Whether it is being online, networking with friends, or spending time on other gadgets and texting, or even getting insufficient rest because the exams are drawing near, there is a lot of study that needs to get done.

Teens, who got less than 8 hours of sleep, were seen to consume more high fat snacks and high calorie foods than those kids who got enough rest.

Over time, unhealthy eating patterns can develop and become entrenched, translating to bad lifestyle habits with regard to nutrition and ultimately weight gain.

According to Susan Redline, M.D., the senior author of the study and a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, in Boston, inadequate amount of sleep make teens likelier to put on weight and become obese over time, since being sleep deprived makes them more likely to consume more of high calorie foods.

As to the reasons why teens who sleep less are likelier to eat more, it is suggested that this has something to do with the hormones ghrelin and leptin.

Atticus Finch, the lawyer/protagonist was a single dad and brought up his children by a moral compass that we may do well to emulate even today:

On not killing a mockingbird: The principle of not harming anyone who doesn’t harm you.

Never kill a mocking bird because they do nothing except make music for us to enjoy.

This was a lesson Finch learned from his father and which in turn he passed on to his children.

On learning to follow your own conscience: It will tell you what is right even if everyone else is saying something else.

On children using bad language: All children go through a stage where they use bad language to attract attention. If they find they’re not getting that attention, they will stop using bad language.

On understanding the other point of view: In order to understand the other person’s point of view, you ideally have to climb into their skin and walk around in it.

On Courage: Real courage is not the kind that comes with having a literal or figurative gun in your hand.

In a study that was presented at Lisbon, parents were asked questions in respect of a number of different scenarios to see what they would do given the circumstances. They are posed the question; that in the case of the youngest child appearing feverish and irritable, would they administer medication?

It was found that among the respondents, 61% of parents would have given an incorrect dose. It was also found that a significant proportion of parents would not even take the child’s temperature prior to medicating, and nearly half said that they would give medication when the temperature was below 38 degrees.

Accidental overdosing of children is another worry, in particular among children under the age of 5. According to Dr Rebekah Moles, from the University of Sydney, there is a worrying assumption among parents, that if a drug is available over the counter, it must be safe. They also feel that if a painkiller drug is available over the counter, then there is no harm in giving a double dose!

So it is important not only for parents not to self medicate their children, but also to measure out the correct dosages of the medications.

Believe me when I say that children are suffering from the short term memory loss condition. In fact, memory loss can occur to anyone at any age.

There is no hard or fast rule for the memory loss condition as most of us perceive.

The greatest problem associated with memory loss treatment is that it does not have a one stop treatment like that you take for cough, cold and fever. Instead, the cure can be achieved through continuous and phased treatments.

There are many medical shops out there that boast of curing the memory loss with vitamin supplements and other such pills. None of them will give a holistic cure to the condition.

If your child is suffering from the memory loss condition, do a thorough check-up and find out how the condition can be improved. Though it is hard to take in the condition, the good part is that there is proper treatment for it and any parent should consider it.

I don’t have to remind you that children love games. It is a universal truth. In fact, children love games in any form. Make use of this to the fullest and engage them in some interesting and mind-boggling games.

Introduce your children to mind games and puzzles that require a lot of thinking and planning. This will ensure that your child is engaged in some thinking regularly and in turn will increase the thinking and retaining capacity of your child in the long run.

The act of being mentally inactive would lead to a block in the memory thereby affecting their thinking and retaining capacity.

Apart from engaging children in mental activity pull them into the habit of being physically active as well.

To achieve this take them to parks and playgrounds regularly.

An isolated child will develop the negative traits of lethargy and laziness that ultimately will contaminate the way he thinks.

Bringing them out will give them the opportunity to explore new things which in turn would increase their thinking capacity. They would imagine things and will also think about those things when they are left alone.

A child taken to a playground would grasp new things each day. One day, he will learn to swing and another day to slide.

If you really want your child to get out of the condition put-off the phrase ‘I don’t have enough time’. Spend some quality time with them and you will notice that their memory retention capacity increases.

Television has always been portrayed as a bad impact. Contrary to this popular belief, a recent study found that television helps to build the intellect of the children that includes increase in memory power.

Keep in mind that cartoons which entices the children more does not have the same positive effect like other programs such as Sesame Streets.

The more you avoid treating the condition the worse it will become. Try to counter the situation at the earliest stages and eliminate it at the budding level.

I am sure that these methods would be of great help to your child and in due course of time the child would evolve out of this condition and will become normal like other children with good memory levels.

It could be that your child is making silly and careless mistakes in school work or that they can never seem to remember where they put a book or a toy or that they are forever losing items in school such as stationery etc.

It isn’t just the financial implications of forever losing things that have to be replaced; it is also the lackadaisical attitude of the child that can drive parents crazy.

So what can you do to make your child behave in a more careful and responsible manner?

1. Develop a system or a procedure for the child to follow. Getting ready for school each day should include a checklist of things to complete from the time you get up. This way you know that everything is completed since the child is working in a step by step manner.Also guide the child that a similar procedure should be followed in school, pack up systematically, check that everything is included and that the child hasn’t left behind anything.
2. Don’t keep buying your child unnecessary stuff. It could be parental indulgence that wants a child to have everything that the heart desires, or it simply could be giving in a child’s demands.But having too much stuff reduces its value in the eyes of a child, he has too much to keep track of and he does not value it enough to take care of it either. Ergo, develops a don’t-care attitude about his many possessions.
3. Let her pay for it. As soon as your child is old enough to be able to handle money, you can give her small amounts of money and let her decide what she wants to buy and how much of it she needs. If a child has spent “her own” money for something, she is likely to value it more, and be more careful about it.
4. Spend more time not money on your child. Giving child things is not as important as giving them time. The best way to teach a child values is to demonstrate by personal example.The more time you spend with a child, the better you are able to impart important guidance and the more a child can imbibe from your value system.

The ACTN3 gene, also called the sports gene can apparently help to predict what sort of sport a child may be able to excel in, later in life. Using this, it is possible to predict what sort of muscle fiber a child may develop and how well he or she may be able to adapt to a given sport.

While this sort of testing could be of some use, particularly for children who appear to be more athletically inclined than academically brilliant, it is likely to have more negative repercussions. Isn’t there already too much performance pressure on our kids? Will this not increase that pressure?

And with the sort of athletic and academic competition that kids routinely face today, surely this sort of testing will only create a further burden of expectation on the child.

Shouldn’t the child be allowed to just be a child, rather than decide now what he or she will do as an adult?

A recently conducted survey found that a significant proportion of parents have forgotten how to play with their children and an even greater proportion admit to finding kids’ games and activities boring or dull.

Many parents, it was found, no longer remembered how to play with their children, the sort of games that children found engaging and which were imaginative and creative enough to aid in their child’s development.

So with your newborn baby, make the right start – engage in play and interesting activities with the child from the beginning that are not only good and engaging for the baby, but are also enjoyable for the parents.

Take a look back at your own childhood to see what it was that amused you and you enjoyed doing with your parents. Take pointers from these four key ingredients of successful parent-child playtime:

• Education
• Inspiration
• Integration
• Communication

And above all remember to enjoy being with your baby, and enjoy each and every stage of this precious babyhood, a stage that will never repeat itself and which you may well regret the passing of.

The actual sleep disorder is known as Bruxism and among most kids, this is a problem that will resolve itself over some time.Most children outgrow it by age.

It was thought earlier that a child grinding their teeth at night was a sign that they needed to be dewormed. However the possible causes for this could be:

• It is suggested that anxiety or tensions in a young child’s life could be the cause of a troubled sleep and consequently grinding of teeth.
• Teeth grinding could be a result of the child cutting new teeth and the discomfort that it brings.
• Sometimes it is thought to be caused by misaligned teeth.
• An earache or similar problem could also be the cause.

Unless there is actual damage to the teeth from the grinding or gnashing, such as cracks or fissures, there is really no need for corrective action to be taken. A dentist may in some case suggest a night-guard to limit teeth damage.

The article speaks about a project at Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool which took the initiative to put their patients at their ease using the dawn chorus or the sound of chirping birds. Children who came in for their injections were seen to be less anxious upon hearing the sounds.

It is thought that the sounds could have a calming effect on the brain and also help to distract the child from the impending task that is the reason for their anxiety.

Naturalist David Attenborough, a permanent fixture on TV Channels such as Discovery, was roped in along with source recordist Christ Watson, to put together the project. The sounds made by robins, greenfinches, blackbirds, and song thrushes were collected and recorded, as were other natural sounds such as wind and the pitter patter of falling rain.

This “bringing of the natural world into the hospital” was seen to have tangible results and helps relax children before surgery as well.

A pilot project in one of the most deprived areas of south London, where the probability of mental problems is seen to be the most likely, was met with surprising success.

The project called Empowering Parents, Empowering Communities, offers parents training in gaining better parenting skills and techniques and also to pass on what they have learnt.

Explains one parent who underwent the course and is now teaching it to others – “I was definitely the sort of parent who got angry easily and just shouted, ‘Stop that’.”

Now however she has become more adept at being able to explain to the child what and why something shouldn’t be done. Also she is better able to praise a child for good behavior.

In particular, difficult conditions such as crowding, low incomes etc, will result in children playing up and parents needing support in figuring out the best ways to deal with their children.