Nature, An ADHD Natural TreatmentWritten by Jeannine Virtue
My mother’s warning; “You are going to rot your brain out...” still rings through my mind whenever I spend too much time in front of television set.I grew up in a time when mothers shooed their children out - rain, snow or shine - to get a breath of fresh air. Our television set tuned in to only four or five channels and those channels signed off at midnight. It would be years before cable television, satellite dish, VCRs and Nintendo would debut. Lazy summer days were spent riding bicycles for hours because there wasn’t much of anything better to do. This period of time was also a few decades before Ritalin and Attention Deficit would become commonplace terms. I have long believed that inactive hours spent indoors has contributed to increased incidence of Attention Deficit Disorder. A recent study, published in September 2004 issue of “American Journal of Public Health,” validates that believe. University of Illinois researchers studied nature as an ADHD natural treatment. This study showed that children with ADHD benefit from time outdoors enjoying nature with a significant reduction of ADHD symptoms. Researchers of this nationwide recruited parents of 322 boys and 84 girls, all diagnosed with ADHD, through ads in major newspapers and Internet. Participants, ages 5 to 18, spent time in a variety of settings which varied from big cities to rural settings. Some activities were conducted indoors, others in outdoor places without much greenery such as parking lots and downtown areas and other activities were in "green" areas such as a tree-lined street, back yards or parks. The parents were interviewed and asked to report how their children performed after participating in a wide range of activities. The researchers found that symptoms were reduced most in green outdoor settings, even when same activities were compared across different settings. Researchers believe that simply incorporating nature into a child’s day could be widely effective in reducing ADHD symptoms.
| | Overextended InfantsWritten by Crystal Smith
Brainy Baby. Bilingual Baby. Baby Babble Speech Development. Baby Bumblebee Smart Baby Series. So Smart. And let’s not forget Baby Einstein. Not familiar with all of these? Neither was I until curiosity drove me to look into vast array of educational media for infants and toddlers. I was quite astounded by sheer number of these products. And they are products -- please do not overlook that point. They are designed to prey on parents who have, through various crafty marketing campaigns, been made to feel that their infant will fall dangerously behind rest of babies in playgroup if he or she is not subjected to a heavy dose of videos, flashcards, CDs, and books. What can babies learn from these products? Check web sites like www.babyclassroom.com to find out. The Brainy Baby Left Brain VHS series focuses on “such cognitive skills as logic, patterns, letters & numbers, sequencing, analyzing details, and more.” The Bee Smart Baby Vocabulary Builder claims that there are (unnamed) studies proving that teaching an infant sign language may raise IQ scores significantly. And if sign language isn’t enough, you can use that series to introduce your 4-month old to Spanish, German, French, and Japanese. Many of these products indicate that they are useful for children who are late talkers or have a speech delay, and for those children these media may indeed be very helpful. But underlying message in vast majority of these materials is that you should buy them to make your child smarter; to make your child talk and read at earliest age possible.
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