Warped Puberty

Is bisphenol A to blame for the early onset of puberty in young women?

See: The Pre-teen Girl Mystery

Cheer For Your Kids. Cheer For The Other Kids.

The letter is about swimming parents, but can apply to all parents who have kids active in sports.

See SciBlogs: An Open Letter For the Parents of Swimmers

Redshirting First Grade

Yesterday morning NPR had a story about teenage football kickers. The boy they interviewed was 15. But he was in the 8th grade!

I was 17 when I graduated from high school. I was always one of the youngest kids in my class. I never found it to be an academic deterrent. It was an athletic challenge - a challenge until I was 16 and in my junior year that is. At that time my body caught up to the lessons and skills I had developed from always competing against more physically mature opponents. In the end I saw it as an advantage.

But it seems there is a trend of more parents delaying their child's entry into school in order to provide an advantage that an extra year of development provides.

See Federal Reserve Bank Of Boston Working Paper: The Lengthening of Childhood

there is little evidence that being older than your classmates has any long-term, positive effect on adult outcomes such as IQ, earnings, or educational attainment. By contrast, there is substantial evidence that entering school later reduces educational attainment (by increasing high school dropout rates) and depresses lifetime earnings (by delaying entry into the labor market)

I also read a recent book review of 'The Nurture Assumption' (See sp!ked: It’s time to move beyond the nature/nurture divide). This book makes the argument that parents have very little to do with how their child turns out. And in fact, genes and peer groups are the most important determiners.

‘The experts are wrong: parental nurturing is not what determines how a child turns out'

This relates to this idea of redshirting because many parents believe that they can improves their child's self-esteem if they give them an advantage to succeed. However, as the book argues:

Contrary to the current orthodoxy, Harris argues that self-esteem is based on what we do, not on how we are encouraged to feel.

Looking at this from my own standpoint as someone who was young but had a best friend in elementary school who was redshirted (held back in first grade actually), there is no doubt that he had higher self-esteem for a long time and I wondered what was wrong with me. However, over the long term the advantage I gained of besting older kids prepared me better for the real world than the short-term artificial advantage provided to the kids who were held back.

But in the end, the parent is right. If a parent feels that their child is not ready for school then they must trust that instinct. However, they must also keep in mind if their decision is based on what they want or what their child needs.

Maybe Morning Sickness Is A Good Thing?

From NewSci: Morning sickness may be sign of a bright baby

Morning sickness, which affects most pregnant women, is thought to be a reaction to the hormones human chorionic gonadotropin and thyroxine, which are secreted at unusually high levels during pregnancy to maintain a healthy placenta. Now Nulman speculates that these hormones, which are higher in women who experience morning sickness, may protect the fetus's developing brain.

The Home Alone Question

When I was 10 my parents and grandparents thought I was old enough to stay home alone. But then after almost cutting off my thumb on a power saw (I believe I stopped the bleeding by promising God I'd stop being mean to my sister) it was awhile before I was home alone again.

In general though, it is a question of maturity and therefore boys and men should probably never be left alone but girls are probably fine around 8.

See NPR: Home Alone: Is Your Tween Ready?

You Can Relax About The Pacifier

See NYT: Children: No Harm to Breast-Feeding From Pacifiers

Writing in The Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, researchers say they found no good evidence of a link between pacifier use and nursing.

“Pacifiers have traditionally been thought to interfere with optimal breast-feeding,” wrote the researchers, at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. In the 1980s, health officials discouraged their use.

But in recent years, researchers have found evidence that babies who use pacifiers when they sleep may be less susceptible to sudden infant death syndrome. The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that pacifiers be used for that reason.

Speech + Movement Can Improve Kids' Learning

See: Gestures and learning: Using gestures -- not just seeing them -- can help kids learn

I Did Not Know Breast Fed Babies Weighed Less

And it is due to lower protein content. See PhysOrg: Study sheds new light on why breast-fed babies grow more slowly

This slower pattern of growth in the first year of life is possibly one reason why breast-fed babies are less likely to become overweight children later on

Intelligence Is A Muscle

And it is important to get kids started early (like in a Montessori program)

At the NYT: How to Raise Our I.Q.

Professor Nisbett provides suggestions for transforming your own urchins into geniuses — praise effort more than achievement, teach delayed gratification, limit reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity...
Good schooling correlates particularly closely to higher I.Q.’s. One indication of the importance of school is that children’s I.Q.’s drop or stagnate over the summer months when they are on vacation (particularly for kids whose parents don’t inflict books or summer programs on them).

Professor Nisbett strongly advocates intensive early childhood education because of its proven ability to raise I.Q. and improve long-term outcomes.

This story reminded me of what I consider must-reading for all parents at NYMag: How Not to Talk to Your Kids

Swim Lessons Are Beneficial

NYT: Children: Early Swim Lessons May Reduce Drowning

A new study adds weight to the argument that giving swimming lessons to children ages 1 to 4 makes them less likely to drown.

The idea might seem obvious, but some safety experts have raised concerns that teaching young children to swim may put them at higher risk by diminishing their natural fear of water or making their caregivers overconfident.

Confirming What You Already Knew

PhysOrg: Physical activity may strengthen children's ability to pay attention

Autism - Fever - Stress

PhysOrg: Scientists propose new theory of autism

Evidence that autism is a chemical problem rather than a physical one includes:

The new theory stems from decades of anecdotal observations that some autistic children seem to improve when they have a fever, only to regress when the fever ebbs. A 2007 study in the journal Pediatrics took a more rigorous look at fever and autism, observing autistic children during and after fever episodes and comparing their behavior with autistic children who didn't have fevers. This study documented that autistic children experience behavior changes during fever.

...a 2008 study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, that found a higher incidence of autism among children whose mothers had been exposed to hurricanes and tropical storms during pregnancy. Maternal exposure to severe storms at mid-gestation resulted in the highest prevalence of autism.

And the idea of fever as therapy reminded me of how fever was used as a cancer treatment at one time.

Toddlers Are Neither Here Nor There

Via LiveScience: Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told

The pupil measurements showed that 3-year-olds neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present. Instead, they call up the past as they need it...

"If you just repeat something again and again that requires your young child to prepare for something in advance, that is not likely to be effective," Munakata said. "What would be more effective would be to somehow try to trigger this reactive function. So don't do something that requires them to plan ahead in their mind, but rather try to highlight the conflict that they are going to face. Perhaps you could say something like 'I know you don't want to take your coat now, but when you're standing in the yard shivering later, remember that you can get your coat from your bedroom."

Kids Are Programmed To Prefer Sweets

PhysOrg: Liking sweets makes sense for kids

The findings, reported in the journal Physiology & Behavior, suggest that children's heightened liking for sweet taste is related to their high growth rate and that sweet preferences decline as children's physical growth slows and eventually stops.

Allergy News

NPR: Study: Kids Often Misdiagnosed With Food Allergies

BBC: Hope over peanut allergy 'cure'

A team from Cambridge's Addenbrooke's Hospital exposed four children to peanuts over a six-month period, gradually building up their tolerance.

By the end the children were eating the equivalent of five peanuts a day.

It is the first time a food allergy has been desensitised in such a way, although a longer-term follow up is now needed to confirm the findings.

Study On The Nature Of Intelligence

PhysOrg: Study gives more proof that intelligence is largely inherited

Genes appear to influence intelligence by determining how well nerve axons are encased in myelin — the fatty sheath of "insulation" that coats our axons and allows for fast signaling bursts in our brains. The thicker the myelin, the faster the nerve impulses.

Older Dads

NYT: Older Fathers Linked to Lower I.Q. Scores

Regardless of their mothers’ ages, children whose fathers were 50 years old had lower scores on all tests, except those assessing physical coordination, than those whose fathers were 20, the researchers found. And the older the fathers, the more likely the children were to have lower scores, they found.

By contrast, children with older mothers generally performed higher on the cognitive measures, a finding in line with most other studies, suggesting that these children may benefit from the more nurturing home environments associated with the generally higher income and education levels of older mothers, researchers said.

Imagination And Appetite

MSNBC: Making veggies cool for kids - Study: Children ate twice as many veggies if they were given a funny name

Kids Like Structure

One of the things I admire about the Montessori method is that children learn on their own but within a structure that teaches them to complete one task before starting another.

New research points to the advantages of continuing that structure in the home.

See Slate: Messy House, Messy Minds: The connections among kids, reading, and an orderly home.

Breaking News - Watching TV Makes Kids Fat

Yes, there are studies about this. Still. The correlation appears to be one extra kilogram of body weight for each additional hour of television viewing.

See PhysOrg: Children who watch more TV are fatter