THE SUGAR MYTH

     Until now I always believed that sugar made kids hyper.  I have been careful not to let them have too much sugar close to bed time.  "Junk" cereals  have been allowed as an afternoon snack but not first thing in the morning!  After reading chapter four I was quite surprised and still doubted the reliability of what I was reading.  I decided I would investigate myself and find what I was sure to be true!  To my embarrassment as a mother of four,  I could not find one study or hint that there was a truth to any sugar causing my kids to jump on the beds or get so wound up they could not sleep. On the contrary, I found website after website reporting on the myth that has been in my family for many years.

     Now,  when I hear something that does not sit right with me I usually do my own research and investigation and find out the facts.  However, when my oldest (now 16) was a baby and I commented at a party that he was "bouncing off the walls", a friend said  "give him another soda and he will bounce all night!"  I do remember this well and I never questioned it.  It made sense to me and I remember thinking wow why didn't I think about the fact he consumed so much sugar and this is how he is acting.  We were also at a party and all his cousins were there and now I know that he was simply excited and happy and normal.  He was not acting like a junkie as I have since believed.    I have even blamed their father over the years for  "amping" them with sugar before bed time.  

     Clearly the placebo effect played the part for my belief.  I observed behavior that was a little out of the ordinary and jumped at the first reason that made sense to me and I never looked back until now!  I really did not have reason to look any further, because I had my answer.  Even though Uncle Martin could get my kids excited because he was always playing with them and roughing them up a little, I would NEVER indulge them in a soda and Uncle Martin!  That would have been chaos!  

     Surely too much sugar is bad for our health and we know it causes tooth decay (I will have to make sure), so it is good to indulge in moderation, just as everything should.  My kids on the other hand have fallen into the same trap of the placebo.  They have indulged in candy and soda and then run around claiming they are "on a sugar rush."  I will have to sit them down and give them the facts of life and tell them once in a blue moon mom makes mistakes and they have fallen victim to being deprived of sugar before bed.  I am not sure what will delight them more; the fact that I can not use this as a reason to deprive them of sugar or the fact I always tell them I know what is best because "I know more than them."

  I did find a website that would have certainly reinforced this belief until now.  Interestingly the person responsible for this false information is Nancy Guberti (not a doctor) and she is listed in the "physician directory of Warrior Mothers!"  It does not even say if she has an education in any field let alone nutrition.  But she can help with ADD, and Dislexia, and ADHD.  I will share the link and you be the judge of the information.

http://www.gemmlearning.com/nutrition_sugar_learning.php  

You can Eat Only One Piece of Halloween Candy!

As a child, my parents allowed me to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I used to eat ice cream for breakfast and chocolate all the time. Growing up, one would think I would be hyper in my childhood years because of the common belief that sugar causes hyperactivity in children. In my case, and in most with other children, this is not true at all. In fact, I was never a hyper child. So how can it be that sugar never made me hyper but “causes” other children to be? As stated, this is a myth and is actually proven to be false.
As with other myths, this one is continuously passed around by word of mouth. Parents believe that if they give their child sugar, their child will run wild. What the parents do not realize is that the environment that the child is in, or even how the child is raised, is what causes this hyperactivity, not the sugar. Many times when children become hyper it is when they are attending a party or something that will excite them, hence the reason for the hyperactivity. Another cause may be that if the parent is allowing the child to consume sugar and they appear hyper, the parent is lenient in other ways and allows their child to run wild, therefore there is no control over the child.
As stated in the YouTube video posted, there have been experiments performed to test this theory and the results have been that the placebo effect is actually what plays a role in this belief. Parents who were told that their child had consumed sugar, when the child actually had not, reported that their child was more hyper. This is evidence that parents are influenced by the belief of the correlation between sugar and hyperactivity, when in reality there is no correlation between the two.



Sources:
Lawson, Timothy J. Scientific Perspectives on Pseudoscience and the Paranormal: Readings for General Psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.
"YouTube - ‪Does Sugar Cause Hyperactivity in Children?‬‏." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 19 Apr. 2010. Web. 29 June 2011. .

Draw-A-Person Testing

Can the drawing of a stick figure by a child really let you see into their mind and their cognitive abilities? That's the claim of the Draw-A-Person test or DAP, originally called the Draw-A-Man test, that was developed by Florence Goodenough in 1926.

This test has been used for decades to to determine a child's intelligence and to determine if one has any emotional disorders. This test seems far reaching and just another excuse to put children into special classes for individuals with learning disabilities or even being used as just another way of trying to prove that a child has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

So how does this test work? A child is asked to draw three pictures: one of a man, one of a woman, and one of themselves. The child is given all the time they need to complete the pictures and are only given one instruction, the drawing needs to be of a person drawn head to toe. Once the child is finished, the administrator gets to work on "scoring" the pictures.

Using the Draw-A-Person Quantitative Scoring System or QSS, the administrator analyzes 14 different aspects of the drawing from the clothing, or lack there of, specific body parts, detail in the drawing and the overall proportion.

There are 64 scoring items in each drawing, a separate score is given for each drawing and then an overall score is given for all three. This draw a person test is thought to be a great tool to use because it doesn't involve language and breaks down any barrier that may come with it, can be used for children with communication difficulties, and does not involve a child's verbal skills.

Thought to be non bias, because the child does not communicate with the administrator, the results of these tests are often viewed as concrete evidence by parents that their children are cognitively underdeveloped, or far superior to their peers. How is it, though, that a person can tell how developed a child is by viewing their drawing? If one of these administrators were to have seen any of my childhood drawings, I'm sure they would say I had some form of a cognitive impairment because my hands were always larger than the body and my "hair-do's" never quite made my person look male or female.

Going even further, this test can also test to see if a child has an emotional disorder! Using the same picture just tested, the administrator turns to a different test called the Draw-A-Person: Screening Procedure of Emotional Disturbances or SPED. This test uses 55 dimensions to determine a child's emotional state. Only eight of the 55 criteria actually take into consideration the child's age and the appropriateness of their picture. The other 47 items are used for each drawing but what exactly their looking for, I have yet to find out.

I wonder if this Draw-A-Person: SPED test would have been able to tell from his childhood drawings that the artistic genius Vincent Van Gogh would some day cut off his own ear?

Sweet News

Many parents believe sugar is the cause for their child's cranky behavior. Is this really true or are they trying to make two things that don't go together connect because "it's the only logical explanation."

Why would it be the only logical explanation? Well, the child seems to only get moody right after they have a lolli-pop, or after birthday parties. Logically, that means the child had some sugar and there seems to be a correlation between having sugar and getting moody. Are we just grasping for a quick answer?

First lets point out that babies, in fact, come into this world with a natural sweet tooth, which is what attracts them to breast milk. So, if we are brought into this world craving sugar, how can it be detrimental to our moods/health.

Pediatricians and nutritionists say sugar can have a healthful place in a child's diet as long as it is consumed in modest amounts. In fact, a few drops of sugar water can help soothe a fussing baby. Well then, what is the problem? The problem seems to be that children are getting too much too soon.

It seems that an excess of sugar causes high blood pressure which in turn cuases high amounts of insulin in the blood to wipe out the sugar. The sugar is cleared quickly and this makes the mood change quickly as well. It also makes one crave sugar and puts one into a vicious cycle of highs and lows.

Source:http://www.parenting.com/article/Baby/Recipes--Nutrition-For-Children/Sugar-Does-It-Make-Kids-Hyper

DARE

For years we all have been hearing of the uselessness of the DARE program. The large amounts of money being dumped into this service with little or no return has quite a few people questioning it's existence and purpose. As tax payers, we all have the right to feel as if our money is being spent on reasonable and beneficial things. So naturally when DARE educated children grow up into pot smoking or alcohol abusing delinquents the public may throw a red flag. Lawson states that alcohol and marijuana use was unrelated on a ten year follow of children involved in the DARE program. (110). This concludes me to think the program should change it's name and mission statement because I feel as if it has other positive benefits to children.

I went to a small private school and was educated in DARA in the sixth grade. I personally recall not caring about drugs but I was more interested in hearing the cop's stories. Our entire class of 25 was enamored by these two police officers and their stories. After an entire school year of this program and a trip to Wildwood for the day our class had grown close to these cop's as if they were our friends. Prior to this I was terrified of cops and I wanted nothing to do with them, even if i needed them in an emergency. This program allowed my classmates and I to develop a bond with these officers that for the most part has lasted until now. Although we had a few kids slip into different forms of substance abuse, I feel these kids would have followed the same path regardless of DARE.

Today I feel that children recognize police officers as a threat rather than a potential helper. If the public and the police have a mutual respect for each other, that could be gained in programs like DARE, it makes for a more peaceful environment. Maybe a person will reconsider breaking into a car because the person who arrests him was his baseball coach. Maybe a police officer will remember a person from the program and recognize a problem and get them help. This would avoid the downward spiral that seems to occur after incarceration.

I would say somebody who engages in substance abuse will have so many factors leading to that choice that no type of program will prevent that. These people will have at their disposal a few police officers to get help from at the very least. A program should exist but it should not focus primarily on drug resistance but more so on community relations.