Concert & Graduation

It’s this coming weekend. Liya and I have not decided what to wear for the fashion show that we are taking part. I have showed her ‘kebaya’ which is one of the traditional costume for Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Singapore. We also have to think of the matching accessories.

Ajib is also excited as this will be his first live performance on stage. I didn’t count the gymnastics performed in the preschool’s compound.

Sibling Bonding

“Mom, she doesn’t want to share..” cried Ajib.

“Mama, it’s mine..” Liya pressed her statement.

I deliberately did not want to favor either Ajib or Liya. They fight as regular as they enjoy each other’s company. Nothing in the world can beat the music to my ears when they giggle and laugh even though I must hush them up if I am driving or talking over the telephone.

I usually carried a small notebook and several pens in my handbag. For example, by letting Liya and Ajib occupied before the meal, the table was in array. Each drew what they saw in the restaurant.  So, sharing can improve understanding and communication skills. Ajib and Liya also can learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses as well as personal preferences. This is hoped to overcome sibling rivalry and ensure lifetime bonding with mutual repect.

Cheese, Chess & Checkmate

Ajib and Liya were starting to play chess when Liya persuaded me to join in. Ajib volunteered to ‘teach’ Mama which I thought was rather amusing. So, I did come to the board game which I had dreaded to learn when I was in primary school. The teachers thought I could be a good player and perhaps bag any titles the least at district level.

Ajib prepared the pawn, castling, queen and the rest with minor mistake of King and Queen positions. I ensured I was holding the manual or instruction on how to play. Ajib lost interest after Liya took 2 of his horses. I had to come in and finish the game.

It was okay for a first timer..

2010

In about 2 months, we will embrace 2010. That means my Liya will be in another phase of her life as primary school pupil. Since I registered her to her ‘new school’, I have been deliberately driving near the school area. By seeing the place she’s going to, I hope she will adjust to the idea that she’s growing up (too fast!) and she needs to mentally prepare herself.

I noticed that Liya is beginning to enjoy the fact that she’s moving on. She seems not to mind leaving Ajib behind in the preschool where Ajib will be in pK2. Each of them must learn to cooperate, be together and be apart..

As I have been a private tutor since 2003, Liya has signed up for Mama’s classes. And, my hubby and I look forward to even a more enjoyable parenting next year and beyond.

Diwali, bangles & costume…

Diwali 2009 was recently celebrated by 1Malaysia (One Malaysia). Liya has been fascinated by Punjabi suit and saree with all the glitters and bright colors and beautiful designs.

We went to a nearby Indian’s store where Liya had tried on many pairs. I let her choose and decide as well as to give me feedback like if she likes the fabric, ornaments, beads, color,design, etc. Having options and looking at various perspectives would be essential when Liya grows up. Liya needs to be confident to make a decision, be firm about it and live with it.

We came home with a pair of Punjabi suit. A shawl too. And Liya has a pair of bangles to go with her suit. The lady owner who had fallen in love with Liya at the store gave her more accessories – a necklace and a pair of earrings to complete Liya’s new look.

A Toy’s Story

Ajib has been carrying a bag full of toys to almost all destinations – school, malls, relatives’ houses, etc. By doing this, I notice that he is less likely to drag me to the toy aisles at the malls and more likely to develop connection with other boys.

Yesterday, I bought Jet Ray (Ben 10 Alien Force) from Popular Bookstore. Ajib was excited to meet his new alien hero. He also brings with him a Transformers comic book and likes to wear his Optimus Prime or Bumblebee t-shirts.

Ajib is no longer a quiet and reserved toddler. Toys enable Ajib to try out all sorts of actions, body movements, possible ‘crimes’, potential plots, etc. He also let Liya to take part in the battles of Ultraman, Ben 10 or Transformers. Ready, action, cut……the camera is rolling!

When we had dinner at the Pavillion Kuala Lumpur, Ajib took out all his ‘men.’ Liya and I helped to arranged the toys on the table before the appetizers and main courses arrived. We discussed, negotiated and argued but before the spring rolls hit our tables, there were no issues unresolved…

Crocodile Mommy

Liya showed off her swimming ability while Ajib has already increased water confidence. Despite then fun we had in the swimming pool where Mommy became the crocodile and carried passengers on her back, Mommy is still not a  swimmer herself.

Well, that can easily be 2010’s resolution…

Seeing the fun has a vast difference from being in the fun. One can see the life moving on or he or she is living to make something happen. Kids learn everywhere. They seek ‘fun’ in everything. Kids are creative. They make us happy. Although sometimes we think they push us to the limits, they are just giving us a chance to improve ourselves to become better persons and skillful parents.

How can an individual be a master without exposures, training and challenges? There’s no shortcut for diamonds to be made…

How Single Parents Affect the Brain – By Shirley S. Wang

How Single Parents Affect the Brain – By Shirley S. Wang

By SHIRLEY S. WANG

Conventional wisdom holds that two parents are better than one. Scientists are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way your brain develops.

German biologist Anna Katharina Braun and others are conducting research on animals that are typically raised by two parents, in the hopes of better understanding the impact on humans of being raised by a single parent. Dr. Braun’s work focuses on degus, small rodents related to guinea pigs and chinchillas, because mother and father degus naturally raise their babies together.

Matt Collins

When deprived of their father, the degu pups exhibit both short- and long-term changes in nerve-cell growth in different regions of the brain. Dr. Braun, director of the Institute of Biology at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg, and her colleagues are also looking at how these physical changes affect offspring behavior.

Their preliminary analysis indicates that fatherless degu pups exhibit more aggressive and impulsive behavior than pups raised by two parents.

In a study the researchers presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago earlier this month and recently published in the journal Neuroscience, half the degus were raised with two parents, while the others were raised by a single mother, the father having been removed from the cage one day after the birth of his offspring.

Dr. Braun and her colleagues found that in the two-parent families, the degu mothers and fathers cared for their pups in similar ways, including sleeping next to or crouching over them, licking and grooming them, and playing with them. The fathers even exhibited a “nursing-type” position.

When the mother was a single parent, the frequency of her interactions with her pups didn’t change much, which means that those pups experienced significantly less touching and interaction than those with two parents.

The researchers then looked at the neurons—cells that send and receive messages between the brain and the body—of some pups at day 21, around the time they were weaned from their mothers, and others at day 90, which is considered adulthood for the species.

Neurons have branches, known as dendrites, that conduct electrical signals received from other nerve cells to the body, or trunk, of the neuron. The leaves of the dendrites are protrusions called dendritic spines that receive messages and serve as the contact between neurons.

Dr. Braun’s group found that at 21 days, the fatherless animals had less dense dendritic spines compared to animals raised by both parents, though they “caught up” by day 90. However, the length of some types of dendrites was significantly shorter in some parts of the brain, even in adulthood, in fatherless animals.

“It just shows that parents are leaving footprints on the brain of their kids,” says Dr. Braun, 54 years old.

The neuronal differences were observed in a part of the brain called the amygdala, which is related to emotional responses and fear, and the orbitofrontal cortex, or OFC, the brain’s decision-making center.

‘A Horse Without a Rider’

The balance between these two brain parts is critical to normal emotional and cognitive functioning, according to Dr. Braun. If the OFC isn’t active, the amygdala “goes crazy, like a horse without a rider,” she says. In the case of the fatherless pups, there were fewer dendritic spines in the OFC, while the dendrite trees in the amygdala grew more and longer branches.

A preliminary analysis of the degus’ behavior showed that fatherless animals seemed to have a lack of impulse control, Dr. Braun says. And, when they played with siblings, they engaged in more play-fighting or aggressive behavior.

In a separate study in Dr. Braun’s lab conducted by post-doctoral researcher Joerg Bock, degu pups were removed from their caregivers for one hour a day. Just this small amount of stress leads the pups to exhibit more hyperactive behaviors and less focused attention, compared to those who aren’t separated, Dr. Braun says. They also exhibit changes in their brain.

The basic wiring between the brain regions in the degus is the same as in humans, and the nerve cells are identical in their function. “So on that level we can assume that what happens in the animal’s brain when it’s raised in an impoverished environment … should be very similar to what happens in our children’s brain,” Dr. Braun says.

Other researchers, such as Xia Zhang, a senior scientist at the University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research, and his colleagues in China, have observed different consequences using voles, mouselike rodents that also naturally co-parent. (Fewer than 10% of species raise their offspring with two parents.)

Voles deprived of their fathers—either from birth or later on in childhood—exhibited more anxious behaviors and were less social, spending less time engaging with stranger voles that were placed in their cage, according to a study by Dr. Zhang and his colleagues that was published in July in the journal Behavioral Processes.

Of course, the frontal cortex—where thinking and decision-making take place—is more complex in humans than it is in other animals. Thus, says Dr. Braun, it is important to be “really careful” about extrapolating the recent findings to human populations.

“The minute you get into stuff with extensive social and environmental components, the social differences between humans and animals are massive,” says Simon Chapple, a senior economist in the social policy division of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the 30-country grouping of the world’s largest economies.

It remains an “open verdict” whether single parenthood causes these bad outcomes, or is merely associated with them, says Dr. Chapple.

Risk of Delinquency

Still, the prevalence of single-parent households has researchers looking at possible consequences for children. An OECD report found that just 57% of children in the U.S. live with both parents, among the lowest percentages of the world’s richest nations.

The report, which sparked some controversy when it was released in September, found that children in single-parent households have an increased risk of delinquency and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, as well as poorer scholastic performance.

The OECD also analyzed data from 122 separate studies and found that there was variability in the negative effects on children of living in a single-parent home; on average, the OECD found, the magnitude of the impact was relatively small. On a standardized intelligence test with a median score of 100 points, for example, a child in a single-parent family would be about 3.5 points worse off than a similar child in a two-parent family, according to Dr. Chapple, who co-wrote the report.

Dr. Braun’s goal for future research is to figure out whether degu pups’ brains can be rewired by introducing a substitute caregiver, such as a grandmother, or whether other social and emotional enrichment can help “repair” the fatherless pups, she says. Human children may be sent to day care, for instance, which can help them form stable friendships with their peers and other adults.

The bottom line, says Dr. Braun, is that parents need to fuel their children’s brains with talk, touch and sensitive stimulation that involves give and take.

Parents, she says, “are the sculptors of their children’s brains.”

Write to Shirley S. Wang at shirley.wang@wsj.com

Leaping Froggie

Liya was jumping from sofa to sofa despite my sweet nagging. Minutes later the family hall seemed awfully peaceful. Silence was broken with Liya’s sobbing and plea for help. I rushed to get her. The crying has made Ajib came to see what was happening.

“Don’t cry…you’re a big girl,” The 3-year old Ajib comforted Liya.

I prevented myself from scolding Liya. I managed to control my panic attack. I focused on the more important issue, to see any broken bones or major wound cuts.

The Effect of Music on Children’s Intelligence

Studies after studies are showing that learning music can make kids smart.  When your child learns to play a musical instrument, not only does he learn how to make tunes, but he also enhances other capabilities of his brain as well:

• A 10 year study involving 25,000 students show that music-making improves test scores in standardized tests, as well as in reading proficiency exams (Source: James Catterall, UCLA, 1997).
• High school music students score higher on the math and verbal portion of SAT, compared to their peers (Profile of SAT and Achievement Test Takers, The College Board, compiled by Music Educators Conference, 2001).
• The IQ’s of young students who had nine months of weekly training in piano or voice rose nearly three points more than their untrained peers (Study by E. Glenn Schellenberg, of the University of Toronto at Mississauga, 2004.)
• Piano students can understand mathematical and scientific concepts more readily.  Children who received piano training performed 34 percent higher on tests measuring proportional reasoning – ratios, fractions, proportions, and thinking in space and time (Neurological Research, 1997).
• Pattern recognition and mental representation scores improved significantly in students who were given a 3-year piano instruction (Dr. Eugenia Costa-Giomi study presented at the meeting of the Music Educators National Conference, Phoenix, AZ, 1998).
• Music students received more academic honors and awards than non-music students.  These music students also have more A and B grades compared to non-music students (National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 First Follow-Up, U.S. Department of Education).
• More music majors who applied for medical school were admitted compared to those in other majors including English, biology, chemistry and math. (“The Comparative Academic Abilites of Students in Education and in Other Areas of a Multi-focus University,” Peter H. Wood, ERIC Document No. ED327480; “The Case for Music in Schools”, Phi Delta Kappan, 1994)

Other research also linked music making with increased language discrimination and development, improved school grades, and better-adjusted social behavior.

Why does this happen?  What is at work here?

Music & Children’s Intelligence