Is the school making your child (or you) ill?

We’ve heard about ‘toxic offices’ and how they can affect those who work in them. But what about our school buildings – and our homes? Many schools in this country were built a long time ago, and some still cause problems related to the use of asbestos and lead in construction and paints, poor plumbing, sewage inefficiencies, inadequate ventilation, termites and more. Can they be playing a role in the often bewildering behaviours shown by some children (and you, of course)?

Do you find that your child copes better with schoolwork at home than during the school day? Do they (or their teachers) become angry or cry/show emotions more easily at school than at home? Why does their behaviour get progressively worse from Monday to Friday then improve remarkably by Sunday evening?

Dr Doris Rapp practiced environmental medicine for many years and her legacy to us includes some outstanding books. She found that over the years, a growing number of children seemed to routinely feel unwell. They may react with hyperactivity, show fatigue or misbehave. Some may express their difficulty in being able to think clearly at school.

There are many factors that may cause Environmental Illness (EI). Amongst the most prevalent are poor air quality, particularly due to excessive dust or moulds or to chemical pollution in or around a building. Other factors include foods and seasonal pollen. EI is a name for an assortment of medical problems that can affect many areas of our bodies. For example, year-round stuffiness or watery nose, repeated fluid build-up behind the eardrums, chest congestion leading to asthma, ‘growing pains’ or aches in the head, back, neck, muscles or joints that aren’t related to exercise, tummy aches, nausea, bloating, bad breath, persistent bowel problems like constipation, and ‘winds’, problems with bladder control, itchy skin, night sweats, irritating twitches. Accompanying these may be a wide range of behavioural and emotional problems, ranging from leg-wiggling to depression.

Many of these symptoms that affect a child’s school performance negatively may be misdiagnosed and ‘treated’ with an activity modification drug such as Ritalin. Before going this route, consider whether the child may be at risk for EI due to having an immune system that is not functioning as well as it could. Many highly susceptible children have:

A history of health problems, sometimes dating back to infancy

A characteristic facial appearance often with dark rings, puffiness or wrinkles under the eyes, red ears, a ‘spaced out’ expression and more
Certain behaviour patterns such as temper tantrums, meltdowns or withdrawing depending on time of day or following certain foods
Sudden, inexplicable changes in how they feel, look, act, write or draw
An erratic inability to learn or remember

Finding out the causes of such behaviours can lead to making simple changes in school and home. Even changing the chemicals used to clean school bathrooms can bring about positive results. Allergy diets can be followed to identify and then eliminate foods as well as improving nutrition generally. Possible yeast infections can be treated and even probiotic treatment can be used to improve immune system health.

EI makes a significant impact on individuals and should not be ignored. Teachers may suspect their environment if they find an increase in skin irritation, inexplicable fatigue and constant drowsiness. If this describes you, consider whether you work is a dusty school or a recently renovated school that are subjected to much chemical use during construction. Prompt treatment can help diminish learning problems in children as well as prolonged periods of ill health and discomfort in their teachers!

Content for this article from the book ‘Is this your child’s world? By Doris J. Rapp, MD, puished by Bantam Books.

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.