The article, "For Children, A Better Beginning" in the April 24, 2008 issue of the Washington Post describes the progress of children from birth to 10 in 2006 compared to 1994. The article states "Sixth-graders feel safer in school. Math and reading scores are up for 9-year-olds. More preschoolers are vaccinated. Fewer are poisoned by lead." The article credits improvement in government policies and the economy as well as better parenting. Specifically the decline in the amount of mothers who smoke has caused great improvement in the health of young children. Also, more parents read to their children and limit T.V. watching.
In young children, the biggest influence in their lives are their parents. When students grades are higher and school violence is down, I feel it reflects better parenting more than any other factor. It's vital for children to learn discipline and good behavior patterns at home to be able to display those qualities in school. Even for elementary school teachers, their job is mainly to teach the course work rather than discipline the students. Especially when classes are over-crowded, the teacher can't give too much individual help to each student.
It's overall good for society when fewer people are smoking. It's good to see the positive impact it's had on young children. In the coming years, the economy is likely to get worse. It's understandable if the performance of children decline, but hopefully the amount of people smoking won't go back up. While the factors I mentioned in this blog have improved, the rate of childhood obesity has increased. It would be great to see the same trend happen with obesity that we've seen with smoking.
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3 comments:
I totally agree with andrew, that this is great news. I often hear from people (bashing the United States) that we are last in everything. This correlation seems at least on a small level, an important improvement for our society. I never noticed childhood obesity until I began working at a Summer Day Camp, and there were some kids who were a step behind. I am deeply saddened when I go home and watch television with my sister, when a commercial comes on urging kids to go outdoors for at least 60 minutes a day. I think it's sad that we need to urge kids to go outside. When I was a kid in the summertime I was outside more than I was in. Hopefully ad campaigns like this will help curb childhood obesity, as well as spur other important social changes.
I definitely agree when Andrew says behavior in school reflects parenting. If there was a troubled/troubling student in class, I would wonder about how his or her life was at home and if everything was alright with them.
I also agree with Pat when he said that he is deeply saddened that children are urged to go outside. They should always want to be outside! Day and Night! When I was little, I never wanted to go inside, the outdoors was a great escape from school and parents (haha) and it was just fun being in the sun with friends, and i feel every child should experience that!
Wow! this is interesting child obesity Children should want to go outside rather than play video games etc. I also feel that the parent's play a role in this not encoraging their children and feeding them healthy foods.
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