Fathers as informants of children's fears and worries

The recognition of excessive fears and worries in children is important for early intervention. Despite current knowledge about the important contribution fathers make to their children’s emotional, social and cognitive development, more emphasis is often given to the views of mothers in both research and practice. This paper reports on a community study of 220 families. Fathers, mothers and children reported on children’s fears and worries using three different methods. While father and mother ratings were moderately correlated on two of the measures, there was relatively poor parent-child agreement. Implications for the role of fathers in the assessment of childhood fears and worries are discussed

Can a parent do too much for their child? An examination by parenting professionals of the concept of overparenting

Free to read at publisher Is there a point where parental effort can be too much? While the link between parenting effort and the wellbeing of children has been firmly established, contemporary discussion has proposed that extreme levels of parental protection of and responsiveness to children could be counterproductive. Research has not yet addressed this phenomenon to ascertain if overparenting is a genuinely different type of parenting approach. The purpose of the present study was to gain insight into the parenting actions considered by parenting professionals (psychologists and school guidance counsellors) to be overparenting. One hundred and twenty-eight professionals responded to an online survey about their observations of overparenting, with eighty-six respondents providing lists of the types of actions they believed were behavioural examples of the term. The survey data revealed that certain types of actions were considered to be indicative of overparenting, and that particular beliefs and outcomes may be involved in this parenting approach. Implications for parenting advice and education programs, and further research are discussed

The Effect of Curcumin on Cardiovascular Health in Obese Men

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and conventional treatment often emphasizes pharmaceutical approaches. Research has recently started exploring non-pharmaceutical approaches, including nutritional interventions. This research study was conducted to test the effectiveness of a novel nutritional approach, curcumin, on the improvement of cardiovascular health in young, obese males (BMI≥30 kg/m2). This study included 22 men, matched based on BMI and randomly assigned to the intervention (n=11) or placebo group (n=11). The intervention consisted of 12 weeks of curcumin supplementation (1.0 g/day) with fenugreek added to enhance the curcumin bioavailability; the placebo consisted of 12 weeks of equal parts fenugreek to that found in the intervention. To determine cardiovascular improvements, arterial stiffness via gold-standard carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), endothelial dysfunction via reactive hyperemia index (RHI), and inflammation via plasma cytokine concentrations were measured. There were no overall differences in cfPWV (p=0.428) or RHI (p=0.951) between groups following the 12 weeks of intervention. However, some individuals did respond to the curcumin treatment with reductions in cfPWV, while others did not. Subjects who did respond to the curcumin treatment (n=6) entered the study with higher baseline values of cfPWV than those that did not respond (n=5) (6.81 m/s v. 5.84 m/s, p = 0.045). This suggests a potential role for curcumin to improve arterial stiffness in individuals with stiffer arteries at baseline. A possible mechanism to explain the difference in responsiveness is a trending increase in IL-13 (p=0.052), an anti-inflammatory cytokine that has been associated with amelioration of collagen content in the arteries. Also, 12 weeks of curcumin intervention resulted in reductions in brachial pulse pressure (p\u3c0.05), a surrogate marker of arterial stiffness. This change in brachial pulse pressure in the curcumin group could be explained by an increased trend in anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 (p=0.071), but further studies are required to confirm this finding. Based on the findings of this study, curcumin might serve as a non-pharmaceutical intervention to improve vascular health in young obese men, especially when arteries are stiffer than age-matched counterparts

No, Education Minister, we don’t have enough evidence to support banning mobile phones in schools

The claim that students’ use of mobile phones at school is connected with lower academic performance has consistently featured in the popular debate around school mobile phone bans and has been used to justify blanket prohibitions. In this blog, Marilyn Campbell and Amanda Third discuss the existing evidence and argue that, despite the claims, we actually don’t have sufficient data to back the policy

Preventing bullying in school and work contexts

Preventing bullying in school and work context