Parents are dumping their children at indoor play centres so they can go shopping or to avoid the soaring cost of day care, according to a Herald Sun investigation. The paper says police are being called in every week after children were found unsupervised at play areas across Victoria.

Centre staff say the problem is worse during school holidays. 'I would say one in five parents try to sneak off,' said Docklands Monkey Mania centre supervisor Lesley Salazar. At least four centres have contacted police and the Department of Human Services because children were left alone for several hours.

Ms Salazar said supervised care was available, but many parents still risked their children's safety. 'It is a big liability issue,' she said. 'We are not meant to be responsible, the parents are, but if something happens we will be blamed.'

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An authoritative annual report on the status of school education in India has confirmed the bad news from the international PISA ratings last month. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2011, prepared by the NGO Pratham, shows that both reading and arithmetic abilities — already disappointing — have further worsened since last year.

The report was released by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal today. The PISA ratings put Indian children at the bottom of the global heap in the test of scholastic performance.

The all-India figure for the proportion of children in Class 5 able to read a Class 2 text has dropped from 53.7% in 2010 to 48.2% in 2011, shows ASER. The decline is most pronounced in the northern states. Gujarat, Punjab and Tamil Nadu have, however, improved since 2010.

The fall in arithmetic abilities is seen across all states. Nationally, the proportion of Class 3 children able to solve a 2-digit subtraction problem with borrowing has dropped from 36.3% in 2010 to 29.9% in 2011. Among Class 5 children, the ability to do similar subtraction problems has dropped from 70.9% in 2010 to 61.0% in 2011.

Sibal called for a “proactive” role from states, saying the responsibility of education lay “squarely on their shoulders”. The Pratham report, however, shows improvement in enrolment levels. A total 96.7% of 6-14-year-olds in rural India are now enrolled in school, and the dropout rate has been arrested considerably.

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Breastfeeding babies could be crankier than bottle-fed babies, and new mothers should be informed this heightened irritability is natural, a new study by the Medical Research Council (MRC) in Cambridge, England suggested.

In the MRC Epidemiology Unit's cohort (or panel) study of 316 three-month-old babies, mothers reported their breastfed babies cried more and were harder to comfort than babies who were bottle-fed formula, but the researchers concluded these temperament differences were due to different mother and child communication dynamics, and women breastfeeding extra-cranky babies should not become discouraged and switch to bottle-feeding, fearing their babies must be nutritionally stressed, the BBC reported about the findings published in the online journal PLoS One.

Digital Journal reported in September 2010 and February 2011 on earlier studies that showed formula-fed babies and babies switched from breastfeeding to bottle-feeding early were more likely to become obese later in life.

Ken Ong, MRC pediatrician and lead author of the study that was designed to highlight associations but not prove causality, explained why his team's findings suggest new mothers dealing with difficult infant behaviors should be given more information and support, so fewer give up breastfeeding after only a few weeks:

According to the MRC team, the Department of Health recommends exclusive breastfeeding of newborns for six months, but the 2005 Infant Feeding Survey indicated three-quarters of new UK mothers begin breastfeeding, but only a third keep it up longer than four months.

The most common reason the surveyed mothers gave for stopping was, “Breast milk alone didn't satisfy my baby."But irritability is not a negative signal or sign of inadequate nutrition, and is instead a natural feature of the more complex dynamic signaling going on between breastfeeding babies and their mothers, Ong and his team wrote.

In related news, Digital Journal reported in April 2011 about the controversy stirred up the United States over a doll that simulates breastfeeding, marketed as a tool for teaching children "nurturing skills they’ll need to raise their own healthy babies in the future," including encouraging breastfeeding their future babies, according to the manufacturer.

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Most Canadian parents want to devote more time to helping educate their children, but many aren’t taking advantage of moments during routine tasks to share their knowledge, a new poll suggests. The Ipsos Reid survey conducted on behalf of ABC Life Literacy Canada interviewed more than 1,000 parents between the ages of 18 and 55. Findings revealed that 62 per cent of parents polled agreed that they don’t have as much time as they’d like to spend helping their kids learn.

The survey found 70 per cent of respondents agree that they are their child’s best teacher – a feeling even stronger among those with little ones at home. And 63 per cent disagree with the statement that the primary place for a child to learn is at school, not home.

Reading was the most common activity parents were likely to engage in with their children daily, followed by helping with homework, playing games, using a computer, writing stories or visiting a library.

Yet while many parents yearn for more time to devote to helping educate their kids, few are making use of opportunities during daily activities to engage youngsters in teachable moments.

For example, while 14 per cent said they always use paying their bills as a learning opportunity for their children, most never (27 cent) or rarely (28 per cent) use the occasion as a teachable moment.

As for cooking or baking, 27 per cent of respondents say they always use the time while whipping up a dish as a learning moment for their kids — signifying that the majority do not.

Kids can learn about matching, measurement and colours while parents do laundry, but only 19 per cent of parents surveyed said they always use the household chore as a teachable moment.

“We know that people are pressed for time, so what we’re suggesting is take a look at the activities that you participate in with your families and see that there are inherent learning moments within those activities that you can engage with your child and enjoy,” said Margaret Eaton, president of ABC Life Literacy Canada.

Eaton said discussing the day’s news events or what was read online earlier in the day can help improve kids’ vocabulary and get them thinking about and sharing opinions on issues.

Getting children to look at a frozen pizza box for baking instructions encourages them to find information — another key literacy skill, she noted.

A possible factor in parents missing the chance to translate daily activities into teaching moments could be that some parents aren’t wholly confident when it comes to teaching their kids about particular subjects. While 69 per cent of those polled said they were very confident in teaching their child to read, 26 per cent said they were only somewhat confident and five per cent said they weren’t confident.

It was a similar story when it came to writing, with 59 per cent expressing being very confident in teaching those skills, 33 per cent being someone confident and eight per cent being not confident.

Findings of a separate survey for ABC Life Literacy Canada released last May revealed that 79 per cent of respondents weren’t fully confident in their ability to teach another person about money, saving and budgeting.

In addition to reading at least two books before bed, Jill Amery also talks to her four and five-year-old boys about their day. But the learning doesn’t begin and end with storytime.

The Vancouver-based mom said that ever since her kids were young, she has been teaching them to recognize their names by writing letters in the sand at the beach. During grocery store visits, she would encourage them to identify vegetables of a particular colour in the produce section.

The family also tries to use technology to their advantage, and says using a computer to access kid-friendly sites or an e-reader to download children’s books helps make life easier for parents.

“I think it’s actually been much more effective than when I’ve tried to use conventional methods, and it’s been much more fun for me as a parent,” said Amery, publisher of UrbanMommies Media who operates urbanmommies.com and urbandaddies.com.

“In cooking in the kitchen, in walking the dog, there are so many learning opportunities,” she added. “If you don’t use those as parents, I think not only are you going to be more unhappy because you feel guilt, you feel stress because you’re not reading x number of books every day or those simple things that we understand as the only learning opportunities.

“I really do feel like parents need to ... do what they love as human beings and as people with their kids and teach them through those activities so they’re happy and involved and excited about what they’re sharing with their children.”

The findings were released in advance of Family Literacy Day which is held each year on Jan. 27. The day was developed by ABC Life Literacy Canada to celebrate adults and kids reading and learning together, and to encourage Canadians to spend at least 15 minutes enjoying a learning activity as a family every day.

The online survey of 1,002 adults was conducted between November 17 and November 22, 2011, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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Lenovo is to launch a TV built on the Android 4.0 ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ platform. One of the cool features that this TV will offer is a parental control mechanism that relies on facial recognition. This is a feature that the kids will love … because it is a snap to circumvent!

GigaOM has the spec of the K91 ‘Smart TV’:

The K91 is powered by Qualcomm’s 8060 Snapdragon processor, which clocks 1.5 Ghz.
It will have 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage and 2 GB SD card.
There will be two models, one with a 42” and one with a 50” 3-D LED screen.
It will have an integrated 5 MP webcam, which will be used for facial recognition. Why would you need that? Parental control, of course.
There will be a 3-axis gyro gamepad, but the regular remote control sounds pretty cool, too: It will have a touchpad as well as an integrated microphone, and voice recognition will make it possible to control the devices without pressing any buttons at all.
Good TV, but I have severe reservations about Android’s ability to use facial recognition properly to control parental controls. Why? Because the system has already been shown to be broken.

One of the new features of Android 4.0 ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ was being able to use the camera (and your face) to unlock the handset. Problem is, the camera has a hard time telling the difference between your face and and a photo of your face.

And in case you think that video might have been faked in some way, Dwight Silverman over on TechBlog tried this out and found that the system is easy to fool:

I took a picture of myself with my iPhone, and then pulled that likeness up on the screen. I aimed the iPhone image at the Galaxy Nexus’ camera, and voila! The Android phone unlocked and I was granted access. This works every time I try it.

So, if your kids see you using your face to unlock the parental control mechanism, how long do you think it will take them to try the photo trick? I would say that a smart kid will think of trying this as within seconds of seeing you use it for the first time.

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The research, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, is one of the first looks at the combined effects of breastfeeding and how many sugary drinks, like soda and juice drinks, children consume in the first few years of their lives.

Past studies have suggested that breastfeeding is linked to a lower risk of obesity in children; however, Jaimie Davis, the study's lead author and a professor at the University of Southern California, said mothers will also give their babies and toddlers sugary drinks.

"What happens is that they're breastfeeding and they're often giving their kids juice or Gatorade," said Davis. "They don't realize it's having the counter effect."Davis and her colleagues compared children who were only breastfed for the first year of their lives without drinking beverages containing added sugar to children who were breastfed for shorter periods or not at all and who did get sugary drinks.

All the children were between the ages of two and four, and were included in a database of families in Los Angeles County receiving financial assistance to purchase food. Through phone interviews and the use of height and weight records, the researchers determined that 15 percent of the 1,480 children in the study were obese. Another 27 percent were overweight.

They found that kids who were only breastfed for at least the first year of their life -- 326 of the children -- were about 55 percent less likely to be obese than children who were not breastfed. Kids who consumed no sugary drinks, whether or not they were breastfed, were 70 percent less likely to be obese than those who drank the most sweetened beverages.

Looking at combinations of breastfeeding and sugary drinks, the team found that kids with a year or more of breastfeeding and no sugary drinks were 60 percent less likely than kids with high sugary-drink consumption and no breastfeeding to be obese. Kids who were breastfed for at least 12 months and who only drank sugary drinks later in childhood were also less likely to be obese.

Though the results cannot prove that sugary drinks or breastfeeding caused the weight patterns seen, the researchers speculate that breastfeeding may biologically program the child's metabolism and eating behavior in a way that helps to protect against obesity.

Alison Ventura, a professor of nutrition sciences at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, said the new findings are important because they show that the benefits of breastfeeding last beyond the time when the feeding stops.

"There's been a lot of studies that linked breastfeeding and obesity, but it's nice to see one to go beyond that," said Ventura, who was not involved in the new research.

According to Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, professor in the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the findings are important from a public health perspective, because it's common for mothers not to breastfeed for very long, and to give their children sugary drinks, like juice.
"It's really no different than sweet teas or sodas," said Mayer-Davis, who did not work on the new study.

Davis said the new findings cannot predict whether the children will go on to be overweight later in life, but it's not good to see them so heavy at age two and age four. "We're setting these children up to be very chubby and overweight at a very early age," said Davis.

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Travis Redmond loves to run so much that his mom cracks jokes about it. “I think he started running in my womb,” Debbie Redmond says. “Even as a very young child, he would come home from school and literally run laps around the house.”

Now Redmond, 13, of Virginia Beach is one of about 150 boys and girls who run with the Tidewater Striders’ New Energy youth program. Young runners are coached and mentored by experienced members of the 2,000-strong Tidewater Striders running club, one of the largest and most active in the nation, according to Angelo Celesia, who runs the youth program.

New Energy has been around Virginia Beach for nearly three decades, and two years ago it expanded to Suffolk. This year, it reached Norfolk, inspiring more Hampton Roads children to don their sneakers and hit the pavement.

The program also recently caught the attention of the Road Runners Club of America, a national association of running clubs. It gave the youth program an $800 Kids Run the Nation grant to help publicize and expand its reach.

Last year, New Energy also received a $4,500 grant from the Obici Healthcare Foundation, whose mission is to improve health and wellness by promoting programs that prevent illness and disease.

Dan Edwards, a Tidewater Strider for 21 years and chairman of its Youth Committee, is also chairman of the RRCA’s board of directors. He wrote the Kids Run the Nation grant for New Energy and is one of the program’s greatest advocates.

“Running is such a simple, low-cost sport in which to participate,” Edwards said. “All you need is a decent pair of shoes, and you’re ready to do it. You don’t need equipment or a team.”Edwards said running is an excellent family activity – promoting positive values and a healthy lifestyle.

“It’s probably the most effective aerobic activity, which is tremendously healthy and something that we as a community and a nation need more of considering the issues we have with weight and obesity,” he said.

New Energy is coached by dozens of volunteers who train the young athletes twice weekly for one hour. There is no cost to participants; the young members simply join the Striders for an annual membership fee of $10. “We appeal to a wide variety of young runners – kids who have never run before to very elite runners,” Celesia said.

“Some just do it for fun, and some are very focused on competition. They get to decide what they want to do and how hard they want to work.”Runners, ages 6 to 16, are assigned to groups based on their age, ability and interest.

Travis Redmond, who enjoys long-distance running, said it has helped him excel in other sports in which he participates. “I’ve got more endurance in baseball and am much faster at basketball,” said Travis, who attends Kemps Landing Magnet School.

His brother, Patrick, 11, a fifth-grader at Old Donation Center in Virginia Beach, started running in second grade. Like Travis, he enjoys the personal challenge that running offers. Both boys said they have made friends with other young runners by working out with New Energy.

“You can hang out with your friends and before the running starts, you can talk to them and then start running and have fun together,” Patrick said. “Some of my best friends, I made through New Energy,” Travis added.

Their mother manages the Virginia Beach New Energy team and said she has been impressed by the adult support for the program. “Even though it is competitive, there is a really positive, supportive environment,” she said. “I hate to say that it’s not like that with other sports, but I have seen a difference.”

Celesia said the adults often train with the children. “Our goal is to get out there with our young runners and show them the path to lifelong fitness,” he said. “When they see us old guys in their 60s running, we don’t need to teach them the results of staying active – they can see it.”

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KIDS should not have a care in the world – particularly about how skinny they look. But a shocking report yesterday revealed hundreds of children are being treated in hospitals for anorexia every year. Two six-year-olds and four seven-year-olds were referred for life-saving care in one area alone. Horrifyingly, one child who got help was just three.

Health bosses yesterday warned the problem was the tip of the iceberg and only one in five young sufferers are having treatment. They also highlighted the growing pressures on children to be skinny, particularly from the celebrities they idolise.

Child psychiatrist Dr Malcolm Bourne said: “I estimate we only deal with 20% of the children who suffer from eating disorders. Long term eating disorders have the worst death rates in child mental health.

"Around 5% die from them eventually, people can be very resistant to treatment. There is no straight forward fix.”Dr Dasha Nicholls, an adolescent expert, added: “For a minority of children it may be the start of a severe and enduring illness, with death rates comparable to some forms of leukaemia.”The report yesterday showed 125 children under 18 were treated for anorexia or bulimia by the East Lancashire Child and Adolescent Service since 2007. The majority of those – 109 – were aged 12 to 16.

But many were under 10 including the three-year-old, who was helped earlier this year. Overall, 102 girls and 23 boys were treated by the service.

It echoes worrying figures earlier this year which showed 600 children under 13 have been referred to hospitals in England since 2009. Those cases included 197 aged from five to nine, according to statistics released from 35 hospitals after a Freedom of Information request. Almost 400 were 10 to 12. There were another 1,500 aged 13 to 15. Even these statistics are an underestimate as some NHS hospitals refused to provide any data.

And among the 35 which replied, some would only disclose the figures for those admitted after becoming dangerously emaciated – those getting therapy as outpatients were omitted. Dr Bourne, who works for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, warned 5% of children who suffer from an eating disorder would die as a result of it.

He added: “Most young people who have an eating disorder have a distorted body image. Everybody else sees them as very thin and skeletal but they will think they are fat. I do think societal pressures contribute to it in some way. ”He added: “There is some evidence the level of eating disorders in young men is going up which some people associate with an increase in the amount of male models.”

The latest report has led to an MP calling for more support in schools and the promotion of role models of all shapes and sizes. Gordon Birtwistle, who represents Burnley and Padiham, said: “We can’t all be stick thin.”

In April, another study suggested more than two and a half times as many under 10s have anorexia as previously thought. The University College London Institute of Child Health said an average 1.5 in every 200,000 are sufferers.

Patient's view
CHARLOTTE Ord was obsessed with food during her teenage years. Anorexia even threatened her life as she weighed just 3st 5lb when aged 14. She started by cutting out sweets but this led to skipping meals and she eventually spent days drinking just a few drops of water. After her weight dropped, she was admitted to hospital and placed on a drip.

But Charlotte, 23, started to turn her life around after attending the eating disorder unit at Prudhoe Hospital, Northumberland, for around two-and-a-half years. She said of the team: “I’m so thankful to the staff, they basically saved my life.”The Northumbria University student said it took her six years to conquer her disorder, which began when she was 12 and six stone.  She said: “I wasn’t happy with myself – not necessarily the way I looked or my weight, just everything. I was being bullied. At first I cut sweets and chocolate but that quickly progressed to missing lunch. I ended up having just three sips of water a day.

“It was mainly a control thing – I couldn’t control my life but I could control what I put into my body. I was 15 and a half when I was admitted to Prudhoe, basically because I was going to die.”

Since leaving the unit five years ago she now weighs a much healthier eight stone. She added: “Life’s good – my health is fine, I’m studying human nutrition at uni and I’m married, so I’m optimistic about the future.”

Mental health charity director's view
Lucie Russell, director of campaigns at children’s mental health charity YoungMinds, said: "Eating disorders are usually about self-hatred and extreme lack of self-esteem in children.

"Not eating or over-eating is a way for young people to feel like they have some control. Bulimia is about comfort eating because you feel awful about yourself, then being sick because you feel guilty about eating. Anorexia is about having control.

"Therapies are usually needed to treat a disorder as well as a nutritional regime that does not take control from the child. The illness is common in girls but boys are affected too."

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Today 23 states were awarded federal funding for improving how they enroll children in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.Georgia for the first time will receive a bonus. As WABE's Rose Scott reports, the money is tied to the cost of covering children. In Georgia, there are more than 2-hundred and 50 thousand children enrolled in the Children's Health Insurance Program or (CHIP).  There are more than a million enrolled in Medicaid.

That number has increased since The Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 went into effect. So the announcement that the state will receive bonus money means Georgia is doing something right according to Cindy Man, "we are very excited to have Georgia get a performance bonus it's been hard at work at simplifying its program and enrolling more kids."

Cindy Man is deputy administrator and director of the center for Medicaid and CHIP services. Georgia has adopted a feature called Express Lane Eligibility and Man says the process of applying is less stressful, "what Georgia is doing with Express Lane Eligibility is using information that families have already provided to the WIC program so, Georgia is taking the information of available from the WIC program with the permission of the family and using that information to help make eligibility determination for Medicaid and CHIP."That means less red tape which can be frustrating for those applying for children's health insurance.

This is the first time Georgia is receiving a performance bonus. Man says part of the reason for the bonus is to fray the cost the state has already incurred by adding more kids its program. Georgia will receive just under 5 million dollars and the money is funded from The Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act.

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The new short series on Disney Junior "A Poem is..." features Disney characters with classic poems in the background. Thought kids and poetry don't go well together these days right? Not any more. The newly launched series on Disney Junior channel is sure to get kids hooked on to poetry, even in regional languages. "A Poem is..." originally an American series, has now been adapted for Indian audiences, with the poems in English being translated to Indian languages.

The voiceover for the Hindi version has been done by Shabana Azmi while Suhasini Maniratnam has given the voice for the Tamil and Telugu versions. Speaking about the experience, Suhasini says, ""Children these days know poetry only to score marks in school. This series is about making poetry interesting for them and it's only right that somebody fond of the language does it." The series, which is aimed at children between the ages of 2 and 7, will be aired all day in between regular shows.

The characters are from classic Disney films like Dumbo, Bambi and Lady and the Tramp, whom the children are familiar with. The poems include works by Robert Louis Stevenson, John Howard Payne, AA Milne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, among others.

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