Life! Or What's A Yoghourt's Got To Do With Nature & Nurture.

[Hervé]

Preschool teacher depression linked to behavioral problems in children: Unhealthy classroom climate is contributing factor

Date: May 13, 2014

Source: Ohio State University

Summary: Depression in preschool teachers is associated with behavioral problems ranging from aggression to sadness in children under the teachers’ care, new research suggests.

The study identified one contributing factor to this link: a poor-quality atmosphere in the child care setting that exists as a result of the teacher's depressive symptoms. In this study, "teacher" refers to both classroom instructors and in-home child care providers.

Researchers conducted the study using data from a large national study that collected family information primarily from low-income, single-mother households.

"We were interested in that sample because we thought that children of low-income single mothers might experience a more emotionally vulnerable home environment, and we wanted to see if the role of teachers affected their psychological health," said Lieny Jeon, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in human sciences at The Ohio State University.

Behavioral problems in young children -- in this case, 3-year-olds -- can result in later issues that include lower academic achievement and a lack of social skills, according to previous research. The problems rated in this study included externalizing behaviors such as aggression, anger and a lack of control, as well as internalizing behaviors: depression, anxiety, sadness and withdrawal.

Jeon and colleagues aim to develop an intervention allowing teachers to address their own psychological needs -- all in the name of giving children the best chance for appropriate behavioral development.

"We know high-quality early childhood education is critical and we also know that very few programs in the United States are truly high in quality. So how do we get there?" said Cynthia Buettner, associate professor of human sciences at Ohio State and senior author of the paper. "It's incredibly important. Teachers can have a really big impact on children's development."

The research is published in the current issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

The study sample came from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, an ongoing large, federally funded examination of single-parent families living under low socioeconomic conditions in 20 large U.S. cities. The study contains data from families in 15 cities that reported using child care services for 3-year-old children for at least five hours per week. In a supplemental study, a research team surveyed the teachers of those children and observed their child care environments. A total of 761 families and teachers from the national data are represented in Jeon's analysis.

Teachers completed a survey that rated their depressed mood during the preceding two weeks. Assessments of the quality of the child care atmosphere looked at space and furnishings, personal care, learning activities, social interactions and discipline.

Compiling a number of factors from this broad national data, Jeon applied statistical analysis to the variables and developed a model describing the relationships between teacher depression and childhood behavioral outcomes. The behavioral problems in children had been scored separately by both mothers and teachers.

The analysis showed a direct relationship between teacher depression and both externalizing and internalizing problems in children reported by teachers as well as internalizing problems reported by parents. The teacher depression did not predict externalizing problems as reported by the children's mothers.

"We were interested in responses about behavior from both mothers and teachers because they sometimes disagree on these issues, perhaps because they see children in different environments," Jeon said. "The significant association between teacher depression and internalizing problems at home could be because kids are modeling the teachers' negative moods."

The study also showed that when the quality of the child care climate -- in a home or an educational center -- was factored into the analysis, the relationship between teacher depression and parent-reported behaviors changed. Teacher depression predicted an overall lower-quality child care atmosphere, which in turn predicted teacher-reported externalizing and internalizing problems among the children. In this case, however, the poor-quality child care climate linked to teacher depression did not predict mother-reported behavioral problems.

"This path between teacher depression and childhood behavioral problems can likely be explained in several ways. One of the reasons this relationships manifests with behavior problems is because the classroom has an unhealthy climate," Jeon said.

Jeon is extending her work by surveying preschool teachers about how depression and other factors contribute to their overall social and emotional capacity -- a term coined by the research team. She is asking them about their work environment, relationship to colleagues, pay and benefits, coping strategies, commitment to professional development and attitudes about children. Once she has data on these aspects of teacher life, she hopes to develop a way for teachers to spend some time looking after themselves.

"Most training for teachers is about managing the classroom and addressing behavioral problems," Jeon said. "They don't have the time or resources to address their own psychological difficulties, or access to any specialized mental health services."

Salary is a considerable issue for this population, Jeon and Buettner noted. The average annual pay for a preschool teacher is $27,130.

"There's a real mismatch between the expectations for teachers and what they get paid," Buettner said. "They're frequently low-paid positions with not a lot of respect for the work people do."

Buettner is the principal investigator on one resource that is intended to improve early childhood education in the United States. The Virtual Laboratory School, funded by the Department of Defense, is an online training system allowing professionals to build their knowledge and skills around best practices in child care and youth development. The entire program is scheduled to be available by early 2015.

The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study is supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Jeon and Buettner completed the work with co-author Anastasia Snyder, chair of human sciences at Ohio State.

Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Ohio State University. The original article was written by Emily Caldwell. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Ohio State University. "Preschool teacher depression linked to behavioral problems in children: Unhealthy classroom climate is contributing factor." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 May 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140513142024.htm>.

[Hervé]

Now, for the "Remedy":

Posted by Amzer Zo (here)
[...]

The long term effect of even short term love has been noticed before in sociology. In one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, there is a true story about disadvantaged minority students in Washington, DC schools. A sociology professors sent his graduate students in to assess elementary student’s chances of succeeding in life. The graduate students said things like “The kids haven’t got a chance, their parents are drug addicted, unemployed, illiterate, etc.”. Twenty or more years later another sociologist sent his grad students out to find out what actually happened to those kids. Much to their surprise, the kids turned out to be overachievers with many physicians, engineers, etc. among them. They were baffled. They studied the issue until they figured it out. The kids that succeeded so well had all gone through one particular teacher’s class. They tracked that teacher down in a nursing home where she was still alert. They asked her what she had done that made the difference. She said, “That’s easy. I loved those boys!”.

Studies of foster children have shown the same thing. If there was one person that believed in them, believed that they could grow up to be a good person contributing to the society, that was enough. Just one person, out of all the people that abused them and put them down. Just one person that loved, cared, and respected them—that was all that it took.

[...]

[Hervé]

Ah, yeah... nurturing a yoghourt for a healthy environment... errr... nurturing:

Posted by ktlight (here)
"Sometimes it happens that a person can name the exact moment when his or her life changed irrevocably. For Cleve Backster, it was early in the morning of February 2, 1966, at thirteen minutes, fifty-five seconds into a polygraph test he was administering. Backster, a leading polygraph expert whose Backster Zone Comparison Test is the worldwide standard for lie detection, had at that moment threatened his test subject’s well-being. The subject had responded electrochemically to his threat.

The subject was a plant.

Since then, Backster has conducted hundreds of experiments demonstrating not only that plants respond to our emotions and intents, but so do severed leaves, eggs (fertilized or not), yogurt, and human cell samples. He’s found, for example, that white cells taken from a person’s mouth and placed in a test tube still respond electrochemically to the donor’s emotional states, even when the donor is out of the room, out of the building, or out of the state.

I first read about Backster’s work when I was a kid. His observations verified an understanding I had then, an understanding not even a degree in physics could later eradicate: that the world is alive and sentient.

I spoke with Backster in San Diego, thirty-one years and twenty-two days after his original observation, and a full continent away from the office on Times Square in New York City where he had once worked and lived. Before we began, he placed some yogurt into a sterilized test tube, inserted two gold electrodes, and turned on the recording chart. I was excited, yet dubious. We began to talk, and the pen wriggled up and down. Then, just as I took in my breath prior to disagreeing with something he’d said, the pen seemed to lurch. But did it really jump, or was I only seeing what I wanted to see?

At one point, while Backster was out of the room, I tried to muster up some anger by thinking of clear-cut forests and the politicians who sanction them, of abused children and their abusers. But the line depicting the electrochemical response of the yogurt remained perfectly flat. Perhaps the yogurt wasn’t interested in me. Losing interest myself, I began to wander around the lab. My eyes fell on a calendar, which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be an advertisement for a shipping company. I felt a sudden surge of anger at the ubiquity of advertising. Then I realized — a spontaneous emotion! I dashed over to the chart, and saw on it a sudden spike apparently corresponding to the moment I'd seen the ad.

When Backster returned, I continued the interview, still excited, and perhaps a little less skeptical."

Now go to the link to read the interview:

http://thesunmagazine.org/archives/1882

[Hervé]

So, maybe now, one may understand why Emoto's experiments are duplicated to varying degrees... spontaneous, genuine emotions...

And, on a final note:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=s-pFAFsTFTI

[conk]

There is a small clinic in the USA that houses severe cases of anorexia. They have a staggering success rate. The secret? "We smother the girls with love. We teach them they are valuable, cherished women and extremely worthy of the love". Don't read much about successful remedies that don't utilize the conventional methods, do we? Simplicity always trumps.

[Dawn]

This study is not surprising at all. Any self respecting meditator can tell you all about this effect. Put simply... we are NOT as individual as we would like to think. We REALLY and TRULY are ALL ONE. Most meditators (that would include me) become highly conscious of subtle information which is around us all the time. I know that the thoughts and emotions I experience are directly related to the people around me. It took me YEARS and YEARS to realize that most of them did NOT originate in 'me'!

This is an extremely important realization. If everyone truly acknowledged this they would pay much more attention to who or what they allowed themselves to be around. What is around us co-creates the reality we experience.

There is another extremely important factor which has not even been mentioned here. It is the influence the earth and the pranic fields. Many people are aware of Feng Shui, but have not taken the time to study it. Almost no one I've met has ever heard of Vaastu, which is the knowledge base from which Feng Shui developed. In a simplistic form this is the understanding that where we live and work on the planet influences our experience of it. No one even thought to look at the Vaastu of the child care facilities. I can tell you that if their building faced North or East and were flooded with morning light every day, then the teachers and children would have all been happy... PERIOD. If in addition the land the buildings were on sloped North, East, or NorthEast... then their feelings of well being and happiness would have been even greater.

Understanding Vaastu knowledge base is a very worthwhile pursuit... and it could change our entire culture. For in our culture we do not pay attention to one of the most fundamental influences upon us... to our peril.

Then, there is the knowledge that the flora and fauna in our gut actually make 80%+ of our brain chemicals. This means that the organisms living in our gut control our mood to a large extent. I assume the care givers ate with the children, and that the parents living in the community ate similar food. If proper food and even probiotics or fermented foods were consumed by the childcare facility communities I would wager a bet that results would have been very different!