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Bonus Child Behavior Tips and Updates, Issue #003 -- teaser here
March 01, 2010

Child-behavior-guide.com updates

• Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a method of therapy often used for children with autism. However, it can also be very beneficial for other children having difficulties paying attention or getting homework completed.

The most common form referred to as discrete trial training or discrete trial instruction can be used to positively reinforce paying attention, completing homework, and other socially desirable behaviors. Now you can check out my new pages with helpful information related to finding good ABA therapists and ABA schools.

• Having a child diagnosed with ADHD can be very frustrating and confusing for parents. Now you can find more information about ADHD from child-behavior-guide.com including:

• Signs of ADHD
• Causes of ADHD
• ADHD treatment
• Diet for ADHD

• If you have been having concerns about your child or know someone else that is concerned their child may be showing symptoms of Autism, there is now a printable Autism Symptoms Checklist available. You may also want to check out the other new pages related to autism including:

• Symptoms of mild autism
• Autism Statistics
• Autism Diet
• Autism Causes

• Also, be sure to read my child behavior blog for additional updated pages and blog posts with more ways to help improve your child’s behavior!

What’s in the News?

Loving Mother’s Beat Prenatal Distress

You may already know that prenatal distress for a child in the womb can later lead to the child having difficulties paying attention and problem solving. However, a study conducted on 125 women, monitored each child’s exposure to the stress hormone cortisol while in the womb.

The mothers and children were then later assessed to determine whether the children had developed either a secure or insecure attachment to their mothers. Interesting enough, the children that showed a secure attachment to their mothers, despite having been exposed to high levels of cortisol in the womb, tested well on the Bayley infant development scale test.

This indicates that despite the exposure to cortisol while in the womb, the effects can be reversed with loving interactions from the mother and the development of a secure attachment to the mother.

I would imagine this would be very promising information to not only biological mothers, but also adoptive mothers that may have a child whose biological mother was highly stressed during pregnancy. I also think that this information shows how much a loving mother can impact a child.

For more information you can check out the article at www.sciencedaily.com

The Truth About Food Labels

You may have noticed throughout my site and from my free eBook The Child Behavior Guide: What you need to know, I am a huge advocate of proper nutrition for children and adults. I believe that with proper nutrition and other basic needs met, a lot of behavioral problems can be decreased or possibly even eliminated. Our bodies simply cannot sustain themselves properly if we fail to give them what they need.

Recently, I have just discovered that it is that much more difficult to be certain you are giving your children the proper nutrition you are hoping. A blog posted on Yahoo Green, explains the truth about food labels and how they can be misleading.

For example, when reading a label for foods made with whole grain, you want to be sure that the first ingredient says 100% whole grain. If the first ingredient is enriched wheat flour and the third ingredient is whole grain, you are really only getting a very small serving at best along with the unhealthy version of flour.

Sugar content is also very misleading. I personally found this information to be very disturbing as I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic and have to pay close attention to my sugar intake. While the food label may imply that the food is mostly made of flour as the first ingredient, when you add up all of the ingredients, such as high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, or white grape juice concentrate, the true main ingredient is sugar.

Young children should only be getting no more than 3-4 teaspoons of sugar a day and older children should be getting no more than 5-8 teaspoons a day. Unfortunately, children get more than this in only one soda. Just to put things into perspective, one teaspoon equals 4.2 grams and there are about 44 grams listed in one bottle of cola, almost twice the amount recommended. This is also implying that the information is accurate.

A diet high in sugar can lead to attention difficulties, hyperactivity, and health problems. Therefore, making sure children are following a good diet that limits symptoms of ADHD or behavioral challenges is very important.

For more information about food labels you can check out the blog post in The Daily Green News
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