Children

RECENT POSTS

March 2, 2012 | 1:01 PM | By

How Racial Stereotypes Changes With Age

Streeter Lecka / Getty Images

People are more charitable toward young black children than older black children, according to a new study published in the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science. Researchers examined data from a large, online charity that solicits donations for school projects. Proposals that included photos of older black children — sixth through 12th graders — didn’t get as many donations than proposals with photos of younger black children. For white children, an opposite pattern exists.

“What we show is as you grow toward adulthood, you come to represent your group in a much stronger fashion. People perceive you more in line with your group stereotypes.” says Deborah Small, one of the study’s authors. “Young children, we don’t penalize them by their [group's] stereotypes. Their ‘groupness’ is not fully formed yet.”

For African Americans, that means teenagers are more likely to be associated with stereotypes of being lazy, thus less deserving of sympathy and charity than young black children or white children, the study’s authors note.

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FILED UNDER: Children, Race, Sociology, Stereotypes
January 10, 2012 | 10:58 AM | By

Why Low-Income Kids Miss Out On Play

Old Mister Crow / Flickr

Remember playtime, when you would use your imagination to create a world of your own, with little structure or guidance? That kind of activity, called “free play,” helps boost childhood development and leads to better behavior in schools. But a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics found low-income children in cities have limited opportunities to play.

It would seem that free play would be quite accessible, given that you don’t need expensive lessons or toys to participate. But there are a number of socioeconomic factors preventing low-income children from playing. Here are three:

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Children, Health, Income disparity
December 14, 2011 | 8:00 AM | By

‘If I Was A Poor Black Kid:’ Not That Simple

Screenshot of Forbes.com

“If I was a poor black kid,” technology writer Gene Marks writes on Forbes’ website, “I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible.”

So goes the line of thinking in a post entitled “If I Was A Poor Black Kid,” an attempt at helping solve poverty among low-income, black children. Marks writes that what’s most lacking is personal motivation, since opportunities do exist for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as scholarships and free or low-cost technological tools. Marks uses Philadelphia as an example and writes that inequality isn’t the nation’s biggest problem, “it’s ignorance:”

So many kids from West Philadelphia don’t even know these opportunities exist for them.  Many come from single-parent families whose mom or dad (or in many cases their grand mom) is working two jobs to survive and are just (understandably) too plain tired to do anything else in the few short hours they’re home.  Many have teachers who are overburdened and too stressed to find the time to help every kid that needs it.  Many of these kids don’t have the brains to figure this out themselves – like my kids.  Except that my kids are just lucky enough to have parents and a well-funded school system around to push them in the right direction.

Technology can help these kids.  But only if the kids want to be helped.  Yes, there is much inequality.  But the opportunity is still there in this country for those that are smart enough to go for it.

Personal motivation will always play a role in individual success. But assuming that children need to simply be “smart enough” to go after available opportunities glosses over a complicated picture. Children don’t operate independently of the environment or adults around them.

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FILED UNDER: Education, Children, Digital Divide, Food Deserts
September 26, 2011 | 2:59 PM | By

Fraudulent Fundraising for a Good Cause

Flickr: Images_of_Money

Blogger Mari of “In Shaw” alerts us to a possible scam:

There is a scam going on where a youth will knock on the door of a resident and ask for money for…the Eastern Branch Boys & Girls Club, which has been closed for 5 years. As far as I can tell minors are not supposed to do any fundraising of this sort (going door to door, going on the Metro, etc) for the Boys & Girls Club.

Unfortunately there wasn’t any guidance on what to do when one encounters one of these youths.

The Eastern branch has been closed for five years, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Gigi Ransom confirmed on the MPD-5D listserv, an email list hosted by MPD to alert subscribers to news and information for the fifth police district.

“Report it as a crime. Call 311 and report it, like any other crime,” said Sgt. Raul Mendez, public information officer for the police department. He added that having a description of the kids and where they are targeting people for donations would be helpful.

“But when they approach you, ask them for identification, a call-back number, something official” and give the information to police, Mendez said. The documents could be fake, in which case police would consider that fraud.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Children, Crime, Police, Social Media
August 25, 2011 | 5:03 PM | By

Race, Class and Unplanned Pregnancies

Flickr: Trevor Bair

A recent study from the Guttmacher Institute found that while the overall rate of unintended pregnancies hasn’t changed, there are considerable disparities between the percentage of unplanned pregnancies experienced by wealthy and poor women in America.

Researchers also found a widening gap based on race and income. African-American women had the highest unintended pregnancy rate — more than twice as high as non-Hispanic white women.

Also, the rate of unintended pregnancies among low-income women rose, leading the researchers to conclude: “the rate for poor women was more than five times the rate for women in the highest income level.”

And about those women with higher incomes:

In contrast to the high rates among certain groups, some women in the United States are having considerable success timing and spacing their pregnancies. Higher-income women, white women, college graduates and married women have relatively low unintended pregnancy rates (as low as 17 per 1,000 among higher-income white women—one-third the national rate of 52 per 1,000), suggesting that women who have better access to reproductive health services, have achieved their educational goals or are in relationships that support a desired pregnancy are more likely than other women to achieve planned pregnancies and avoid those they do not want.

In the United States, almost half of all pregnancies are unintended. The Guttmacher Institute discovered a sobering fact; despite educational achievement, marital status, race or age, lower-income women still have higher rates of unplanned pregnancies. There was a 50 percent increase in the number of unintended pregnancies among women whose incomes were below the federal poverty line. Meanwhile, the rate of unplanned pregnancy among wealthier women decreased by 29 percent over the same period of time.

FILED UNDER: The People, Children, Poverty, Race and Class
August 17, 2011 | 2:47 PM | By

Councilmember Michael A. Brown to Give Away 600 Backpacks in Southeast, Tonight

Courtesy of Office of Councilmember Michael A. Brown

D.C. Councilmember Michael A. Brown will give away 600 backpacks filled with school supplies tonight, between 6-8 p.m. while supplies last. School starts Monday.

The backpacks are strictly for District residents and will be distributed during the “Back to School Community Cookout.” The event, at 2845 Alabama Ave SE, will also feature food and entertainment.

Councilmember Brown is quoted in a press release as saying, “I look forward to meeting with students and parents as we prepare for the upcoming school year and am grateful I can assist in a small way with needed supplies. More importantly, I hope to encourage our youth to understand that anything is possible with a strong education.”

FILED UNDER: Government, Children, City Council, Schools
May 25, 2011 | 10:40 AM | By

Five Ways Hunger Affects the Latino Community

Flickr: Walmart Stores

Last week, Latino leaders from across the country gathered in D.C. for the No Mas Hambre – “No More Hunger” – conference to raise awareness about food insecurity in their community. Here are five ways hunger, which is defined as “physical, emotional and psychological distress arising from lack of access to adequate, nutritious food” affects this rapidly growing group of Americans:

1) More than a quarter of Latinos struggle with hunger — compared to 14.6 percent of the general population, according to Bread for the World, a D.C.-based non-profit that works to end hunger in America and abroad.

2) Latino children are more likely to go hungry than their peers. While one in four American children is hungry, “child hunger is even more prevalent among Latino households — one in three Latino children is food insecure”, according to Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America, a non-profit working to help America’s hungry through a national network of food banks.

3) Nearly 60 percent of Hispanic families with young children receive food from a program called Women with Infants and Children (WIC), according to the National Hispanic Leadership agenda, a nonpartisan association of major Hispanic national organizations and leaders. WIC provides low-income women and their young children access to nutritious foods, education and other resources.

4) A third of Latino kids use emergency food service programs. The 2010 Hunger in America study conducted by Feeding America found that one out of every three Hispanic children received services from their national network of emergency food providers or food banks.

5) Almost half of all eligible Latinos do not receive food stamps, according to the National Council of La Raza, the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.That may be because applying for food stamps, formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, can be complicated, according to a brief from the Urban Institute; “it is possible that Hispanic families more often than others find SNAP inconvenient because they are more likely to be working, as many SNAP offices are open only during regular work hours”.

FILED UNDER: The People, Children, Food, Hunger, Immigrants
May 3, 2011 | 10:01 AM | By

Kavitha Cardoza on “The Heavy Burden Of Childhood Obesity”

Credit: Kavitha Cardoza

A student at Beers Elementary in Southeast enjoys Salad and Strawberry day.

First lady Michelle Obama started her “Let’s Move” campaign in part because people under the age of 25 are the first generation of Americans who are expected to live shorter lives than their parents, due to diet-related health issues. Last week, in a five-part series called, “The Heavy Burden Of Childhood Obesity” WAMU’s Kavitha Cardoza and Ginger Moored interviewed overweight children, their families and the doctors who are trying to help. I spoke to Kavitha to find out more about how race and class complicate the already challenging task of addressing obesity in some of D.C.’s youngest citizens.

Kavitha, you mentioned a clinic where the patients include a child who can’t bite a carrot because her teeth have rotted from her diet.

That’s an issue. One of the doctors told us they keep telling kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, yet this girl can’t eat carrots because her teeth have rotted and it hurts her. So some of these kids just can’t. It’s really hard for families. There was a 3-year waiting period for one obesity clinic. Meanwhile, a boy is putting on 4 lbs a month, can you imagine what a three year waiting period would mean? Three years x 4 lbs a month, think of how bad his problems will be.

Tell me about the family that did have access to a clinic; they saw a doctor who spent an unusual amount of time with them, right?

The doctor patiently spent 90 minutes with that family, trying to teach them about nutrition…they hadn’t even left her office and they were opening up and eating food. They’re just little children, of course if they see an Oreo, they want to eat it. And there was so much going on during that appointment…the Mom was braiding her kids hair, two little boys were playing, there were babies. After, the Doctor said, “You know, I have relatives who are obese. In my practice, I see single-parent, low-income families like the one I came from. A lot of people give up on families like that and I never want these families to feel like I’ve given up on them.”

What was the purpose of that visit, specifically?

At that appointment, the doctor was trying to explain nutrition labels. She told them not to worry about saturated and unsaturated fats at this point, because it’s too complicated. She said during the last visit, she explained calories. This time it was grams of sugar. She thinks they will get to a point where they do talk about fat. But it’s not just them–many of us are unaware of how unhealthy what we eat can be…5 grams is one spoon of sugar? I certainly didn’t know that. I grew up in an urban city, in Bangalore. Ginger, my producer, grew up on a farm in Virginia, and our connections to food are very different. She eats fruit and I eat chips and chocolate. I felt like a living test case. I’m not overweight, so it didn’t occur to me, how bad some foods can be.

In one story, you met a child who often has to be excused from class to go to the bathroom because his weight is putting pressure on his bladder– so obesity is now affecting that child’s school work, too. I thought, “What is he missing when he’s out of the room?”

He’s definitely missing things. Also, of all the things to be mocked for at that age…going to the bathroom? Anything related to bodily functions is hilarious to these children and this kid is going to the bathroom multiple times during the day.
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FILED UNDER: The People, Children, Food, Privilege, Public Health, Race and Class
April 29, 2011 | 12:00 PM | By

Graham: Outsourcing Youth Rehab is Expensive and Cuts Family Ties

Flickr: dbking

Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham

Two D.C.teens recently escaped from centers in Maryland and South Carolina aimed at rehabilitating them.

D.C. spends approximately $67,000 a day to house 225 wards in so-called residential treatment centers, or RTCs, across several states, according to a recent Examiner article. Councilman Jim Graham, chairman of the city committee that oversees the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, slammed the RTC system recently, saying it’s not cost-effective or productive.

“Sending kids to Utah and Arizona and Tennessee and South Carolina raises our costs and cuts those ties. It is totally unacceptable, for example, that we do not have a juvenile substance abuse treatment program right here in DC. I hope to be able to change that shortly,” he said in an email.

But supporters of the current system say the District doesn’t have enough centers. The teens sent out-of-state “are not kids who have shoplifted, these are hard-core bad guys,” Kris Bauman, leader of D.C.’s police union told the Examiner recently.

Critics question how troubled the youth are, since that is hard to measure. Some say what’s needed is a rehabilitation program that’s closer to home, or perhaps at home.

In some cases, RTCs have been used for wards who did not have a serious emotional disturbance or mental illness and who were not a threat to themselves or the community, according to the Washington City Paper.

What’s more, the city’s youth rehabilitation services department may have exceeded its budget by $994,000 in 2009 in part because it used RTCs for teens who may not have needed it.

But it’s easier to send teens away than deal with guiding them to improve their lives, said Victoria Otchere, Program Director at Sasha Bruce Youthwork, a local nonprofit that designs intervention strategies to treat teens at home.

Otchere echoes Graham’s concerns about preserving family ties because she believes relatives can be an important part of the rehabilitation process. She has worked with DYRS wards who benefited from remaining in the community and receiving the support of their families.

FILED UNDER: Government, Children, DYRS
April 22, 2011 | 1:20 PM | By

A $26,000 Student Bus Pass

Art by a special education student from the Bronx.

Flickr: vanessastories

D.C. doesn’t have adequate programs to serve children whose needs cannot be met in an ordinary classroom, so we bus them elsewhere. At great cost, apparently:

The city has 4,000 special-needs students who are served by Individualized Education Programs, and must be bussed to schools around D.C. and as far as Baltimore. This year, the mayor requested $150 million for tuition to those private programs, which is a $7.8 million decrease from last year. And just to get them there, the budget includes $93.6 million for 74 bus lines–that’s $26,000 per student per year.

Which makes leased Navigators look like peanuts.

FILED UNDER: Education, Government, Children, Money