Boarding Schools for Girls

Spending too much time watching television, surfing the Internet, playing computer games, texting on cell phones, watching movies, and reading magazines is taking a toll on the health of American children and teenagers, according to a new study from the University of New Mexico.

Dr. Victor Strasburger and his colleagues went through studies on the effects of media consumption and found that too much exposure to media makes children more violent, more likely to engage in early sex, more likely to consume tobacco and alcohol, more likely to be obese, and more likely to have attention deficit disorder.

For example, the impact of media violence on real-life aggression is 0.31 times higher, a statistic compared to the impact of smoking and lung cancer, which is 0.39 higher.

Dr. Strasburger had three guidelines for parents:

• Limit media to less than one or two hours a day;
• Keep media devices out of young people's bedrooms;
• Watch media with your child and discuss the contents.

In the journal Pediatrics, Dr. Strasburger noted in his reported that today's children spend as much time with media as they do sleeping.

"Too little has been done by parents, health care practitioners, schools, the entertainment industry, or the government to protect children and adolescents from harmful media effects, and to maximize the powerfully prosocial aspects of modern media," according to the report. "More research is needed, but sufficient data exist to warrant both concerned and increased action."

Labels: health, media_influences

Girls and boys express mean behaviors in different ways -- but a new study from Australia found that both boys and girls share a similar understanding and experience with mean behaviors.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Rhiarne Pronk of Griffith University studied relational aggression and victimization among teenagers, and found that both boys and girls experience unpredictable friendships, social exclusion, rumor mongering and gossip, some of which involves e-mail and the Internet. However, both groups used these techniques to enhance their social standing or acceptance.

Dr. Pronk found that certain characteristics put adolescence at higher risk for victimization in relationships. These factors might include a lack of social appeal or emotional reactiveness. Children who are too popular or too talented also attract relational aggression.

The study appeared in the Journal of Adolescent Research.

Labels: aggression, bullies, relationships

Teenagers who contract mononucleosis are at greater risk for chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a new study from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

• Dr. Ben Katz and his colleagues studied 301 teenagers with mononucleosis, and found that 24 percent did not make a full recovery within six months of being diagnosed.
  
• Two years later, 4 percent had chronic fatigue syndrome -- a prevalence that was 20 times the rate of the general teenage population.
  
• Dr. Katz is now trying to figure out why some teenagers recover and others do not.

The study appeared in the journal Pediatrics.

Labels: health

Teen pregnancy is on the rise again this year, and many girls admit to getting pregnant so they can "have someone to love." But parenting isn’t all cuddles and warm fuzzies. A unique parenting class aims to get that point across.

"Since last Thursday… a Vidalia High School [MS] sophomore has been caring for a mechanical baby that needs all the tender, loving care a newborn baby needs. She fed, soothed, cleaned and changed the diaper of her lifelike doll equipped with sensors that recorded her every move 24 hours a day. Her parenting class teacher will receive a report from the electronic doll that will be used to determine [the student’s] final grade." [Source: The Natchez (Missouri) Democrat]

The student admitted to the newspaper that she has been spending a lot less time with her friends, and that caring for the baby is harder than she expected.

"I'm not having kids anytime soon," she said.

Labels: mothers, pregnancy, teenagers

In an effort to increase educational opportunities for all students, a coeducational public primary school in New Zealand's Central Otago district is implementing single-sex classrooms for the first time, according to a Jan. 30 article by Rosie Manins of the Otago Daily Times:

Central Otago Principals Association chairman Doug White said it was the first time a school in the district (where all schools are co-educational) had separated gender classes.

Mr White said such separations had been successfully implemented at other schools throughout New Zealand …

Teachers and school staff had been toying with the idea for the past two years, and decided to implement it after analysing the performance of pupils heading into year 7 and 8 this year.

"It appeared to us that the boys and girls worked and learned differently, and this was a way in which we could address those different needs," Mr Bell said.

Labels: public-schools

The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any developed country. But a recently completed two-year study indicates that abstinence-only programs may help reverse that trend.

A Feb. 10 MercuryNews.com article by correspondent Tom McMahon provided the following information about the study, which was led by John B. Jemmott III, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania:

• Students were assigned to attend one of five classes.
  
• With 662 urban students between the ages of 11 and 13 participating, researchers found that only 33.5 percent of the students who went through classes that focused on abstinence started having sex in the next two years.
  
• In contrast, 48.5 percent of students who attended other classes, including details on contraception, became sexually active.

"One of the things that's exciting about this study is that it says we have a new tool to add to our repertoire," Monica Rodriguez, vice president for education and training at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, said in Rob Stein's Feb. 2 Washington Post article.

Labels: pregnancy, sex-education

Can your high school student balance a checkbook? Does she understand how much of her car loan payment is going for interest -- or know how to calculate annual percentage rate charges on her credit card?

More and more high schools are teaching courses in personal finance, and many experts believe these may be the most important skills a young person can learn.

"It is one of the most important things we can be teaching students because it will affect them for the rest of their lives," said Sheila Miller, who teaches high school students about banking and personal finance.

Daniel Hebert, president of New Hampshire JumpStart Coalition, noted that new laws will soon make it illegal to issue credit cards to young people under 21 years old without proof of adequate income or an adult cosigner. He said while the new laws will help, teenagers still need to learn personal finance as a skill for adulthood.

Labels: finance