End-of-month links!

Here are a few links you might find interesting:

• Our friends at the Children's Alliance have a great blog. Check there for information on cutting-edge issues of children's rights and legislative change.
  

• This post on Mark's Daily Apple, a health and fitness blog, addressed childhood obesity and health issues. Also, check out this one on the merits of outdoor play time.

• The Seattle Times has an article on Eckstein Middle School's work to integrate students who receive special ed in the same classrooms as their peers who do not.
  

• Harvard Family Research Project has released a report called After School Programs in the 21st Century: Their Potential and What It Takes to Achieve It
  

• The RAND Corporation has a new report called Current-Generation Youth Programs: What Works, What Doesn’t, and at What Cost?
  
  
• Here's an article from the Christian Science Monitor on service learning as dropout prevention.

Thanks to imnop88a for the Flickr Creative Commons photo.

GLBTQ youth and suicide prevention

by Heather Carter, Youth Suicide Prevention Program

In April, 1995, a boy who identified as bisexual and two of his friends were viciously assaulted by four classmates. The assault sent this boy into a depression that required hospitalization. Soon after, he took a massive overdose of pills and died. He didn't leave a suicide note, but he had said to his mother before he was hospitalized that he was just tired of coping. It was the constant knowledge that at any time he could be attacked again simply because of who he was, that at any time his friends could be attacked for the same reason, that, despite the love of his family and friends, all he could see ahead was a lifetime of facing a world filled with hate and violence, going from one assault to another. He was 17 years old. (Provided by Gabi Clayton)

This is just one example of the pain, despair, and suicidal thoughts that GLBTQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) youth may face due to issues related to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. There is a need to focus on GLBTQ youth and suicide because of their increased risk for suicidal behaviors due (in part) to feelings of isolation, homophobia, (real or fear of) rejection by family and friends, internal conflict, and their coming out experiences.

• Approximately 30% of GLB youth report at least one suicide attempt within the past year. (Data from 7 different national studies conducted within the past 10 years)


• GLB youth report lower levels of each of the following “protective factors” against suicide: adult caring (including teachers and others), family connectedness, and school safety. The conclusion of this study was that sexual orientation alone accounted for a small portion of the variability in suicidal ideation and attempts, if protective factors were improved among the GLB population that the suicide risk would decrease significantly. (Eisenberg & Resnick. Suicidality among gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youth-The Role of Protective Factors. 2006)

The data are clear: if protective factors such as these and access to safe and effective care were present, the suicide risk among the GLBT population would decrease significantly. I believe that we have a responsibility to help build a safety net for all youth. I believe that we have a responsibility to give all youth hope, including the hope to be accepted for who they are.

We must increase community support for our youth so they can grow and flourish as they transition into adulthood.

Heather Carter is the LGBTQ Project Coordinator for the Youth Suicide Prevention Program. This program is a resource for youth and community members seeking resources for suicide prevention. She reminds readers:

We welcome outspoken supporters from all communities to align with us for the sake of our children. Please contact the following with any questions about our GLBTQ youth project:

Heather Carter
GLBTQ Project Coordinator
Youth Suicide Prevention Program
Phone: 206-297-5922 Ext. 116
Heather (at) yspp (dot) org

Thanks to alien-paranoia for the Creative Commons photo.

Comments no longer require registration

A quick administrative post here to let you know you can now post comments without having to register a Google account. We got feedback that people didn't want to have to remember yet another password. We'll change this back if we get comment spam, but hopefully we won't.

We're also still accepting submissions (as always) for blog entries, so email us if you'd like to write something. I know we have a few on the way in.

Children, Compassion and the Brain II: Adolescence and the Prefrontal Cortex

While the panelists at The Scientific Basis for Compassion focused primarily on early childhood, they also addressed what neuroscience teaches us about compassion in adolescence, particularly the development of the prefrontal cortex.

In the last few years, scientists studying adolescent brain development have focused largely on the prefrontal cortex. During adolescence, and even into the early twenties, the prefrontal cortex is still developing significantly. This area, the furthest forward section of the frontal cortex (behind the forehead), plays a managing role in the brain. Among other things, it:

• moderates decision-making and social behavior
• controls risk assessment, remorse, and the ability to foresee outcomes of our actions
• helps us distinguish right from wrong
• guides the application of experiential learning.

Adolescents, in whom the prefrontal cortex is still developing, are for this reason sometimes stereotyped as impulsive risk-takers who make poor social decisions. As an advocate for youth leadership, I prefer to look at this stage of development in a positive light. That is, if brain development implies that youth are slightly less risk-averse than adults, they might have a capacity for innovation and new ideas that decreases with age. They might even have leadership or creative abilities that adults don't have.

The development of the prefrontal cortex also makes adolescence a critical stage for building compassion. The prefrontal cortex is strongly associated with an individual's personality traits, including kindness to others and social behavior. The ability to tell right from wrong and to assess risk are aspects of compassion; to be compassionate to another person, one has to see the consequences of not being compassionate, and to feel that lacking compassion would be wrong.

That adolescents have a capacity for compassion and an interest in justice isn't a surprise to anyone who has worked with youth on issues of social justice, service-learning, or inequality. Youth are often at the forefront of movements for social justice. Perhaps development of the prefrontal cortex puts issues like social injustice at, pardon the pun, the front of their minds.

Emotional or physical damage to the prefrontal cortex can be detrimental to our ability to feel compassion, since the prefrontal cortex also seems to play a role in our ability to express love for others. One of the panelists at The Scientific Basis for Compassion described the case of a previously compassionate mother who, after a car accident left her prefrontal cortex damaged, lost her ability to behave empathetically and lovingly to her children. She could no longer see how her actions affected them emotionally, making compassion difficult. While the damage in this case was physical, it's a reminder that physical or emotional damage during adolescence, such as family violence, discrimination, heavy drug use, or the withholding of compassion may stunt the healthy development of the prefrontal cortex, and thus the expression of compassion.

Just as the development of mirror neurons marks a critical time to help a baby develop compassion, so does the development of the prefrontal cortex mark a time to encourage the innate compassionate skills of youth. Through leadership and service opportunities, or anything else that promotes compassion, youth get to use their decision-making and risk-assessment skills, and to build habits of acting compassionately that will hopefully last into adulthood. This can happen if we treat adolescents with love and respect, nurture their interest in compassion, and give them decision-making and leadership opportunities that meet their own interests. It's also worth noting that some studies imply that play is essential for healthy development of the prefrontal cortex.

The Seeds of Compassion event focused primarily on youth, on helping children be compassionate, and on taking a cue from youth for the development of a more compassionate world. The part about taking a cue from youth is critical; they already have an interest in compassion. To bring it out, we have to be compassionate toward them ourselves, to give them opportunities to express their compassion, and to listen and learn from them.

Thanks to laura.ouimette for the Creative Commons photo.

Children, Compassion and the Brain I: Early Childhood and Mirror Neurons

I feel lucky to be one of the thousands of people who heard the Dalai Lama speak during Seeds of Compassion, a 5-day Seattle event focused on teaching children and adults to practice compassion. In addition to Saturday's feature event at Qwest field, I attended a panel entitled The Scientific Basis for Compassion, which featured the Dalai Lama and assorted specialists in behavioral neuroscience and psychology.

Friday's event was a treat for anyone interested in neuroscience and child development. The panelists and the Dalai Lama passed insights, questions, and occasional giggles back and forth as they explored what makes children develop and retain compassion, and why compassion is urgent in today's world. The presenters emphasized that compassion is necessary for a healthy world, that we all have the inborn capacity for compassion, and that for that capacity to be realized, we need love and nurturing from an early age.

The way we interact with and behave around children and youth strongly shapes their own ability to be, or not to be, compassionate. There is a strong connection between brain development and compassion.

In early childhood, babies' mirror neurons* are actively developing and shaping connections. These are the neurons that allow babies to imitate other people's actions, feelings, and experiences. The amazing thing about mirror neurons (in babies and adults) is that when we perceive someone doing something (feeling happy, eating ice cream, etc), mirror neurons fire in such a way that the same part of our brain lights up as though we were doing that thing ourselves. If a baby watches you laugh, the part of her brain that makes her laugh lights up. If a baby watches you walk, the parts of his brain in charge of motor coordination light up. Interestingly, this response is much less strong when watching a video of another person's behavior, rather than in person, although it still happens. Still, the best learning happens in person.

The link to compassion is pretty clear. As one of the presenters on Friday explained, a three-year-old child, upon seeing someone hurt his or her finger, will often try to comfort that person. That toddler's mirror neurons are firing in her brain in such a way that she understands the pain of a hurt finger; the part of her brain that would be active if she'd hurt her own finger is active watching someone else. She has learned how her mother behaves when the toddler has hurt her finger, and so she comforts the adult in the way she has learned. This interplay of mirror neurons and learned behavior is the basis of compassion.

Young children therefore have a built-in capacity to empathize with the pain and joy of others. Yet, as the Dalai Lama and several of the scientists emphasized, this capacity has to be brought out through our caregivers. It takes a parent or guardian loving and raising that child to bring out the innate ability to be compassionate. The wrong guidance can bring out violence instead.

One of the panelists, Dr. Alicia Lieberman of UC San Francisco, drove home this point. She said, "Children can cope with very adverse circumstances when they have at least one relationship that gives them hope and makes them feel cherished." However, she emphasized, mirror neurons also mean that children can learn negative behavior and emotions as well. She told of a boy who had been kicked out of nursery school for throwing a chair and telling someone he was going to kill them. When Dr. Lieberman followed up at the boy's home, she found out he was mimicking precisely the behavior of his father, threatening to kill his mother a few days before.

Children can learn and mimic actions, behaviors, and feelings both positive and negative. The child acting up in nursery school was only expressing emotions by repeating his father's behavior. It's striking how well children can do this. In a lighter example, I recently saw a home movie of a child doing a parody of a cooking show segment; the child gets a lot of the long words and even vocal inflections dead-on. It's hilarious, but it's also a reminder of how seriously we have to take our behavior around children. If a child can do such a good job of imitating a video (and again, remember mirror neurons don't even respond as strongly to people on video), how closely are our children learning from our behavior in front of them?

This is a reminder that the love we express for our children and around them is essential to helping them develop into compassionate adults, while violent and angry behavior shapes our children as well. We need to be intentional about everything we do and say; our children are watching and learning.

I'll leave you with a few words from the Dalai Lama that I managed to jot down:

"From birth, we already have the capacity [for compassion]. Now, further nurture that. These precious things, we have from birth because of necessity." - Dalai Lama


*If you're interested in reading more of the latest research on mirror neurons, send me an email at dgardner (at) uwkc (dot) org and I'll send you some.

Thanks to sylvar for the Creative Commons photo.

Quality foods and school meals

Just when the passage of Local Farms - Healthy Kids was getting our hopes up about nutrition in school lunches, the Seattle Times reports that the rising price of food is hitting schools hard and forcing them to buy worse quality foods, and to raise prices.

There is no easy answer, but I think the best answer is to increase subsidies for healthful school food. If you like to think in simply economic terms, investing in kids’ health now saves money down the road from the effects of poor nutrition on physical and mental wellness, not to mention academic performance.

The quality of the food we feed our kids, like the quality of the education we give them, reflects what we’re telling them they’re worth. It's not that schools want to feed kids poorly; dedicated, caring people work for school districts trying to make sure kids are fed. Yet, with budgets getting tighter around the country, food prices rising, and less money for schools, it sounds like schools have fewer options for feeding kids the nutritious food they deserve and need to help them thrive. Is this what kids are worth to us? Is this the message we want to send?

UPDATE:
Check out this editorial in the Seattle P-I about the issue. They've contacted Seattle Public Schools, which states that the district will not decrease the quality of their food, even if costs go up. Cheers for the P-I and SPS for taking a stand on the importance of nutrition for kids.


Thanks to vnysia for the Creative Commons photo.

News about graduation rates

by Debs Gardner

I wish it had been an April Fool's Day joke, but the news released on April 1st about graduation rates in urban school districts was truthful and sobering. The report (which you can find here), compiled by America's Promise, revealed that not only are graduation rates in the nation's 50 largest cities at an alarmingly low rate (about 58% graduating), but that the gap nationally between urban districts and their suburban counterparts (about 75% graduating) is significant.

Note that a school district being located in a suburban area doesn't cause kids to stay in school any more than a school district being in a city causes kids to drop out. There are some factors worth noting, especially poverty, racism, health, access to opportunities, and school funding that have a pretty strong impact on whether kids will succeed. Notably, some urban areas had a much higher discrepancy between suburban and urban graduation rates than others. Seattle had about a 10% discrepancy.

By the way, the same day the report was released, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced that the US would now require a standard means of reporting graduation rates. Also not an April Fool's joke. I'm curious; what do schools think of this? Does it make sense? Is the procedure or formula a good one?

We'll explore the issue of graduation more in future posts, including how to increase graduation without depleting the other ingredients youth need and deserve in their lives. Please share your thoughts as well.

Thanks to gadgetdude on Flickr for the Creative Commons photo.

After-school: right or reward?

by Debs Gardner

A recent article in the New York Times showcases a new policy about after-school and academic performance in a school near Buffalo, NY. The school's principal has made participation in extracurricular activities dependent on students' grades, so that a student with poor grades is not allowed to participate in sports, art, drama, dances, or other activities.

I see two major problems with this policy. The first is, it assumes the only reason students are doing poorly in school is that they aren't trying hard enough. If we take away something fun, the argument goes, those kids will stop being lazy and shape up. That's probably true for some kids, and it's a nice compliment to after-school programs, but most kids who are doing poorly in school have more barriers than effort, including social, economic, personal, instructional, learning-style, or bias-related barriers. If a kid isn't doing well in school because she's coming to class hungry, how do you expect withholding after-school programs to improve her grades?

The second major problem is that the rule implies after-school programs are only social, fun rewards rather than beneficial experiences in their own right. The kids who are doing poorly in school need –- and are entitled to –- quality after-school programs. Not to provide extra tutoring or academics, necessarily, but to provide some of the socio-emotional supports and motivation that it's hard to experience when one is doing poorly in school.

A good after-school or youth development program helps kids succeed in school and in life, regardless of whether the program has academic content. This happens for a few reasons.

Kids who are doing poorly in school often lack a sense of hope and aspiration, although it's hard to say whether that feeling causes failure, the reverse is true, or it's simply an association. It's hard to feel you're good at something when you're constantly receiving papers back with red marks and low numbers. However, if a kid finds something he enjoys and connects with through after-school or youth development programs (theatre, running, painting, photography...), he learns that he has aspirations and passions, that he can enjoy and improve at something that's hard at first, and that he's not going to fail at everything. Those lessons and the well-being and confidence they inspire transfer back to school performance.

Also, quality programs are yet another place outside of school, and without the academic pressures of school, where youth can connect with caring adults and peers from beyond their classrooms, and learn important social and emotional skills to help them succeed in school and beyond.

Granted, not every after-school program is a quality, positive experience for youth, but most are, especially when they're thoughtfully designed and implemented. In worst case scenarios, such programs can feel like an extent ion of school, babysitting, or yet another grounds for the kind of bullying and social problems rampant in many schools. However, that's becoming increasingly anomalous in a country that's learning to value after-school and other youth development programs as places where children and youth. The more we care about after-school programs, the better they'll be.

In general, I'm all for trying new and innovative methods in education and youth development. Encouraging innovation inspires schools and youth programs to experiment, to build on what they know, and to develop models that can be used by other schools and programs. There's usually some merit to every approach, and experimentation leads to new and better ideas.

In the case of this school's approach, however, I think the experiment brings too many hazards. I worry for the kids who are getting yet another message that they're not good enough. A quality after-school program should give them the opposite message, and a positive message may help them succeed in school and feel better about being there.

And speaking of messages, if we're striving for quality, designating after-school as a reward to be doled out sparingly like dessert sets us up to provide poor-quality programs. If after-school staff are told by the school that their programs are essential to helping kids succeed, they will run their programs accordingly. If their programs are considered an indulgence rather than essential, there is little motivation to focus the program on helping kids succeed.

On the other hand, most program staff already know the value of their programs. I can't imagine the staff at that school are thrilled with the new rule. From the article, it sounds like the students aren't either.

Thanks to dave_mcmt for the Creative Commons photo.

Youth leadership matters

by Debs Gardner

In June, Marina Espinoza and I carried out a two day training in Honolulu, HI on the Multicultural Youth Leadership curriculum (which you can find here). The first day, the participants, representatives from youth organizations all over Hawaii, experienced all the activities of the curriculum hands-on, while reflecting on how to facilitate these activities with youth. The second day was a training-of-trainers session, in which participants learned how to train other adults to use the curriculum, which would make continuation of the curriculum sustainable after we left town.

Both days were well-received, and sparked lively discussion. The topic of multicultural youth leadership is hot in Hawaii, an extraordinarily diverse state where youth from countless cultural backgrounds live close together. Much of the training’s conversations reverted back to specific concerns, like the Polynesian and Micronesian kids not getting along.

One participant shared that the youth in his program have finally come to a cultural understanding when they’re participating in program activities, getting along and acting like friends, but still fight when they’re out and about. He was dejected, understandably. It’s so rewarding to help youth take a significant step - learning to work together, to see how divisions are disempowering, to find common ground - and so defeating to feel like all that work gets lost.

Yet, this challenge is part of why youth leadership programs matter. True, it’s disheartening for the youth and adults both when youth are able to connect within a program but still revert back to conflict outside. But it’s also very real and honest - and reality is, obviously, a basis for true learning. Change is incremental. Progress that youth make within a shared space like an afterschool or summer program isn’t progress lost.

The trick is to engage the youth in frank conversation and reflection about the discrepancy between where they do and do not get along, to help them set boundaries, and to let them develop solutions. Practice dealing with the complex realities of conflict resolution gives youth more preparation than frankly most adults have in breaking down barriers to working together. Conflict, cross-cultural communication, oppression, ethnicity, identity, and alienation are not always easy topics to touch, but youth are by and large less afraid of going there than adults are.

And what’s the alternative? Leadership programs that don’t address culture and conflict, leaving youth alienated and feeling unwelcome? Failing to prepare youth not just for the world they will someday inherit but the world in which they already own a share?

Time matters, and this is why longer-term programs or overnight summer camps make ideal soil for growing youth leaders. Given enough time, youth will feel ownership of and connection to a strong program, a group of peers, a way of being. Give youth time, resources, decision-making power, dialogue, and activities that engage them, and youth will find a solution even where adults won’t. Then, let these youth teach what they’ve learned to their younger peers. Leadership begins here.

Welcome to SOAR's children and youth blog!

This blog, we admit, is somewhat of an experiment. Blogs in the nonprofit arena are rare. Blogging is an increasingly popular and familiar medium of communication in fields such as journalism and science. Yet, we're starting to see nonprofit blogs pop up. Vince Matulionis of United Way of King County keeps an excellent blog on King County's efforts to end homelessness.

Child and youth development is as urgent and timely an issue as homelessness. There is a great deal to say, to ask, and to discuss. The news is full of stories of youth succeeding or facing daunting odds, articles about the latest child and youth development research, or information about parenting.

At SOAR, helping kids reach for the sky, we decided it's time for us to have a blog too, as a way of interacting with the community, sharing our and others' thoughts, and spreading the latest research and news. We strongly welcome guest posts; if you'd like to write a piece (short or longer) for the blog on an issue facing children and youth, please contact us at dgardner (at) uwkc.org.

Please leave comments and join the discussion!

SOAR, helping kids reach for the sky, is a community collaborative that connects advocates for children and youth in King County. By working together on ideas and actions, we believe the community is more likely to reach our goal of helping children and youth succeed in school and in life.