Enemy of Entropy
Study: ADHD kids’ brain areas develop slower — CNN.com
Expert: Finding shows biological basis for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Crucial parts of brains of children with attention deficit disorder develop more slowly than other youngsters’ brains, a phenomenon that earlier brain-imaging research missed, a new study says.
Developing more slowly in ADHD youngsters — the lag can be as much as three years — are brain regions that suppress inappropriate actions and thoughts, focus attention, remember things from moment to moment, work for reward and control movement. That was the finding of researchers, led by Dr. Philip Shaw of the National Institute of Mental Health, who reported the most detailed study yet on this problem in Monday’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
I’ve gone from seriously not believing that ADHD existed at all, to being forced to understand its reality because my life partner, his kids, and my daughter all have it. These findings are a major advance!
I still know that plenty of people (particularly bad parents) use ADHD as an excuse, but that can happen with any disorder, real or imagined.
There’s further information at the National Institute for Mental Health, where the research was done.
Packaging Boyhood
From the latest Dads & Daughters newsletter:
Our friend Dr. Mark Tappan is co-authoring a book, to be called “Packaging Boyhood” about marketing to our sons. The book aims to “scrutinize the world of boy power, and the ways media and marketers’ stereotypes about how to be a man reach way down into the lives and entertainment of younger and younger boys.” Mark is writing it along with Dr. Lyn Mikel Brown and Dr. Sharon Lamb, co-authors of the 2006 book Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes.
To gather data for “Packaging Boyhood,” these preeminent scholars on the role of gender in the emotional, psychological and cultural development of our children put together a very interesting online survey at www.packagingboyhood.com. Participation by dads and/or their sons will be worthwhile.
Dads & Daughters is a great resource for parents, educators, or anyone else who cares about children. This is the first time I’ve seen them post something son-specific, but much of their material is important regardless of the gender of your child(ren). Maybe well see a Dads & Sons before long, or something similar.
I’m a Girl Scout!
Yep, I’m a 39-year-old Girl Scout. In fact, all three of the humans in our household are registered Girl Scouts — myself, Katie, and yes, even Sam. Men can be registered as adult Scouts. Katie’s troops have always asked that at least one, and preferably both (or more if there are more!) parents in a family register as adult Scouts for various reasons.
I’ve been a troop leader in Junior and multilevel (Rainbow) troops in the past. I had one year of Brownies and one as a Junior Girl Scout when I was a girl. I didn’t have great experiences, and wanted to make things better for my daughter and other girls, so I stepped up to be a leader when needed. I found that I enjoyed it every bit as much as the girls do. As just one example, I had never gone camping until Katie became a Brownie, and thought I’d hate it, but it was really fun.
There are some marvelous resources on the net for Girls and their parents and leaders. Katie is going to share her favorite links with other girls, so I’ll concentrate on the adult stuff. Since I’m relatively new, I don’t have anything like the list of links some sites have, but I wanted to share the best of what I have found.
- The National GSUSA site has far more information on it than most people ever realize. If you don’t already know what local council serves your area, you can find out here.
- We’re in the Northwest Georgia council. That site also offers a wealth of information. Pay special attention to the regularly-posted Learning Opportunities, which is the schedule of classes offered for adults and sometimes for older girls. Council events are also posted here. We would have missed out on some marvelous opportunities if we waited for someone else to tell us about them instead of checking the council’s site regularly.
- The Scouting File Cabinet is a collection of links, songs, ceremonies, activities, information for parents — you name it! It’s part of a larger site, the Leader/Guide Cyber Council, which is marvelous.
- ScoutingWeb offers an astonishing range of material.
- New Moon Magazine isn’t specifically for Scouts, but it’s a marvelous magazine for and by girls that does occasionally feature some Scouting material. They also have a great mailing list, careaboutgirls. The list is “for adults who care about girls: parents, teachers, coaches, counselors, pastors, troop leaders, relatives, researchers, etc. This is for every adult who wants to help raise healthy, confident girls and make the world better and safer for girls.”
Someone expressed surprise when learning that I’m a Girl Scout leader because she was under the impression that Girl Scouting is only for Christians. I wrote an article to clear up that misconception, “Is There a Pentagram Badge?“
I especially encourage homeschooling families to explore Girl Scouting as an opportunity for their daughters. We use the GS badge requirements along with unit studies and they’ve given us many great ideas.
Link: Mindful parenting and unschooling
Today, a post to one of the homeschooling lists I’m on included a link to Connections: ezine of unschooling and mindful parenting. I haven’t read all of it, but there’s definitely lots of good stuff there. Highly recommended!
Namaste,
Cyn
What I learned from my past relationships
So I actually heard from someone via Orkut. I can’t remember if that’s ever happened to me before or not.
Anyway, I went to check out this person’s profile, and realized mine was way out of date. Someday, I swear, I’m going to reproduce all the questions all those different places ask right here on my own site, keep that up to date, and refuse to fill out any other profiles.
Anyway, one of the fields was “From my past relationships I learned…” I found the question more interesting that most, so I’m reproducing my answer here, expanded a bit.
from my past relationships i learned: Something different every time 
A few of them:
Honesty is the only way to relate that’s worth bothering with.
Love isn’t enough.
Communication is priceless.
Relationships take lots of work from everyone, and sometimes they just aren’t sustainable.
Sex is often the canary in the relationship mine. Barring health issues that make sex impossible or unlikely, a decrease in sexual intimacy is usually due to a decrease in overall intimacy, which is Bad.
There’s no understanding crazy. Just walk away with as much of your sanity intact as possible.
Nobody deserves abuse.
Staying together is seldom “best for the kids.” In fact, I’ve yet to see a situation in which it was best for anyone.
There’s no way one (sane) person in a couple or other grouping is happy if the other is miserable.
If someone changes in a big way right after you get married, start trying to get an annulment. He isn’t the person you thought you knew.
While an adult can lie to you easily, his kids can’t. Neither can his pets. If either doesn’t behave consistently with what she says, or she doesn’t treat them the way she says she believes in raising kids or pets or whatever, she’s a liar. Leave before you get any closer.
Some things are worth the possibility of a broken heart.
“If you really loved me you’d…” means that the speaker is an abusive asshole trying to get you to do something that’s unhealthy for you.
Playing together is essential. So is working together.
People are not projects.
Knights are notorious for setting up new towers with you inside them. The only safe “rescue” is the DIY version, where you just walk out of the prison
What are yours?
