with the questions Piaget asked. His views on cognitive development allowed us to see their development in a step by step process; which led us to see children not as blank slates.Piaget helped us to accept the idea that children's cognitive behavior is intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated. Children basically think and learn because thats the way they are built.

Sexual Education in Schools?

The big question in Sex Education is should a school teach abstinence or safe sex? The abstinence side believe sex should be saved until marriage, or the teaching safe sex will cause more std's, teen pregnancies, and promiscuity. The safe sex side believe that if students are having sex, they should be safe about it. That way std's and teen pregnancies are lowered. Also, many argue with abstinence teaching students are still having sex just unsafely. Thus, causing std's and teen pregnancies.

I believe, that the way to fix this problem is find the middle of the road. Abstinence only should be taught to students under 12, who probably aren't even thinking of sex or having it. Then, from students aged 13-18 they should be taught a combination of both. This would allow the students having sex to be safe, but also sex should be between husband and wife. This would allow both sides points to be taught.

The mystery of fetal life...

After reading this article I was amazed on how clever we are as fetuses in the womb. We are able to hear, taste, smell, feel, and have rapid eye movement. This shocked me because after all this time I never would of thought that so much could be going on for something so little. Fetuses have to fight to survive just as well as a grown adult would strive to survive. For example, twins have to fight over nutrients that are consumed by the mother. That's why some twins have a difference in height or weight. It was also intriguing that having a few alcoholic beverages has no known affect on new born babies. Having a glass on occasion is alright, but to consume six alcoholic drinks a day is ridiculous as I learned that some parents do from this article. Too learn so much from this article that had just a little information about the fetus was fascinating because of what all that there is to learn about what goes on in the womb.

Teaching Abstinence in Schools

After reading this article I believe that abstinence should be taught in the schools. The reason why is because of the fast growing rate of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. When children are around the age of puberty though and have questions in sex education, I feel as if they should be answered. Not to take Lickona's method and just say sex is wrong before marriage. Even though I feel as if sex education should be taught we need to be teaching abstinence a lot more. I think that teaching abstinence would reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. I also feel that if kids now days are focusing to much on sex and not focusing on the important things. If my high school was taught abstinence I believe that we wouldn't of had the high rates of teen pregnancy that we had. Teaching abstinence is a controversial subject, but i feel as if it is well needed in today's curriculum.

Impact of Televesion...

After reading this article I was shocked to find out the statistics about the amount of television toddlers watch. Sure television is good, but how good is it for a child two years of age to be watching television. Children at this age shouldn't be watching T.V. because the time spent viewing is time lost from more interactive and brain-enriching activities. Using the T.V. can be good in some ways to help the children learn if what they are watching is age appropriate, but we shouldn't depend on it to teach our children. The problem is that many households now days always have a television on in the house or the children have them in their rooms. Television is a nice luxury to have, but I feel as if parents in the households should have more control over the television and promote more beneficial activities to help the kids develop.

Non-physical agression vs physical

One of the debates that I started to think about was the effects of physical bullying verse non physical aggression. When I think about people saying that the non-physical aggression is just part of being a kid I would have to say yes but no. There is a point where its just what kids do and where some kids cross the line in non-physical aggression to where it actually could cause harm to a kid both mentally and physically. A kid that is suffering from numorous attacks of non-physical bullying can hurt themselves physically and mentally. I also believe that getting picked on mentally could drain a kid physically. It is not an easy thing for kids to just forget about if its something that continues to happen to them. I have seen kids who just break down from the bullying of anykind both mentally and physically. They start to get too tired to do anything because they don't feel they belong, or they are afraid that it might happen again.

I don't believe that we should only focus on the physical bullying because that is not where it starts. I can imagine that all forms of bullying start with non-physical activities and then progress and lead to physical bullying. They are both in need of help. I think that the way kids think about themselves is very important and if someone is bullying them in a non-physical way the kid is going to start thinking that something is wrong with themselves and that can lead to many different problems as child. I think in all of the fights that I have ever seen that were physical, there was also non-physical aggression shown as well. That is why I think that the leading cause of bullying should be prevented at the starting level of social/relational aggression before it leads to actual physical bullying.

Children and Medication

In the last two decades childhood disorders have been on the rise, or are we just putting a tag on all these behaviors? In 1996 Dr. Biederman and his team found that 1/3 of their ADHD patients fit more of the symptoms for a childhood bipolar disorder. This was unheard of at the time, but it caught on quick and childhood bipolar diagnosis went up 4,000% according to PBS’s frontline. Kids have been given multiple medications and never the option of a Therapy/Medication regiment, although the long-term affects are still unknown for a lot of these medications. Now I don’t think that we should quit medication, but rather combine it with other therapies. One study showed that, in kids, a placebo was more affective in treating depression than antidepressants. And when antidepressants showed an increase in teen suicide psychiatrists just switched kids to antipsychotics. Again is it that these disorders are on the rise or has society changed? should we really be giving out some of these medications if we don’t know what developmental problems they might cause.

Are the Kids All Right?

I found this article quite interesting. Stress and managing stress is a very important topic for all ages. This directly relates to developmental psychology because excessive stress can cause long term neurological problems. People of all ages have stress and can be overcome with it. So how should we deal with this stress? The most common answer is exercise. Exercise is a useful stress management tool, but it is not the only technique. Meditation is also a strong technique that can be used to manage stress. I don’t mean sitting crossed legged saying “ummm.” There is more than one meditation technique. The most basic is sitting comfortably in a quite area with your eyes closed and take a few deep breathes. For more stress management techniques look at http://www.mindtools.com/stress/RelaxationTechniques/IntroPage.htm.

Stress is a part of all of our lives and will always be a part of our lives. Managing our stress is important, no matter what the situation is or who we are. Also if you have children or if you plan to have children I urge you to realize that they are stressed too, and can be overly stressed. Personally I never talked to my parents about when or why I was stressed, I wish I did, it probably would’ve made my childhood more enjoyable. Be open to them and even show them healthy ways to deal with their stress.

ADHD Too Often Diagnosed?

We often discover that a child is hyperactive, distractible, or impulsive but doctors fail to find out why. With today’s technology I believe doctors are too often ready to prescribe medication trying to change the outcome rather than looking at the cause of ADHD. What I am implying is that I don’t always believe that someone truly has a case of ADHD. As a result children are often taking drugs and medicine at an early age that they should not be taking.

About 5 percent of children are diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), which are possible too many children. It is said in one study that children who suffer from ADHD also suffer from at least one other behavioral or developmental problem. Now how many children that we diagnose actually suffer from something else as well? Not nearly as many I’m sure. Also ADHD is a long-term chronic condition meaning it lasts a lifetime. But, many people lose some symptoms over time. In many cases they will lose enough symptoms to have less then six symptoms of ADHD. Six symptoms is the requirement to diagnose someone with ADHD. I think this show that we to frequently assume a child is suffering from ADHD too commonly. Also, it is said that all six symptoms must be severe enough to cause significant difficulties. These difficulties must also be present in at least 2 settings, which may include school. But, a study has shown some people diagnosed though only have one setting which all symptoms are significantly present.

I find hard to believe that so many children are actually victims of ADHD. I somewhat believe that we are often just lazy about finding the real cause of the children’s problem. Also, people are in denial of discovering the child’s actually problems may be. We really need to make a realization that medication is not the cure for everything and search deeper into the cause of a child’s symptoms.

More on Bullying

I know that we have all discussed bullying many times. I do not think that any would argue against the fact that parents need to be responsible for their kids. However, we all have our own opinions on bullying, and our parents also have their own opinions. Some parents just think it is part of life, and they do not try to do anything about it. In addition, there are some parents that do not know the full extent of their kid being bullied. I think that there is a major group of kids that we are forgetting about. Kids that are emancipated do not actually have a legal guardian. Also, there are many kids that get shuffled around in foster care, and some of the important information falls through the cracks.
I do think that teachers and schools need to be responsible for any acts of aggression that harm students' safety and learning environment. Acts of aggression that occur outside of school are not dealt with directly, but rather indirectly by dealing with the resulting effects. I think by saying that schools are only responsible for bullying that occurs on campus is like saying the status quo is working. If the status quo was working effectively, I do not think the bullying issue would be as controversial as it is today.
I think being in a supervisory role comes with a small part of being a "babysitter." My husband is a supervisor in the military. Even though there are situations that come up that do not deal in any way, shape, or form with his job, he has to deal with them. He can't just say he didn't see it anything was wrong. Soldier morale is probably one of the more important things in the military.
I realize that school is not a dramatic as military situations, but students need to feel safe in order to be able to learn. For me, I think it is a little extreme to say teachers would be babysitters if they are responsible for the effects of off campus bullying. I just think that part of being a supervisor, like a teacher, comes with the responsibility of making sure that the students' morale is not hindering their learning capability if it can be helped.
Obviously the kids should know right from wrong, and parents should be able to keep their kids under control. However, with bullying being such a prevalent issue that is not enough. Something does need to change in order to protect students' safety and to make their learning more effective.

Internet Usage Among Children and Adolescents

I found an article discussing ways to study the effects of Internet usage. The following link is for the article that I read: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/dev-423391.pdf. This article basically discusses different ways to study how children and adolescents use the Internet. There are four main areas in which Internet usage can be used to see how children interact with the Internet. As well as, seeing how the children are affected by the Internet.
The first one explains that the internet needs to be seen as a social enviroment in itself. The internet may allow a researcher to see how teens interact with each other without having their presence change the interaction.
Secondly, the article talks about seeing "the Internet as a new cultural tool." It would be cultural because a majority of the world population has access to the Internet. Also, people have the ability to research further into different topics.
The third area the article discussed was that "we must see the Internet as a new objective of cognition." This are really deals with cognitive development and social development. The Internet is not as concrete as other areas such as reading.
Lastly, the fourth area discussed the "Internet as a cource of new methods for developmental research." The Internet is so different than anything that has really been out there before. It can provide opportunities for new methods of conducting research as well as obtaining information.
For me, I found this article very intriguing. In class, we are often asked how would you conduct the research to find this out. By reading this article, I realized that there are many complex things going on with the Internet that can help research but also hinder research. Most people really do focus on the negative uses of the Internet by children, but the article also discussed positive outcome too.

Implications of Premature Birth

I ready a very interesting article this morning. http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/09/08/premature.children.4.times.more.likely.have.behavioral.disorders
The article discusses research done in theUK on babies born the 26th week of gestation. So, this study is specifically addressing extremely pre-term babies. At age six, the extremely pre-term babies showed a higher percentage of children being hyperactive and having attention problems. The researchers did find a gender difference in behavioral problems. Boys were more likely to suffer from behavioral problems like ADHD, but girls were more likely to suffer from things like anxiety and depression due to internalizing their emotions.
One of the reasons I find this so interesting is because I was born 6 weeks early. Because I am an identical twin, it is not out of the norm for me to have been born early. I am an axious and shy person, while my twin sister is more outgoing and confident. I always wonder where the difference came about. We have the exact same DNA and went through the same experiences. We took the same classes, participated in the same activities, and we achieved very similiar grades. However, our personalities, to me, are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Class discussions on the implications of genetics make me wonder what causes the behavioral differences between my twin and I.

Is Abstinence Education the Best Sex Education?

After reading this article i don't believe abstinence education is the best way to go, because either way we teach them there going to have sex. So abstinence education won't prepare them sex. If we teach them how to be safe by teaching them about their bodies and how it develops, starting at a young age. I think this would be the most effective way to teach children about sex and how to be safe.

After reading Thomas Lickona's thoughts that he believes abstinence education is the best form of sex ed. He seemed to push his views one everyone else. That his way was the only way to go about things, but if you keep the answers children are going to ask about sex is only going to do more harm than good. If children and teens are told not to have sex before marriage, and they aren't given the answers they need. Then they a more likely to go have sex to get those answers.

Parents are the Most Influential

On the topic of who has the most influence in a child’s life whether it is parents, pop culture, role models or friends I feel parents have the biggest impact on a child’s life. First, off parents spend more time with the children at least at a very early age then any other person in this world. Parents take care of you, teach you, and even participate in activities with you such as friends would later in life. But, also parents are often a life long friend someone who you keep in contact with more then any friend beside your spouse later in life I guess. The child and parents will always have a stronger emotional connection then child and any friend or role model in this world.
Role models are people whose behaviors are imitated by others. Now how often do you hear someone say “you remind me so much of your mom or dad?” I would say quite often. Wouldn’t this mean most people’s role models are their parents? And wouldn’t this mean the parents have a strong impact on a person’s life? I think there is no role model that could have more of an influence on a child then their parents. Parents are around from the very start of the child’s life and have this special bond between them. Role models are often pop culture stars. Athlete, actress/actors, musicians but they never spend time with the child like parents do.
Pop Culture is everywhere in today’s society but still it is often censored by the parents. With new technology parents can control and monitor website, television shows, censor music, and many other things. It is completely up the parents about letting their child read, watch, and listen to material present in the media. This is why I truly believe parents have the most influence on a child’s life.

Girls gone bad???

After reading the "Girls Gone Bad" article, I had to look back at my childhood and wonder if my friends and I were that into the news media and the "bad girl" scene. We really weren't. I grew up in a small farm and oil town where we were more interested in going cow tipping or catching gophers than going out drinking and wondering if we had enough cleavage showing. I have seen the tween and teens walking around town and dressing differently than i did at that age, but i'm not sure if there should be as much worry as there is. Just because they dress differently does not necessarily mean that the upcoming generations are going to hell in a hand-basket. For one its just the styles that are coming out. Also, they are just teenagers in a phase. Biologically speaking, children are meant to kind of act out. It biology's way of getting kids out of the house to prevent incest. Saying that sounds a little intense and in some cases kids aren't that bad. But people do grown up and change from how they were in high school and younger. Parents still may want to occasionally watch their children and explain to them whats going on in the news isn't the best way to live a life. However, all this worry that the younger generations are doomed seems a little extreme to me.

Teachers That Make the Extra Effort Can Make All the Difference

I would like to continue our most recent class discussion on bullying and the accountability (if any) the schools should assume. I absolutely believe schools should be held accountable for bullying; most of the time, but this issue isn't that cut and dry as a "yes they should" or "no they shouldn't" assume responsibility. It seems we all agree that schools can be held somewhat responsible for bullying on school grounds, along with the kid and parents. The question becomes when should the school be responsible for off grounds bullying. I recently posted a blog about a bullying incident in Alabama, where it was the second time one particular student beat up another particular student in the same school year. The first time was just a couple punches to the face, causing a black eye, but no further damage. The parents still went with their son the school to discuss with the principle (or vice principle I'm not totally sure) about other minor incidents such as pushing into lockers, knocking books out or the boys hands, etc. Nothing overtly physical, but bullying none the less. The parents said to the school staff that they predicted another incident, and feared it would be worse since the bully had not gotten any consequence for any of the bullying so far. The school thought the parents were overreacting and basically said boys will be boys and they don't have the necessary staff to devote to monitoring the interactions of one bully and victim.

The parents were right, there was another incident and it was much worse. The boy who had been beaten up by the same bully and pushed into lockers all school year is now in a hospital room with multiple broken bones and fractures. They had one picture on CNN when I first saw the story and I had to look away, his face was had no natural color to it, it was smothered in totality by purple and blue bruises. The bigger picture here is not whether the school should be held responsible, but maybe one teacher or counselor had noticed this ongoing bullying earlier, maybe this could have been prevented. It's not that teachers should be babysitters, but If they make the extra effort it can perhaps make all the difference.

Does anybody really not think the school should be held somewhat liable in the case above. The bullying was happening on and off school grounds (the more physical done off school grounds) there was physical evidence it was occurring and the parents went to the school to warn them that a more brutal attack was not possible but "likely" to happen, and the school still did nothing. In fact they did less than nothing by insinuating the parents were overreacting, so they really didn't even assure them that they would make a conscious effort to ensure their son was safe at school. This is one example of many that I would argue that the school should absolutely be somewhat responsible for not taking the bullying issue seriously.

In one blog I read it referred to the low pay public school teachers receive. I couldn't agree more, which is exactly why most teachers would want to make the extra effort to ensure the safety of their students. If they aren't becoming teachers for the money then they are because they legitimately care for the kids right? If they legitimately care about their kids why would not be concerned about what happens to them during off school hours. Teachers are not expected to be babysitters; but they are mentors and could, I'm not saying "should", but could make the difference of a kid being constantly bullied so his/her education experience is one of pain and fear and frustration or by picking up on it in its early stages taking the first steps to put a stop to it so the aforementioned example doesn't have to happen again.

Babysitters, or Teachers?

After leaving class today, I found myself pondering the cyber bullying debate. I do not believe schools should be held resposible for bullying done off campus. Now, I am not saying that school's shouldn't be responsible for bullying done on campus; However, where is the line going to be drawn.

If Jake's and Brandon's facts were true seventy-six percent of cyber bullying occurs in high school. These are students, that range from fourteen to eightteen years old. That being said, these are students are on the verge of being adults or are in their late teen years. They should know bullying is uncalled for, and shouldn't be done. These kids should be held responsible for bullying they do off campus, not the schools. The thought that school's should be is like defining a high school as an all day babysitter. This is saying they should watch the students not only in their walls, but also the seventeen hours students aren't around. One argument I heard in class was many parents work atleast until five o'clock. Therefore, students are watched a lot more by the schools throughout the day. Well than how about we hold school's resposible for all parts of the student's life? When a student vandalizes a building at three a.m., does drugs, drinks, or gets arrested, how about we blame the school for that too? It is the parents' job to install good morals into their children. While the school should enforce these morals on campus, it has almost no control over students after three.

If the schools are so resposible, then pay the teachers a babysitter fee on top of their dismal salaries. Schools are not all day babysitters, and are too often a easy scapegoat for the countries problems. Teen suicide, drinking, bullying, and drug use are all pinned on them unfairly. They are not babysitters, and not responsible for off campus activities. These are responsibilities of parents' and students' themselves.

Are standardized tests a good representative of how smart a child really is?

As we all have learned one of the most influential people in modern day physics/science is Albert Einstein. However, Einstein failed a college entrance exam. I don't think any person would change the beliefs that Einstein was a genius because he failed a standardized test. Thomas Edison was considered "to stupid to learn" and yet he has been considered a lead inventor in history and influential in modern day civilization. Winston Churchill failed the 6th grade. These are all extremely influential people in our history and considered "genius". I do not change my opinion of them because they failed a standardized test or school.

If three influential people in our history prove that testing or how they did in school does not determine how smart they are as an individual, then why is this America's primary form of determining how smart a child is? We just have three extremely major exceptions in history?

For me personally I am a horrible test taker, have extreme test anxiety, and do not think that scores on these tests are a good representation of what I know. But teachers and employers recognize that because they know and relate to me as an individual, not a statistic in a standardized test. Some students are hands on learners, what are we doing as a nation to help students with those types of learning skills, because testing is not benefiting these students.

As talked about in class there has not been enough time to determine the outcomes of the standardized testing efforts. But we are requiring the teachers to "find the time" to properly prepare the students to pass the test, or there could be consequences. Sounds like we are putting to much pressure on students, and teachers, to pass a test that we really don't have the statistical data to show if it is beneficial or not.

Also, our nation was founded on supporting dreams and independence. Why have we taken it upon ourselves to label or determine how children should be, and not as they are? Part of an educational "journey" is to eventually determine what you as an individual enjoy, what you are good at, and what you would like to do when you grow up. Education is giving children the tools to successfully do this on their own, not telling them what to be. Money should be spent on giving children these tools, giving them a well rounded education in all areas, so they can determine what they want to be on their own. Not putting money and such importance on having to be good science and math test takers.

Teachers, why not?

Thinking about the topics of debate continued as I left class today. I do understand the idea that schools have little control over what happens outside of school and yes this may be true. Teachers spend an incredible amount of time with children. While teachers may become teachers to teach specific curriculum; I would have to say that they are child care providers during that time. As teachers observe children who may have learning disabilities, they also are available for the reliable observances of peer relations. When do we turn the other way from escalating problems just because it’s three o’clock and schools out? I can remember a time in middle school when there was a battle arising between two peer groups, this escalated into a decision to meet after school. At the end of the school day one Friday, alliances were emerged and pretty soon half of the school kids where marching down to a common park to “brawl”. Being that is was after three o’clock the school administration did not have to legally do anything about this. However, one administers moral judgment entered the equation. The Vice Principal single handily drove down to the meeting grounds because he overheard talk (imagine that) in the hallways about what was going to take place and then was able to break up the fight. This may be a rare occasion that someone was able to stop it became physical, but what if every faculty member tried a little harder to prevent some of the insensible measures our youth get involved in? Maybe it is so that it takes a village to raise a child?
I am not taking any of the responsibility off of the parents because they play an obvious huge roll and can control in some since what their children are up to. I would hope that most teachers get into the field that they do because they want to work with the youth and maybe be that influential teacher that we all remember having when we were growing up. The influential teacher doesn’t have to be the one that taught you how to finally master that algebra equation but maybe the one that did something about the minor bullying that started, that teacher could potentially save a life. One way that both parent and teachers can do to hopefully prevent this tragic headline news from happening is opening up the lines of communication. One or even two parent teacher conference a year does not seem justifiable to the amount of time children spend in school. Unfortunately, some parents do not even participate in the conferences that are offered due to work and overall demands of life. As we all are aware of technology now available, we could use this to stay more connect with our children’s teachers such as emails regularly. Teachers may not have to do anything at all afterschool hours but if you could, why not?

Schools In Charge of Preventing Suicide?

In class we have discussed ideas for schools having suicide prevention programs and/or schools being responsible if a student does commit suicide. I don’t know if I agree that a school should be responsible with a student committing suicide. Yes, children spend probably half of their day at school and teachers or administrators are completely responsible for the safety of students while on school property and during school functions I find it to be difficult for administrators and teachers protecting students off campus. I would say that they are responsible for a committed suicide by a student if on campus or if there is evidence that the teachers did nothing to prevent the proven bullying or the suicide from occurring.
I actually find suicide prevention to be much more of a responsibility for the parents. They are more frequently present in their child’s life and responsible for protecting their child. I think if a parent feels the need to have a suicide prevention program they should talk to their child themselves. Or another option may be a counselor if the parent feels it is necessary for their child.
I find it could be a good idea to some how implement suicide prevention programs in schools I am unsure how well it would work. I was unable to find statistics on how these programs actually have benefitted or lower suicide rates. Also, I think it might be hard to implement these courses into an everyday curriculum with all the other requirements teachers are all ready suppose to have in their curriculum. I am still not completely sold on this opinion that I have so if anyone does have a good argument against what I have said please comment and challenge my opinion.

No Child Left Behind Good or Bad?

Now is the general trend of standardized testing or No Child Left Behind actually beneficial for students in the United States? I currently do not think that it is the best way to teach kids in our school system. If you really dig into what it is doing for students I see hardly any benefits from standardized testing and No Child Left Behind. I know if you’re a parent that you would like to know your child is experiencing the same curriculum as other students and not getting taught something from a teacher that may be controversial or something you don’t agree with but NCLB actual contradicts what it says it does.
There are many bad things about NCLB that many people pass over I think when discussing this topic. The biggest problem is that teaching has changed to teaching for a test instead of learning the topic completely. This means that NCLB is currently dumbing-down curriculum standards. It relies completely on standardized test scores to label each student in different categories such as “needs improvement” or “above standards”. Also, standardized tests have been found to be bias as schools with a majority of Latinas, African-Americans, and Asian-Americans are scoring lower on the tests somewhat because of other reasons then bias questions like economic status, yes. But, also studies have shown test to have bias questions. This has labeled different ethnicities as less intelligent in the work space creating more difficultly finding jobs for certain people. I found one site that showed dropout rates to have increased since NCLB was put in place. All in all I believe that NCLB is hurting the learning of children in America.I also think that NCLB is putting and emphasis on the children who are falling behind which unfortunately is hurting the exceptionally intelligence students as we don’t push for them to a higher level.

The Four Dynamics of Sexual Abuse

After hearing quite a bit about sexual abuse in the news lately I was curious about the developmental affects caused by the perversion. After an encounter a child goes through four traumagenic dynamic. The dynamics are traumatic sexualization, betrayal, disempowerment, and finally stigmatization.

The first, traumatic sexualization is when the child’s sexuality is shaped in a developmentally inappropriate and interpersonally dysfunctional fashion due to the abuse. This can occur when the child is repeatedly regarded by an offender for sexual behavior that is inappropriate to his or her level of development. It can occur when certain parts of a child’s anatomy are fetishized, or through the misconception and confusions about sexual behavior and sexual morality that are transmitted to the child from the offender. Children that have been traumatically sexualized may have an inappropriate repertoire of sexual behavior, with confusion and misconceptions about their sexual self-concepts, and with unusual emotional associations to sexual activities.

The second, betrayal, occurs when the child discovers that someone they were vitally dependent has caused them harm. This could refer to the actual abuser or a family member that didn’t or couldn’t do anything. Those children who are disbelieved, or blamed experience a greater sense of betrayal than those who are supported. A child who was suspicious of the abuser’s actions from the start may feel less betrayal.

The third, disempowerment, is the process in which a child’s will, desires, and senses of efficacy are continually contravened. The more authoritarian the abuser the more harm done to the child’s sense of power and control. This disempowerment is reinforced when children see their attempts to stop the abuse frustrated. It can be increased when children feel fear, are unable to make adults understand or believe what is happening, or realize how conditions of dependency have trapped them in the situation.

The final dynamic, stigmatization, is the negative connotations that are communicated to the child around the abuse and then become incorporated into the child’s self-image. These negative meanings come from many places such as the abuser, who may blame, or demean the victim. Stigmatization also comes from the attitudes that the victim hears from family or community. Stigmatization may thus grow out of the child’s prior knowledge or sense that the activity is considered deviant, or, after disclosure, people react shocked, hysterical, or blame the child.