Another Chapter 10 Entry: Help Your Children Before it is Too Late!

This is Lauren Burner, the author of this entry, between her two sisters, Sarah and Katelyn.
She explained,
"This is a picture of the ritual I described in my blog entry of reading a book every night as a family. Check out those fancy dresses and my
bowl hair cut. I am not sure what is going on with my older sister and
that face she gave,but I swear she is not as evil now as she looked in that picture. Haha!" Sarah might not appreciate that Lauren has made this picture of her public, but I'm sure she'd appreciate what Lauren has written -- and I think you will, too.

She wrote:

After reading Elkind’s chapter on the ways to reduce stress in children, I couldn’t help but relate these concepts to my own personal life. I came from a divorced household and my mother was a single parent without the help from my father. We relied heavily on my grandparents for support in raising my sisters and me. Although we spent a majority of our time with our grandparents, we were still placed in day care at an early age and spent most of our days away from our mother. When my mom would drop us off at school, she would always say, “I love you and I am going to miss you little munchkins.” She always made us aware that she did not want to leave us. She called us munchkins from the day we were born, but as I personally grew into my teenage years, my name was quickly changed to a monster.

Elkind suggests that parents need to be the prime example for children. Children in their early years tend to think more egocentrically and believe that everything is centered on them. When parents start to experience levels of stress, it is reflected upon the family and the child will start to feel those emotions associated with stress. My mom had a lot of stress when it came to being a single parent of three daughters. She had stress relating to finances, occupations, family, home related instances and education. She constantly worried about our futures and how they would reflect our childhood. Honestly, I can never remember a circumstance where I could feel my mother’s stress because she always dealt with it independently. She would sacrifice her own feelings for the sake of her children’s best interest (like any mother would!).

One thing I really cherished looking back on my childhood is that simple matter that my mother let us be children. My mother relied on us for many things when we got into our teenage years, but as children she wanted us to have the so-called “normal” childhood. We spent a massive amount of time with my grandparents, which was not normal to many of my friends. I did not spend time with my father because he gave sole custody of my older sister and me to my mom. After she divorced my dad, she married my step- father and had my little sister, Katelyn (she is the brown haired munchkin, who TRULY is the monster of the family---yet the baby as well!). We had that picture perfect image, but things inside the marriage and family were not perfect. My mom and step-father were divorced and once again my mother had to find a way to make ends meet for her family.

I have always valued the way that my grandparents and my mother have talked to us. Even as children they would explain circumstances in a way that we could understand and evaluate. They did not treat us like adults or try to mature us in any way to grow up and start dealing with the problems of life. They equally took on the role of allowing us to remain children and continue with our lives. Everyone treated us with the respect a child deserves. We were asked to do chores around the house, but were never asked without thank you or please attached to it. According to Elkind, saying thank you and please in regards to something you want a child to do allows that child to realize that they are not being told what to do but rather asked.

I found this chapter very interesting because it talked about how our society has been so rushed in terms of time in our daily schedules. Our society is so fascinated and obsessed with time that they forget to take time out for their children. Parents are so fixated on their personal lives in association with work, finances and household concerns, that they forget to take time for their children and check in with them every once in a while. My mother worked 50-hour weeks but when she would come to my grandparent’s house to pick us up, she would always make time for us and ask us how school was. We had many rituals in my family. One of the most important was when my family would sit on the couch and read a book before we got ready for bed. After the book my mother, or whoever was reading the book to us, would ask us questions about the book. This was her way of allowing us to speak our mind and treasure our time.

This idea of time and hurrying makes me think about a quote that my grandpa always said while we were growing up. “Life is not measured by the years in life; rather it is measured by the life in your years.” This quote should be valued more by our society and taught to our children more. They should continually be encouraged to play and enjoy their years and not stress over the little things that life throws their way. Parents can definitely lessen the stress that children are feeling and they can also encourage their children to be open and honest with them. These techniques will alleviate the stress placed on children and hopefully prevent the hurrying that children are experiencing in today’s society.

Our First Entry on Our LAST Chapter: Helping Hurried Children

This is Aglaed Garcia, who wrote our first entry for chapter 10. Of the picture, she said,

"Apparently, I am blowing a kiss and trying to look sexy for the picture." I think you'll enjoy her entry on Elkind's final chapter.

She wrote:

In this chapter, Elkind talked about helping hurried children. He mentions that in order to help children we first need to recognize what we cannot do. “We cannot change the basic thrust of American society, for which hurrying is the accepted and valued way of life” (p.205). We also need to be able to understand children. If we cannot understand them, then we cannot help them. Instead of helping them we push them to a limit and that causes unnecessary pressure. They feel like miniature adults because they are dealing with multiple stressors.

Elkind mentions two types of contractual violation and exploitation. One is called calendar hurrying and the other one is called clock hurrying. Calendar hurrying is when we expect children to perform beyond their capabilities to make decisions. A good example of calendar hurrying is when children feel pressured by their parents to perform beyond their understanding. This reminds me when I was working with first graders in an after-school program. When I first started working with the students, I was very amazed at how advanced the students were academically. They were only in first grade and they were already learning how to add and subtract big numbers. Their vocabulary words were very advanced because some students were able to read words like wonderful, friendship, summer, and swimming. In my opinion, all the students were very bright and smart. They all had unique skills and abilities. However, according to their teacher, some of the students were behind academically. The students that were behind were pressured to perform beyond their understanding. They had extra homework assignments and sometimes were not able to play outside with their peers because they needed to complete their homework first. The students were overwhelmed and felt unhappy in school with class activities. They felt unsure and unable to perform well on certain tasks. Children at this age should not feel devastated and overwhelmed because of school. They should feel confident to explore and not be afraid to make mistakes when learning new tasks.

Clock hurrying is another type of violation and exploitation. Clock hurrying happens when we demand that children perform a task in a short period of time. It pressures them to use all their energy and finish fast. In the end they feel overwhelmed and exhausted. This reminds me of Susan, a five year old girl in the after-school program. One day, one of my students was crying because she was struggling with her homework. Since we only have 30 minutes to work on the homework, she was not able to finish on time and was devastated. She told me that her mom was going to be very angry at her for not finishing her homework. I talked to her and told her she was going to be fine, and not to worry because her mother was going to understand. However, she was still upset, and told me, “My mommy and teacher are going to be very angry at me, and they are not going to love me anymore.” She was very upset and worried about her mother’s reaction. I wanted to help and give her more time to finish her homework, but it was against the school policy. The students only had 30 minutes to work on homework. After homework I was assigned to do math and reading activities with them. Most of the parents expected that their children would be able to finish their homework in the afterschool program. Therefore, the majority of the students felt pressure to complete their homework before they went home. The problem was that they only had 30 minutes to work on homework, and some of the students are not able to complete their homework on time. Another problem was that some students rushed to finish and they ended up doing their homework wrong.

In the chapter, Elkind said that in order to help children and not make the mistake of hurrying them, we need to lower our demands and increase our support. If we are able to recognize our mistakes when working with children, we will be able to help them instead of creating stressors for them. Children have their unique skills and abilities. We just need to help them discover them.

Final Chapter 9 Entry

Annette Cipolla is the author of our final entry on chapter 9. She was able to relate Elkind's ideas to the lives of her children, and I think you'll appreciate her insight.

She wrote:
In chapter 9, Elkind addresses ways that children react to stress. Children feel stress from daily life that shows up as behaviors such as irritability and restlessness or general unhappiness and withdrawal. A Freudian term Elkind used that is new to me is free-floating anxiety, which he says derives from “simply not knowing what to be afraid of” (p. 187). It is commonly found in children who have parents that are separated or switch between many caregivers. I think their anxiety is caused by children feeling instability in their lives. They may not be afraid of anything in particular or even be able to explain what is wrong, but they definitely feel the stress of not knowing what’s going to happen next. I agree with Elkind that it is the separation from parents that is the most stressful for children. I offer my own children as an example.

I have three sons, who were ages 6, 7, and 12 at the time our family got divorced. They are now 16, 17, and 22. As a parent I thought I was relieving the stress on my children because they were living in a home with constant fighting. In reality it did not happen that way. While our home did become calmer, my children began to feel the stress of separation. Their lives became very unstable because their father began to work out of town a lot with the result being an inconsistent relationship between children and father. Over the years, my youngest has gone from having outbursts over his dad not showing up, to being apathetic and refusing to see him. My middle son would stare out the window, crying; at the time, he said he was wishing for his dad to come home. He has never expressed that he wanted us together nor has he placed blame on anyone. However, he has suffered from depression and, I believe in part, it is because he internalized all the anxiety he felt from missing his father. My oldest seemed to handle it quite well; although, as an adult, I see that he is living the same rushed life as his father and is constantly stressed.

This reminds me of a comparison Elkind made about burnout. He compared the symptoms of job burnout that adults feel to the symptoms of school burnout that children feel. Burnout is something I have witnessed and experienced and I do feel that it is prevalent in today’s school system. Learning is an insatiable joy for most children when they are very young and learn out of curiosity. Therefore, they are excited about going to school and learning new things. The anticipate the novelty of school experiences, but soon the demands of getting the answers correct and the overwhelming workload lead to stress. As we have discussed in class, children get homework in kindergarten and are given tests with grades. Imagine how a five year old feels when she is told she failed a spelling test or does not read well enough to go on to first grade with all the new friends she made. I would think that the loss of self confidence would be significant. Isn’t that too high a price for children to pay just because our society is in a hurry for them to learn? Not to mention, if children feel like failures in elementary school, how will they have confidence to get through junior high and high school? The chronic stress of always trying to keep up and do well can be overwhelming, and as Elkind says, can lead to learned helplessness that can possibly affect them for the rest of their lives.

One thing in chapter 9 that was particularly interesting to me is the studies that were done on children to test for Type A and Type B personality traits. Surprisingly, children’s personality traits didn’t correlate as much with their parents’ type as much as it did to how they were treated. Children with Type A personalities were more likely to have parents that pushed them to do well in addition to being more critical of their children's performance regardless of their own personality type. Children with Type B personalities received more praise and patience. This is an important concept for parents to realize. If parents offer praise, patience, and encouragement they will make it easier for children to deal with the stresses they experience.

In some cases, though, children are capable of coping with stress quite well on their own. This was Elkind’s last thought in the chapter. It is an intriguing fact that some children in extremely stressful environments use it as a motivator to accomplish their goals. Researchers have found that these children have these five qualities in common: social competence, impression management, self-confidence, independence, and achievement. I think that children with these abilities that lack support from home have similar temperaments that enable them to cope. It is my opinion that children who are highly sociable would fall into a category of having those five qualities. As a final thought, I think society as a whole would benefit if children and adults were taught coping skills to deal with the enormous stresses of living in a rushed society. Stress is unavoidable. Unfortunately, many adults lack the ability to deal with their own stresses which contributes to the growing stresses placed upon children.

Rena's Chapter 9 Entry

This is Rena Fields, our latest author, and her little sister, Sheena. Reena and Sheena. Gotta love the sound of that. And I think you'll love reading Rena's thoughts on chapter 9, too.

She wrote:

This chapter is all about how children react to stress and the different factors that could possibly cause them to react that way. What I found interesting is that it seems that more and more children are experiencing stress that is usually seen in adults which goes to re-iterate the concept and title of this book.

In the first part of this chapter the author talks about children experiencing chronic stress. This type of stress varies and is not specifically attached to a certain fear or anxiety. I was a bit shocked to see that the majority of this type of stress was mostly seen in separated or divorced households. I was a child of a divorce and only lived with one parent for the majority of my life. What also shocked me were the examples of trends that would differentiate a single parent household from a two-parent household. I can see why some of the examples would be common in some single parent households, such as having a record of being tardy or absent. This can be understandable if one parent has multiple kids to get out of the house and drop off at various locations; it is hard and can even be more difficult when one of them doesn’t want to listen. I just feel that my mom had to work even harder to not stick out even though we already did because we were the only family with one parent in most of my classes. Some of the other examples of single parent trends included going to the health clinic more and more behavior problems. I don’t understand the part about the health clinic. On the other hand, behavior problems are something that my little sister went through, but it was more because of her disabilities -- or that’s what they thought --than the divorce.

The next part of the chapter was on Type A behavior which is a personality pattern that categorizes how people handle stress and stressors. I assumed that it was for adults and their type of behavior, but according to this part of the chapter, children can have a Type A or Type B personality that is similar to adults. According to a study done on 378 children by Dr. Gerald Berenson and Louisiana State University, children who have a Type A personality can have some of the same health problems as adults with Type A personalities. The study showed that children had higher amounts of cholesterol in their blood stream than the children with Type B personalities. As an adult this can lead to other health problems such as migraine headaches, heart disease, and hypertension. Personally, I think that this is scary for children, and they shouldn’t already be experiencing health problems due to stress at such an early age.

I feel that the next section of this chapter on school burnout is something that we can all relate to, especially because the majority of us are graduating this semester. We all know what it’s like to go to school for thirteen years and then continue our education for another four to six. According to Elkind, children are feeling the same way as we are feeling as college students, which seems crazy to me, but understandable. As we all know, children are subject to a lot more testing and are pressured to perform well in school, while their parents have them signed up for five different extra curricular activities. Some parents do this to try and keep their children out of trouble and involved, but what it is doing is stressing them out. As a result, they are doing poorly in school or will even go to the measure of cheating because they are pressured to have the best of the best grades. It can be too much for us as adults. I can imagine it is even worse for children because if they don’t do well, they can get held back, whereas we can just take the class over again.

Lastly, we have all experienced some type of helplessness when we have been put in situations that are beyond our control and there is nothing we can do to fix it. Children are put in that same situation everyday that they go to school. They are told and forced to complete a task that they either never learned or don’t feel comfortable doing. Then, they find a way to get out of an activity or discussion because they don’t know what they are doing. The one thing that I can think of in relation to us as college students is where we sit in the classroom. There are a lot of students who prefer to sit in the back of the classroom because they do not like being called on or asked to participate. As a result their learned helplessness is to always look for a seat in the back so that they can avoid participating.

Overall and as stated above, these items seem to be a discussion that adults would be having with other adults, except this book is about children so we know it is something that children are experiencing. Stress comes in different forms and hopefully we can get this somewhat under control before our children have some serious health concerns.

Our Third Entry on Chapter 9

Jessica Nunez wrote our latest entry on chapter 9. Enjoy!

She wrote:

In Chapter 9, Elkind describes the various ways children respond to stress and the factors that may contribute to it. The factors that contribute to the way children react to stress are the amount of stress that is put upon them, their outlook on the stress situation they are in, and the different coping methods available to them. Due to these factors, the way a child deals with stress is completely unpredictable. I think that he is correct with believing children deal with stress in different ways. I have witnessed some children who fall apart when under stress, and other children who rise above their stress like an adult would. Children who rise above their stress could be growing up too fast. They should not even be stressing at such a young age.

The next thing Elkind addresses is Free-Floating Anxiety, which is unexplained fear that causes the child to feel restless, irritated, and unable to concentrate. Free-Floating Anxiety is considered to be a common response to separation and divorce. This type of stress affects the child's school behavior as well. A study showed that children from one-parent homes had lower attendance and achievement compared to children from two-parent homes. I do believe that divorce causes children’s school performance to decrease. They might be worried about issues at home rather than the lesson they should be learning in the classroom. In reality, school should be the main focus in a child's life.

Sometimes I feel like all the stress I am undergoing is due to problems that may be occurring at home. However, unrelieved stress in adults may be the result of what is known as job burnout. Job burnout occurs when someone grows tired of the same routine every day. Children undergo the same thing but it is called school burnout. In the study of job burnout, there were five stages identified as the honeymoon, fuel shortage, chronic symptoms, crisis and hitting the wall. All of these stages are about the same for school burnout. The school burnout may be caused by the child being dissatisfied with school, causing them to lose interest in it. The end result of that lost interest will be accomplishing less in school.

In order to respond to stress in a positive way, one of the following five qualities must be present. The first one is social competence. Young people seem to be relaxed when they around their peers. The second one is impression management. This is how the young person presents himself in public. Self-confidence is important when dealing with stress because they need to have faith they could make it through their situation. Another quality that affects the way a child reacts to stress is independence. When they can think for themselves, it shows that they are not affected by other people's opinions. The last quality to affect stress in a positive way is achievement. When a child focuses on a certain task rather than their stress, it gives them the opportunity to feel accomplished. I know from experience that these qualities do help us respond to stress in a positive way. One example is that, when I am around my family and friends, all my problems seem to be lifted just by their company. I think that all of these qualities would really help turn children’s daily stress into something positive, and enable them to live a less stressful life.

Another Entry on Chapter 9

Our latest author, Melissa Kyhn, had this to say about her photo: "The picture was taken when I was 2 and my brother was 4. It is one of
the many pictures that my Oma and Opa had taken of us when we were
younger. As you can see I had finally grown some hair!" You'll be happy to know that Melissa STILL has hair, and she has grown into quite a writer in the meantime...I think you'll agree when you read her work here.

She wrote:

In chapter nine Elkind addresses how children react to stress. Elkind writes that children might react to stress with free-floating anxiety, which includes a sense of unrest, having a low mood, and physical ailments that are stress related. Free floating anxiety is most commonly associated with the divorce or separation of parents and is the reason why I experienced free floating anxiety as a child. When I read Elkind’s words, I thought, “That’s me.” I was only three years old when my parents divorced and while I don’t remember a whole lot from around that age, I remember quite a bit of anxiety during my middle school years.

I grew up being shuffled from house to house. My mom would take me to school, my step mom would pick me up from school, and my mom would pick me up after she got off of work. If all of that wasn’t enough, every Wednesday night and every other weekend was spent at my dad’s house. I remember feeling a lot of anxiety as a child. I had to remember to pack my blankie and stuffed lamb in my backpack or else I wouldn’t have them to sleep with at my dad’s house. I always worried about my blankie and lamb being in my backpack at school. My school would have frequent fire drills, which I thought were real fires. I would stand outside of the school with the rest of my classmates and I would freak out, worrying that my prized possessions were going to burn up in my classroom.

The stress reaction that I feel is the most important is school burnout. Elkind described school burnout as occurring when students are excited about school at first, and then they eventually become dissatisfied because of failure or other reasons. In some cases this burnout causes the student to hit a point where they feel done, and they will in some cases be kicked out of school for their actions or they will drop out of school. School burnout made complete sense to me. There have been times when I have been stressed out and thought that I couldn’t finish college.
Students are being taught things like algebra earlier and earlier in school, so I can completely understand that they would feel inadequate and feel like giving up because they didn’t get something that was being taught to them. To me, school burnout is the most serious reaction to stress. School dropouts are at a huge risk of poverty because most students that drop out, never go back to school.

I think it is our job to watch out for these kinds of reactions to stress and try to help children cope in better ways. While reading this chapter, I found myself wondering what is in store for the future of children in our society. It seems like year after year children have more and more stress, and the stress that they have often starts at such a young age. My big question after reading this chapter is that, if this is how children are reacting to stress now and the stresses seem to be getting more extreme, what kind of reactions are children going to have ten years from now?

Chapter 9: How Children React to Stress

We're getting down to the wire here, as we've covered 8 of the 10 chapters in "The Hurried Child." Given that we're just a few weeks away from the end of the semester and all of the finals and papers that brings, it is perhaps fitting that we're reading even more about stress! You'll see that Kasey Bigelow, the author of our first chapter 9 entry, could relate to Elkind's ideas about stress on hurried children.

She wrote:

Stress is poison!

Children let their minds bully their bodies into believing it must carry the burden of its worries. The effect of stress on children is the main focus of this chapter. Children’s stress is caused and brought on by many things. Some of the most common causes are divorce, single parents, school, fear, and daily life experience. Children respond to their stress symptoms and stressful situations by learning how to use their coping mechanisms. Children are faced, and often forced, to deal with difficult situations that they are not ready for. This in turn causes them to stress out and often grow up too fast. School puts so much pressure on children that parents often don’t understand. School can be hard if you’re not getting the right attention, or if you fall off track in one subject. This can result in a domino effect in other subjects.

The book talks about the type A and type B behavior in children and explains how the behavior is similar to adults. The type A behavior has more stress symptoms than the type B. Children hurried by parents and schoolteachers have a high level of stress. When I was reading this section, it was vague and confusing, and I am not sure if I agree with what the author had to say about it. I do, however, agree that everyone is different and has different personalities that help in handling stress.

When I read this chapter about children dealing with stress, it took me back to my own childhood memories. My parents did not get divorced, but I did and still do have a problem with school. I have trouble learning and taking tests, and I wanted school to be over as soon as it started. When I started school, the only things I liked about it were making new friends, boys, and sports. If I was to get graded on those things I would have gotten all A’s. You would think that being interested in boys at age 5 would have started a whole stress problem all on its own. Luckily that stress kicked in when it was supposed to a few years ago. I completely related to the example in the book when it said that children pretend to be sick or act out in school. I did not understand the information presented at school and I felt stupid, so I did exactly that: I got mad and pretended to be sick. I hated the way I felt and this all started in the second and third grade. Learning multiplication and spelling were the most difficult for me, and after that everything started tumbling down. Unfortunately no one noticed that I was having trouble until high school, and then I was tested for a learning disability. I had finally got the help that I needed without all the stress.

Reading this chapter it has inspired me to either study deeper in child development, or to find out how the mind of a child reacts during stress, as well as how behavior is impacted. I think I would have to study psychology of the mind and children if I want to know more. Children make interesting subjects to study behavior and stress to figure out how the mind and body works. It also helps towards finding out how the adult mind and body work when faced with stress. This chapter can get you thinking about yourself and how you work now, as opposed to how you worked as a child handling stress. It’s almost like when you say, “I wish I knew then what I know now. It would have made things in my life a whole lot easier.” Children and adults process information differently when under stress. It is just upsetting that children go through so much stress that we, as adults, don’t always know about or understand. Studying children’s stress and situations will hopefully help us better understand their inner workings. Children just need to be children again without all the stress. Children also should not have to be burdened with adult problems, yet unfortunately they are.

Parents and other adults pressure children to be number one in whatever they do. Sports, fear, and anxiety from guilt and disappointment are all things that increase the pressure on children. It can be difficult for children to understand that parents only want the best for them, and a child can interpret that he needs to be the best.

There are changes toward children and their health that need to be made today in society. Stress is hurting children in more ways than one and they need our help. Things that can help are looking for the symptoms, and working with children one on one as much as possible. It is important that a child gets help, rather than suffering through it. So basically I want to make sure to either learn more about child stress or make sure children get the help they need.

Our Second -- and Last -- Entry on Chapter 8

Can you believe we've made our way through 8 chapters of "The Hurried Child" already? I can't...the semester is flying! I continue to be so impressed with everyone's analyses of Elkind's ideas. In our latest entry here, Rhiana Guardado has concisely addressed a number of issues around stress that are addressed by Elkind. I appreciate not only her insight, but her awareness of the child's AND parents' perspectives and/or challenges. Enjoy!

Rhiana wrote:
In chapter eight, Elkind addresses the issue of stress, and the various forms of stress to which children are susceptible. He believes that any situation where a child is hurried creates stress in the child. I think that his notion is correct. I have witnessed countless incidences where an adult rushed a child because he had an agenda, and the child was not moving fast enough. In our society, stress invokes a sense of frenzy in our lives. I remember one instance in high school where my best friend exclaimed, “There are not enough hours in a day.” There is so much that needs to be accomplished and not enough hours afforded to us, it seems. Our society is stressed, and the repercussion of this stress is often felt by children.

Elkind wrote that “schools hurry children by pushing them into dull routines of much adult work” (p.180). I must admit, I am guilty of this practice. I am an aide at an elementary school. I work with preschoolers and kindergartners. Often times, there are children who do not do their work when they are supposed to. I can’t really blame them (I myself, a college student, do not want to do my work sometimes). However, there are expectations placed upon these children to excel. They are required to do all their work, or face the consequences of being kept inside at recess, or, of being held back another year. My job is to encourage them and to let them know that they can achieve if they just try. However, if they are moving slowly, I prompt them to move faster. It is not because I enjoy putting pressure on them, but rather because I want them to be able to go play and have fun, as I feel children should.

When I was in kindergarten, I had a blast. I loved coloring and cutting out shapes. It breaks my heart when I see a child who wants to drop out of school because he doesn’t know how to use the scissors. Learning at this age, 4 to 6, is supposed to be fun. However, the stress put on these children to excel conveys nothing of the like. While I know that the work is daunting, I also know that it is not impossible. Teachers and aides can only do so much. If parents could take the time to help their children learn, perhaps children would not feel as stressed in school.

Elkind mentioned that television adds additional stress on children. I believe that he is correct in this notion. In the days before television, children had to create their own forms of entertainment. They were not cooped up inside all day in front of a talking box. They were outside playing. Children release stress when they are active. It makes them feel better. However, with television, the internet, and video games, there is much more entertainment inside the house. Therefore, children are not as active, and as a result are not releasing their stress. I believe that parents are also afraid to let their children play outside for fear of what might happen to them. They feel safer knowing that their children are safe inside the house. I think this may add additional stress on children because they may be compelled to eat more, adding more weight to their frames, and therefore creating more stress.

Chapter 8 Entry -- The First of Two

You might remember that the author of our latest blog entry, Tianna Baines, had her first child, Kazidy, right after the semester started. Though I'm sure she's exhausted, she has hung in this semester like a trooper, and I think you'll enjoy this new mom's thoughts about chapter 8.

She wrote:
As a new parent, this entire book has been interesting to me. In this chapter, Elkind discusses how hurrying children is a form of stress and how it affects them. He focused on three different areas that cause children to stress. He began with responsibility, change, and emotional overloads caused by parents. When parents have very busy lifestyles, they tend to have little time to give sufficient attention to their children. They either require the oldest child to help around the house, doing more chores and taking care of younger siblings, or there are various other caregivers who take their place. Elkind states that these things cause children to become stressed because they now have adult responsibilities, and it is a lot for them to deal with. I can relate to this because I am the oldest of three. There were times when I had to help my siblings prepare for school in the morning, and also babysit after school because my mom (being a single parent) had to be at work. Back then I didn’t realize that these extra responsibilities were the cause of my not being able to play as much or be outside as long. Now I’ll know what to avoid with my own daughter so that she’ll enjoy her childhood.

Next Elkind discusses the stress that school places on children,not only because of grades and high honors, but now because of the violence. Today school violence goes way beyond the classic bullying, with children having access to guns but no guidance. While reading this section I wondered how parents can assure their children that school is a safe place so that they’ll be excited about school and learning. More importantly, I wondered how teachers can better read the signals of students under so much stress that they turn to such violence.

Another stressor in schools is the monotonous and rushed structure of the classroom. We’ve discussed many times how rote memorization does not help children. I believe that teachers who disagree with this process of teaching, used simply for standardized tests, should protest it so that better teaching styles can be implemented. This fast paced, tedious style introduces children to early burn out before they reach college and try to pursue a career.

Lastly is stress the media causes. Elkind states that it presents children with too much information that they are not capable of understanding, causing an overload. In this state of overload, children work more and play less, which leaves no opportunity for stress relief. I feel that children in today’s society watch too much TV anyway, whether it’s age appropriate or not. Parents shouldn’t use television as a babysitter. They should become more involved in their children’s lives and plan more social and physical activities. I remember when I was young, my mom didn’t allow us to watch certain programs because she felt they were too violent even though they were kid programs. I always thought she was being unfair, but this was her way of protecting us from additional stressors for which my siblings and I weren’t emotionally ready. The simplest rules from parents are beneficial to children in many ways, and allowing children to be themselves and grow at their own pace makes healthier children.

Our Final Entry on Chapter 7

This is Shannon Nash, the author of our fourth and final entry on chapter 7. She is with her brother, and their parents took this when they were cleaning their garage. You've got to appreciate the things children will find for play!

My apologies to Shannon for taking so long to get her entry posted here. She turned it in the week before we left for Spring Break, and though I'd hoped to get it posted then, I actually ended up taking a break...and not logging on here at all! But Spring Break's over, so we're back...and I think Shannon's entry will get you right back in the spirit of Elkind's work, as she did a great job.

Shannon wrote:
Chapter seven is about how children learn to be social. I was a little bit surprised at how many different ways children learn to interact socially. Family plays the biggest role in socializing children. Elkind pointed out the ways that different theorists think children are socialized. He used examples from Bandura, Skinner, Piaget, and Freud. Elkind also talked about different kinds of contracts between parents and their children. These contracts are created through trust, and if they are broken by the parents, children feel betrayed.

The first contract is a parent-child contract. This one is when the parents mediate for the child in his or her social situations. This is interesting to me. Growing up, you never realize why your parents are doing the things they do, why you get punished for something you thought was not really a big deal, or why your friends get to stay out later than you. When you are young and in the moment, it is hard to notice that your parents are just looking out for you. The parent-child contract helps children construct their society. Every time my parents told me, “ No,” growing up, I thought they were mean and just did not want me to have any fun. In reality, they were helping me construct my society. I look back now and realize that they were right most of the time. There are times when certain things are alright to do, and times when they are not. Being older and having more knowledge, they realized that, while I did not.

The second contract is freedom-responsibility. The parents use this contract to gain trust and give trust. If a child is responsible, she will get more freedom. For instance, if a child gets her homework done before dinner, she can stay up late to watch her favorite show. It is a give-and-take type of contract. I think this contract is important because it helps a child learn to be responsible. I do that with myself now. I am not allowed to turn on my television at night unless all my homework is done. I know it is a distraction to me so I have to set those boundaries. In children’s lives, parents set those boundaries and have to stick to them in order to teach the child responsibility.

Another contract proposed by Elkind is achievement and support. This is when a child is participating in something that he loves and the parent supports the child’s decision. An example of this would be participating on a sports team. The way the parents show support is to go to the child’s games and cheer him on. This type of support is very important in how the child succeeds in that particular activity. When I was in high school, I was on the swim team and every time I had a swim meet, my dad would leave work early to come watch me. My mom worked part time so she was always able to be there, but either way, I had her support. My brother played baseball all his life so I spent many days and nights at the baseball fields watching him play. When I was on the swim team, he had moved about six hours away to go to college. I always gave him a hard time because he never came to my meets while I spent most of my life watching him play baseball.

Those are a few examples of some of Elkind’s contracts. Reading these contracts really tells you how a child can be hurried. Putting pressure on children to perform is happening more and more these days. Children have so much to live for, but they are only hurried along by their societies and always having to be the best at something. Going back to my swim team days, even though my parents supported me in every meet, and wanted me to do well and win my races, they did not care if I came in first place or last place. They knew that I was happy swimming. Even I did not care about the competition. I just loved being in the water. I was very fortunate to have parents who did not push me to do better or go faster; they were happy just knowing I was happy. I feel that more parents need to be this way and to just support their children, not make them become more than they really wanted.