Changing the Home Food Environment: Parents’ Perspectives Four Years after Starting Obesity Treatment for Their Preschool Aged Child

Changing the home food environment is key to childhood obesity treatment. However, new challenges arise as the child grows older. This study investigates parents’ views on the longer-term management of the home food environment, 4 years after starting obesity treatment for their preschool-aged child. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 parents (85% mothers, 48% with a university degree) of 33 children (mean age 9.3 (SD 0.7), 46% girls) from Sweden. The interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Two main themes were developed. Making changes in the home food environment illustrates the types of changes families make over time in relation to child development. It consists of three subthemes: covert changes, overt changes and child-directed changes. The second theme, an ongoing negotiation, captures parents’ experiences of managing the home food environment as a continuous process of balancing and recalibrating in relation to present challenges and concerns about the future. It includes three subthemes: concern and care, two steps forward one back and maintaining everyday balance. Managing the home food environment is a constant process affected by everyday life, parents’ strategies and the child’s development. Our findings can strengthen childhood obesity treatment and help prepare parents for challenges that lie ahead.

Children’s well-being and intra-household family relationships during the first COVID-19 lockdown in France

Objective: This article explores the consequences of the first COVID-19 lockdown in the spring of 2020 in France on intra-family relationships and 9-year-old children's socio-emotional well-being. Background: On 17th March 2020, France began a strict lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, with school closures and limited outings permitted until early June. All family routines and work-life arrangements were impacted. A major concern relates to how these measures impacted family and child well-being. Method: We use data from the Elfe Sapris survey, administered during the first lockdown to about 5,000 families participating to the Etude longitudinale française depuis l'enfance (Elfe), a nationally representative birth cohort of children born in 2011. We analysed correlations between parents' socioeconomic and living conditions on four relational indicators: the experience of lockdown, the quality of relationships between parents and children, and between siblings, and an indicator of children’s socio-emotional well-being, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Results: The impact of the lockdown on family well-being was conditional on socio-economic factors and their changes over the period. Deterioration of households' financial situation and having to work outside the home during lockdown was negatively correlated with family relationships and children’s socio-emotional well-being. Conclusion: Overall, our results suggest that while France's first lockdown was a relatively positive period for many households with a primary-school-aged child, we highlight that restrictions exacerbated existing difficulties for disadvantaged families.

School management

The average school-aged child spends well over a third of her time in school. A child’s experiences in the classroom, and in the playground, will affect her academic attainments, the development of her self-esteem, and her social skills. It is important that the teacher should create a proper learning environment for the child with ADHD in the classroom, as well as on the playground. This chapter discusses school management of ADHD, including selection of a school, and effective strategies for teaching children with ADHD. It includes teacher’s attitudes, the classroom, the playground, and the teacher’s role in monitoring the effects of medication.

Using public playgrounds during COVID-19 pandemic: A Survey of Parental Knowledge, Attitudes, and Beliefs

Background: The possibility of COVID-19 transmission by environmental surfaces such as playground equipment has been previously suggested. The objective of this study was to investigate how the parents' Knowledge and beliefs regarding using public playgrounds contribute to asymptomatic community transmission of the virus. Methods: An online survey questionnaire was designed through SurveyMonkey (Palo Alto, California, USA), including 18 closed-ended and one open-ended question. Albertans having at least one non-school-aged child were invited to participate via a link placed on social media platforms. The initial survey was sent out in December 2020, and the survey period continued for 3 weeks. The survey results were summarized, graphed, and reported using SurveyMonkey.Results: A total of 162 anonymous responses were included in this study. Overall, the dimensions evaluated have demonstrated remarkable levels of compliance with the current public health measures among parents (Average score 6.1/9.0 (68%)). However, most respondents believed a more stringent health measure is needed to improve public playground safety during this pandemic, such as regular cleaning and sanitizing the equipment, capacity restrictions, sanitizer available at playgrounds, etc. While the majority of respondents were aware of the possibility of COVID-19 transmission through public playgrounds, there were some indications of inappropriate use of playgrounds; a few parents used playgrounds even after the child was diagnosed with Covid-19 infection or identified as a close contact of someone who is confirmed as having COVID-19 by a health care provider.Conclusions: Our study highlights the current lack of screening and risk assessments of public playgrounds that may contribute to an increase in a variety of pathogens, including COVID-19, that cause a range of health outcomes.

Analysis of Particular Parameters of a Social Situation of the Development of a Pre-School Aged Child in Conditions of the Family and Pre-School Education Institutions

The changing conditions of social development give considerable relevance to a study of parameters of a social situation of the development of the individual at the stage of childhood. The aim of the study: research of characteristics of a social situation of the development of a pre-school aged child at the present stage of society. The study was conducted in the cities of Minsk and Zhlobin (The Republic of Belarus); children of pre-school education institutions (n=100) and their parents (n=28) participated in the study. Diagnostic tools: “Parents composition”, “Choice in action”, “Stair”, “Finish a story”, a conversation on three clusters of unfinished sentences. The results of the empirical study revealed a predominance of non-constructive child-parent interaction in the respondents’ families. The analysis of a child’s position in a group of an education institution generally revealed the existence of a favourable climate in the given subsystem of relations. Preferences in one or another type of interactions are connected with the self-assessment, a position in a group and a level of awareness of ethical norms and values. Optimization of the main parameters of pre-school aged children interaction is a relevant direction of the support of positive socialization.

Under-5 Child Mortality Determinants in Rural-Urban Areas of Bangladesh: Proportional Hazard Models

The People’s Republic of Bangladesh is a South Asian country with a vast population. The early childhood mortality is a noticeable public health problem. The study work aims to determine the factors related to under-5 aged child mortality in both rural and urban areas of Bangladesh; data pulled out from BDHS (Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey)-2014. In rural and urban areas, 5306 and 2454 less than five years aged children born before in 5 years preceding the survey respectively. The Kaplan-Meier log-rank test is applied to determine the risk factors in bivariate analysis to multivariate survival models. In multivariate analysis to find out the risk factors of under-five aged child mortality, the Cox proportional hazard model and the Cox frailty model were employed. Religion, father’s educational level, number of antenatal care visits, multiplicity of birth, child size at birth, place of delivery, total children ever born, number of living children are the significant factors of child mortality in rural, urban areas. The variability among children for mortality is 0.000529 and 0.001225 in rural and urban areas individually. Proper notable attention needed for significant determinants, which may increase child survival.