14 DAY TRIAL // 1.Three diseases cause 70% of the 13 million child deaths in developing countries: pneumonia, diarrhea and measles, which can be treated or prevented with the existing methods. Pneumonia kills 3.45 million children annually, mainly in African and Southeastern Asia, and is caused in most cases by bacteria. A 5 day antibiotic treatment costs just 25 cents. Diarrhea kills 3 million children per year. Half of these children could be saved through a cheap oral re-hydrating therapy. Measles kills annually 800,000 children. A measles vaccine costs less than 50 cents.
2.Children aged 3-4 learning to play an instrument can improve mental skills this way, as at this age connections between brain cells form very rapidly, and exercising just for a few minutes daily improves on the long run the cognitive abilities in children. Children playing the piano scored 35% better in intelligence tests than children going to computer classes or not taking any class at all.
3.Many children aged 1-4 drink too few liquids. They are vulnerable to dehydration and should drink a liter of water daily besides the liquid ingested with the food. They drink less than that, and even so, forced. In 20% of the cases, children's request for water was refused by parents.
4.Parents should establish not only the bedtime for their children, but also what they do before going to sleep. Watching TV shows, playing video games, or navigating the Net are stimulating activities that maintain children's mind awake even after ending the activity. Also, children involved in too many extracurricular activities can fail to finish their homework at a reasonable hour.
Unlike adults who, when deprived of sleep, turn inactive and quiet, small children turn hyperactive, displaying an incontrollable behavior. These kids lose their focus, memory and problem solving ability while at school. The sleeping hours must be respected; kid must not go to sleep when they have got no energy or have nothing else to do.
5.In UK, 20% of kids under 20 have mental issues. From increasingly younger ages, children participate to exams and tests that force them to compare themselves with the others of the same age, and most of them abandon school considering themselves losers.
Playing in the open, an activity that helps children think when taking a decision and get an increased self-confidence and energy, is replaced by computer and TV. Advertising triggers the desire of possessing things they do not have or the urge to be what they cannot be. The divorce rate of almost 50% and working parents cause the tension experienced by children to amplify, as they do not experience the affective stability of a family.
6.Worldwide, 40 million children are victims of abuses. In some countries, up to 29% of the boys under 14 and 34% of the girls the same age are victims of sexual abuse. In US, 2 million children are annually victims of abuse. In India, each 10 minutes a child is initiated in prostitution (50,000 per year). In many cases, the doctors do not examine rape cases sustaining they are not qualified nor do they want to be involved in this. Parents do not want to report this to the authorities either, as this means social stigmatization and ostracism.
During the last 8 years, at least 130,000 children have been kidnapped in Mexico City to be sold, forced into prostitution, or engaged in organ trafficking. In the same city, in 15 months 82 newborn infants were found abandoned, 27 of them being dead. Women that were abused physically or sexually during childhood can overreact to stress: their stress hormone levels and heart rhythm are higher when facing stress situations than in the case of other women. This may be due to a permanent biochemical unbalance in the way their body reacts to stress and controls it.
7.Cartoons influence the behavior of children aged 6-12 more than school, as they can spend 38 hours weekly watching TV, while less than 30 in the classroom. TV teaches children what attitude to take in certain situations, without explaining if it's good or bad. If a kid sees that a cartoon character binds his opponent, with satisfactory results, he probably does the same. Kids are more prone to mimic what they see on TV than what they learn in school, as school is seen more like an obligation.
8.There is a strong connection between the back and shoulder pains experienced by children and heavy school bags. After filling their bags with text books, foods, drinks, music devices and change clothes, some of them can weigh up to 18 kg (40 pounds). This can lead to deformations of the spine and other spine severe affections. The bags must not exceed 20% of the child's weight and should be transported on trundles, have hip belts, and the back side sheathed with a soft material.
9.The success behind a child is a parent giving his/her best to instruct and educate the child. This just means interest, time spent with the child and focus. 95% of the successful children say that their parents urge them to have good school results, and 87% of the parents read with their children.