Child Development

On teen pregnancy, the state's efforts have really paid offThanks for The Sun's article "Better message on teen pregnancy" (Nov. 9). Many dedicated individuals and organizations work with teen-agers to encourage healthy decision-making, so it is no wonder that Maryland's teen-age birth rate is declining faster than the national average.The state's efforts to address teen-age pregnancy began in 1976 and continue today with the governor's Council on Adolescent Pregnancy's mass media and grassroots initiatives.

A new book by an amateur psychologist titled "The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do" arrived in bookstores this month, and it has the potential to explode like hand grenade in the uneasy lives of parents who are trying to raise teen-agers.Judith Rich Harris is a grandmother and a textbook writer from suburban New Jersey whose lupus-like illness has kept her homebound for many years. She has no academic affiliation and has done no original research, yet her book has received national media attention.

When my 4 1/2 -year-old gets upset, sad, mad or frustrated, she pouts. Is this just a phase she is going through, or is she destined for a lifetime of being a sourpuss? What should we do?Julie Bonner,Buffalo, N.Y.Most of the parents who called Child Life deal with their children's pouting episodes either by ignoring them or sending the offenders to their rooms until they get into a better mood.This usually works and is certainly one approach for handling the situation. But if we can step back and think about why the child is pouting, we can see this as an opportunity to teach the child how to deal appropriately with unpleasant emotions.

Louise Bates Ames,88, founder of the Gesell Institute of Human Development and a pioneer in child development studies, died Thursday of thyroid cancer in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her research showed that children go through "phases" of development and that the age of a child can be characterized by his or her temperament.At the Yale University Clinic of Child Development, Ames became a research assistant to Dr. Arnold Gesell and did thesis work on stages of crawling in infants.She founded the Gesell Institute of Human Development in 1950 with Dr. Frances Ilg and Dr. Janet Rodell.

Flying an airplane may be so easy that a kid can do it. But it's not child's play, according to experts in child development and aviation.Yesterday's death of 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff, who crashed while trying to fly her way to a record, raised troubling questions about the capabilities of children and the judgment of adults who condone such competition."

A paradox of modern family life is that many parents, fTC desperate for a night out, routinely hand over that which is most precious to them to people whose most predictable trait is unpredictability.The fact is, kids 10 to 14 are the nation's de facto baby sitters at an age when some cities deem them too young to be left alone unsupervised. They are trusted, sometimes cajoled or even tricked, into caring for mixed groups of needy infants, defiant toddlers and rowdy preschoolers when they themselves are testing the limits.

Every Wednesday afternoon, at 3:20 p.m. -- when many elementary school teachers are putting away their materials -- Ruth Bronstein is setting out hers.Each week, the 78-year-old Columbia resident, who lives at Vantage House Retirement Community in Columbia, teaches a one-hour science class for children after school at Waterloo Elementary School in Ellicott City."The program is designed to develop scientific concepts among young children through games and hands-on experiences," said Dr. Bronstein, who taught kindergarten and first grade for 16 years in New York.

RAISING A HAPPY, UNSPOILED CHILD. By Burton L. White. Simon & Schuster. 241 pages. $21.WITH THIS BOOK, author Dr. Burton White expands on his concern for the very young child's social development -- a point he initially raised nearly 20 years ago in his popular book, "The First Three Years of Life" (Prentice Hall Press, 1975).With a long stream of anecdotes interspersed with descriptions of the stages of child development, Dr. White attempts to tackle the issue of handling an undisciplined child.

Every Wednesday afternoon, at 3:20 p.m. -- when many elementary school teachers are putting away their materials -- Ruth Bronstein is setting out hers.Each week, the 78-year-old Columbia resident, who lives at Vantage House Retirement Community in Columbia, teaches a one-hour science class for children after school at Waterloo Elementary School in Ellicott City."The program is designed to develop scientific concepts among young children through games and hands-on experiences," said Dr. Bronstein, who taught kindergarten and first grade for 16 years in New York.

With the opening of Disney's much-heralded "The Lion King," some parents may worry that hidden among catchy tunes and state-of-the-art animation lurks a danger to little psyches.Some critics have greeted Disney's 32nd animated film with warnings about the lion king's "disturbing on-screen death" and "scenes of truly terrifying animal kingdom violence."Early in the film, its hero, the precious lion cub, Simba, loses his father in a wildebeest stampede provoked by his evil uncle Scar, who wants to be king.

Mary Pat Lennon, a retired social worker who specialized in child development and family therapy, died of glioblastoma, a malignant brain tumor, Dec. 31 at her Homeland residence. She was 59. Born and raised in Lumberton, N.C., Ms. Lennon was a 1968 graduate of Lumberton High School. After earning a bachelor's degree in psychology from Salem College in Winston-Salem, N.C., in 1972, she moved to Washington and joined the staff of Maine Sen. William S. Cohen, and later worked for U.S. News and World Report.

Man killed by train is identified Police have identified the man who was fatally struck by a freight train Wednesday night as Don Sherman, 40, of the 9600 block of Conmar Road in Middle River. Investigators were trying yesterday to determine why Sherman was on the CSX tracks at Middle River Road and Pulaski Highway, said Cpl. Michael Hill, a police spokesman. The accident occurred about 8:50 p.m. Wednesday, he said. Maryland Frederick Ex-YMCA worker charged in abuse Police in Frederick have charged a former YMCA child-care worker with second-degree child abuse and second-degree assault.

In the sunny playroom of the Park Heights Family Support Center, Ta-Niya Campbell, a wobbly 13-month-year old with pink and white beads in her braids, wants to join a group of toddlers, but isn't quite steady enough. Just several weeks ago, though, Ta-Niya wasn't walking at all. Since she and her mother, Tywanda Palmer, arrived at the center in October, they've both made strides toward self-sufficiency. "She started walking when she came," Palmer, 19, says. Palmer, herself, is working toward her GED and the self-esteem required for raising a happy, healthy child.

South Carroll High School students in Spanish II and Child Development classes will participate in a cross-curricular lesson tomorrow. Spanish students have written bilingual children's stories that they will share with 4-year-old Child Development children. Sarah Hash, a sophomore in the Child Development program and a Spanish student, is creating a lesson for the preschoolers on "Knowing Your World/Community." Hash and Spanish teacher Patricia Keenan created a lesson in which the Spanish students, who wrote the storybooks, will be partnered with a small group of 4-year-olds to teach a Spanish word, then to read the story in Spanish and English.

Urie Bronfenbrenner, 88, a Cornell University psychologist who pioneered an interdisciplinary approach to the study of child development and helped create the federal Head Start program, died Sunday at his home in Ithaca, N.Y., from diabetes complications. He had been a member of the Cornell faculty since 1948. The Russian-born Dr. Bronfenbrenner was credited with creating the interdisciplinary field of human ecology and was widely regarded as one of the world's leading scholars in developmental psychology and child-rearing.

Around the turn of the 20th century, a small group of Baltimore-area mothers gathered to learn more about a wondrous and mystifying subject: Their children. Their group became the Maryland branch of the Child Study Association of America, bringing parents together with experts in child development. Their ranks grew and changed with the times. In the 1940s, the group sponsored day-care centers for the women who went off to work, in war plants, for the first time. In the '60s, they learned how to talk to their children about sex. In the '70s, there were programs on women's depression, toy safety and weight watching for children and parents.

Officials at Fort Meade opened the newest of three child care centers on the sprawling Anne Arundel County base yesterday, an acknowledgement, experts say, of the realities of retaining soldiers in the post-draft era. The Department of Defense operates the nation's largest child care system, at a cost of $392 million a year, Pentagon officials said. With the end of conscription, "we know one of the major influences on whether people are retained in the military or not is their satisfaction and spouses' satisfaction with the support they're getting from the military," said David R. Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organizations at the University of Maryland.

Meet Justin, your average flaxen-haired 18-year-old. Justin's into trucks, Dr. Pepper and Chinese food. He also digs girls with blond hair, a nice smile and a sense of humor. Justin possesses hazel eyes, stands 6 feet, and is a Gemini. This teen-age "hottie" from the Lone Star State is also card (NU)340 -- one of the 363 lads whose mugs appear on trading cards featured in a new game for girls called Boy Crazy! The game is aimed at girls 10 and up as an alternative to Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering, two trading-card games sometimes favored by boys.

On teen pregnancy, the state's efforts have really paid offThanks for The Sun's article "Better message on teen pregnancy" (Nov. 9). Many dedicated individuals and organizations work with teen-agers to encourage healthy decision-making, so it is no wonder that Maryland's teen-age birth rate is declining faster than the national average.The state's efforts to address teen-age pregnancy began in 1976 and continue today with the governor's Council on Adolescent Pregnancy's mass media and grassroots initiatives.

A new book by an amateur psychologist titled "The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do" arrived in bookstores this month, and it has the potential to explode like hand grenade in the uneasy lives of parents who are trying to raise teen-agers.Judith Rich Harris is a grandmother and a textbook writer from suburban New Jersey whose lupus-like illness has kept her homebound for many years. She has no academic affiliation and has done no original research, yet her book has received national media attention.