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Changing
Schools Tough on Kids
(HealthScoutNews)
-- Children who experience frequent school changes are more likely
to have behavior problems than children who have more stable schooling,
says a Children's Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati study.
School mobility is an independent
predictor of behavioral problems -- separate from race, income,
mother's education level or any other factors that were measured
in the study, which was presented this week at the Pediatric Academic
Societies' annual meeting in Seattle.
The study examined 3,285 children
between the ages of 5 and 14 who were part of a national survey
of mothers and their children. Children were defined as being
"school-mobile" if they were 5 to 9 years old and had
attended two or more elementary schools, or if they were 9.1 to
14 years old and had attended three or more schools.
The children's behavior problems
were measured by mothers' responses to a series of questions included
in the Behavior Problem Index. The mothers of mobile school children
had higher scores on the index than mothers of children with more
stable school settings.
"Transitions can be so disruptive
to children that parents need to weigh the potential academic
benefit they may get versus the academic, social and emotional
impact of making the transition," study author Dr. Mona Mansour
says in a news release.
She notes that children who are
school-mobile are more likely to have non-married mothers, mothers
with lower levels of school involvement, mothers with symptoms
of depression and mothers with lower perceptions of school quality.
Whatever their reasons for moving,
parents need to consider the potential impact of a move on their
children, Mansour advises. Health-care providers and school officials
also need to pay attention to the effect of school moves on children.
More information
Here's where you can learn more
about child
behavior disorders.
Reference
Source 101
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