Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Poll Shows Parents Torn When Teens Enter the Workforce

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

As summer nears, teens may want to apply for their first job or try to boost their hours for the season.

Not all parents think this is such a good idea, though, according to a new C.S. Mott Children's Hospital poll.

"Teen jobs can be super positive, and I think we see that in our data, but there's also the risk of potential physical and mental health" problems, said Sarah Clark, co-director of the Mott Poll at the University of Michigan.

For teens, these early work experiences can gain them money for the things they want or need and help to build their self-esteem. But parents worry their kids might get overloaded.

Parents expressed concerns about kids with jobs not getting enough sleep. They also had concerns about scheduling and transportation, the impact on grades during the school year, stress, and workplace safety.

More than 1,000 parents of teens were polled. About 8% said their 14- and 15-year-olds had jobs, compared to 42% whose teens were 16 or 17 and more than half (53%) of those who had 18-year-olds.

About 76% of parents polled cited money management as a positive impact, while 70% cited self-esteem, 63% said time management, and 28% said social life.

Among the cons were sleep, according to 16% of parents, and impacts on activities and social life (11% each) and school grades (4%).

About 87% of parents said how a job fit into their teen's schedule mattered when thinking about whether a job was appropriate. About 68% cited the convenience of getting them to and from their job as a key factor. Other important considerations included the learning experience (54%), pay rate (34%) and the other teens who work there (25%).

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/parenting-a-teen-2659845780.html

Poll Finds Many Parents Unaware of Kids' Exposure to Vaping

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Four out of five U.S. parents questioned in a large poll believe their preteen and teenage kids are clear on the risks that electronic cigarettes pose, and only a few think their child actually vapes.

Still, if their child did vape, would parents know? Nearly half of more than 1,300 parents polled said they would.

The findings, experts say, point to a potential disconnect between what parents think is going on and the real deal when it comes to vaping among American youth.

"These findings point to a few ways parents might be off," said poll co-director Sarah Clark.

For one thing, Clark pointed to 2022 data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found that 14% of high school students and 3% of middle schoolers had vaped in the prior month.

It's not so easy to tell if your child is among them, cautioned Clark, a research scientist with the Child Health Evaluation and Research Center at the University of Michigan.

She noted, for example, that many parents in her team's poll "appear to think vaping would leave a detectable odor, the way traditional cigarettes do. This is not the case."

Many of the parents also believe "they will find vaping devices or supplies," Clark added. "However, disposable vapes are popular with youth, and likely are thrown away before parents have a chance to find them." Also, a number of them are disguised as pens, phone cases or watches.

"And many parents think their child would tell them if they were vaping, despite a long history of kids trying to hide this type of thing," she said.

The vaping poll is the latest release from the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. Conducted in February, it surveyed parents who have at least one child between 11 and 18 years old.

The Mott Poll Report was released on March 20, 2023.

Researchers Find Strong Adolescent-Parent Relationships Lead to Better Long-Term Health Outcomes in Young Adults

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by ScienceDaily.

Researchers from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have found that adolescents who report strong relationships with their parents have better long-term health outcomes. Study findings, published today in JAMA Network Open, suggest that investments in improving parent-adolescent relationships could help improve general health, mental health, and sexual, health while also reducing substance use in young adulthood.

The study utilized data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Reseachers tested whether adolescents' reports of specific, measurable characteristics of their relationships with mother- and father figures with whom they live were linked to health outcomes measured 14 years later. The researchers looked at data from more than 15,000 adults who were initially enrolled in the study in the mid-1990s when they were between 12 and 17 years old.

The researchers looked at characteristics such as reported parental warmth, communication, time together, and academic expectations as assessed when the participants were between 12 and 17 years old. When those same participants were 24 to 32 years old, they reported on current levels of stress, depression, optimism, nicotine dependence and substance abuse, and other measures of general health. The study controlled for age, race, ethnicity, family structure, and other factors and separated the data based on relationships with mother and father figures who lived in the home. More than 10,000 participants were analyzed for the study.

The study found that participants who reported higher levels of mother-adolescent and father-adolescent warmth, communication, time together, academic expectations, relationship or communication satisfaction, and inductive discipline reported significantly higher levels of general health in young adulthood. Similarly, they reported significantly higher levels of optimism and romantic relationship quality and lower levels of stress and depressive symptoms as young adults. Higher levels of adolescent-reported parental warmth, time together, and relationship or communication satisfaction were also significantly associated with lower levels of nicotine dependence and substance abuse in young adulthood as well as lower odds of unintended pregnancy.

Source: ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230321112658.htm

Did 'Helicopter' Parents Cause the Mental Health Crisis in Today's Young?

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Kids and teens are struggling with their mental health in America, and one new report suggests the overinvolvement of parents may be partly to blame.

Kids don't get to roam anymore. They've lost time for free play and risk-taking amid parents' fears about the dangers of the world, said report co-author David Bjorklund.

While people think the lack of independence and the growth in mental health issues is new, it's been a lot more gradual, said Bjorklund, a professor in the psychology department at Florida Atlantic University College of Science, in Boca Raton.

"It's not a really new phenomenon. It's a growing one. And it's been growing for decades," Bjorklund said. The trend emerged in the 1960s and really accelerated in the 1980s, the authors said. Some eventually dubbed the trend "helicopter parenting."

Adults were well-intentioned in wanting to protect children, according to the paper, but this has deprived kids of the independence they need for mental health. And now, young people are experiencing high levels of anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation.

Too much schoolwork is a part of this mental health decline, according to the article published online recently in the Journal of Pediatrics. The school year increased by an average of five weeks between 1950 and 2010, and homework is common, even for small kids.

Recess, meanwhile, averaged just 26.9 minutes in a school day in 2014, the authors said.

Yet another challenge to a youngster's mental health: intense pressure to achieve at an early age, especially in middle-class families planning on college, Bjorklund said.

Having opportunities for independent play, self-directed activities, and being able to contribute to their families helps children feel trusted, responsible, and capable, Bjorklund said.

"Play is important, and that's the concept that some people find hard to believe," Bjorklund said.

From play and independence, children gain a sense of autonomy, a feeling that what they do makes a difference, Bjorklund said.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/tackling-the-mental-health-crisis-in-young-people-2659565344.html

Happy, Loved Teens Become Heart-Healthier as Adults

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

When teenagers feel good about themselves and their lives, it may also do their hearts good in the long run, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that teenagers who generally felt happy, optimistic, and loved went on to show better cardiovascular health in their 20s and 30s versus kids who lacked that level of mental well-being.

Overall, they were more likely to maintain a healthy weight, as well as normal blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels. And having such positive feelings appeared particularly important for Black teenagers' future health.

"One thing I'm struck by is we really don't have a handle on the 'good things' that kids need to support their cardiometabolic health," said lead researcher Farah Qureshi, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore.

To dig into the question, her team examined data from a national health study that enrolled nearly 3,500 U.S. high school students in the 1990s and followed them for more than two decades.

At the outset, the students answered questions that gauged five psychological assets: happiness; hopefulness about the future; high self-esteem; feeling socially accepted; feeling loved and wanted.

The bad news: More than half of kids — 55% — had none or only one of those positive feelings.

But when they had four or five of those assets, they were about 69% more likely to maintain good cardiovascular health into their 30s compared with their peers. That was with a range of other factors — like family income, parents' education, and kids' body weight — taken into account.

In line with past research, this study found that an unfortunately small number of participants maintained good cardiovascular health into their late 30s: just 12% overall.

The study was published online in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/heart-disease-adolescent-health-2659080064.html

As Legal Pot Grows, More Kids Sickened by Edibles at Home

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

The number of young kids, especially toddlers, who accidentally ate marijuana-laced treats rose sharply over five years as pot became legal in more places in the U.S., according to a new study.

More than 7,000 confirmed cases of kids younger than six eating marijuana edibles were reported to the nation's poison control centers between 2017 and 2021, climbing from about 200 to more than 3,000 per year.

Nearly a quarter of the children wound up hospitalized, some seriously ill, according to a new analysis in the journal Pediatrics.

And those are just the reported cases, said Dr. Marit Tweet, a medical toxicologist with the Southern Illinois School of Medicine, who led the study.

Cases of kids eating pot products such as candies, chocolate, and cookies have coincided with more states allowing medical and recreational cannabis use. Currently, 37 U.S. states permit the use of marijuana for medical purposes, and 21 states regulate adult recreational use.

Tweet called for greater vigilance by parents and for more laws like those adopted by several states to make pot products—often packaged to look like kids' candies and snacks—less appealing and accessible to children.

"When it's in a candy form or cookies, people don't think of it in the same way as household chemicals or other things a child could get into," she said. "But people should really be thinking of it as a medication."

Of more than 7,000 reports, researchers were able to track the outcomes of nearly 5,000 cases. They found that nearly 600 kids, or about 8%, were admitted to critical care units, most often with depressed breathing or even coma. Nearly 15% were admitted to non-critical care units, and more than a third were seen in emergency rooms. Drowsiness, breathing problems, fast heart rate, and vomiting, were the most common symptoms.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-01-legal-pot-kids-sickened-edibles.html

Words Can Wound When Parents Talk to Kids About Obesity

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

With U.S. health officials calling childhood obesity a public health crisis, conversations about weight are important. But what you say to your kids can be challenging, and even counterproductive, a new study found.

"Body weight is a sensitive issue, and the way we talk about it matters," said lead author Rebecca Puhl, deputy director of the University of Connecticut Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health.

"We really want to identify language that adolescents feel more comfortable using in these conversations, that they don't feel stigmatized, that they don't feel blamed or shamed," Puhl noted.

To do that, researchers reviewed 2021 survey data from more than 2,000 kids ages 10 to 17, along with more than 1,900 parents. Participants were asked about 27 terms and phrases that can be used to describe body weight.

The teens felt the most negative emotions about terms like "overweight," "fat," and "extremely obese," the study found. More than one-third of youths reported feeling embarrassment, shame, and sadness when their parents used these words.

Have a daughter? Tread lightly, the researchers recommended. Girls reported feeling more negative emotions in response to words used about weight than boys did.

"I think a lot of parents have positive intentions when it comes to talking about their child's weight. They want their child to be healthy. They want their adolescent to feel good about their body size, but sometimes the way that they communicate can come across as being critical or judgmental or using words that really make them feel bad about themselves," Puhl said.

At least half of the kids surveyed don't want their parents talking about weight. They're more willing to talk when they bring it up first or if their parents ask their permission to discuss it, Puhl said.

Even better than talking is modeling healthy behaviors and providing opportunities to eat healthy food at home. Go for walks and make dinner together as a family, she said.

The study findings were published in the December issue of Pediatrics.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/child-obesity-2658669715.html

Kids' Screen Time Rose by 50% During the Pandemic: Three Tips for the Whole Family to Bring It Back Down

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Has your child's screen time increased since COVID? If you were to estimate by how much would you say 20%, 30% or even a 50% increase?

A newly released review comparing children's screen time before and during COVID, shows children's screen time spiked by a whopping 52% between 2020 and 2022. Increases were highest for children aged 12 to 18 years, and for handheld devices and personal computers.

Increased screen time likely did not negatively interfere with well-being during lockdown periods as it was the only way to remain socially connected. However many worry, about the impact of ongoing high levels of screen time on children.

There are important points to consider regarding how problematic screen time impacts mental and cognitive health, which sit at the core of learning and development for children, and for us as adults.

Even though life is (almost) back to normal, many parents have noticed their child's technology use is still much higher than pre-COVID levels. Their instinct may be to come down hard with rules and restrictions.

Taking measures to cut a child's screen time may seem like the most obvious parenting strategy. However, it is not necessarily the best as it often cannot be sustained. There are other measures that are more effective.

Like children, adults also experienced excessive screen time during COVID. Given parents' level of screen use is strongly associated with children's screen use, getting our own screen time back under control is an important role model that children need to see. Here are three tips:

1. Approach it together. One study from Denmark focused on all family members taking measures together to change their screen habits and the results were highly effective.
2. Prepare for challenges. Important to the success of families in the study was that they were encouraged to talk about their expected challenges of reducing screen use and list potential solutions.
3. Guide all elements of healthy screen use. Ensure parental guidance focuses on all three aspects of healthy device use: screen time, screen quality and screen buddies. This means keeping a eye on time spent on a device but also ensuring a child uses technology in a wide variety of positive ways, in varying social situations—sometimes independently but often with others.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-11-kids-screen-rose-pandemic-family.html

Forget STEM Classes, Parents Want Schools to Help Improve Their Children’s Character

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

More than four out of five parents want their young children to learn more than just STEM. A poll of 2,000 American parents of children ages five and younger found 77 percent believe character development skills are just as important for their young children as academic skills in early education.

In addition to STEM education, parents want their children to develop a sense of belonging and community (77%) and learn the value of community service (75%). Parents say they also would like to see their children learn responsibility (48%), charity (43%), honesty (42%), and fairness (41%) in the classroom.

Two in three parents surveyed (67%) wished they themselves were taught character development skills when they were students. When it comes to choosing an early education provider, 75 percent prioritize providers that embed character development skills in their curriculum.

More than 75 percent of parents think society would be a better place if their children learned character development skills in the classroom.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/stem-classes-parents-childrens-character/

Strict or Neglectful Parents Tend to Have Heavier Kids

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

The effects of different parenting styles on children's weight have been determined—and indicate parental warmth is key to a healthy weight; the International Congress on Obesity in Melbourne (18–22 October, the biennial congress of the World Obesity Federation) will hear.

The analysis of data on more than 10,000 U.K. children found that authoritarian and neglectful parenting in early childhood were linked with higher weight throughout childhood and adolescence. Both of these types of parenting are characterized by a lack of parental warmth.

"The effect of parenting style on a child's weight is often considered a taboo subject," says researcher Alexa Segal, of the Center for Health Economics & Policy Innovation at Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London, London, U.K. "However, a comprehensive understanding of the associations between parenting style and childhood and adolescent obesity has great potential to inform obesity policy and contribute to the development of more effective health and nutrition programs."

The analysis of up to 23 years of data on 10,510 participants showed that youngsters who experienced authoritarian or neglectful styles of parenting in early childhood (age 7) were more likely to have a higher weight (taking into account their age, sex and height) than those who experienced authoritative parenting. They were about 1.5kg (3.3lb) heavier, on average. The association was seen at all ages.

The study's authors say that the lack of warmth associated with authoritarian and neglectful parenting may mean that a child's ability to self-regulate their food intake—to eat when hungry and stop eating when full—does not develop properly.

The results also suggested that permissive parenting was associated with increased weight, although the effect lessened with age. However, this result wasn't statistically significant and more evidence is needed to reach a firm conclusion.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-10-strict-neglectful-parents-tend-heavier.html