Showing titles in Children's Studies

All forms of recreational digital consumption—whether on smartphones, tablets, game consoles, or TVs—have skyrocketed in the younger generations. Most media experts do not seem overly concerned about this situation: children are adaptable, they say, they are "digital natives," their brains have changed and screens make them smarter. But other specialists—including some pediatricians, psychiatrists, teachers, and speech therapists—dispute these claims, and many parents worry about the long-term consequences of their children's intensive exposure to screens.

At first glance, Generation Z (youth born after 1997) seems to be made up of anxious overachievers, hounded by Tiger Moms and constantly tracked on social media. One would think that competitors in the National Spelling Bee - the most popular brain sport in America - would be the worst off. Counterintuitively, anthropologist Shalini Shankar argues that Gen Z spelling bee competitors are learning crucial 21st-century skills from their high-powered lives, displaying a sophisticated understanding of self-promotion, self-direction, and social mobility.

As administrators, teachers, and parents struggle to help children make sense of our racially and politically polarized nation, Hagerman offers concrete examples of the kinds of interventions necessary to help kids learn how to become members of a multi-racial democracy and to avoid the development of far-right thinking in the white youth of today. Children of a Troubled Time expands our understanding of how the rising generation grapples with the complexities of racism and raises critical questions about the future of American society.

Emma ist erst vier Jahre alt, aber ihre Datenspur im Internet reicht schon viel weiter zurück. Bereits das erste Ultraschallbild haben ihre Eltern bei Instagram gepostet. Der Kinderwagen hat 2000 Euro gekostet. Museum, Zoo, Kindertheater, Frühenglisch und Karatekurs – all das muss Emma mit vier schon erlebt haben. Statt ihr Kind zu erziehen, überschütten die Eltern es mit Liebe, Geschenken und Optimierungen. Erzieher berichten, dass viele Kinder heute später trocken werden, nur in 2-Wort-Sätzen sprechen oder sich nicht selbst anziehen können.

Classrooms were never sufficient for Jared Cohen; he wanted to learn about global affairs by witnessing them firsthand. While studying on a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford, he took a crash course in Arabic, read voraciously on the history and culture of the Middle East, and in 2004 he embarked on the first of a series of incredible journeys to the Middle East. In an effort to try to understand the spread of radical Islamist violence, he focused his research on Muslim youth.

Tracking deep into our evolutionary history, anthropological science has begun to unravel one particular feature that sets us apart from the many, many animals that came before us—our uniquely long childhoods. Growing Up Human looks at how we have diverged from our ancestral roots to stay ‘forever young’—or at least what seems like forever—and how the evolution of childhood is a critical part of the human story.

Never Let Go is a supportive and practical guide for parents looking after a child with a mental illness. Suzanne Alderson understands the agonising struggle of bringing a child back from the brink of suicide, having spent three years supporting her own daughter through recovery. Her method of 'partnering, not parenting' has now helped thousands of other parents through her charity, Parenting Mental Health.

One in 10 American children has a parent under criminal justice supervision - incarcerated, on probation, or on parole. One in 33 American children - and one in eight African American children - goes to sleep without access to a parent because that parent is in jail. Despite these staggering numbers, the children of prisoners remain largely invisible to society. Journalist Nell Bernstein shows, through the deeply moving stories of real families, how the children of the incarcerated are routinely punished for their parents' status.

Liz Ianelli, known around the world as Survivor993, spent years at the Family Foundation—labeled an “institution for troubled teens.” The children who went through The Family School like her were good people. They had potential and dreams, but they came out with lifelong trauma: anxious, angry, paranoid, self-hating and in pain. Most of them have suffered lives of hardship, unable to integrate back into society. Hundreds have died, mostly by overdose and suicide. I See You, Survivor is about what really happened at The Family and what continues to happen at thousands of facilities like it.

The Invention of Childhood explores how gender, geography and ethnicity has impacted the development of children throughout the ages. Beginning from the year 1000, Cunningham studies the many important events in history for our children, ranging from Britain's earliest child-care guru in the Middle Ages to the first ever Foundling Hospital in the 18th Century. This hugely enjoyable piece of teaching that delves into the idea of how childhood has been constantly reinvented through the centuries, and why the role of children in society continues to obsess us today.

By official count, more than one out of every six American children live beneath the poverty line. But statistics alone tell little of the story. In Invisible Americans, Jeff Madrick brings to light the often invisible reality and irreparable damage of child poverty in America. Keeping his focus on the children, he examines the roots of the problem, including the toothless remnants of our social welfare system, entrenched racism, and a government unmotivated to help the most voiceless citizens.

In a smart, entertaining, reassuring book that reads like fiction, Alexandra Robbins manages to cross Gossip Girl with Freaks and Geeks and explain the fascinating psychology and science behind popularity and outcasthood. She reveals that the things that set students apart in high school are the things that help them stand out later in life.

Clarkston, Georgia, was a typical Southern town until it was designated a refugee settlement center in the 1990s, becoming the first American home for scores of families in flight from the world's war zones; from Liberia and Sudan to Iraq and Afghanistan. Suddenly Clarkston's streets were filled with women wearing the hijab, the smells of cumin and curry, and kids of all colors playing soccer in any open space they could find.

What if the only reason you aren't doing well in school is that you've been lied to about your own brain? For centuries, students worldwide have been tricked into making school less successful and more stressful than it needs to be. In reality, you already have the ability to make anything that you do in school easy.

In some of the bleakest corners of the world, an unprecedented movement is taking root. From the favelas of Brazil to the Maori villages in New Zealand, from occupied Palestine to South Central Los Angeles, musicians with strong social consciences are founding intensive orchestra programs for children in need. In this captivating and inspiring account, authors Tricia Tunstall and Eric Booth tell the remarkable story of the international El Sistema movement.

What are you going to do for the rest of your life? For David Lawrence, Jr., a brilliant newspaper editor and publisher with a distinguished, three-decade-long journalism career who retired in 1999 at the age of 56, the answer in his words was to dedicate his life to a "[N]ewly energized purposefulness: that every child have a real chance to succeed."

Jonathan Kozol's books have become touchstones of the American conscience. Unlike his previous books, however, Ordinary Resurrections is almost entirely narrative and takes us into the fascinating details of daily life as he has lived it with young children who befriended him over the course of several years. Like Amazing Grace, this book describes the children of New York's South Bronx, but it is a markedly different book in mood and vantage point.

He is old enough to begin imagining that he will someday get married, but at 10 he is still convinced that the best thing about being married will be that he will be allowed to sleep in his clothes. His father once observed that living with Colin was like living with a Martian who had done some reading on American culture. As it happens, Colin is not especially sad or worried about the prospect of growing up, although he sometimes frets over whether he should be called a kid or a grown-up; he has settled on the word kid-up.

The Promise of Youth Anti-citizenship argues that Black youth and youth of color have been cast as anti-citizens, disenfranchised from the social, political, and economic mainstream of American life. Instead of asking youth to conform to a larger societal structure undergirded by racial capitalism and antiblackness, the volume's contributors propose that the collective practice of anti-citizenship opens up a liberatory space for youth to challenge the social order.

Most of us are fortunate enough to be born to loving, caring and nurturing parents. We are encouraged and looked after, treated well and inspired. But what if that wasn’t you? What if your parents didn’t care for you in the way they were supposed to, and you are still suffering from that? In this book, Dealing with Immature Parents: How to Recover From Narcissistic, Rejecting or Abusive Parenting, you can learn some of the lessons of how to deal with the lasting effects, through chapters on: parenthood and parenting styles, mature and immature parenting, and more.