DailyDirt: Parenting Tips
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Parents apparently have no idea how to raise children. Parenting is tough, but no worries, there’s always the unsolicited advice from family and strangers about what they think is best for children, and there are tons of parenting books available that may or may not help. There’s also no shortage of contradictory studies out there that just leave parents utterly confused. Here are just a few recent findings on what’s supposedly good or bad for kids. Remember correlation isn’t causation, etc, etc.
- Young children need regular bedtimes, otherwise it can have a negative effect on their cognitive development. Kids who had irregular bedtimes at the age of 3 — a crucial age for mental development — scored lower on reading, math, and spatial awareness tests. [url]
- Kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can forget about using ADHD drugs to help them do better in school. More and more studies are finding that taking “cognitive enhancers” like Ritalin and Adderall really doesn’t make a difference in the long run for kids with ADHD. [url]
- Over-parenting is creating a generation of passive, disconnected, depressed, and anxious kids. These kids fail to find a “sense of self” and can’t cope with the real world because their well-meaning but misguided parents have been unnecessarily intervening in their lives, doing everything for them. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: adhd, advice, bedtime, cognitive development, correlation, education, helicopter parents, kids, learning, over-parenting, parenting, test scores
Comments on “DailyDirt: Parenting Tips”
What about Ritalin for kids w/o ADHD?
College kids without ADHD have been taking Ritalin to improve their mental focus while studying… Presumably it helps?
Re: What about Ritalin for kids w/o ADHD?
Never underestimate the placebo effect.
If there was a study saying that people study better while standing up, you’d see a ton of people doing just that.
Anything to get that little extra edge, to pass that one class, or to just have more time to spend goofing off.
I just always believed that that was the plan all along in over-parenting, to raise a child that’ll never grow up.
Re: Re:
me too.
Regular bedtimes are a must with my kids. They don’t function well without them.
That last one is exactly what governments these days want. Defiant, street-smart free-thinkers are what they fear more than some religious fanatic capable of killing thousands of people and causing billions of dollars worth of damage.
A study of the aftermath – Helicopter parents vs CTFO parents, I would read that.
The WSJ ADHD Article is Off Base
The WSJ ADHD medication article is about a study that focuses on grades. Children taking ADHD meds are not taking the meds to improve grades, they’re taking them to help manage behavior. There are a few paragraphs late in the article that make this point, but WSJ chose to bury those points “below the fold.” Makes me wonder if they’re crusading.
Off his meds, my son would not be able to participate in class at school. Maybe if we had less than five students per teacher, but not in the current system. I have to work full-time or we’d be homeless, either of which makes home school impractical.
I’m sure some non-ADHD college students take ADHD meds believing they’ll help them improve their grades. OTOH, I’ve known ADHD-diagnosed college students (not my son) who could not complete work on time, sit still in class, and not speak out inappropriately UNTIL they started taking meds, and who reverted when they stopped taking meds. Again, it’s about behavior, not grades.
Young children need regular bedtimes?
The study does not establish cause and effect — only correlation. They didn’t split kids into two different groups and have one go to bed at a regular time, and the other at varying times.
It’s quite possible that the less intelligent kids (for lack of a better term) have varying bedtimes because of less rigorous parenting, different demographics, a common underlying biological cause, etc.
The last paragraph of the article sort of alludes to this, but only after going on at length about how kids need their sleep.
Correlation is NOT cause and effect.