More than 5 million children alive today will die prematurely from smoking-related illnesses.

On Wednesday, March 25th kids  around America will celebrate the fourteenth annual Kick Butts Day, a holiday not created to incite mass bullying but to get the word out about the risks of smoking tobacco.  Health organizations, anti-tobacco groups, and children’s advocacy non-profits are teaming up with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids at schools around the country to talk to kids about smoking in some pretty interesting ways.  At Herricks High School in New Hyde Park, NY is opening up a graffiti wall and in Demopolis, AL Demopolis High is asking kids to bring in old shoes to represent the number of deaths from tobacco related illness each year.

Along with the more creative educational programs a number of political rallies and letter writing drives are planed for the day.  One push urges the Congress in DC to grant greater authority to the FDA to regulate the tobacco industry.  A recent CDC study showed that tobacco marketing continues to influence young people’s views on smoking and improved FDA involvement could mean stronger limits on print and point of sale advertising.  Meanwhile, the South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative is planning to gather outside the state house to lobby for higher taxes on tobacco.  The state has not seen a raise on tobacco taxes since 1977.  The current rate at 7 cents a pack is lowest in the nation and compares to a national average of over a dollar per pack.

Regardless of the outcomes in the Palmetto State cigarette taxes will be climbing on the national level and soon.  Under a Obama backed bill that passed through Congress earlier this year federal cigarette taxes will rise from 39 cents up to $1.01 per pack on April 1st.  Not surprisingly, the plan has met with harsh critiques from conservative and libertarian think tanks such as The Tax Foundation.

At this point in my rant you may be scratching your head.  I’m sure one or two of you is wondering what all this has to do with Children anyway.  Well, it all comes back around.  First off, the research shows that tax increases reduce teen smoking.  And with around three million minors lighting up there is a lot of work that needs to be done on that issue.

Second,  The Federal cigarette tax increase is part of the Obama Administration’s plan to expand SCHIP (the State Children’s Health Insurance Program) which gives matching funds to state level programs that give medical insurance to children in low income families who don’t qualify for medicaid.  The plan is touted to increase health care access to an additional four million children which falls far short of full coverage for America’s kids but as I see it at least it’s short step in the right direction.

On November 20th, 1989 the United Nations signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child.  Since then it has been signed and ratified by all members of the UN accept Somalia and the United States.  Although the Regan Administration had a large part in creating the Convention, it wasn’t signed until 1995 and still has yet to be legally ratified by the Senate (as required by the American Constitution).  In this article I’d like to give you a little more of the history of Washington’s relationship with the Convention and then move on to what should be done about it today and why.

The Convention contains 53 articles reviewing and guaranteeing the basic human rights of all young people around the world.  Some of the articles are universally supported by politicians and public officials of every political stripe, such as Article 7’s claim that “[The child] …shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.”  Some, on the other hand, are the source of a large amount of political debate and controversy in the US, for example, Article 37 prohibits the sentencing of minor to life imprisonment without the chance of parole, a practice employed in many U.S. states.  Clinton took a mixed approach to the Convention, perhaps because of its controversial nature.

UN Ambassador under Clinton, Madeline Albright, signed the bill in ‘95, but it was never sent on to the Senate.  Its possible that the administration looked into trying to pass it and feared rejection from the GOP’s strong standing in Congress at the time.  It could just as easily be true that he was unwilling to use the political capital needed to get it passed.  Either way Clinton left office with the Convention left in limbo.

Another section that met with criticism was article 24’s first clause, “States Parties recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health. States Parties shall strive to ensure that no child is deprived of his or her right of access to such health care services.” (emphasis added)  The second Bush Administration objected to the convention and came out strongly against it in statements such as the one quoted here.

“The Convention on the Rights of the Child may be a positive tool for promoting child welfare for those countries that have adopted it. But we believe the text goes too far when it asserts entitlements based on economic, social and cultural rights. … The human rights-based approach … poses significant problems as used in this text.” (link)

-E. Michael Southwick, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs

The key word here is economic.  If Article 24 were carried to its natural conclusion there would be a responsibility for the federal government to give health insurance to the eight million American minors, that’s about 12% of all American kids (and growing in this economy) who are living without it.  A large portion of the conservative base could not stand such an intrusion on the free market, even if it means leaving the kids uninsured.  Some, such as the evangelical Christian aid organization World View and The Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child have endorsed the Convention but their work didn’t make many waves in the main stream media.  So the Convention remained out of sight and out of mind for the majority of the Bush years.

In the 2008 Presidential race Senators McCain and Obama were asked to weigh in on the Convention during a debate.  You can see each of their responses here.  The responses each come out a bit vague and political.  Now-President Obama goes so far as to call the situation embarrassing but then backs off to promise a “review” of the situation.  Well, now that he is in office I’d like to sit down and talk to him about that review.

I know as well as you do that the economy has seen better days Mr. President, but this signature is just the kind of thing our country needs to show that the new administration supports more international cooperation.  Oh and while you are fixing health care, make sure you get to each and every one of those eight million kids.

For more info on the convention, or to donate money to the effort to make it law, check out childrightscampaign.org/ or write to the President and tell him yourself.

After repatriating to the States and dealing with the implicit difficulties of moving back and finding work in this less than prosperous economy, I’m back. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about Modern Child and I’m ready to keep moving with a new string of articles coming out. I hope to get the site going again and write on the issues affecting children and adolescents in America and around the world.

MC is going to keep giving you the scoop, cutting through the generic stereotypes and simplistic drivel that dominate the little reporting on young people that can be found in the big corporate media. In the next few articles you’ll find more info on the politics of children and the rights of kids around the corner and around the world. More posts will follow about the situation in American education and how different political and academic groups see the problems today turning into the opportunities of tomorrow.

Keep on reading, there is so much more to come.

Researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, MD recently found that boys diagnosed with ADHD scored lower on motor coordination tests than their female counter parts or control groups. The study, published in Neurology, tested skills like tapping feet to a rhythm and balancing in young people between 7 and 15 years old. The results now have researchers wondering why boys with ADHD seem so much more delayed.

To get a better understanding of the research I contacted the study’s author, E. Mark Mahone, PhD, who has been quoted in the media saying that the conclusions build on current knowledge about brain development and ADHD. “In our previous work, we found that children with ADHD had difficulties with motor speed and coordination. In typically developing children, we found that motor development improved earlier in girls than in boys. Thus, we wanted to see if this difference extended to children with ADHD.”

Dr. Mahone went on to say, “Girls brains, particularly the part of the brain that supports motor development, develop earlier than boys.” However there are some things about the study that do raise questions. If there were a causal link between ADHD and these delays in coordination, why don’t they effect boys and girls equally? In other words, why does it seem that ADHD slows down boys motor development but doesn’t do the same for girls?

Dr. Mahone explained that all the participants of the study were screened heavily. Participants and Parents had structured psychiatric interviews and parents and teachers filled out questioneers on student behavior. Participants with other neurological disorders or those who take psychotropic medications (not including stimulants commonly used by children diagnosed with ADHD) were screened out.

The problems with the study come in with the things that were not controlled for, particularly media intake and weight issues.  Lets look at some numbers on media intake or screen time from Tracie A. Barnett, Ph.D. a professor and researcher from Montreal.

• 52 percent of boys/26 percent of girls reported average total screen-time levels above 42 hours per week;
• 52 percent of boys and 39 percent of girls reported average levels of TV/video use above 23 hours per week;
• 24 percent of boys and 7 percent of girls reported average levels of computer/Internet use of almost 30 hours per week.
• Approximately 73 percent of girls and 48 percent of boys were in the ‘low’ total screen-time group, corresponding nevertheless to between 18 and 22 hours of screen-time per week.

Clearly boys overdose on TV, games, and the net at much higher levels than girls.  The significance here is a high percentage of boys are spending all that time not doing other things like playing basketball, riding bikes, or learning to juggle.  The delays these boys are experiencing in coordination or attention clearly could be positively linked to screen time.

The other possible issue the Kennedy Krieger study failed to screen for was obesity.  Well into the 1990s the obesity rate for boys and girls stayed right about at the same level. However, in the last few years the numbers have changed.  A CDC study finished in 2000 found that boys 6 to 11 had a 16% obesity level compared to 14.5% in girls.  In the teenage year the numbers even out between boys and girls, but that disparity at younger ages could definitely lead to delays in dexterity or coordination.  All of these issues with weight are further complicated by the previously found connections between weight and ADHD. This past Summer, U.S. News & World Report published a story on weight and ADHD.  Young people with ADHD are 50% more likely to be overweight and also more likely to be underweight.

Dr. Mahone’s study clearly tells us more about the condition of kids with diagnosed with ADHD.  Boys with ADHD do seem to show pronounced delays in physical adeptness.  The question now is, “what does it mean?“  As scientists try to figure out what ADHD is neurologically and psychologically they can begin to try and zero in on how it affects different aspects of human development.  But ADHD is not the only issue affecting youth development in the world today and some say it is more of a symptom than a disease.

What are the most important factors that lead to learning?

Learning is the process of receiving new information and relating it to the learner’s prior experience of the world, which can only be achieved through a learner’s active engagement with the environment. More generally, learning occurs through experience. Educational experience can be understood through many aspects, and those aspects that provide the clearest picture of learning for the purposes of teaching and schooling are biology, cognition, motivation, and social interaction. Teachers and school administrators have an obligation to take into account the understanding of learning that these aspects provide and to structure educational experiences that will best suit the learner in these regards.

The Biological Aspect

The human brain is designed to achieve learning through structural changes in neuronal networks. These neuronal networks change when the learner receives information and actively relates this new information to already existing networks created by a person’s previous experiences (Zull, 2000). The teacher can assist this biological process of learning by facilitating the student’s use of his or her entire repertoire of brain function. When a student is able to use all of their mental functions to learn, including concrete experience (hearing, seeing, feeling, etc.), reflective observation (remembering related ideas, making connections), abstract hypothesis (coming up with new ideas or combinations), and active testing (speaking, writing, acting upon information), the process is called deep learning (Zull, 2000). Using this method, a teacher can promote long-term retention and actual use of the information learned by working with the brain biology of the student in mind. In order to create a classroom environment where deep learning can occur, the teacher must be situated within a larger schooling context that facilitates this complex task. Schooling institutions must take this biological understanding of learning into account in order to create a cohesive educational framework in which students have the opportunity to physically engage in deep learning, optimizing their time spent in education institutions.

The Cognitive Aspect

Cognition deals with learning as we experience it, as opposed to biology that describes learning as it occurs structurally in the brain. People first experience learning in infancy, where they form some of their first neural networks through acting upon their environment and discovering patterns. From the first moments of life, infants begin to perceive information through touch, sight, hearing, taste, and smell (Furth, 1969). These simple observations, however, do not equal learning. For learning to occur, humans must first notice, then understand the influence of their actions on the world around them (Miller, 2002; Furth, 1969). Teachers can facilitate cognitive development by planning education to meet developmental needs, challenging student schemas, and using scaffolding techniques, in effect, helping students interact with their environment in meaningful ways. A teacher’s ability to maintain a flexible and creative classroom environment that responds to student needs and experiences can be enhanced or hampered by an educational institution’s philosophy regarding cognitive development.

The Motivational Aspect

Motivation is essential for a learner to be able to put his or her experiences into a broader context in order to find meaning in learning and to build a framework with which to understand and experience the world. Becoming aware of this broader context can be an important empowering factor that increases a person’s propensity to learn and meet challenges. Without motivation, the learner is left wandering in a sea of information, with no desire or purpose with which to integrate information into her existing neuronal networks and schemas. A teacher’s primary tasks when it comes to motivating students are: creating lessons that students can relate to and be actively involved in, encouraging students to relate new knowledge to prior knowledge; allowing students a sense of ownership over their own work and learning as to encourage intrinsic motivation; and encouraging students to think of learning as a process in which mistakes and challenges are essential to learning, not roadblocks indicative of a lack of inherent ability. If educational institutions support the teacher in building a community within the classroom and enforces the philosophy that students should have a sense of ownership and interest in the school, then the students will be better empowered and motivated about their community, their education, and their role in society.

The Social Aspect

From the moment of birth, humans become part of a social and cultural context which shapes the way that the learner experiences the world. The learner, especially at a young age, depends upon others, in the form of more capable peers, to explain the workings of the world, to teach her the values of the culture, to present challenging intellectual situations, and to assist the learner in moving from her current capabilities to potential capabilities. A teacher must be aware of the social and cultural environment that the learner has been shaped by in order to develop ways to relate content to a student’s life and prior experience. One must also understand the ways in which the teacher and classroom environment affect the student on a social and cultural level, and that social learning in the classroom can be an important motivating factor in the life of a student. On the institutional level, schools must recognize a multiplicity of cultures among students in order to make education an enriching and empowering experience for all students, as well as recognize the institutional manifestations of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and ableism that negatively affect the lives of students in and out of the classroom. Overall, teachers and schooling institutions must ask themselves hard questions and be prepared for change if they want to create a school environment where all students have the opportunity to succeed academically without compromising their identities and without forcing them to conform to a school system that disrespects their autonomy.

Conclusion

Taking account of these four aspects is essential to providing an education based on learning through experience. Understanding learning as active engagement with the environment and relating new information to the larger context of the learner’s experience of the world provides an important tool for learners and educators alike to critically analyze their perspectives toward learning and evaluate how to effectively facilitate the process. Teachers and schooling institutions must work together comprehensively to ensure that students are given the best possible schooling experiences that effectively account for the brain biology, cognitive development, personal motivation, and social context of learning.

This article was submitted by K. Agren, MIT and was written in 2006. The author has experience teaching in and outside the U.S. and any questions or comments on this piece can be posted at the bottom or emailed to TheModernChild@gmail.com and I’ll foreword them along.

The news media went crazy this week with the release of the supposed confession of the Arizona 3rd grader charged with shooting his father and another adult.  The video, which shows the boy seemingly admit to the murders toward the end of a 60 minute police interrogation, is drawing fire from some legal analysts.

The boy was never read his rights, as if an eight year old is capable of understanding them anyway.  The boy was initially brought in for evidence, not as a suspect, less then a day after the death of his father.  He was questioned alone in a room with two armed police officers, neither his mother, nor stepmother were present and he was not offered or provided the services of an attorney.

Attorney and Pundit Lisa Bloom came out swinging with some great points about why the public should at least be suspicious of the video confession.  It is her belief that the police coerced the confession using the young boy’s troubled psychological state to get him to respond positively to a number of questions.  Children of this age are taught to follow the lead of adults and have not yet gained the independent thinking skills of older people.  From the beginning of the interrogation the boy maintained his innocence.  He later confessed after a long list of leading questions from the police authority figures helped him to revise his story several times. The police also lied to the boy during the questioning.  All this seems to add up to an unreliable statement made by a child under duress.

My intention in writing this is not to say that the boy is innocent. I have no idea if he is guilty or not, however there are some major problems with how the investigation is being done and those problems need to be examined.

Another problem is the releasing of the video to the public.  By doing so the police have poisoned the well of the country’s entire jury pool.  Defending a client in such a high profile case is a difficult task for any lawyer, but how can you defend a kid who’s confession was broadcast on every network’s prime-time news show twenty times last week?  It was horribly irresponsible to send the tape to the media.  The only possible explanation I can see is that the police in St. Johns feel so strongly that the boy is guilty that they intentionally poisoned the well to ensure a conviction.  This theory is blustered by the likelihood that the tape will never make it to trial because of the rights violations against the boy mentioned above.

The one good piece of news to come out about the trial is that although the police chief of the town intended to try the boy as an adult, the district attorney’s office stated that it intends to try the boy as a juvenile.

In the United States there are 2227 children in prison with no possibility of parole; the entire rest of the world has only 12. Fifty-nine percent of these children are incarcerated not for repeat offenses but for their first crime. Twenty-six percent are serving a murder sentence for a murder in which the kid was charged as an accessory or accomplice.  As with older counter parts spending time behind bars, minority children are sent away for life at much higher rates.  African American youth receive life without parole sentences at a rate ten times higher than white youth.  All this because the old system of sending kids through the juvenile court system was seen as soft on crime and politicians looking to pick up a few votes have in many cases eliminated separate courts for juvenile defendants.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s the violent crime rate among youth in the US rose sharply.  During those years many states began to change their laws relating to minors in court.  In Massachusetts, for example, teens charged for murder, gun crimes, and gang related crimes are automatically go to adult court.  Some states like Wisconsin simply lowered the legal age of adulthood.  Now about 200,000 minors are charged as adults each year although the violent crime rate of minor in the US reached a high water mark in 1993 and (adjusted for population growth) has come back down below early 80s levels since ‘99.

Children Without Parole, a California group trying to end the life without parole sentence’s use on minors, shares this story.

“Starting at age 9, Sara suffered from severe depression for which she was hospitalized several times. She has attempted suicide on multiple occasions. At age 11, Sara met a 31-year-old man named “G.G.” Soon after they met, G.G. molested Sara, and began grooming her to become a prostitute. At age 13, Sara began working as a prostitute for G.G. She continued being molested by him and being used as a prostitute until just after she turned 16, when she killed G.G.

Sara is now 28. As she says, ‘The way I think now is very different than the way I thought then.’  In prison, Sara does whatever she can to keep up her hope. ‘I survive in here spiritually. I can’t give up. I read. I do whatever I can to be a better person.’”

-childrenwithoutparole.org

The reason I writing this today is that the AP just reported on an 8 year old boy in Arizona who was arrested for a double murder of his father Vincent Romero and another man Timothy Romans.  The boy was questioned at length by two armed officers with neither a parent nor legal council present.  In a state where minorities are hugely over represented in youth detention centers and children as young as eight may be tried as adults this young boy who must be in a state of shock and trauma may soon become #2228.

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By 2010, almost half of North and South America’s children will be over weight. In the rest of the world the numbers aren’t much better.  In Europe the rate of overweight children will reach 38% and even in China levels are expected to reach one in five, a totally unacceptable figure in and of itself.  In the last thirty years the childhood obesity rates have more than doubled for very young children and teens, while it has more than tripled for elementary aged children.   Clearly this is a problem.  It goes with out saying that weight issues in childhood can lead to a number of health problems such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes.  Some of the factors contributing to this epidemic are overtly apparent to anyone paying attention, nevertheless in this article I’d like to talk a bit about the basic causes and then look deeper for some more elusive causes.

The basic causes of the childhood obesity problem are pretty simple and well known.  The American diet has degraded slowly over the last half-century to a pretty sad state.  The number one source of calories for the average American is high fructose corn syrup.  Classic after school snacks like apple slices or ants-on-a-log have been replaced by doritos, and pop tarts.  Young people today are provided with too much high fat, high sugar foods and not enough foods that fill basic nutritional needs.

In addition, the American lifestyle has changed.  Just under half of adolescents watch more than 2 hours of television each day.  That doesn’t even include other types of screen time such as computer and video gaming and internet use.  With this amount of media intake, time spent on other types of healthy recreation has suffered.  The ease of media recreation causes some children to dislike or avoid more strenuous activities.  The longer these kids steer clear of exercise the harder it will be for them to gain healthy lifestyles as adults.  One study showed that overweight teens have a 70-80% chance of becoming overweight adults.

How did it get to this point? Parents can see problems developing in their children, why aren’t they more involved?  A little less than half of American families live in dual income house holds.  It is easy to say in this day and age with two parents working that parents just don’t have time to monitor their kids or to cook good meals for their kids any more.  Eating out, skipping breakfast, and not having family meals were all associated with obesity in children.  However this “I’m too busy” theory relies on the idea that parents are not willing to sacrifice and work hard for their kids, and I think there are better answers.

Many working parents these days feel guilty.  Working long hours, feeling tired after work, and spending weekends running errands can cause parents to feel bad that they don’t have more time for their kids.  One recent report even showed that a growing number of parents feel guilt about the genes they have passed on.  All this guilt leads parents to give in to their children.  If you only get a few hours with your kids a day wouldn’t you want your kids to always be happy when you see them? Parents begin a cycle of always saying “Yes” to kids and obesity is just one of the negative results.

Recently, though, there is a growing push from parents, teachers, and health professionals to draw a line.  Dr. David Walsh founder of The National Institute on Media and the Family and recent author of No: Why Kids -of All Ages- Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It has started the Say Yes to No campaign in Minnesota.  He feels that the real problem for kids in America today is parent’s lack of discipline and without it kids don’t stand a chance.

Does this child have ADHD?

In the U.S. today an estimated 25 million people may have Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD.  The now household term brings up images of loud uncontrollable children who struggle to learn and who lack the ability to sit still.  In this article I’d like to talk a little bit about what ADHD is, what it is not, and what every parent, teacher, and physician should know about it.

ADHD is a highly controversial disorder.  There is wide disagreement on whether it exists at all and if it does what we should do about it.  What is known and generally agreed upon is that some children do have trouble keeping still and paying attention in class and that these children often seem to also have trouble organizing their own work.  Proponents of ADHD believe that many students with these issues can be diagnosed with a disorder which is considered at least partially genetic.  The prevailing treatment recommendations for ADHD are prescription stimulants such as amphetamines like Adderall or methylphenidates like Ritalin.  Because these types of drugs are controlled, both in the United States and internationally, for their potentially harmful effects and addictive nature, their use on children contribute to the controversy surrounding the disorder.

Critics of ADHD, on the other hand, generally suggest that these symptoms could be the result of any number of other things.  Some suggest that many of the symptoms can be caused by simple normal genetic variance in the human population.  Some children have high energy personalities, or just a low IQ, and there is no reason to medicate them for it.  One theory in this category has been promoted by talk radio host Thom Hartmann.  The theory goes that, in the nomadic history of the human race, some high energy genes became preferable and thus more common.  Since humans became farmers, and eventually industrial-computer using-farmers, these genes and the traits associated with them have become more and more of a nuisance.

Another group of critics believe that ADHD has no genetic basis at all and is primarily caused social and environmental factors.  This view puts the blame on the modern lifestyle and its effects on the family and social lives of children.  In the last 30-40 years children have spent less and less time interacting with parents and more time in structured environments such as daycare, school, after school programs, and organized sports, or even just sitting in front of the tube or computer.  Growing up in such families has lead many young people to question the authority of adults or simply act out in an effort to get more attention.  Other critiques from the environmental side blame diet.  ADHD symptoms have been directly linked to food coloring, and an exciting new study shows that supplementing a child’s diet with Omega 6 & 3 fatty acids can bring about a 25% reduction in symptoms.  Although sugar, a long time suspect, does not seem to directly cause symptoms, the idea that a high sugar diet lacking other foods rich in vitamins and nutrients, especially proteins, is causing a lot ADHD is becoming more popular.

Critics of all stripes agree that, whatever is happening in the lives of these children, medication is not the answer.  The stimulant medications used to treat ADHD could be very dangerous, but we don’t know.  Some studies show that ADHD meds do not improve children’s academic scores and stunt growth.  Drugs in this category, like Adderall or Ritalin, may be addictive, or even cause cancer.  Since there has never been a long term study on the health effects of these medications it is impossible to tell what could result from eight or even twelve years of use.  These concerns have lead the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to recommend that medications be used only as a last resort.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the use of therapy and stimulant medications, with periodic follow up visits to ensure the patient is progressing well, however Congressman Dan Burton suggests the reality is a bit different:

“When you take your child to a doctor, instead of blood tests and a thorough medical evaluation, you have a conversation with a doctor about the school’s checklist. And you leave a few minutes later with a prescription for your young child for a psychotropic drug.”

The congressman is certainly right about one thing.  If you bring your child to the doctor for ADHD, she won’t run any tests, because there is no scientific way to see if a child has the disorder or not.

It seems clear that something doesn’t add up here.  An unheard of, and undiagnosable, psychological condition comes to light and thirty years later millions of children have been diagnosed.  If ADHD is such an immense issue why wasn’t it discovered earlier? How could so many children be found to be sick with a psychological condition that is undefinable scientifically?

Dr. John Breeding, author of The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses, believes that the answer lies in the pharmaceutical industry which has great economic interest riding on ADHD.  Breeding has been ringing alarms since the mid 1990s, but the news went national this past summer when Harvard professor Dr. Joseph Biederman was exposed for failing to report at least $1.6 million dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and associated lobby groups.  Biederman has authored hundreds of papers on ADHD and was considered among the world’s foremost experts on the matter.  His work helped ADHD’s expansion through America’s homes and classrooms but it was all bought and paid for.  So, for now, it seems, the jury is still out on ADHD’s existence and its implications.

69% of Parents feel that their children see too many ads on TV.

The average American child sees around 3,000 advertisements a day on TV, the Internet, billboards, in magazines and, increasingly, in schools.  Over the course of a year children view 40,000 commercials on television alone. Industry spends an estimated $12 billion on advertising to children each year to ensure that from the minute they wake up in the morning to eat their sugar coated cereal straight until they’re tucked into bed between sheets featuring the smiling face of their favorite cartoon hero they see as many ads as possible.  With estimates that children 12 and younger influence the spending of over $600 billion dollars a year it’s no wonder that the amount of advertising targeting children is growing.

Of course many fine goods and services are out there, and corporations have a right to get the word out about their products, but advertising to children is different than advertising to adults in a number of ways.  The type of advertisements focused on the youth market generally take on different forms from standard advertising to adults. Young people are more vulnerable to certain forms of advertising and ad campaigns aimed at kids leverage these vulnerabilities with product placements and tie-ins. For example fast food restaurants routinely offer toys connected to popular movies and a number of action figure lines are created around successful television series. Coca-Cola Co. paid $150,000,000 for the global tie-in marketing rights to the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone film. Advertisers also attempt to disguise ads so that children will spend more time looking at them.  The Seventeen Magazine’s “Ask Loren” columns of the 1980s, supposed beauty advice columns, were really ads for Epilady brand products and magazines for younger children often contain games or puzzles which are really print ads.

If you saw the lovable cartoon mascot for Super-Sugar-Fruity-Flakes next to a word puzzle in a magazine you’d probably see right through the ad and keep flipping to the editorials.  Kids, on the other hand, don’t do this and scientists are now suggesting it may be because they can’t.  The American Psychological Association Task Force on Advertising and Children found that kids aged 8 and below were “prone to accept advertiser messages as truthful, accurate and unbiased.” They went on to describe how these young children lacked the ability to truly understand what advertising is.  If young kids are incapable of understanding the purpose or intent of advertising how can it be ethical to produce ads targeting them?

The American Academy of Pediatrics has echoed the concern of the APA and argued that the amount of advertising to children view contributes to youth weight issues, poor nutrition, and the use of cigarettes and alcohol. Their comprehensive report Children, Adolescents, and Advertising suggests restricting advertising to children by banning ads of unhealthy foods and legally reducing the amount of TV commercial time during children’s programming by 50%.

Given the number of current crises affecting American youth I’m not sure if that’s enough.  The child obesity and the ADHD epidemics are in full swing in America today.  In the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece, and Belgium advertising to children is significantly restricted.  In Sweden and Norway all advertising to children under the age of 12 is illegal.  In America, however, the ads keep coming, why?

In the U.S. the Federal Trade Commission studied the issue of advertising to children and found that it was both unfair and highly deceptive but failed to act on the issue because they believed it would be difficult to enforce a ban.  That makes a whole lot of sense, we can’t get an A+ so lets settle for an F.  You would think the headway made overseas in the last 30 years would change their tune but with almost $22,000,000 flowing from the advertising lobby in to congressional pockets since 1990 it is clear to see who will call the shots on children’s rights.