Kids without Anger Management and Conflict Resolution skills learn less
Friday, April 24th, 2009Studies have shown that kids, and even adults, learn less and are unproductive, when unable to handle stress and anger. Reedley teaches its students to manage stress and control anger as early as seven years old.
Today, here are a few articles about it on ABS-CBN News and Business Mirror online. Read on and you just might find out why your child cannot get that Math grade up…
Educators propose anger management lessons in schools
The Philippine Star | 04/24/2009 12:15 AM
MANILA, Philippines - Young children are exposed to too much violence in video games, and educators from a Quezon City-based international school say that anger management should be taught to elementary and high school students to reduce aggression among kids.
Emil Ong, director for school development of the Reedley International School, said anger management lessons would help school children deal with stress, the reason why many students fail to focus on their studies.
Ong cited a recent study by Dr. David Grossman, a retired US Army Ranger turned professor of Military Science at the Arkansas State University, that showed that playing violent video games, particularly those wherein the player is the “first-person shooter,” trains children in the use of weapons and harden them emotionally to the act of murder by simulating the killing of hundreds or thousands of opponents in a single video game.
Ong said giving anger management and leadership skills programs to children who play video games could result in a reduction of aggression and an improvement in academic performance.
“With all these violence and stressful things they are exposed to, children should be taught to effectively control and manage their stress,” Ong said.
Grossman’s study analyzed 790 second and third graders at 12 elementary schools in King County in Washington, who were divided into two groups, one immersed in anger management and leadership skills programs, and the other that did not go through any program.
The results showed that the first group showed a 60 percent reduction in aggression and a 100 percent improvement in their academic performance.
Grossman recommended that children’s exposure to violent video games should be reduced if not totally avoided.
At Reedley, students are taught anger management and conflict resolution skills through the Life Skills subject.
Lessons in these classes are mostly based on the strategies recommended by the best-selling books “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens” and “Seven Habits of Happy Kids” of Sean Covey, son of American educator Stephen Covey who authored the phenomenal “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”
Anger management teaches children to articulate and analyze their feelings, then strive to control them.
Reedley follows the Singaporean curriculum in teaching Math and Science and the US curriculum in teaching English and Social Studies. – Rainier Allan Ronda
as of 04/24/2009 12:15 AM
| Stress making today’s kids more violent, say experts |  |
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| Top News |
| Written by Claudette Mocon / Correspondent |
| Friday, 24 April 2009 00:49 |
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THE stressful modern life has apparently adversely affected today’s children so that they have become more prone to violence than those during the so-called age of innocence that lasted up to the ’70’s. A group of educators said on Thursday a study had shown this; and it also showed that kids improve their academic performance when put in a less stressful environment. Dr. David Grossman, a noted psychotherapist, studied 790 second and third graders at 12 elementary schools dividing them into two groups—one group immersed in anger-management and leadership skills programs and the other being the control group. The group that went through anger-management study showed a 60-percent reduction in aggression and a 100-percent improvement in their academic performance. Jane Santos, Upper School Head Counselor of the Reedley International School, said that children today have become more aggressive because they tend to copy what they play in video games such as the liberally violent “Counterstrike” and the animé movies such as the popular “Naruto” and “Bleach.” Mai Cembrano, Reedley grade school counsel, said that parents should make sure their children watch less-violent television shows and play similarly tamer video games. Children not only try to emulate what they play or watch, but it also affects their studies since they tend to sleep later, being absorbed in their games. Dr. Norman Garmenzy said the conclusion that could be made is that stress is one of the factors for bad grades. He observed that when kids are put in an environment of aggression and violence, they show signs of extreme stress. He said stress disturbs the body’s homeostasis and leads to poor study habits and the inability to listen and digest information correctly. Noted neuropsychologist Dr. William Stixrud of the school’s Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry said stress harms the child’s brain. “When kids are stressed, their amygdala, hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands are affected. Cortisol levels increase, affecting the function of the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Stress hormones impair the child’s verbal and spatial working memory that affects organizational skills and reduces mental flexibility and cognitive efficiency,” he said. Clinical studies show that cortisols kill hippocampus cells and retard the growth of new cells. Prolonged stress shrinks the hippocampus. Repeated exposure to stressful situations is known to increase the size of the amygdala, making it more widely connected with multiple brain regions. Stixrud said an optimal learning environment “is one that involves high challenge but low threat. Students learn and perform best when given difficult and challenging material and put in an academic environment where it is safe to make mistakes and enjoy the experience of learning.” Michelle Regalado, middle-school life-skills teacher at Reedly, said their students are taught anger-management and conflict-resolution skills through a program called Life Skills. She added Reedley also promotes a culture of kindness, which reinforces what kids learn about managing stress and anger inside and outside the classroom. Respect and caring for others are philosophical pillars that the school inculcates in its students. |
