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These articles have been highlighted for quick reading and in some cases have been shortened from the original. Thanks to Paul Robertson from www.paulrobertson.ca for permission to copy.
Canadian teens working hard: StatsCan
May 23, 2007
Canadian Press
A new study says many teens carry a heavier load than people give them credit for, despite the stereotypical image of nonchalant teenage loungers.
Canadian teens ranked first among their counterparts in nine Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries in terms of average hours spent on unpaid and paid labour during the school week.
Canadian teens averaged 7.1 hours of unpaid and paid labour per day in 2005 – a 50-hour work week, virtually the same as that of adult Canadians aged 20 to 64 doing the same activities.
The Statistics Canada study found that the vast majority of teens aged 15 to 19 who live at home with their parents average 9.2 hours of schoolwork, homework, paid work and housework on school days and 3.5 hours on weekends.
The study found the relatively high workloads cause some stress: 16 per cent of the teens surveyed considered themselves workaholics; 39 per cent felt under constant pressure to accomplish more than they could handle, and nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) cut back on sleep to get things done.
Homework was the most time-consuming unpaid activity for teens, with 60 per cent averaging two hours, 20 minutes every day.
Boys with Canadian-born parents did significantly less homework than girls in similar families, and less than either girls or boys with immigrant parents, while teens with demanding paid jobs of 20 hours-plus per week did significantly less homework than those who were not employed.
The study found that too much part-time student employment can interfere with school and cause personal stress.
Fewer Teens Getting Pregnant
May 18, 2007
Michele Henry
Toronto Star
May 18, 2007 Michele HenryToronto Star
Stand down, overprotective dads: Teen pregnancies in Canada are at an all-time low.
A study published in this week's The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality reports the rate of teenagers getting pregnant has fallen steadily since 1974, with the steepest decline in the last decade.
Fewer than 33 teens of every 1,000, aged 15 to 19, now become pregnant. By comparison, more than 53 of every 1,000 were getting pregnant in the early 1970s.
Alex McKay, the study's author, analyzed three decades of Statistics Canada data related to teen pregnancies, and found a drop in the numbers of live births, miscarriages and abortions.
However there hasn't been a drop in the number of teens doing it.
Since the early '90s, youth have been losing their virginity, on average, at age 16 and more than 80 per cent of them have had sex before they turn 20.
The encouraging news is that teens have seemingly become better at practising "some form" of safe sex, says McKay.
The bad news is that they haven't reduced their rate of acquiring sexually transmitted infections.
McKay says this is easily explained: When teens become sexually active they tend to be good at using condoms, he says. As they get older, they rely on the pill.They go from one stable relationship to another, he says, and then practise birth control rather than preventing STIs, such as chlamydia and human papillomavirus."They end up having unprotected sex with multiple partners," he says.
To quell this problem McKay says it's important to promote using condoms.
Too many babies watching TV, study finds
May 07, 2007
Sheryl Ubelacker
Canadian press
May 07, 2007 Sheryl UbelackerCanadian press
It's an oft-heard lament that children spend far too much time watching TV, DVDs or playing video games – and a study suggests that an alarming number of babies are being turned into ``screen time" junkies as well.
In a study of more than 1,000 families, U.S. researchers found that 40 per cent of 3-month-olds and about 90 per cent of kids aged 2 years or younger regularly watch television, DVDs or videos.
The study found that the infants and toddlers were spending up to 1 1/2 hours a day viewing television shows or DVDs, an activity the researchers say can be harmful to cognitive development.
Study co-author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital in Seattle, said certain TV programs and infant-aimed videos such as Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby are marketed as being advantageous for the developing child.
"What we know is that the claims that are made by the purveyors of these products, both explicitly and implicitly, that they can make your children smarter or more musical or more mathematical, are entirely unsubstantiated," he said Monday from Seattle.
"There's absolutely no scientific evidence in support of those claims, nor is there any scientific basis theoretically to believe them," said Christakis, co-author of the book The Elephant in the Living Room: Make Television Work For Your Kids.
"And the best available evidence to date suggests that certainly watching a lot of TV before the age of two is in fact harmful – harmful in terms of children's attentional abilities later in life, harmful in terms of their cognitive development, both of those measured at school entry."
Even the TV program Sesame Street, which has been shown as beneficial for number and letter recognition among 3- to 5-year-olds, is associated with language delays when viewed by children under three, he said.
"Sesame Street wasn't designed for kids that young, but it's watched by kids that young because parents think if it's good for a 3-year-old, it's good for a 2-year-old. And parents want to believe their 1-year-old is as advanced as the average 3-year-old."
To conduct the study, published in Tuesday's issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the researchers conducted a telephone survey of 1,009 parents of children age two to 24 months. They analyzed four television and DVD content categories: children's educational, children's non-educational, baby DVDs/videos and adult television (such as talk shows or sports programming).
On average, children began watching TV at nine months old, with an average viewing time of 40 minutes a day. Those who began getting screen time at three months of age watched less than an hour per day, and by age 24 months they were watching more than 1.5 hours per day.
Parents watched with their children more than half the time. ``The results here show that only 32 per cent of parents report watching television or videos with their child every time the child watches," the authors write.
Christakis said parents have several reasons for allowing television and DVD/video viewing: 29 per cent believe that television is educational or good for their child's brain; 23 per cent see it as enjoyable or relaxing for their child; and 21 per cent think it gives them time to get things done while the child is entertained.
"People have the assumption that parents used this as a babysitter, that's their primary motivator," he said. "But in fact what we found was that the Number 1 reason they give is that it's good for their children's brain."
"They think it's actually good and it's not surprising that they think that because they've been marketed to quite aggressively with claims to that effect. But the reality is quite different."
The Canadian Pediatric Society recommends that preschoolers watch an hour or less of TV a day and that school-age kids keep their screen time to two hours maximum. The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages any screen time for children under 2.
Dr. Anthony Ford-Jones, a pediatrician in Burlington, Ont., said the problem with infants and toddlers watching TV or DVDs is that it's a passive activity.
"It's very attractive, but it's probably not as good for the child's brain as actively doing something and finding their own fun," Ford-Jones said Monday. "A child's mind at the earliest stages works in such an active way. They can be fascinated by things . . . They'd be better off with a cupboard full of pots and pans than they would be with passive sitting in front of something that looks cute and pretty and colourful and has jingles and nice tunes."
"And you can extrapolate that to older kids as well, who have lost their ability to make their own amusement because they're so used to being fed stuff through the TV," he said, noting that the lack of physical activity is a huge contributor to an epidemic of childhood obesity in North America.
Christakis said most parents he deals with feel guilty about their television use, but instead of feeling guilty they should just try using it more wisely.
"It's very difficult to be a parent, and most parents find themselves relying on TV in one way or another. The real challenge for them is to find a way to make it work for their kids."
Generation Y's goal? Wealth and fame
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY
Ask young people about their generation's top life goals and the answer is clear and resounding: They want to be rich and famous.
April 18, 2007
"When you open a celebrity magazine, it's all about the money and being rich and famous," says 22-year-old Cameron Johnson of Blacksburg, Va. "The TV shows we watch — anything from The Apprentice where the intro to the show is the 'money song' — to Us Weekly magazine where you see all the celebrities and their $6 million homes. We see reality TV shows with Jessica and Nick living the life. We see Britney and Paris. The people we relate to outside our friends are those people."
Eighty-one percent of 18- to 25-year-olds surveyed in a Pew Research Center poll released today said getting rich is their generation's most important or second-most-important life goal; 51% said the same about being famous.
"We're seeing the common person become famous for being themselves," says David Morrison of the Philadelphia-based research firm Twentysomething Inc. MTV and reality TV are in large part fueling these youthful desires, he says.
"Look at Big Brother and other shows. People being themselves can be incredibly famous and get sponsorship deals, and they can become celebrities," he says. "It's a completely new development in entertainment, and it's having a crossover effect on attitudes and behavior."
The results of the Pew telephone survey of 579 young people describe the "millennial" generation (also known as Gen Y), who were born since the early 1980s and were raised in the glow and glare of their parents' omnipresent cameras. While experts say it's natural for humans to seek attention, these young people revel in it. They're accustomed to being noticed, having been showered with awards and accolades.
Add in the anything-is-possible attitude typical of youth overall, and experts say that even among millennials of lesser economic means, there is an optimism that fame and fortune can happen to anyone.
"Society raised us where money is glamorous, and everybody wants to be glamorous," says Jason Head, an aspiring actor who turned 26 just before Thanksgiving. He earned an associate's degree in applied arts. To pay the bills, he's a bar manager and bartender in the Dallas suburb of Plano.
Still, this generation acknowledges the realities of a world in which bills must be paid, Pew found. Money is by far their most important problem; 30% cite financial concerns. College and education was the second-biggest concern at 18%, and careers and jobs were third at 16%.
Life today is expensive
Monetary realities are far bleaker for this generation than what their parents experienced. Costs for basics such as housing, insurance or education have escalated, even as income growth for the middle class has slowed. There's also more disparity between rich and poor.
So, these young people may well be dreaming when they envision futures filled with money and fame, suggests economist Robert Frank of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
Young people today may earn more in dollars than their parents did, but their money buys less, which may make them feel poorer and means a lot less economic security, Frank says.
"They're going to have a harder time because the amounts they'll have to come up with to even do as well as their parents are going to be harder to achieve," he says.
Robert Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University, says one reason money appears so important is that modern American life "has a lot to do with acquisition."
"The way to distinguish ourselves is by our stuff," he says. "In some cultures, you're born into a caste. You know who you are, and it doesn't change. Here, you have to carve out your identity, and one of the most obvious ways to do that is to climb the ladder. It's not about birth and class, but it is about financial status."
Kristine Molina knows the pressure of trying to keep up. Molina is a graduate student in psychology and women's studies on a fellowship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She was born in Nicaragua and raised in Miami by her grandparents, both janitors. She received financial aid at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., from which she graduated in 2005.
Pressure to fit in
"Being poor and being a person of color and not wanting to fit the stereotype, my first year I bought things," she says. "I bought a lot of clothes and stuff for my room, and I bought my laptop. If my friends wanted to go out, I'd go out and spend on food when I knew I didn't have the money."
She turns 24 this month. She says hearing rags-to-riches stories and watching television shows about the lives of the rich and famous inspires her to want success in her own arena: She wants to become a college professor.
"I see some professors who have these big houses," she says. "It would be nice if I could."
Fame doesn't necessarily mean being on TV. "I personally hope to become an influential figure and to be a prominent researcher in my field," she says. "It's famous, but it's much less than stardom. I want to affect society."
Virginia entrepreneur Johnson started a dozen businesses before turning 21. He says celebrities, from athletes to actors and music stars, get huge amounts of money, so it's not surprising young people want that, too.
"Money creates the freedom to live the life we want," he says. In addition to online business ventures such as selling Beanie Babies and gift cards, he has written a book, out this week from Simon & Schuster, You Call the Shots.
The Pew study found young people are about twice as likely (14%) to admire an entertainer than a political leader (8%).
"Famous people are in their faces so much more, and as a society, we have escalated the value we put on celebrities," Thompson says.
Jason Barg, 24, a 2004 graduate of Penn State University who works for a Philadelphia accounting firm and founded an online real estate company, says notoriety is more about standing out from the crowd.
"A primary goal of people my age is not necessarily to become famous but to become distinctive," he says.
Now, young people can be celebrities in their own worlds by posting videos on YouTube, posing like a model on MySpace or creating an online reality show featuring themselves. Pew found 54% of those 18 to 25 have used social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook; 44% have created a profile featuring photos, hobbies or interests.
"We've got a lot of people who, the entire time they were growing up, the only time anything important was happening, there was a camera present," Thompson says. "When they were exiting the womb, they had a camera present. When they were blowing out that first candle or getting on the school bus for the first time, it was all being recorded."
Consumer psychologist Kit Yarrow of Golden Gate University in San Francisco worries about the downside of young people presenting themselves on the Web vs. the intimacy that comes with real communication.
"My fear is not so much for our society but for a sense of emptiness and depression these kids might have as they age," she says. "They're putting their resources and energy and validation and self-worth into what people who aren't close to them think of them, which is fame."
The Pew study attempted to find out more about the attitudes of this generation, which in many ways seem such a contrast to the flower-child values of many of their baby-boom parents.
MacNeil/Lehrer Productions commissioned the poll as part of a project studying Generation Next. USA TODAY is a reporting partner but did not help pay for the poll. The margin of error for findings on 18- to 25-year-olds is plus or minus 5 percentage points.
Other research also suggests that the minds of millennials are preoccupied with money.
A Gallup Panel survey of 18- to 29-year-olds released last month found that 55% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "You dream about getting rich." A similar Gallup study in 2003 of people under 30 found that more than half (51%) thought it was very likely or somewhat likely that they "will ever be rich."
Concerned about finances
In an annual survey of college freshmen by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles, 2005 data show that money is much more on their minds than in the past. The percentage who say it is "essential" or "very important" to be "very well off financially" grew from 41.9% in 1967 to 74.5% in 2005; "developing a meaningful philosophy of life" dropped in importance from 85.8% in 1967 to 45% in 2005.
The same was true for high school seniors in 1976 compared with those in 2005. Monitoring the Future, a study conducted annually by the University of Michigan, found striking differences in responses to the question "How important to your life is having lots of money?" In 1976, 15.4% of 3,009 respondents thought it was "extremely important," compared with 25% of 2,587 young people in 2005. And in 2005, 5.6% thought having lots of money was "not important," down from 11% in 1976.
Mark Ayoub, 20, a junior majoring in politics and religion at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., says at one time, he wanted to be famous in national politics but changed his mind after seeing how politicians have so little personal time.
Rich, though, "appeals to me," says Ayoub, who grew up in Needham, Mass., a suburb of Boston.
"I don't need to be filthy rich," he says, "but I want to live above the minimum — not just pay the bills but enjoy comfort in life and not just provide a minimal experience for my kids."
Bullying has spread like wildfire, educator says
Latest wave of violence involves children as young as 4 years old, conference told
April 03, 2007
Trish Crawford
Life Writer - Toronto Star
OTTAWA-The "cold-blooded" cruelty of youth bullying has been allowed to
spread like wildfire over the past 25 years, a North American expert told a
conference here yesterday.
Speaking to 400 teachers and youth workers at the third international
conference on bullying and victimization, U.S. educator Michele Borba
defined bullying as "cold-blooded intentional cruelty" that has infiltrated
all strata of society.
Borba, the architect of California's state school legislation on bullying,
said there have been "four waves of violence" affecting young North
Americans since the '80s when the violent behaviour of inner-city adolescent
males, who were poor and from black and Hispanic backgrounds, was noted. The
violence didn't occur in schools and was targeted at specific individuals.
The "I Am Safe Conference" was told the next wave occurred on school grounds
in the 1990s - Columbine, Colo., and Taber, Alta., are two examples - where
adolescent white males in non-urban areas randomly killed kids they didn't
even know.
By 2000, girls were becoming more and more involved in aggression, including
physical violence that was now crossing all gender, ethnic and income lines.
The latest wave of violence involves younger and younger children, including
those as young as 3 or 4 years of age, according to a study by Yale
University involving thousands of kindergarten students. The study found one
in 10 were being suspended for swearing, profanity and hitting.
Parents and educators have continued to think of bullying as "teasing and a
rite of passage" but it is much more serious and involves all students
because they are either aggressors, victims or bystanders, she said.
Bystanders who watch cruelty can ultimately become hardened to it, which
allows it to flourish.
Kids today are growing up in a society "where they see images of cruelty and
violence every day," said Borba, arguing that more teachers and parents need
to intervene early, promote peaceful schools, and institute programs of
kindness and caring among students.
Bullies have to be dealt with but restitution, not punishment, should be the
goal, she said. As well, she warned, victims left to fend for themselves can
become bullies with explosive consequences.
The pair who killed 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in
1999 had been bullied and excluded at their school, said Craig Scott, a
survivor whose sister, Rachel, was one of the first to die.
Scott, who was 15 at the time, is part of an international program called
Rachel's Challenge involving survivors of Columbine and other community
leaders speaking around the world promoting acts of kindness and inclusion
in high schools.
The "challenge" refers to the writings of Rachel, 17 at the time of her
death, in which she states, "I have this theory that if one person can go
out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of
the same."
Among the people Rachel befriended at school were newcomers and those with
intellectual disabilities, Scott said, and the program is designed to
encourage others to follow this example.
A number of books have been written about Rachel who was recognized
posthumously for her good citizenship.
Numbers Paint Picture of Girls at Risk
Pressures around body image, peer acceptance and risky behaviours leave many teenage girls with poor self-esteem and at risk of making poor choices. (Canadian Stats)
TheStar.Com
March 20, 2007
Sex and smoking
13% of Canadian girls have had sexual intercourse by the age of 14 or 15.
The odds of early intercourse among girls were high for those who, at ages 12 or 13, had reached puberty or were not overweight. Those with low self-esteem at 12 or 13 were more likely to have had sexual intercourse by age 14 or 15.
The smoking connection: 31% of girls at ages 12 or 13 reported they had tried smoking cigarettes. Of this group, 25% reported within two years that they had had sexual intercourse.
Binge drinking
In the previous 12 months, Canadian girls age 12 to 19 who were current drinkers reported:
55.1% had 5 or more drinks on one occasion.
31.1% had 5 or more drinks on less than 12 occasions.
20.2% had 5 or more drinks on 12 or more occasions.
Binge drinking starts young
Among girls age 12 to 14, 29.2% had 5 or more drinks on one occasion and 16.6% had 5 or more drinks on less than 12 occasions.
Power of the purse
Canadian girls ages 9 to 15 spend more than $100 a month on average, for total buying power of $2.3 billion a year.
Items purchased:
Clothing/accessories (75%)
Food from convenience stores (57%)
Fast food (41%)
Other food (36%)
CDs (36%)
Magazines (36%)
Books (36%)
Off to the mall
Canadian girls age 9 to 16 spend their weekends:
Shopping/going to the mall (31%)
Hanging out/playing with friends (22%)
Reading (10%)
Going to movies/renting movies (10%)
Watching TV (9%)
Spending time with family (6%).
Limited aspirations
Girls in Grades 5 to 8 in Rochester, N.Y., were asked to choose which job they wanted to have when they grew up. Of the five options:
9.5% wanted to head a major company like General Motors
9.8% wanted to be a Navy Seal
13.6% wanted to be a U.S. senator
23.7% wanted to be president of a great university
43.4% wanted to be the personal assistant to "a very famous singer or movie star."
Self-esteem affects the numbers.
Of girls who had mediocre grades: 67% wanted to be a personal assistant
Of girls with bad grades, 80% wanted to be a personal assistant
Source: Statistics Canada; Fame Junkies; Youthography
More Supervision, Less TV:
A Prescription for Fewer Problem Children and Youth
February 26, 2007
Ottawa—The evidence is in. There are more problem children and adolescents today than there were fifty years ago. So establishes the most recent paper in the Contemporary Family Trends series of the Vanier Institute of the Family, The Rise in the Number of Children and Adolescents Who Exhibit Problematic Behaviours: Multiple Causes, which is available at www.vifamily.ca/library/cft/behavior.html.
Problem behaviours, or acts that hurt others, can be disruptive, aggressive or delinquent, and range from lying and running away, to fighting and bullying, to theft and vandalism.
Author Anne-Marie Ambert points the finger at a host of factors that help to explain what's going on:
Parents are less available to monitor and engage in children’s lives.
Schools and neighbourhoods offer weak community social control.
A low social consensus of values and less emphasis on religion.
A rise in number of single parent families, especially those in poverty.
An increased access to media, especially television, which display – if not condone – individualism, materialism and violence, especially the long-term effects.
“Our society may present too many opportunities for the emergence of problematic behaviours and too few opportunities for the optimal development of children’s abilities and prosocial tendencies,” writes Ambert. She stresses the importance of early intervention because “most can be helped.”
“As a society, we need to find ways to reward children’s prosocial behaviour,” says Alan Mirabelli, Executive Associate of the Institute. “Especially, we need to find ways to support parents and teachers’ efforts to set limits, engage in children’s lives and model positive values.”
The Vanier Institute of the Family, is a national, charitable organization dedicated to promoting the well-being of Canadian families.
SEX OF ANY KIND CAN HARM TEENS EMOTIONALLY
February 16, 2007
By Amy Norton
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teenagers often suffer emotional consequences from having sex, even when it's "only" oral sex, a study published Monday suggests.
Researchers at the University of California San Francisco found that up to one-half of the sexually active teenagers in their study said they'd ever felt "used," guilty or regretful after having sex.
Though such feelings were less common among teens who'd only had oral sex, about one-third reported some type of negative consequence.
Dr. Sonya S. Brady and Bonnie L. Halpern-Felsher report the findings in the journal Pediatrics.
The study, according to the researchers, suggests that parents should be sure to talk with their kids about the potential negative effects of having oral sex, not only intercourse.
"When parents and teens talk about the consequences of having 'sex,' they may not take the time to define what sex is," Brady and Halpern-Felsher noted in comments to Reuters Health.
"It is important for parents to help teens understand that having oral sex may result in social, emotional and physical health consequences -- just as having vaginal sex may result in these consequences."
In particular, the study found, girls were twice as likely as boys to say they'd ever "felt bad about themselves" after having sex, and three times more likely to say they'd felt used.
Though the study could not look at the reasons for this difference, other studies have noted that there's pressure on girls to at once be sexually attractive yet resist having sex.
"In contrast, boys' sexuality and sexual behavior is generally accepted," Brady and Halpern-Felsher pointed out. "Parents can play an important role in helping to eliminate this double standard by encouraging respect for women and discouraging the use of derogatory sexual terms."
The findings are based on a series of surveys given to 618 students at two public high schools, beginning in ninth grade when they were 14 years old. Of these, 275 reported having oral sex, vaginal sex or both by the spring of tenth grade.
Among the sexually active teens, those who said they'd had only oral sex were generally less likely to report negative consequences, whether physical -- pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections -- or emotional.
However, they were also less likely to report positive effects, like feeling closer to their partner or feeling good about themselves. Such positive feelings about sex were common, the study found. In fact, the teens more often reported positive effects than negative ones.
This suggests that when parents talk with their kids about sex, it might be a good idea to acknowledge the potential positive outcomes, like emotional intimacy, Brady and Halpern-Felsher note in their report. Parents could then talk about other ways to find those same feelings. | 