September, 2010

OK, so my last blog was a stretch to imagine your child with such mature thinking! It did however get parents talking and thinking from a child’s perspective.

Last week a dad and I were discussing the contents of that blog. He said he agreed with what I wrote but exclaimed, “What about me? I go from neutral to anger in a flash when my child loses it. How can I change? It’s like I’ve still got my emotional trainer wheels when parenting.”

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Peking University High School will celebrate its 50^th anniversary on October 6. According to an article in The Diplomat, this is a time “as much for reflection as for celebration”.

The Peking University launched the high school in 1960, and sent its professors to teach the children of the faculty of Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. From its inception, Peking University High School was considered the best high school in China.

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New research published in The Journal of the American Medical Association shows that, as children get older, their energy starts to disappear. And, as they hit the teen years, even the most active children experience dramatic declines in physical activity.

This study was one of the largest and longest ever undertaken on the subject, followed about 1,000 children from around the United States. Unlike many previous studies, it used monitoring devices - accelerometers - to track the activity carefully rather than relying on parents' reports.

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To date, studies of the effect of exercise on the actual shape and function of children’s brains had not been carried out. So, in a recent experiment, researchers at the University of Illinois recruited schoolchildren and asked them to run on a treadmill, in order to learn more about how fitness affects the young human brain, reports New York Times.

Based on their treadmill runs, the researchers sorted the children, ages 9 and 10, into different fitness categories. The most- and least-fit groups then completed a series of cognitive challenges. Finally, the children’s brains were scanned, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to measure the volume of specific areas.

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 I’m a big fan of green tea. Actually, I’m a big fan of tea, full stop. And it’s lucky that I’m living in China, because China is a heaven for tea lovers.

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Ascorbic acid, soybean oil, and xanthan gum. Which one of these isn’t good for you? The answer might surprise you. An article from EatingWell Magazine helps you decipher which ingredients are misleading about their nutritional value.

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Testing of young children has come under hot debate, according to a recent New York Times article. In the United States, the practice had fallen out of favor for decades among educators, who worry that it “stifles creativity and harms self-esteem”, and “does not accurately reflect the style and irregular pace of children’s learning”.

But recently, the “no test” philosophy for young children has been coming under assault, as new government programs strongly promote the practice. In 2003, the No Child Left Behind program took effect and required states to give all students standardized tests. Now, President Obama’s Race to the Top educational competition encourages more reliance on “formative tests”. Unlike the SATs, these are not the big one-off exams, but a stream of smaller tests designed to help students and their teachers measure their progress.

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It is commonly believed that fat parents lead to fat children, either because of genetics or learned behaviors, or both. But a growing body of research suggests that there may be a third factor, and health experts are examining the links between a child’s very early life and the probability that that child will grow up to be obese, reports The Daily Beast.

Recently, research has found links to obesity that go “all the way back to the womb”, says the article. Unlike most obesity intervention programs which are targeted toward children of school age, early-life studies shift the focus to mothers and her pregnancy.

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In one of the world’s biggest public health campaigns to date, nearly 100 million children across China will be vaccinated against measles on 11-20 September. The nationwide campaign will protect millions of children against the disease and bring China closer to reaching the measles elimination goal by 2012, said a press release from the WHO in China .

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Saturday, September 25. 10am-5pm. Sanlitun Village, next to Adidas.

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The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is one of the most popular holidays in China. It’s held on the 15th day of the 8th month in the Chinese calendar, or around late September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. It also parallels the autumnal equinox of the solar calendar, when the moon is at its fullest and roundest.

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Yesterday marked the start of the 2010 festive bazaar season with a two-day event at Embassy House. Featuring 25-odd vendors showcasing a variety of wares, the event raises money for a number of local charities.

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Remember when I was a very little baby and my arms flailed out in a startled response. You knew what to do! You held me close and comforted me. This was you helping me to manage my emotions.

When I learned to walk and I stumbled and I got up again, you encouraged me. You didn’t punish me, yell at me or reprimand me for learning.

Well, mum and dad, I am still learning emotional self-regulation and believe me, it isn’t easy! I know that when I get really upset or angry this stirs similar feelings in you, too. Feeling shocked that I have changed from your little angel to your little monster leaves you feeling out of control, especially when well meaning others are hovering and judging your parental prowess.

It’s really hard to think and be rational when there are so many emotions whirling around both of us. I think you draw on your reactive brain (well that’s another story). Anyway back to what I want, and what will help me be that angel you always knew I was and can be.

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What’s a recipe for happiness ? Recently I had to think about this for a writing exercise in my French class. The purpose of that particular exercise was of course more for learning to write cooking terms and measurement units in French than a serious meditation on the ingredients of happiness.  

However, the ‘experts’, which include the sages and philosophers throughout history as well as our modern-time equivalent – therapists, psychologists, and increasingly, scientists, have all been occupying themselves with the task of searching for those elusive ingredients of a blissful life. As part of a growing field called “positive psychology”, happiness is a hot subject of scientific research, and what the scientists have found out so far include:

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It's not just women who get postnatal depression – men suffer as well, a new study by the Medical Research Council (MRC) reveals. It found that one in five fathers has had at least one bout of depression by the time their eldest child reaches secondary school. 

The MRC study is a landmark research involving 86,957 families, reports The Guardian. It discovered that “3% of fathers had been depressed in the first year of their child's life, rising to 10% by the time their child was four, 16% by eight and 21% by twelve”. Mothers, of course, were not immune and showed even higher susceptibility to postnatal depression. However, it was the extent of postnatal depression in fathers that drew attention, as it was the first time that the issue surfaced.

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FIZZtastic Sunday Champagne brunch at Hilton Beijing Wangfujing is one year old this month. This unique brunch experience continues to roll out the fun and good times with two special celebratory anniversary brunches (on September 19th and 26th).

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Have you ever wondered how much it would cost to get hitched in Beijing? Well, according to CNReview, here is a list of expenses which a respectable couple would expect to pay for their nuptial bliss:

1.  Decent housing near the 6th Ring Road (80 square meters and above) with an average price of RMB 20,000 per square meter: RMB 20,000 x 80 = RMB 1,600,000.

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Here’s a list of top 10 snacks for you. Everything on this list tastes good, has plenty of nutritional value, is easy to prepare, cheap AND has a local twist. Keep this list handy, so next time you feel like reaching for something bad, you have help at hand!

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Nearly four years had passed since Karyn Slomski, a Boston mom, was diagnosed with cancer, and she had learned several days earlier that the final treatment wasn’t working. She gathered her family in the living room to be recorded in a video so that years from now, her two young children Brendan and Maggie, now 7 and 4, will be able to see her smile, listen to her sing, and hear her words.

On Aug. 26, Karyn sat in her living room for one more interview, a chance to offer last thoughts.  “This experience has helped me to try new things, join new things, remember the things that I love to do, like sing and dance,’’ she said. “Those things have fulfilled me unbelievably. Without these experiences, I would have been happy, but I wouldn’t have known happiness on a whole different level. That was the gift this gave to me.’’

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One of my favorite drinks is green tea. In China one can find a seemingly infinite variety of this tea, based on when and where it’s picked, as well as what happens to it after it’s harvested. I love its light, refreshing flavor and delicate aroma, but what I love even more is the vast number of health benefits this tea can provide.  

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Water is increasingly becoming a scarce resource globally. Beijing is a very dry city and it’s important that we try not to use more water than we absolutely need. To follow up on this month’s Green issue of beijingkids, below is a little handy table to calculate how much water each of us uses at home in ONE day.

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China has begun counting its people. The exercise, held every 10 years, involves enormous use of manpower, financial resources and administrative planning. The door-to-door data-collection will employ 6 million census data collectors. In Beijing alone, 100,000 will be summoned to the mission, and, for the first time, it will be joined by volunteers fluent in foreign languages, mostly college students.

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See what's been happening in your community in our latest gallery. Find all the photos here.

Do you want to see your own photos on our website? Simply send your favorite birthday party pics, holiday snaps or "too good to not to share" photos to Kara Chin: kara.chin@beijing-kids.com.

And watch this space as we get ready to upload our next online gallery!

It has been a topic of global concern that the latest superbug, New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase 1, or NDM-1 for short, gives bacteria superpowers against most antibiotics. 

Back in June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told U.S. doctors to watch out for the new type of resistant bug, after finding them in three patients who had received medical care in India and Pakistan, reports NPR.

By early August, there had been about 50 cases identified in the UK. The experts feared NDM-1 could now jump to other strains of bacteria already resistant to many other antibiotics. Ultimately, this could produce dangerous infections that would spread rapidly and be almost impossible to treat.

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