Why Do Poor Childs Fell Behind Richer Childs and Stay Behind

An interesting artcile from NYT on the upbringing of children and how it affects them later in life. Article excerpt:

There had, in fact, been evidence for a long time that poor children fell behind rich and middle-class children early, and stayed behind. But researchers had been unable to isolate the reasons for the divergence.

Researchers began peering deep into American homes, studying up close the interactions between parents and children ...They found, first, that vocabulary growth differed sharply by class and that the gap between the classes opened early. By age 3, children whose parents were professionals had vocabularies of about 1,100 words, and children whose parents were on welfare had vocabularies of about 525 words. The children’s I.Q.’s correlated closely to their vocabularies. The average I.Q. among the professional children was 117, and the welfare children had an average I.Q. of 79.

When Hart and Risley then addressed the question of just what caused those variations, the answer they arrived at was startling. By comparing the vocabulary scores with their observations of each child’s home life, they were able to conclude that the size of each child’s vocabulary correlated most closely to one simple factor: the number of words the parents spoke to the child. That varied greatly across the homes they visited, and again, it varied by class. In the professional homes, parents directed an average of 487 “utterances” — anything from a one-word command to a full soliloquy — to their children each hour. In welfare homes, the children heard 178 utterances per hour.

What’s more, the kinds of words and statements that children heard varied by class. The most basic difference was in the number of “discouragements” a child heard — prohibitions and words of disapproval — compared with the number of encouragements, or words of praise and approval. By age 3, the average child of a professional heard about 500,000 encouragements and 80,000 discouragements. For the welfare children, the situation was reversed: they heard, on average, about 75,000 encouragements and 200,000 discouragements. Hart and Risley found that as the number of words a child heard increased, the complexity of that language increased as well. As conversation moved beyond simple instructions, it blossomed into discussions of the past and future, of feelings, of abstractions, of the way one thing causes another — all of which stimulated intellectual development.

Living Your Best Life

Today is one of those nice lazy Sunday.

I started the day with Champagne brunch at The Crepe Vine. Trying to compensate for the greasy food on Friday, I ordered the Apple Walnut Salad and Peach Bellini. My friend ordered an egg dish with chicken, avocado, bacon, and mushroom; it looked delicious.

I spent rest of the day at Barens & Noble, reading a few articles in "Living Your Best Life." The book are categorized into: Your Personal Best, Diet & Exercise, Health & Beauty, Balance, Happiness, Confidence, Dreaming Big, Spirituality, Relationships, Dating, Couples, Marriage, Sex, Talking & Listening, Family, On Being a Parent, Friends, Living in the World, Everyday Heroes, Giving Back, and Make a Connection. Since it's more than 300 pages, I did not get to read the whole book. Here are a few interesting tips/facts from the pages that I read:

• "Sex solved all problems." - From a couple that been marry for a long time.
• Toner is only necessary for people with oily skin or have acne.
• Laser skin hair removal only if you are comfortable with temporarily extreme discomfort and monthly treatment.
• Teeth whitening is not necessary if stain is cause by bacteria or caffeine.
• REST!!! You're more productive when you are rested and happy with your life.
• Oprah takes every Sunday off to laze around.
• Facial will not solve skin problem, but it's a nice luxury if you can afford it.
• During orgasm, brain temporarily shut down.
• More sex a person have, the happier he or she is.
• More connected a person is, the happier he or she is.
• One of the surest way to lower crime rate is have greater community involvement from its citizen; such as in a small town where everyone knows everyone by first name.
• The best way to improve behavior of those around you is to change your self. Grayson (the psychologist) got this insight from "Quantum Theory" written by David Bohem. Grayson also provide how Heisenberg uncertainty principle also work with Human Being (can't remember the witty example anymore but I did remember it being quite witty).
• All the nuns in Regina Laudis Abbey in Bethlehem, Connecticut have impressive resumes (executives, professors, etc) before joining the abbey.
• Don't take unnecessary pills and be paranoid about health. It's more productive to get vitamins from food than from pills.
• "Find a Husband after 35" by Rachel Greenwald. The program started with you calling everyone in your phone book to set up blind dates for you, set up online profiles, and pick three terms that best describe you. Rachel Greenwald reported an 80% success rate.
• Go to Hell if you want to feel better or stop procrastinate so you can start living again; as Dante did in "The Divine Comedy."

It's a very good book. I love it! I definitely want a copy of this. But I'll get it when I return from my Asia Trip or in late December (so I won't spend time reading this book instead of planning my trip).

Overeat Chinese Food = Feeling Disgusted

Usually when I go out to eat, I avoid eating Chinese food because I can get that at home. Another reason is Chinese food tends to be greasy, so if I eat too much of it, I'd feel disgusted and in need of a good cleansing (maybe I should get that Parsley Colon Cleansing Recipe from Alice). I am usually pretty good about eating just enough to be satisfy, but lately, I seem to unable to control myself but adhere to the sin of gluttony.

It all started last Saturday with dim sum at MVP, then dessert at Bin Bin Konjac, followed by hot pot dinner at Little Sheep. I spent the last whole week feeling sick from having ingested so much grease. Like most people, I ordered too much and ate too fast if I was hungry. Thus, I pigged out after waited almost an hour for a late lunch at Ding Tai Fung yesterday. I'm feeling very disgusted right now.

Maybe if I drink those puke-green grass drink, I'll feel better.

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