Aggressive Parenting May Harm Child’s Emotional Health

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on September 23, 2010

 

A new study underway hopes to determine whether or not grabbing a child firmly by the arm, yelling and repeatedly punishing him or her may lead to long-term mental health issues.

Researchers are studying how harsh parenting can impact the emotional development of a child. It is believed that harsh parenting methods may lead to anxiety disorders such as social phobia, separation anxiety and panic attacks.

“Several studies have shown that coercive parenting practices are linked to anxiety,” says Françoise Maheu, a professor at the Université de Montréal’s department of psychiatry and lead investigator of the study.

“We know that common practices such as spanking or excessive punishment do not instill a strong discipline. Quite the opposite, they have a lasting psychological impact on children.”

Maheu and her team are investigating specifically how the anatomy or physiology of the brain is affected by this parenting. They are in the process of recruiting 120 youths ages 12 to 17 years. These youths will be split into four groups according to two variables: their current anxiety symptoms and their parents’ current harsh parenting practices.

While doing behavioral tests, the children will be subjected to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), where their brain activity (cerebral activity) will be measured. Maheu will then be able to correlate brain activity with fear and anxiety.

“My hypothesis is that two specialized structures, the amygdala and the anterior congulate cortex, which form the neural fear circuit, play a role in mediating the anxiety associated with harsh parenting. We are investigating these structures because they are strongly associated with the processing of threat cues,” says Maheu.

“Investigating the links among harsh parenting, fear circuitry and anxiety in youths will provide key insights on the developmental neurobiology of harsh parenting and anxiety,” adds Maheu.

“Understanding this while individuals are young is crucial as it could lead to early interventions that would effectively interrupt a development trajectory early in its course, before anxiety becomes chronic.”

This article was edited to clarify the nature of the research to be undertaken.

Helping Students Understand Addition and Multiplication

By Leigh Pretnar Cousins, MS

Addition, multiplication and exponentiation (raising to powers) are related operations. 

Multiplication is repeated addition.

Exponentiation is repeated multiplication. 

Look at the photo to see what I mean.

Math is hierarchical. Skills build on top of other skills. In this way, math is similar to learning a foreign language. That basic vocabulary and simple rules and verb tenses you learn at the beginning are essential for your future fluency.

Matt and I see many students who are quite good at “the hard stuff,” the algebra and geometry that they are learning now in high school, but they can’t truly excel because they’re still struggling with earlier skills such as multiplication and fractions.

More often than not, kids wind up with weak math foundations because their elementary-school and middle-school learning didn’t progress at the same pace as did the school curriculum.

For example, many kids memorize their times tables without understanding what they are doing. Most kids can tell you that three times five equals fifteen. But do they know what that means?

Here’s a quick assessment to help you see what your student really knows about multiplication:

• Write a multiplication problem, say 5 x 3 = ?, on a piece of paper
• Your student should tell you the answer is 15
• Now ask the student to write a word problem to fit the equation.
• Kids with multiplicative thinking can write an appropriate story. There were five cats and each one caught three mice, how many mice is that?
• Kids who are still thinking additively write addition stories. There were five cats and three more cats arrived, how many cats are there now?

And here’s something students of any age (including adults) can practice, to increase math fluency, exercise your brain, and feel better about math!

• Take a multiplication fact. Let’s use 8 x 7 = 56
• Find as many different ways as you can to get that answer:
• 8 x 5 = 40 and 8 x 2 = 16, 40 + 16 = 56
• 10 x 7 = 70 and 2 x 7 = 14, 70 – 14 = 56
• 4 x 7 = 28, 8 x 7 is twice as much, so 28 x 2 = 56

Can you find some more?