Whether it’s parents, teachers, coaches, or family friends, there’s no question that adults serve as powerful role models for youth as they transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Mentoring programs across the United States have tried to harness the power of positive role models in the hopes that relationships with an adult mentor will help to support kids’ socio-emotional and cognitive development. But are mentoring programs effective? And do all programs have equally positive effects?
It may seem like common sense that kids benefit from having mentors in their lives, and that the kids who are at risk – for poor performance in school, for engaging in risky behaviors, or for negative health outcomes – stand to benefit the most from a mentoring relationship. These assumptions are the reason that mentoring programs are used as an intervention strategy in many different settings, including education, juvenile justice, and public health. But mentoring programs vary along many dimensions and serve diverse populations, so it’s important to establish the aspects of these programs that benefit different groups of kids. [continue reading…]
Missing out on what happens at school is just one more price that children who live with smokers have to pay. In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in the October Pediatrics, a group of Boston-based researchers have concluded that tobacco smoke exposure has significant consequences for children and families above and beyond child morbidity, including academic disadvantage and financial burden. Absenteeism among children aged 6 to 11 years living with smokers could be reduced 24 to 34 percent by eliminating smoking in their homes. Caregivers’ lost wages and time due to child absenteeism was valued at $227 million a year.
If you need another good reason to quit smoking nicotine dependence has emerged as a risk factor for suicide attempts.read more Source:Psychiatric News
In this new RSAnimate, renowned psychiatrist and writer Iain McGilchrist explains how our ‘divided brain’ has profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society. Taken from a lecture given by Iain McGilchrist as part of the RSA’s free public events programme.
On any given day we’re lied to from 10 to 200 times, and the clues to detect those lie can be subtle and counter-intuitive. Pamela Meyer, author of Liespotting, shows the manners and “hotspots” used by those trained to recognize deception — and she argues honesty is a value worth preserving. Source:TED
