Tag Archives: children

Chicago good at attracting the creative class, not good at keeping them

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Recent data suggests Chicago attracts a good number of the creative class – young, college graduates – but they don’t stay in the city long-term:

And still the 20-somethings swarmed to the city. If you drew a circle with a 2-mile radius around Chicago’s City Hall, as the Census Bureau did, you’d find the population in that ring had grown by 48,288 residents — 36 percent — between 2000 and 2010, even as the overall population fell. Census researchers measured the growth within similar rings in other metro areas. Chicago outpaced them all…

Chicago demographer Rob Paral points out that the 25- to 34-year-olds counted from 2007 to 2011 are even better educated than those in 2000. The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey found 46 percent of the residents in that age bracket had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 36 percent in 2000. Among America’s top 10 cities, Chicago recorded the highest percentage of young college grads and the largest increase since 2000…

Then what? This is a demographic with choices. If the city looks less appealing once the babies come along, many of them will leave. Big-city crime is sometimes the explanation, but in truth most of these young adults live in neighborhoods largely insulated from the violence of the South and West sides.

More often, the deal breaker is the public schools. Staying in Chicago can mean spending thousands on private tuition, or working the system to get the kids into one of the city’s selective-enrollment high schools. Suddenly it’s easy to see the attraction of smaller suburban districts, their tax collections enriched by higher property values…

How can the city hold on to those families? One way, it turns out, is to suffer a massive recession. Census data show that from July 2010 to July 2012, Chicago’s population inched up again — by about 19,000 residents — as out-migration slowed to a trickle. Meanwhile, two decades of double-digit exurban growth lurched to a near standstill.

Since having a recession isn’t a good long-term growth strategy, the city will have to try something else. Most American big cities would love to have more young college-educated adults, particularly those involved in industries like the technology sector or those willing to move into and improve less well-off neighborhoods. Yet, this article highlights a second issue: how exactly do all these cities then retain these adults as they age? One irony not noted in this article is that many American urban neighborhoods offer the ability to own a home, even a single-family home with a yard. But, getting over this idea that cities are not good for children is more difficult. Whether it is an issue of schools (and Chicago has some of the highest-performing schools in Illinois) or safety and crime or a perceived need to interact with kids like them, these will be tough to overcome. Additionally, fighting these perceptions might include creating and maintaining kid-friendly pockets in the city, but this leads to other issues such as very different experiences of urban residents (for example, compare the life chances of kids from Lincoln Park in Chicago versus those from Englewood) and this is still different than fleeing to an exclusive suburban community where the wealthier and more-educated don’t have to interact with anyone other than them.

I don’t remember Richard Florida, the main proponent of the creative class, talking much about this issue…

“Sociological experiment” with children using mobile devices

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An Australian psychologist suggests we don’t quite know what will happen with lots of young children now using tablets and other electronics:

Research indicates that almost half of all toddlers up to two years old have played with a mobile device. It also reveals that 15 per cent of that group can also operate a home entertainment system. That rises to 31 per cent of three- to five-year-olds and a third of six- to eight-year-olds.

The study of 750 adults across Australia who have an internet connection included questions about how children interact with technology and was conducted by media intelligence firm Magna Global.

Most frequently used were iPads (27 per cent for three- to five-year-olds and 43 per cent for six- to eight-year-olds) followed by Wi-Fi-enabled laptops (21 per cent for three- to five-year-olds and 38 per cent for six- to eight-years-olds)…

Jordy Kaufman, a child psychologist and founder of the Swinburne BabyLab, has studied how children interact with devices. ”Given the massive uptake of mobile device use by young kids, we can be said to be engaged in a grand sociological experiment where no one knows what the results will be,” he said.

But he cautions that just because we do not know the outcome, that does not mean the use of devices is negative. There are opportunities for learning from iPads that did not exist before, Dr Kaufman said.

I suppose there are three possible reactions to the situation. Go all in and see the use of mobile electronics as simply part of the progress of the modern world. Americans tend to like progress and new opportunities and these devices certainly fulfill these two requirements. This full usage may occur even with evidence that they don’t contribute much to learning. The opposite reaction is to not allow children access to such devices. To some degree, this is helped by the fact that such devices are not yet completely ubiquitous. But, some may want to wait and see how children respond to mobile devices. And, there is some middle ground where children could use new electronics in moderation alongside more “traditional” activities.

It sounds like we need some sort of randomized experiment to help figure this out. But, we are getting close to a time where it would be really difficult to pull this off.

Can you name “America’s 50 Healthiest Counties for Kids” when you only account for 38% of US counties?

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US News & World Report recently released a list of “America’s 50 Healthiest Counties for Kids.” However, there is a problem with the rankings: more than half of American counties aren’t included in the data.

About 1,200 of the nation’s 3,143 counties (a total that takes in county equivalents such as Louisiana’s parishes) were evaluated for the rankings. Many states don’t collect county-level information on residents’ health, whereas populous states, such as California, Florida and New York, tend to gather and report more data. In some counties, the population is so small that the numbers are unreliable, or the few events fall below state or federal reporting thresholds. And because states don’t collect county-level information on childhood smoking and obesity, the rankings incorporated percentages for adults. Catlin says this is justified because more adult smokers mean more children are exposed to secondhand smoke, a demonstrated health risk. Studies have also shown a moderately strong correlation between adult and childhood obesity, she says.

The experts who study community health yearn for more and better data. “We don’t have county-level data on kids with diabetes, controlled or uncontrolled, or on childhood obesity rates,” says Ali Mokdad of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. “Almost every kid in this country goes to school. We could measure height and weight, but nobody’s connecting the dots.”

This won’t stop counties high on the list from touting their position. See this Daily Herald article about DuPage County coming in at #20. But, there should be some disclaimer or something on this list if a majority of US counties aren’t even considered. Or, perhaps such a list shouldn’t be too together at all.

National Association of Realtors commercial in support of tax incentives for homeowners

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The National Association of Realtors is running a new television commercial supporting tax incentives for homeowners. Here is the money line toward the end of the advertisement:

The National Association of Realtors supports maintaining homeowner tax incentives, because they make homeownership more affordable for more families.

There had been talk in the last few years about getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction (see an example here during the fiscal cliff negotiations) but I haven’t heard anything more recently. Is the National Association of Realtors trying to get out in front of this possible issue?

It is interesting how the ad plays on some common themes of American homeownership such as the home as a castle and that kids should feel safe at home instead of having to worry about whether it is affordable. Who exactly is the evil dragon in this ad – banks? Government officials? Putting kids out in front here is a smart move – who wants to deny children a nice home that their parents own?

Moms really like libraries

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A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project suggests moms use and support libraries at much higher levels than the general population:

“Mothers are outliers in their enthusiasm for libraries and their use of libraries for their own purposes, like visiting the library, checking out books, using library websites and connecting to libraries with mobile devices,” concludes a report by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, which Rainie directs.

It turns out that 94 percent of mothers surveyed contend that libraries are important to the community, 82 percent have library cards and 73 percent of them visit the library, compared with 53 percent of the overall population. More than half of mothers surveyed visit library websites, and nearly half use computers at the public library, the Pew research reports.

Pew’s research is part of an ongoing project to study libraries and their patrons in the digital age. Those most recent figures, gleaned from a survey of 2,252 Americans ages 16 and above, are encouraging but hardly a call to stop the presses, until one considers what is driving those numbers.

Here is more from the full report:

The importance parents assign to reading and access to knowledge shapes their enthusiasm for libraries and their programs:

  • 94% of parents say libraries are important for their children and 79% describe libraries as “very important.” That is especially true of parents of young children (those under 6), some 84% of whom describe libraries as very important.
  • 84% of these parents who say libraries are important say a major reason they want their children to have access to libraries is that libraries help inculcate their children’s love of reading and books.
  • 81% say a major reason libraries are important is that libraries provide their children with information and resources not available at home.
  • 71% also say a major reason libraries are important is that libraries are a safe place for children.

Almost every parent (97%) says it is important for libraries to offer programs and classes for children and teens.

What American parent wouldn’t like the idea of a place that can help their kids get ahead? There is a section later in the report that notes people with incomes under $50,000 say the library is more important.

These findings lead to several other questions:

1. Why are fathers behind in seeing the value in libraries? Is this because mothers still tend to have primary childcare responsibilities?

2. If mothers (and fathers) are likely to see the value of libraries, this also suggests there are large segments of the population who don’t use library or see much value in it. Who exactly are these people and why do they have these views?

3. While there is plenty of research about the achievement gap in education, how much do libraries help close this gap?

Decrease in young people in Illinois; how might suburbs be different with less children?

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The Chicago Tribune leads today with a story of demographic change in Illinois: along with some other states, Illinois has experienced a drop in its young population.

Demographers have long known that the baby boom of the 1950s was giving way to a baby bust nationwide. Now Illinois and the Chicago area are providing a vivid example of the trend: According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, from 2000 to 2010, Illinois had a 6.2 percent drop in children under 10, among the biggest declines in the country.

The impact is being felt in declining school enrollments and refashioned youth programs, officials say. In coming years, it will be felt in a workforce with fewer workers to replace retirees and help replenish pension coffers.

Changes in the youth population are especially pronounced in Chicago, which lost one-fifth of its young residents, particularly along parts of the lakefront, in Hispanic neighborhoods and in places where public housing high-rises once stood. But the trend is also under way in suburbs in Cook and DuPage counties…

Even suburbs such as Naperville and Winnetka — traditionally magnets for families — saw relatively sharp declines in their populations of children.

The impact of this could last for quite a while. I’m most interested in the bits about suburban communities. Since the post-World War II suburban boom, suburbs have been generally regarded as the best setting for children. With more space and good schools, kids could be safe and experience the middle-class life. This image coincided with a baby boom where lots of young families, including those of military veterans who had returned from the war, moved to the suburbs. So how would suburbs be different without as many children?

To start, as the article suggests, this would have a big influence on school districts. Communities that once had to build multiple schools to keep up with new developments might now have to contract schools. What will happen to the old buildings? Might this lead to smaller school district budgets which could then lead to less money from property tax bills going to school districts? I imagine a number of suburban residents would be happy at the thought that schools would cost less. Even as communities like Naperville were expanding, some existing residents were pushing for fewer houses so that their tax bills wouldn’t increase.

Going beyond schools, this could lead to changes for other taxing bodies such as park districts and libraries. But, even more broadly, this could change the character of many suburbs. Without as many children, the main focus of suburbs might change from familialism to something else. One big trend in American life today is the rise of single-person households, which could also become the plurality in the suburbs. There have also been rumblings about older suburbanites whose kids are growing up or have already left the house wanting to move to denser areas. Neighborhoods and communities that once revolved around children and their activities would have to shift their focus elsewhere. Imagine a Chicago suburb that becomes known as a haven for the 50+ crowd. Or a suburb where young professionals have a hopping cultural and entertainment scene.

Report calls for more study of how “kids navigate social networks”

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A new report suggests we don’t know much about how kids use social networks and thus, we need more research:

A recent report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Kids Online: A new research agenda for understanding social networking forums, has identified that we don’t actually know enough about how pre-teens use online social networking. The researchers, Dr. Sarah Grime and Dr. Deborah Fields, have done a good job in helping us recognize that younger children are engaged in a range of different ways with online social networks, but that our knowledge and understanding of what that means and how it impacts on their lives is pretty much underdone. GeekDads, of course, will have thoughts about how and why our children are playing and engaging with technology and networks in the ways they do, but this doesn’t give the people who make the rules and set the policy agendas the big picture that they need.

Essentially, Kids Online is a research report that calls for more research into children’s use of social networks. But the report does demonstrate very clearly why this is required. And at the rate that technology is changing and advancing, we need to work cleverly if we are to have the type of data and analysis that we need as parents to guide our decision making around technology and our children. We are all out there trying our best to facilitate healthy, dynamic, educational and exciting experiences for our children when it comes to tech, but there are not enough people exploring what that looks like. As the report says:

“Research on Internet use in the home has consistently demonstrated that family dynamics play a crucial role in children’s and parents’ activities and experiences online. We need further research on the role of parental limits, rules, and restrictions on children’s social networking as well as how families, siblings, peers, and schools influence children’s online social networking.”

I would go further: we need more research of how people of all ages navigate social networks. This doesn’t mean just looking at what activities users participate in online, how often they update information, or how many or what kinds of friends they have. These pieces of information give an outline of social network site usage. However, we need more comprehensive views how exactly social interaction online works, develops, and interacts in feedback loops with the offline and online worlds.

Let me give an example. Suppose an eleven year old joins Facebook. What happens then? Sure, they gain friends and develop a profile but how does this change and develop over the first days, weeks, and months? How does the eleven year old describe the process of social interaction? How do their friends, online and offline, describe this interaction? Where do they learn how to act and not act on Facebook? Do the social networks online overlap completely with offline networks and if so or if not, how does this affect the offline network? How does the eleven year old start seeing all social interaction differently? Does it change their interaction patterns for years to come or can they somewhat compartmentalize the Facebook experience?

This sort of research would take a lot of time and would be difficult to do with large groups. To do it well, a researcher would have two options: an ethnographic approach or to gain access to the keys to someone’s Facebook account to be able to observe everything that happens. Of course, Facebook itself could provide this information…

Children and mass transit

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As a new father who uses public transportation almost exclusively, two recent items re: public transportation and children caught my eye. First, a Rockville, MD “Principal Calls CPS After Mom Lets Daughter, 10, Ride City Bus to School” [h/t Adam Holland]

It had been brought to her attention, the principal said, by some “concerned parents,” that my daughter had been riding the city bus to and from school. I said, yes, we had just moved outside of the neighborhood, and felt that this was the most convenient way for our 5th grader to get there and back. The principal asked was I not concerned for her safety? “Safety from what?” I inquired. “Kidnapping,” she said reluctantly. I said that I would not bore her by talking statistics that, being in the business of taking care of young children, she surely knew better than I did….

It was raining hard the next day so I offered to drive L. [my daughter] to the bus stop. I thought she’d want to wait in the car with me, but she said, “It’s okay mom, you go work. I want to say hi to my friends.” “Your friends?” “Well, they are not my kid friends. They are just, you know, my people friends.” There was the Chinese lady, the lady with the baby who cried a lot (but it’s not his fault, he can’t help it), and the grandma who always got on at the next stop. In a few short weeks, my daughter had surrounded herself with a community of people who recognized her, who were happy to see her, and who surely would step in if someone tried to hurt her.

My son is only five months old–years away from travelling solo. But I can attest that a community springs up around him whenever I take him on a bus or train. Our fellow riders are generally friendly when he is happy and understanding when he is not.  Either way, they definitely notice him, and I have little doubt that they would step in if something were wrong.

Moreover, even at his young age, my son seems to enjoy making friends through these public interactions, often going out of his way to stare at someone seated nearby until he catches their eye and can start smiling and babbling at them. As Carla Saulter explains in a second post, “Why Public Transportation Is Good for Kids“:

It’s become part of the collective American belief system that cars are the preferred (if not the only acceptable) mode of transportation for our children. Cars are now viewed as an essential tool of good middle-class parenting — both as a means of keeping our children safe from the evils of the outside world and of providing convenient access to the myriad destinations to which we are required to deliver them….

As they grow up riding buses and trains, kids master the skills required to get around. They start small, like my daughter, who recently began carrying her own bag (a pink backpack with a train, per her request) and move on to stop recognition, schedule reading, and trip planning. Long before their peers are old enough to drive, junior transit riders have the skills to ride solo. The confidence that comes from these abilities will help them when they face problems mom and dad can’t help with.

And speaking of facing things … Kids who spend most of their time in controlled spaces — from home to car to school/mall/lesson/play date — have very limited contact with the people they share the world with. Kids who ride transit, on the other hand, have plenty of opportunity to interact with their fellow humans. They learn to accept differences, interact politely with strangers, and set and respect boundaries.

Riding mass transit can be inconvenient, and it certainly isn’t a parenting panacea. However, it can also be a safe, wonderful option for exposing children to other people and the wider world.

I think my son and I will be riding the bus for years to come.

Obligatory sociological reminder that there is little evidence of Halloween candy tampering

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Every Halloween, sociologist Joel Best reminds people that there is little  evidence of Halloween candy tampering:

For decades, parents have been warned to check sweet-wrappers for signs of tampering, chocolate bars for hidden needles, and apples for surreptitiously inserted razor blades when their children return home from knocking on strangers’ doors. But Dr Joel Best, a sociologist and criminologist at the University of Delaware, has researched every reported case of so-called “Halloween sadism” in the past 45 years, and has concluded that not one of them was genuine…

Dr Best has discovered 90 cases of alleged poisoning reported by newspapers or hospitals since 1958 but he says that none can be attributed to random attempts to harm kids. Most are pranks by children seeking attention; some are murkier attempts by parents to gain compensation…

The myth picked up speed in the late 1960s, as the popularity of Halloween also increased. At the time, many Americans apparently believed that hippies might get a kick from adding LSD to the sweets of unsuspecting children.

The phenomenon peaked in 1970 and 1971, when there were 10 and 14 reported incidents respectively. There was another mini-peak in 1982, when 12 alleged cases occurred. None have ever been confirmed, but the myth of “Halloween Sadism” nonetheless endures. Over the years, America’s National Association of Confectioners, for whom 31 October is crucial, have attempted to persuade the nation that trick-or-treating is safe. But Dr Best’s research, which has informed a book called Threatened Children, leads him to believe they face an uphill struggle.

Some urban legends live on. Here is what might contribute to the longevity of this particular story:

1. Journalists who are looking for such stories. If most of these cases did not pan out, did these same media outlets report this or issue a correction or retraction? Even if they did, the harm was likely already done.

2. Parents who are generally scared for their children in lots of areas, not just candy received on Halloween.

3. Are there any movies, books, or TV shows that have perpetuated this storyline? I can’t think of any but I wouldn’t be surprised if such works exist.

4. It seems like it could be plausible, perhaps even more so than cases like the unsolved 1982 Tylenol cases in Chicago (see a recent oral history here).

5. The holiday of Halloween lends itself to such stories. It is hard to imagine similar stories emerging out of Easter or Christmas, both holidays that involve candy and gifts that could be tampered with.

Young children should avoid secondhand TV watching but what about adult secondhand media consumption?

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A new study in Pediatrics suggests there are detrimental effects to young children from secondhand TV:

The study, which appears in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics, finds that a child between the ages of 8 months and 8 years takes in nearly four hours of this “secondhand TV” which could have consequences on his or her well-being.

“Too much television can stop children from learning how to entertain themselves,” said Rutgers University Sociology Professor Deborah Carr. “And if they get used to having that background noise all the time, it’s very distracting. It’s distracting when they’re working on their homework, it keeps them from sleeping and stops them from engaging in conversation and and doing other things, like playing outside. The children, and the parents for that matter, can never invest 100 percent in what they’re supposed to be doing if the television is on in the background all the time.”

According to the study, background TV was especially common in certain populations. Children under the age of 2, African-American children, youngsters living in poverty and kids will less-educated parents had the highest levels of exposure, up to five hours a day. Meanwhile, exposure ranged from two and a half to three hours per day among white children and those from more affluent families.

Aside from the obvious distraction television can create for children, there are other consequences of too much “secondhand TV.” “If the television is constantly on in the background, children may absorb lessons that are not age appropriate,” said Carr. “Also, another issue is if you watch a half-hour of television, ten minutes of that time is going to be advertisements. Those advertisements are usually for unhealthy foods or toys that parents can’t afford or things of that nature. So, I think another problem is not just the programming, but this exposure 24/7 to advertisements.”

I suspect a lot of people today consume “secondhand” media. For example, here are some 2010 figures from the Kaiser Family Foundation:

With technology allowing nearly 24-hour media access as children and teens go about their daily lives, the amount of time young people spend with entertainment media has risen dramatically, especially among minority youth, according to a study released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation.  Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).  And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

The amount of time spent with media increased by an hour and seventeen minutes a day over the past five years, from 6:21 in 2004 to 7:38 today.  And because of media multitasking, the total amount of media content consumed during that period has increased from 8:33 in 2004 to 10:45 today.

Is multitasking that different from secondhand exposure? Recommendations in a reputable journal like this notwithstanding, this sort of media usage is becoming more normal for lots of ages. For those beyond young childhood, if such exposure doesn’t lead to more distraction, at the least, being bombarded with advertisements is a potential issue.

Just wait till we all get our Google glasses and then see how much media we can consume…