Schools are losing touch with some of the most vulnerable families across England during the pandemic, as the threat of truancy fines leads parents to de-register their children, with many feeling abandoned and isolated.
The government has said that parents who do not send their children back to school should face the usual penalties for non-attendance. But, although ministers say missing school would put “a huge dent in children’s life chances”, some families with members suffering from serious health conditions say it is not worth the risk. With headteachers saying they cannot authorise their absences because of the government’s policy, they face fines of between £60 and £2,500 for each parent.
Some heads are demanding letters from doctors to prove families’ health vulnerabilities, causing confusion as GPs say it is not their job to intervene. Education Otherwise, which supports home educators, says
In a nationwide study, UCLA researchers have found that health inequities can be measured in children as young as 5 years old. The research, published in Health Affairs, contributes to a growing body of literature finding that children of color who are also poor face greater health inequities than their white counterparts.
Researchers trained kindergarten teachers in 98 school districts across the United States to administer the Early Development Instrument (EDI), a measure of children’s physical, social, emotional and language development.
The assessment was administered to more than 185,000 kindergarteners from 2010 to 2017. After analyzing and correlating the results according to where the children lived, the investigators found that 30 percent of children in the lowest-income neighborhoods were vulnerable in one or more domains of health development, compared to 17 percent of children in higher-income settings.
The researchers also found that income-related differences in developmental vulnerability varied substantially
Children are more likely to introduce violent themes into their pretend play, such as imaginary fighting or killing, if they are with playmates whom peers consider bad-tempered, new research suggests.
Academics from the University of Cambridge believe that the tendency for children to introduce aggressive themes in these situations — which seems to happen whether or not they are personally easy to anger — may be because they are ‘rehearsing’ strategies to cope with hot-headed friends.
The finding comes from an observational study of more than 100 children at a school in China, who were asked to play with toys in pairs. Children whose play partners were considered bad-tempered by their peers were 45% more likely to introduce aggressive themes into their pretend play than those whose partners were reckoned to be better at controlling their temper.
Importantly, however, a child’s own temperament did not predict the level of make-believe
Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis just appeared in an adorable new video.
Kensington Royal posted the cute video to their social media accounts.
The royal trio! It’s not every day that we get to hear Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis’ little voices. So, when Kensington Royal released a cute video of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s three kids, we took notice.
The three children appeared with TV icon and natural historian, Sir David Attenborough, to ask him questions about nature. First up was 7-year-old George, who asked, “What animal do you think will become extinct next?” David said that he hopes no more animals will become extinct. Next up was 5-year-old Charlotte, who said, “I like spiders, do you like spiders?” He answered that he loves them (why he loves them is still tbd).
Lastly, 2-year-old Louis asked, “What animal do you like?” David
Children are struggling with mental health issues more now than perhaps ever before, though the treatment available — therapy, drugs, or both — differs widely from state to state.
Using a national database of insurance claims, Princeton University researchers investigated the type of treatment adolescents — most of whom were around the average age of 12 and suffering from anxiety or depression — receive after a first episode of mental illness.
Less than half of children received any therapy within three months, and 22.5% of children received only drug therapy, the researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Of the children receiving drugs, 45% were prescribed strong, addictive drugs in the benzodiazepine class (like Valium or Xanax), tricyclic antidepressants, or drugs that were not FDA-approved for use in children as a first line of treatment.