“Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?”

“Cheers to the freakin’ weekend.
I drink to that, yeah yeah
Oh let the Jameson sink in I drink to that, yeah yeah
Don’t let the bastards get ya down Turn it around with another round
There’s a party at the bar everybody put your glasses up and I drink to that I drink to that.” Rhianna – Lyrics to “Cheers to That”

Messages about drinking are everywhere you look. Although racy music lyrics are nothing new, the messages in songs have changed from when many of us were younger. For example, a content analysis of song lyrics found that in 1988, 12% of songs referred to either or both alcohol and drugs, compared to 30% in 2008. Moreover, both alcohol and drugs were much more likely to be portrayed positively than negatively, especially in recent decades.
continue reading "Cheers! Messages in media about drinking"

Here’s the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z9LEen8KcI&feature=related

If you haven’t seen the video about the father who shot his child’s laptop after she posted an ungrateful, obnoxious posting on Facebook, it’s worth a look.  As a parent of a teenage daughter who can be rude and selfish, I can relate.  Yet as a person who studies developmental psychology, I know that adolescents often are rude and selfish, and some of this behavior may be beyond their control.  In addition, authoritarian parenting, heavy with rules, strictness, low tolerance and little warmth, is associated with negative outcomes for children.  And it’s pretty clear this dad has a heavy hand.  Moreover, I personally don’t think guns are ever a solution to a problem.  I mean, what is the dad modeling (modeling is one of the most influential ways that people learn due to mirror neurons in all of our brains)?  Get angry and use guns to solve your problem?

But it does show very clearly, one of the problems with allowing children access to these tools.  This girl was acting out against her parent’s rules.  Very normal.  She said something rude about one of their parent’s friends.  Again normal.  But in the past this was contained to inside the home or within a small group of school friends.  In the 21st century?  She chose to post it on Facebook.  What was she thinking?  It seems that her father may have even been a Facebook friend.  Even if he wasn’t, the teenager’s difficulty to connect actions with consequences combined with increased risk taking behavior, made her not think that without a doubt her father would see the post.  And moreover, that the father’s friend would see the post and be hurt by being called a housecleaner.

The most recent Pew report on social networking sites found that most adults witnessed kind behavior on the sites, but the less heralded number is that 49% witnessed mean behavior – and the group surveyed were adults!  That is an astonishingly high number.  A former study on teens and social networking sites reflected a higher number to witness mean behavior — 88%. Think about it — in your day-to-day, face to face daily life how much mean and cruel behavior do you witness?  I would venture to say it is much less than 49%.

These sites give children (and in fact all of us) tools to act out, and if they have poor self-control, to act emotionally.  The teen who acted out on Facebook suffered some pretty serious consequences.  But then her father notched it up a level when he reacted.  His original YouTube video was removed – perhaps he is reconsidering his actions and took it down?  But now it’s too late – his video has been reposted by others and in many many places and will live on.

Despite recent concerns of parents that homework serves little purpose and can be too stressful for children (i.e. see post on the film RACE TO NOWHERE), most research finds that self regulation skills and homework activities are related.  Hundreds of studies in a variety of contexts, not only in the classroom, but also in healthcare and other arenas, found similar positive outcomes for better self-regulated learners (Duckworth et al, 2009).   A good self regulator will pay attention to task, persist when it becomes difficult, demonstrate flexibility, be motivated and confident that additional effort will lead to positive outcomes.  Sounds pretty good right, even for adults!

Teachers know homework contributes to self-regulation skills, and that is why even a little homework at a young age can be helpful.  As a parent, I invested a lot of time in making sure my young children did their homework first thing, at the kitchen table when they came home from school, beginning in kindergarten when the academic value of the work was questionable.  And today, when they come home from school and are motivated to do their homework without my staying on top of them every minute, I am extremely grateful that I put in the time when they were younger. Now the stakes are higher, and they SELF-regulate.  Much better than MOMMY-regulate.

The activities that students conduct during homework such as motivating themselves, setting goals, and inhibiting distractions are all components of self-regulation.  As such, teaching effective homework practices may be a relatively simple means of developing self-regulation.  Investing greater effort in homework is also associated with higher achievement with effect sizes ranging from .39 to .97.   In studies with middle school children, students with better skills in SRL while completing homework ahieved higer academic performance (Zimmerman, 2008).

And really… do any of you want to be sitting in your child’s dorm room when they go to college telling them to get back to work?