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A study published in the Journal of Chinese Medicine has found that including a Qigong exercise program helped calm and energize students, as well as improve health and reduce aggression. Teachers, school administrators and parents all desire to create an optimal learning environment for young students. In seeking a solution to this goal a unique approach was to conduct a study of using Qigong in three elementary schools and one high school.  Claudia Witt, MD, and associates from the Institute for Social Epidemiology, Epidemiology and Health Economics at the University of Berlin, did a study on 140 students to determine the result of a six-month program of Qi gong movement instruction for the students’ health and behavior.

The teachers were first instructed for eight weeks in the Qigong movements. Then they spent 15 to 25 minutes twice per week instructing students before or after regular lessons. At the end of the six months, researchers conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the teachers. The teachers were first asked, “Have you noticed any changes in your students during the qigong project?”  

The teachers reported various positive effects, including that the students seemed much calmer, less agitated or aggressive, and more able to concentrate in class. Additionally, several teachers reported that students who had previously been absent due to frequent illnesses were in class more often. 

In the Netherlands every year around 50.000 children between 12 and 16 years old drop out of school without returning. Some of them just stop school because they prefer to work, but a large group has very poor future chances and a potential risk to end up in criminal circuits. In many other countries there are similar dangers. The education for these children needs to be adapted. Outside school they are not supported and treated as a valuable individual with talents. Their only chance to have a happy future is school. Teachers for this group are not only teachers, but also mentors, psychologists and even a bit father and mother. These teachers need to be trained to become professionals who really care for this group. “Students are more likely to succeed when they feel connected to school” is also the conclusion of the experts. “Increasing the number of students connected to school is likely to impact critical accountability measures, such as: academic performance, incidents of fighting, bullying or vandalism, absenteeism [and] school completion rates.”

The teachers have the “golden key” in the battle against criminality!

The French president Nicolas Sarkozy has a rescue plan for the national newspapers, who have serious financial problems since years already. He is going to fund a free subscription for every 18-year old in France. Sarkozy is convinced that young people get used to reading the paper and will automatically renew the subscription later in life. Very ambitious and also generous, but I doubt that this rescue plan for the written press is going to work. Young people are already more and more learning about the news via Internet and mobile phones. Paper news is old fashioned. Sarkozy can better invest in more modern ways of spreading news among young people. Waste of tax payers money.

January has been up to now our month of the flu, and it is really hard this time to get it out of our system. Since 3 weeks I have been taking care of one after the other flu patient in my family. And although I have not been feeling well myself, work and care always continues for mothers. Only the Flowerchild blog suffered a bit from the sneezing and coughing. I am very much against taking medicine. It is much better for the body to cure itself. But this time the fever had a hard time beating the microbes. In general cases of the flu rarely require specific medical treatment.

These at-home tips can help most otherwise healthy kids cope with the flu. Have them:

- drink lots of fluids to prevent dehydration

- get plenty of sleep and take it easy

- take ibuprofen to relieve fever and aches

- wear layers, since the flu often makes them cold one minute and hot the next (wearing layers — like a T-shirt, sweatshirt, and robe — makes it easy to add or subtract clothes as needed)

For the most part the flu is usually gone in a week or two with a little rest and tender loving care.

This sounds a bit silly, but I do have a child who is completely stressed when she doesn’t understand something immediately. She is 6 years old and in her class they are calculating now until number 500. She is a very bright pupil and that is of course part of the problem. Not understanding something right away, makes her not want to go back to school at all. It took me years, or better decades, to be able to think positively even about failures and bad experiences. But how to explain this to a very stubborn six-year-old?

Maybe I’ll try these tips in the coming weeks:

1.     The key to optimism is to maximize your successes and minimize your failures.

2.     It’s beneficial to look honestly at your shortcomings so you can work on them, but focusing on your strengths can never hurt.

3.     Keep in mind that the more you practice challenging your thought patterns, the more automatic it’ll become. Don’t expect major changes in thinking right away, but do expect them to become ingrained over time.

4.     Always remember that virtually any failure can be a learning experience, and an important step toward your next success!

5.    Practice positive affirmations. They really work!