The happiness of children has become one of the main preoccupations of scientists and educators in recent times. The evidence that increasing numbers of children are unhappy, and the fear that they may grow up to be miserable and unproductive adults, has even driven some scientists to look again at the influence of religion, or “spirituality”, on children’s happiness. University of British Columbia researcher Mark Holder and colleagues studied 320 children aged 8 to 12 from four public schools and two faith-based schools and found that those children who said they were more spiritual were happier.

When a child had an understanding of the meaning and value of their life, and had good interpersonal relationships, they were much more likely (up to 27 per cent) to be happy. Temperament was also an important factor in happiness, but even when it was taken into account, the link between spirituality and happiness remained… click here to read whole article and make comments

Researchers looking at how adolescents cope with chronic illness have found that a strong sense of spirituality is one of the most important predictors of quality of life. Among 67 young people with inflammatory bowel disease -- a condition associated with pain and other serious symptoms -- there was a stronger link between spiritual well-being and mental health than amongst healthy adolescents.

The researchers -- Michael Yi and Sian Cotton of the University of Cincinnati -- defined spirituality as a sense of meaning or purpose in life, or one’s connectedness to the sacred or divine. They are conducting ongoing studies of religious/spiritual coping in adolescents with IBD, asthma and sickle cell disease, and plan to study other age groups as well as doctors’ views on addressing patients’ spiritual needs in clinical settings. ~ Science Daily, Jan 12

 

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Quebec, the Canadian province whose birth rate plummeted to 1.36 in the mid-1980s and threatened its French culture with extinction, has climbed back to 1.66 children per woman after efforts by the government to get inhabitants to have children. An initial baby-bonus scheme failed to deliver and generous day care subsidies were only partially successful, reports The Economist. But a more recent parental leave scheme that is more generous than anywhere else in North America saw births in the province jump by 8 per cent in 2006 and a further 2.6 per cent in 2007. Early figures for last year show the trend continuing.

For subsidised day care, parents have to pay only a nominal sum of C$7 a day (compared with up to C$50 a day elsewhere in the Canada), and the parental leave programme allows parents to take almost a year off at up to three-quarters of their salary.… click here to read whole article and make comments

Amongst the 1800 workers at a New Delhi call centre taking calls for US retail and technology companies are 17 graduates handling enquiries on birth control. Placed there to make their “socially sensitive work” invisible, the mainly female workers are paid by India’s National Population Stabilisation Fund - a name that needs no further explanation. The Washington Post gives a run-down on India’s 1 billion-plus population, quoting officials who say it will take some Indian states 18 to 45 years to achieve the stabilising fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman. As a matter of fact some states must be below replacement already, as the national fertility rate is already down to 2.76.

The National Population Stabilisation Fund’s executive director speaks of “empowering” callers with answers to their queries about contraception and related issues, but power to the people is clearly not the main motive of this -- and other --… click here to read whole article and make comments

If they could make the rules for the world, the first thing British kids would do is ban divorce. That is what under-10s said in a poll conducted for the country’s fourth National Kids’ Day. It is the first time divorce has topped the list of things children would like to make rules about if they were king or queen of the world. From other list of items children chose marital splits as the second worst thing in the world -- the first was being fat, which has come up from ninth place in 2006. The very best thing in the world was “good looks”.

Bullying was another big issue for children and behaviour that they would ban. About two-thirds of the 1600 youngsters said they were happy, but 27 were not and a further 7 per cent were not sure. Nearly all had a best friend who was kind, many of them because they… click here to read whole article and make comments

Britain is fast approaching a time when city planners will need to route public transport past doctors’ surgeries and hospitals, rather than simply schools or workplaces, a report on the ageing of society claims. Houses will have to be built with the needs of the elderly in mind, as more and more people live into old age. And a generation nearing retirement will be faced with the dilemma of how to look after their elderly relatives while still caring for their children and possibly grandchildren. Retirement, however, will be postponed as the age for receiving national pensions is increased to contain the costs of ageing and to pay for those who are retired.

There are two trends worrying the number-crunchers at the Office of National Statistics: the retirement of the baby boomers, and the increasing longevity of people. Last year there were 9.5 million Britons over 65; by 2032 that figure… click here to read whole article and make comments

A petition of 330,000 names asking for the protection of the unborn child is being presented at the United Nations on December 10 to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The petition, organised by a coalition of socially conservative groups from around the world, calls for member states of the UN to interpret the Universal Declaration as protecting the unborn child from abortion and protecting the traditional family.

The group formed in response and in opposition to petition efforts by pro-abortion groups International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International that are calling for a right to abortion on the significant human rights anniversary.

“We are proud not only to match but far surpass the efforts of pro-abortion groups,” said Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), the primary organizer of the petition drive. “We launched our drive… click here to read whole article and make comments

American high school students surveyed on moral standards appear to have been remarkably frank about their shortcomings. Some 64 per cent admitted to cheating in a test in the past year and 38 per cent did so two or more times; 36 per cent said they used the internet to plagiarise material for an assignment; and 42 per cent said they sometimes lie to save money -- 49 per cent of the boys and 36 per cent of the girls.

On top of that, 35 per cent of boys and 26 per cent of girls said they had stolen from a store within the past year; one-fifth had stolen from a friend and 23 per cent from a parent or other relative.

Despite such responses, 93 per cent of students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character, and 77 per cent affirmed that “when it comes… click here to read whole article and make comments

If you're happy and you know it, thank your friends—and their friends. And while you're at it, their friends' friends. But if you're sad, hold the blame. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego have found that "happiness" is not the result solely of a cloistered journey filled with individually tailored self-help techniques. Happiness is also a collective phenomenon that spreads through social networks like an emotional contagion.

In a study that looked at the happiness of nearly 5000 individuals over a period of twenty years, researchers found that when an individual becomes happy, the network effect can be measured up to three degrees. One person's happiness triggers a chain reaction that benefits not only their friends, but their friends' friends, and their friends' friends' friends. The effect lasts for up to one year.

The flip side, interestingly, is not the case: Sadness does… click here to read whole article and make comments

If parents don’t know that plonking little children down in front of the television or letting older ones play video games for hours on end is bad for them, it’s not for want of research on the subject. An American team found almost 1800 studies conducted since 1980 on the effects of media consumption on children. From those, they selected 173 that met certain criteria, including that they controlled for variables such as the socio-economic status of children.

In a clear majority of those studies, more time with TV, films, video games, magazines, music and the internet was linked to rises in childhood obesity, tobacco use and sexual behaviour. A majority also showed strong correlations with drug and alcohol use and low academic achievement. There was a weaker link with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and a non-profit, Common Sense Media,… click here to read whole article and make comments