How to talk to your kids about current events

Finding out what a child knows about an event can 
help parents know where to start. (Adobe Stock photo)

The frequency and extremes of today's news and online media can leave parents and guardians wondering how to help their children process what's happening in the world. Eepti Hajela of The Associated Press outlines how to talk to your kids about "what’s going on."

First, be willing to talk about it. "It’s a basic parental impulse to want to protect kids from harsh realities or complicated situations," Hajela explains. But when it comes to national or world events, "information is EVERYWHERE." Shielding children is not realistic.

When approaching difficult or violent events, it's helpful to gauge how much your children or young adults know. "Don't assume they know everything," Hajela writes. To help kids process news or visuals, it's best to know what they know or might have consumed on social media before jumping into a conversation.

Parents and guardians who have processed their own responses first can better help younger people interpret events. They are their children's role model, so if possible, getting to a level of calm about any situation helps kids feel safer, even when discussing disturbing events or images. 

Make it an ongoing conversation, rather than a one-time discussion. Parents and guardians can't stop the world from turning to protect their kids, but they can provide a safe space where kids can ask questions and learn tools to process their emotions.

Oregon is using visiting nurses to help curb infant and new mother mortality rates; visits may have other benefits

Why babies do what they do is often a mystery.
(Photo by Chris Anderson, Unsplash)

Some of the most complicated human beings to deal with are the tiniest: babies. Often referred to as "bundles of joy" or "little miracles," babies can be cranky, impossible to calm and impervious to sleep.

With that backdrop, it's fair to say new parents have it tough, and many lack the resources they need to confidently care for a newborn, which can lead to stress, emergency department visits, and even neglect or abuse. To address these needs and provide a response to high infant and mother fatality rates, the state of Oregon implemented an evidence-based program called "Family Connects" that makes life with a newborn better for everyone, reports Cory Turner of NPR. "The program offers any family with a new baby up to three no-cost visits at home with a trained nurse."

After the birth of their first child, Matt and Amber Luman from rural Jefferson County, Oregon, chose to participate in Family Connects. Turner writes, "Matt and Amber seem genuinely relieved when [Nurse] Ibrahim arrives for her second home visit with them." After baby Esserley gets a thorough medical check, "comes the beating heart of any Family Connects visit: the chance for new parents to ask a registered nurse whatever they want. . . . Some share their confusion or frustration. Others are eager for advice or comfort in those early weeks of a baby’s life when new parents are most likely to feel exhausted and adrift."

Most new parents need all the help they
can get. (Photo by T. Heftiba, Unsplash)

The Oregon Health Authority based the state's program on a small, successful Family Connects model developed in Durham, N.C. "Research from its smaller rollout there found it was associated with a handful of significant benefits, including a big drop in the number of trips new parents were making to the emergency room," Turner reports. "A study of Family Connects in Durham found mothers in the program were 30% less likely to experience possible postpartum depression or anxiety."

Oregon policymakers used the Durham program model and expanded it to a statewide outreach. "Every nurse acts as a kind of human clearinghouse of local and regional support for caregivers," Turner explains. "If a family is struggling with housing or food insecurity or addiction, the nurse will connect them with local groups and agencies that can help. Mental health counseling, marriage counseling, child care while mom or dad finishes their degree online."

In Durham's smaller rollout, the program "suggested a real return on investment," Turner reports. "Rolling out Family Connects in Oregon has been a costly struggle." From the pandemic to the nursing shortage to trying to cover a state that can be widely rural, Oregon's program has been expensive. It remains to be seen if the "benefits of Family Connects will outweigh the costs."

Opinion: This Memorial Day weekend is the perfect time to teach children to love America despite its wounds

An illustration piece from 'Manual of Patriotism' 1900.
(Library of Congress photo via The Wall Street Journal)

As we launch into Memorial Day picnics, celebrations and sales, it's a good time to rethink the day — why it was created, who we are honoring and what opinion of our country we leave for future generations to follow. Surely, this idea mixes the good, the bad and the ugly, but what about love? In her opinion for The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan suggests that a legacy of love of country is the best Memorial Day remembrance. 

"Parents, teach your children to love America, either as an extension of your own love or as a simple kindness to them," Noonan writes. "We live in an age in which children are instructed in 100 different ways through 100 different portals that America is and always was a dark and scheming place, that its history is the history of pushing people around, often in an amoral quest for wealth but also because we aren't very nice."

Whether out of suspicion, personal experiences or a desire to protect, some parents have taught their children to distrust and perhaps be disgusted by their homeland. "What does this atmosphere of unlove for America do to kids? . . . To kids from difficult circumstances, it means there is no hope; you won't escape a violent or unhappy family into a better place, the world outside, because it isn't better," Noonan explains. 

Kids are the ultimate dreamers. To kill that innate existence is to do them a horrible injustice, according to Noonan. "It denies a dream of a good thing you can make better. It undercuts the idea the people you came from were brave and hardy and did marvelous things. It robs you of a sense you've got this within you and can go on and be a marvel, too."

Where do we go from here? "I've spent the past few days reading an old book that couldn't possibly be published today because it's so full of respect for America. Manual of Patriotism: For Use in the Public Schools of the State of New York, runs 461 pages of text and was published in 1900," Noonan writes. "The manual was written after the Legislature passed an 1898 law requiring public schools to display the American flag and 'encourage patriotic exercises.'"

What's the best way to teach children to love their country? "You let them have fun. You hold pageants and parades, have them read poems and learn songs," Noonan suggests. "Have children memorize and recite Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride." Have them enact the battle of Lexington and Concord and read aloud Emerson's 'Concord Hymn':

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world."

Lead-tainted applesauce entered the U.S. food system and poisoned children -- here's what parents should know

Cinnamon believed to be deliberately tainted with lead
poisoned more than 400 kids. (Photo by rens d, Unsplash)

Even with multiple safeguards, lead-tainted applesauce entered the U.S. food supply in pouches and poisoned more than 400 children, Christina Jewett of The New York Times reports. "Their median blood lead levels were six times higher than the average seen during the height of the Flint water crisis, the Centers for Disease Control said. . . .The cinnamon in the applesauce was believed to have been intentionally contaminated, possibly to add to its value as a commodity sold by weight."

Jewell points out that while this type of poisoning is rare, parents need to know how children can be exposed and what lead poisoning symptoms look like.

Lead exposure can happen from drinking water flowing through old lead pipes or lead-based paint often ingested as chips. Fruits and vegetables that grow in lead-tainted soil can also be a cause. Jewett writes, "A study about baby foods found that sweet potatoes had some of the highest levels of lead among the products tested."

The 2023 lead applesauce outbreak was caused by cinnamon added to the sauce in Ecuador. An in-depth investigation by the Times and the nonprofit health newsroom The Examination show "the tainted applesauce sailed through a series of checkpoints in a food-safety system meant to protect American consumers," Jewett writes. "Food importers, which are required to vet foreign food, let the applesauce enter the country."

While lead occurs as an element in nature, it is a neurotoxin that can have devastating effects on brain development. A challenge for parents and caregivers is recognizing lead exposure. "High levels of lead can result in stomach pain, vomiting, fatigue, learning difficulties, developmental delays and even seizures," Jewett reports.

The 'good life' is bigger than happiness: Here's how to help your kids (and yourself) experience all the good things

Illustration by Salini Perera, The Washington Post

Teaching children how to lay the groundwork for a "good life" means embracing lots of lessons. "For Robert Waldinger, this question of what constitutes a 'good life' isn't a hypothetical. Waldinger directs the Harvard University Study of Adult Development, which for more than 80 years has followed the lives of 724 participants and more than 1,300 of their descendants," reports Deborah Farmer Kris of The Washington Post. "When it comes to understanding human flourishing, Waldinger has the receipts, and he has detailed them in the new book The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. "These lessons aren't just for adults. The findings also offer our kids a healthy framework for thinking about success, relationships and life's inevitable challenges," Kris writes. "And because kids learn best from the adults in their lives, here's what Waldinger says that parents can take away from his research." Here's a condensed summary:

Happiness isn't the (sole) aim: Waldinger's answer comes down to two concrete actions that form the foundation of wellness: engaging in activities we find meaningful and connecting with people we care about and who care about us. Waldinger told Kris, "I think of happiness as an accident. But if you put in these ingredients of well-being, you make yourself more accident-prone. We can teach our kids to prepare the ground so that happiness comes more easily, more often."

Learn to surf: Waldinger's research highlights humanity's ability to adapt in the face of obstacles beyond our control. He subscribes to mindfulness teacher and author Jon Kabat-Zinn's metaphor describing the struggles of life as waves in the ocean: "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf."

Relationships are the fourth 'r:' People who have the strongest relationships are "proactive, reaching out rather than just assuming that friendships are going to take care of themselves," Waldinger says. As parents, we can model this for kids by reaching out to our own friends. For example, let them see you go on a walk with a friend, text a sibling or take cookies to a neighbor.

Practice radical curiosity: Look at one person in your life and ask: What's here about this person that I haven't noticed before? It could be anything, even the way sweat forms on your partner's forehead. Radical curiosity can be transformational in family relationships. Waldinger says, 'We all respond to somebody else's genuine interest. It's a big deal. It means so much to have someone just want to know what's happening with you.'

Allow for challenges: When our kids are distressed and we try to single-handedly fix the situation for them, then they don't develop the capacity to encounter challenges and learn from experience that 'this is going to pass, and in the meantime, there are things I can do to feel a little bit better.'

Rituals and routines are connectors: Waldinger's research points to the protective power of family rituals and routines. Our kids need connection, even when they become teens and appropriately try to pull away. . . . research shows that regular family dinners correlate with higher grade-point averages, greater self-confidence, and lower rates of substance abuse and depression. As Waldinger notes, simply being in the same room together once a day is a ritual that helps family members stay connected.

Embrace the long game: One of the best things this Harvard study provides is perspective. 'What we've seen — following these lives for 85 years — is that change happens,' Waldinger says. 'People take unexpected turns and twists.'. . . He knows this not just from data but also experience. 'Our older son was absolute hell on wheels as a baby. He wouldn't sleep. He was terrified of everything. He screamed all the time. . . . He is the most wonderful, mellow young man. Thank God for child development."

Diapers' cost can strain poor families' budgets; Tennessee becomes the first state to have Medicaid pay for them

Volunteers stack hundreds of diapers at the Nashville Diaper
Connection. (Photo by Mark Zalesk, The Tennessean)

Babies need plenty of naps and diapers. Naps are free, but diapers? Buying diapers at an average cost of $80 a month often stresses family budgets, but poor families in Tennessee may be getting some help. "Tennessee could soon be the first state in the nation to cover part of the cost of diapers for babies on the state's Medicaid program," reports Vivian Jones of The Tennessean. "With funding approved last month by the state legislature, TennCare is working to implement a benefit offering half of the diapers a baby needs for the first two years of life. The benefit is expected to be in place by January 2024. . . . Funding for the benefit comes from the $330 million in savings the state realized by restructuring how the state receives Medicaid funding from the federal government." (The impact won't be as great as it could be; Tennessee is one of the 10 states that has not expanded Medicaid to househols with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.)

The need and expense of diapers are a shared pain for most parents. Danielle Cast, a single mom working two jobs, told Jones, "You need diapers all the time – you can't not have them. When you don't have them, and you need them, it's a heck of an emergency." Jones reports, "Casto is one of about 4,500 parents in Middle Tennessee served by the Nashville Diaper Connection – Tennessee's largest and oldest diaper bank." Despite help from such non-profits, more diapers are needed, Jones writes: "Unlike food, diapers are not targeted by any in-kind federal assistance program – no food stamps or WIC benefits cover them. About one in three families in Middle Tennessee struggle to provide the diapers their infants need. . . . Without enough diapers to keep a baby clean and dry, infants are at higher risk for diaper dermatitis and urinary tract infections. . . . Most daycare facilities require parents to provide a day's worth of diapers for their child – which poses a significant burden to families facing financial insecurity."

Casto told Jones that the new benefit "is going to be an extraordinary help. Lots of parents struggle with bills or their groceries – being able to have half your diapers already, it takes off half the burden, and it'll allow you to buy groceries that you might need, or gas that day, or medication for your children. . . . It's rough, especially the way that inflation has gone up recently – nobody planned for that. It's hard for parents to go and tell everyone how bad they're struggling – like, 'I don't have groceries' or 'I don't have diapers.' It's not something someone wants to brag about. It's uncomfortable, it's embarrassing – it's hard."

Doug Adair, founder of the Nashville Diaper Connection, told Jones, "It's a stupid, broken economic system: we want you to support your family, we want you to have a great job, and a solid career and go to school – but people really don't want to talk about diapers. . . . You can't buy diapers with food stamps. You can't buy diapers with WIC. You can't leave a day's worth of diapers [at daycare]? No daycare. No daycare? No work." Jones reports, "Adair said TennCare's new diaper benefit is something he's been hoping to see for a long time." Adair added, "It's essential. It's basic. It's empowering. It's a little burden off."

To be healthy, teens need media literacy training; it's like 'learning to drive a car and should be a team effort'

Photo by Georgijevic, Getty Images via NBC News

Parents of youth have a lot of mental check-lists: Eighth-grade graduation? Check. Register for next-year's classes? Check. Media literacy training? Uh? What? For many parents, that might be a new one. The American Psychological Association released a set of 10 recommendations for adolescents' use of social media, "including training them in media literacy and limiting screen time so it does not interfere with sleep or physical activity," reports Kalhan Rosenblatt of NBC News. "The guidelines acknowledge that teenagers are going to use social media no matter what. . . . It aims to offer suggestions for adolescents and the parents, teachers and tech companies involved in their lives."

Social media's influence on adolescent development is often discussed, but not always presented with advice that stems science. Mitch Prinstein, a co-chair of the advisory panel that developed the recommendations, told Rosenblatt. "We are releasing this report now to offer a science-based and balanced perspective on this issue so all stakeholders can make decisions based on our expertise regarding benefits and potential risks associated with social media." Rosenblatt reports, "Prinstein compared teens' social media use to driving a car, in that keeping adolescents safe should be a team effort that includes policymaking, parental supervision and changes from the companies that make the products."

Here's an edited list of the APA's recommendations:

• Youth using social media should be encouraged to use functions that create opportunities for social support, online companionship, and emotional intimacy that can promote healthy socialization.
• Social media use, functionality, and permissions/consenting should be tailored to youths' developmental capabilities; designs created for adults may not be appropriate for children.
• In early adolescence (i.e., typically 10–14 years), adult monitoring (i.e., ongoing review, discussion, and coaching around social media content) is advised for most youths' social media use. . . . Monitoring should be balanced with youths' appropriate needs for privacy.
• To reduce the risks of psychological harm, adolescents' exposure to content on social media that depicts illegal or psychologically maladaptive behavior, including content that instructs or encourages youth to engage in health-risk behaviors, such as self-harm (e.g., cutting, suicide), harm to others, or those that encourage eating-disordered behavior (e.g., restrictive eating, purging, excessive exercise) should be minimized, reported, and removed.
• To minimize psychological harm, adolescents' exposure to "cyberhate," including online discrimination, prejudice, hate, or cyberbullying especially directed toward a marginalized group (e.g., racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, ability status),22 or an individual because of their identity or allyship with a marginalized group should be minimized.
• Adolescents should be routinely screened for signs of "problematic social media use" that can impair their ability to engage in daily roles and routines and may present a risk for more serious psychological harm over time.
• The use of social media should be limited so as to not interfere with adolescents' sleep and physical activity.
• Adolescents should limit the use of social media for social comparison, particularly around beauty- or appearance-related content.
• Adolescents' social media use should be preceded by training in social media literacy to ensure that users have developed psychologically-informed competencies and skills that will maximize the chances for balanced, safe, and meaningful social media use.
• Substantial resources should be provided for continued scientific examination of the positive and negative effects of social media on adolescent development.

Huckleberry Finn, ‘Slavery was wrong' and other material teachers have dropped out of fear, or on superiors' orders

Writings by Christopher Columbus, Mary Wollstonecraft and a police data set have been cut from lesson plans. (Photos by Michael Robinson Chávez, The Washington Post; Hannah Natanson, The Washington Post; Bing Guan, Reuters)

"I took some of the natives by force. They would make fine servants. … With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." --A Christopher Columbus journal entry in 1492, from Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.

Under parental pressure and administrative criticism, many public-school teachers have removed texts like Zinn's book from their lessons, reports Hannah Natanson of The Washington Post. Other nixed pieces have included "Excerpts from Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and a data set on the New York Police Department’s use of force, analyzed by race."

National politics and divisions have moved into the classroom. Natanson writes, "The quiet censorship comes as debates over whether and how to instruct children about race, racism, U.S. history, gender identity and sexuality inflame politics . . . At the same time, an ascendant parents’ rights movement born of the pandemic is seeking — and winning — greater control over how schools select, evaluate and offer children access to both classroom lessons and library books. . . .In response, teachers are changing how they teach."

Natanson reports, "The Washington Post asked teachers across the country about how and why they are changing the materials, concepts and lessons they use in the classroom, garnering responses from dozens of educators in 20 states." From the Post's survey, here are six things some teachers have removed from their lessons along with brief examples, both paraphrased and quoted here:

Slavery was wrong: Iowa school Superintendent Laurie Noll told Greg Wickenkamp, a middle-school teacher, not to use that phrase. She told Wickenkamp, "'Slavery was wrong,' that’s not a fact, that’s a stance." Wickenkamp is no longer a teacher.

Columbus’s journal: For 14 years, a North Carolina teacher used Zinn's book as a platform to discuss slavery and Indigenous people. Last year a parent complained that "her white son had been made to feel guilty." The school system admonished the teacher and ordered her to halt the lesson on Columbus.

Data on police use of force: A Northern Virginia teacher used the data set to get her students of color more engaged with math as it relates to events. She also used it to show differences between association and causation. The teacher asked higher-ups if she should stop teaching her lesson on the police use of force. She was told yes, because it might make children uncomfortable' because of their race or if their parents are police officers, the teacher recalled.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s book: An Arkansas high-school English teacher offered students six optional passages from this piece. The school's assistant principal started questioning the teacher with different variations of the same question: “What is the purpose of using it?” “How is it connected to what you are doing?” “Is it connected by skills?” “Is it connected by theme?” The teacher eventually dropped the optional lessons.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Of Mice and Men: A Missouri English teacher and the English department removed both books from their rosters over parental social media comments about teachers. "In the 2021-2022 school year, right before she [the teacher] was slated to start teaching Huckleberry Finn, the teacher met with colleagues at her high school. They discussed how parents in the district had begun sharing on social media details of teacher behavior they disliked, sometimes naming the educators involved. The teachers decided to cut Huckleberry Finn. Also nixed was John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, which had drawn similar objections over profane language — again from white parents."

A Library of Congress video of a ‘cakewalk': For three years, a North Carolina teacher used videos "of 'cakewalks,' dances that Black Americans began performing in the antebellum era partly to mock the formal dances held by their White, wealthy enslavers . . . But things changed this fall when the video was paired with an essay by bell hooks — “Is Paris Burning?” — in which the Black feminist and social critic dissects drag ball culture in 1980s-era New York. . . . [The teacher] received a flurry of emails from four parents contending broadly that the cakewalk video and the bell hooks text were irrelevant to social studies . . . Overall, she felt she got insufficient support from the district, she said. And the parent complaints just kept coming. . . . This semester, she skipped the three-day lesson on subversion, the cakewalk video, the bell hooks text. (The author did not capitalize her name.)

School-board candidates who campaigned on parental rights see mixed results, a sampling by Ballotpedia finds

Tiffany Justice of Moms for Liberty, at the lectern, says her group
has chapters in 42 states. (Photo by Octavio Jones, Getty Images)

"Conservative candidates who ran for school boards saying they would change what students learn about race, sex and gender, or who opposed Covid protocols, saw mixed results in Tuesday’s election, according to supporters and a sampling of nationwide results," reports Ben Chapman of The Wall Street Journal, citing a sampling of 361 races by Ballotpedia, a nonpartisan election site.

Ballotpedia found that about 36 percent of candidates who opposed schools' Covid-19 protocols, "diversity initiatives or the use of gender-neutral learning materials, won their elections," Chapman reports. "About 28% of winning candidates in the analysis supported those policies or efforts. That percentage is down from elections in April and November 2021, according to Ballotpedia. About a third of candidates in Tuesday’s election analysis didn’t take clear positions on these issues, according to the site."

Chapman notes, "Many candidates received financial support from political-action committees outside their local school communities or from advocacy groups, a relatively new feature in school board elections." The conservative 1776 Project PAC, told Chapman that it has put nearly $3 million into school races since last year and so has backed candidates who won about 100 board seats.

Teachers' unions have been the major players in school-board races, especially in urban and suburban districts, where they are more like to have collective bargaining with boards. "National Education Association President Becky Pringle said most of the candidates in races tracked this year by the group won," the Journal reports. but "Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the Florida-based education nonprofit Moms for Liberty, said roughly half of 270 candidates endorsed by her group won their seats," Chapman reports. The group "has lobbied to curb classroom discussions on gender identity and sex-education issues."

Report: Rural parents least likely to say they had or were willing to have their children vaccinated against coronavirus

Percentage of parents who said their children had been vaccinated for the coronavirus, or who said they were extremely or somewhat likely to do so, by political affiliation and rurality (Covid States Project chart; click the image to enlarge it)

Rural parents were the least likely of any demographic group measured to get their children vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to a new report from The Covid States Project. Only 17 percent of rural parents said their children between the ages of 5 and 11 were vaccinated, compared to 25% of suburban parents and 32% of urban parents. Meanwhile, only 45% of rural parents reporting that their children between the ages of 12 and 18 were vaccinated, compared to 54% of suburban parents and 60% of urban parents.

Republican, independent, non-college-educated, and younger parents were also less likely overall to report having their children vaccinated.

The Covid States Project is a joint effort of Harvard, Northeastern, Northwestern, and Rutgers universities. It receives support from the National Science Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and Amazon.

Rural parents worry most about kids' coronavirus vax, but urban and suburban parents have become more worried

Percentage of parents who said they had "major concerns" about vaccinating their children against Covid-19 because of various factors (Covid States Project chart; click the image to enlarge it.)

Pfizer has sought Food and Drug Administration approval for its coronavirus vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11. But even if Pfizer gets the green light, the progress of children's vaccinations will depend highly on whether parents want their offspring to be vaccinated. A new report says rural parents had more concerns about such vaccinations, but that suburban and urban parents have narrowed the gap since June as their concerns grew.

The report comes from The Covid States Project, a joint effort of Harvard, Northeastern, Northwestern, and Rutgers universities. Researchers surveyed more than 21,000 people nationwide from Aug. 26 to Sept. 27 and compared their answers with surveys done in June. Key takeaways:

• Rural parents were more likely than urban and suburban parents to say they had "major concerns" about vaccinating their children, over how new the vaccine is, whether it has been tested enough, whether it actually works, the immediate side effects (such as fever and nausea), and long-term health effects. The average of percentages expressing those concerns in June were 53% in rural areas, 47% in suburbs and 45% in cities.
• Those concerns rose in all population groups from June to September, when the average percentages were 63.4% in rural areas, 58.6% in suburbs and 57% in cities. The largest concern was long-term health effects.
• The second-most cited worry was whether the vaccine has been tested enough; the percentage of parents with such concerns in all population areas grew an average of 11 points from June to September, but only 9 points among rural parents.
• Among the three groups, rural parents' concerns rose the least from June to September. The percentage with major concerns grew an average of 10.4 points, compared to suburban parents' 11.8 points and urban parents' 12 points.

Pandemic roundup on children and parents: Concerns are greater in rural areas; religion and politics are factors

Chart by The Covid States Project; click the image to enlarge it or here for the original version.

Here's a roundup of pandemic news related to parents, kids and schools:

Rural parents are more concerned about coronavirus vaccinations than their suburban and urban peers, according to a recent survey from The Covid States Project, a joint effort of Harvard, Northeastern, Northwestern, and Rutgers universities. The study found that rural parents shared the same concerns as parents in cities and suburbs, but to greater degrees. They were 10 percentage points more likely than urban parents to say they were concerned that the vaccines have been tested enough (58% to 48%), nine points more likely to wonder whether the vaccines actually work (51% vs. 42%) and what long-term health effects they might cause (56% vs. 47%), and eight points more likely say they were concerned about how new the vaccine is (52% to 44%).

A rural Eastern Kentucky couple's worries about coronavirus vaccination help illustrate the Covid States Project's findings. Josh Stacy told Brandon Roberts of Spectrum News that government mistrust is a big reason he doesn't want the vaccination for himself, his wife Tomi, or their two daughters, ages 13 and 5. He also cited his Christian beliefs, saying that he doesn't think the vaccination itself is the Mark of the Beast, but believes it "can lead to that." He believes the virus is man-made and believes the government and elites want to use it as population control, and says his doubts about the vaccine have intensified as he's watched his fully vaccinated mother and stepfather battle Covid-19.

Governors in several states have barred schools from enacting mask mandates; as kids head back to school, many parents in those states—including some in rural areas—are protesting, filing suit, and signing petitions in an effort to allow schools control over their own masking policies. Read more here.

16- and 17-year-olds are the age group with the highest rate of new coronavirus infections, according to the CDC. Read more here.

Several rural Kentucky school districts have shut down because of spiking Covid-19 cases, but students won't be able to learn at home much because the state legislature recently passed a law limiting remote learning. Superintendents say they're worried the kids will have to make up the days over spring break and in summer. Read more here.

Children's hospitals around the country are seeing a surge in Covid-19 patients. Read more here.

No coronavirus vaccine has been approved for kids under age 12. This article explains the various regulatory and logistical hurdles that will need to be cleared before that happens. Read more here.

Here's an illustration of how infectious the Delta variant is, and how important it is for all parties to wear masks: A California elementary school teacher who didn't know she was infected took off her mask during story time. Though the desks were distanced from each other and masks were required indoors, half of her class tested positive in the next week—nearly all of them in the two rows closest to her desk. Read more here.

"Since March 2020, the federal government has provided $190 billion in pandemic aid to schools, an amount that is more than four times what the U.S. Education Department spends on K-12 schools in a typical year," Bryan Anderson reports for The Associated Press and Report for America. That includes about $155 billion sent to states to distribute among schools. Some rural schools are using the money to beef up their tech capabilities so students will be better able to learn at home during pandemic shutdowns. Read more here.

Pandemic roundup: some moms having trouble returning to work; state incentives to boost vaxes have mostly failed

Here's a roundup of recent news about the pandemic and immunization efforts:

Many moms left the workforce during the pandemic. But many find it difficult to return to work because of issues like a lack of childcare. Read more here.

Rural coronavirus vaccinations continued at roughly the same pace in late June, The Daily Yonder reports. Click here for an interactive map, regional analysis and more.

State efforts to increase coronavirus vaccination rates via lotteries and other incentives have mostly failed to do the trick. Read more here.

President Biden said he doesn't expect the emerging delta variant to force another lockdown, but said he worries that areas with lower vaccination rates "will be very hurt" by it. Read more here.

The Chamber of Commerce in a rural Tennessee county encouraged locals to get vaccinated because (among other benefits) a lower infection rate helped businesses reopen. Read more here.

The Washington Post extrapolated current vaccination rates to estimate when each state will hit the 70% vaccination rate. Read more here.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines may provoke an immune response that protects people against the coronavirus for years, according to a new study. Read more here.

Children on farms pick up risky behaviors from parents, Canadian study confirms; U.S. experts say it applies here

Farm kids learn how to farm from their parents, grandparents and sometimes even great-grandparents. They may also learn risky behaviors that get passed from generation to generation, according to a Canadian study that U.S. researchers say applies south of the border.

The study in the Journal of Rural Health surveyed farmers Saskatchewan farmers. It concluded, "Occupational health and safety risks and protections experienced on farms appear to be transferred between generations. This suggests the need to target farm owner-operators, the responsible authority on the farm, as a focus of primary prevention strategies aimed at injury risks to children and young workers."

The researchers at the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Alberta wrote, "Family farms provide an opportunity to pass down traditions of hard work, valuable occupational skills and abilities, and family values. Some of these traditions, however, can have a negative side with respect to rural health. There is a quiet epidemic of traumatic farm injuries that are disproportionately experienced by farm children, which may be related to cultures of safety and risk-taking that are also passed down through generations."

Two leading farm-safety researchers in the U.S. told The Rural Blog that the study is valuable.

“This inquiry into the intergenerational aspects of farming practices is critical in broadening and deepening our understanding of how the social-cultural aspects of risk impact current and future generations of farmers,” said Casper Bendixsen, director of the National Farm Medicine Center at the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute in Marshfield, Wis. “While the study is based on Canadian farmers, the findings resonate with me as a U.S. researcher and as the son of farming and ranching. It also grounds what is theoretical, and sometimes mythical, into concrete, quantitative findings.”

Dennis J. Murphy, Nationwide Insurance Professor emeritus of agricultural safety and health at 

Penn State, wrote, “This research is innovative and very applicable to farm and ranch operations in the United States. I think agricultural safety and health researchers and educators have always thought along these lines but there is little, if any, direct research that supports these notions. Their suggestion that injury prevention strategies for the protection of children and young workers should target the responsible authority on the farm or ranch is certainly applicable throughout the U.S.”

Some parents deliberately sending coronavirus-infected kids to class, possibly because of a lack of child care

Though many school districts are doing distance learning this fall, some schools (more likely rural ones) are holding in-person classes. As those schools attempt to keep staff and students from spreading the coronavirus, they're running into an unexpected problem: some parents are deliberately sending their coronavirus-infected children to school. 

That's happened several times in suburban Washington and Ozaukee counties in Wisconsin, according to the counties' public health department officer, Kirsten Johnson, Alec Johnson reports for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I think for us, the biggest challenge for us that we’re experiencing right now is people are just being dishonest," Johnson said. "They don’t want their children to be quarantined from school. They don’t want to have to miss work. In doing that, they’re jeopardizing the ability to have school in person and other people’s health."

Part of the problem may be the lack of child care, especially in rural areas where child care is already scarce. And the problem may be getting worse. Researchers warn that nearly half of the nation's child-care centers could shutter because of the pandemic, Kavitha Cardoza reports for NPR. 

In the 11-county Appalachian region of Ohio, for example, the number of child-care centers has declined by more than 80 percent since 1999, and that was before the pandemic, which is rapidly accelerating closures, Rachel Dissell reports for Eye on Ohio., the nonprofit, nonpartisan partnership between the Ohio Center for Journalism and the nonprofit Fuller Project.

Study shows disparities that hurt rural children's health

Though rural living offers some benefits to health, such as increased community cohesion, many of the approximately 1 million infants and toddlers living in the rural U.S. face challenges that can hurt their health and stymie their development, Jessie Laurore, Gayane Baziyants, and Sarah Daily report for Child Trends.

The brief relies on national- and state-level data compiled by the State of Babies Yearbook 2020, which in turn gets its data from national data sets such as the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey and the National Survey of Children's Health. Click here for state-level data about race, poverty, family structure, rurality, and more for infants and toddlers in each state.

Some key takeaways from the Child Trends report:

• Rural ares have higher infant mortality and preterm birth rates.
• Low birth weight is a significant challenge in rural areas for some states, more so than in urban areas.
• Rural infants are less likely to be breastfed. 
• Rural mothers are less likely receive timely prenatal care and more likely to give birth outside of the hospital. 
• Rural infants and toddlers are less likely to receive preventative medical or dental care and less likely to receive recommended vaccines.
• Rural infants and toddlers in low-income families are less likely to have health insurance than their urban counterparts.

The report recommends that lawmakers identify any existing barriers that rural families may face in enrolling their children in their state's Children's Health Insurance Program. CHIP covers families that make too much to qualify for Medicaid but don't earn enough to afford private health insurance. Medicaid and CHIP, which cover more than one-third of children in the U.S., can help ensure more children in rural areas can access health care, but rural families are less likely to be enrolled in CHIP.

The report also advocates options like mobile health clinics and telemedicine to increase rural access to health care. It also recommends promoting timely vaccinations for rural children and finding ways to pay for it using existing programs.

They also recommend that states identify whether there are gaps in how existing in-home visiting support programs serve rural children and families and, if so, find ways to bridge that gap.

Finally, the report recommends that states work to increase rural prenatal care by working with community hospitals, doulas, birthing centers, and mobile health clinics.

Staffing is a big hurdle for child care, scarce in rural areas

A story from rural Illinois neatly encapsulates the hurdles rural areas face in finding or providing reliable, qualified, affordable child care, Nat Williams reports for Illinois Farmer Today.

It's difficult for small towns to sustain a child-care center, according to Lori Longueville, director of Child Care Resources and Referrals at John A. Logan College in Carterville. The agency is one of several in the region that focus on child-care needs. "For rural areas the top challenge is to find qualified staff," she told Williams.

Low pay is a big part of the problem there; though lead day-care teachers must have certain qualifications under state law, the pay isn't often enough to justify the time and expense to obtain those qualifications, Williams reports. Those with associate degrees are generally more inclined to try for better-paying substitute teacher jobs in the public schools instead.

Ensuring the availability of rural child care is becoming more important, especially as more farmers and farming spouses seek work off the farm, Williams reports. Some rural communities are considering non-profit options.

Quick hits: How pandemic is creating a rural employment crisis; Irish support hard-hit Native American communities

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Rural California county defies shelter in place order. Read more here.

Military correspondent says citizen unrest over shut-downs makes him more afraid than he ever was in Afghanistan or Iraq. Read more here.

Pandemic sharpens focus on rural digital divide, columnist writes. Read more here.

Three reasons the pandemic is creating a rural employment crisis. Read more here.

Irish dig deep to help pandemic-stricken Navajo, repaying a debt that stretches back to the Great Potato Famine. Read more here.

Rural Black Belt southerners take on the coronavirus. Read more here.

Pandemic could change how low-income parents are treated. Read more here.

In fracking's new reality, only the strongest will survive. Read more here.

Poor, rural moms with chronic depression may face greater health problems, according to new study

For rural moms with low incomes, chronic depression may be correlated with an increased incidence of other health problems, according to a newly published study.

Researchers from Washington State University analyzed three years' worth of data about 23 mothers with clinical depression, gathered from the ongoing, multi-state Rural Families Speak project. "The findings, published in the Journal of Family Social Work, show that moms who were chronically depressed experienced more health problems, distrusted doctors and had a worse outlook on their lives, compared with moms whose symptoms improved. The mothers’ depression also affected those closest to them," Traci Pedersen reports for Psych Central.

Moms who were chronically depressed and moms who were depressed but improving faced similar struggles in parenting. "However, chronically depressed moms faced greater challenges in dealing with their children’s emotional and behavioral issues, which were often compounded by a lack of childcare options, employment, concerns for delinquent behaviors and day-to-day behavioral management issues," Pedersen reports.

Maternal depression affects the whole family, said Dr. Yoshi Sano, an associate professor at Washington State who leads the Rural Families Speak project and was also the lead author of the paper. "Mothers are one of the main supports of the family, Sano told Pedersen. "They’re raising children, paying bills, and organizing events. When they’re depressed, the entire family is impacted."

Though policymakers often focus on physical health as an obstacle to self-sufficiency for low-income people, mental health is the biggest obstacle for moms and affects everything from family life to employability. But stigma and distrust of health care professionals is a roadblock to treatment, Sano said.

However, mental health access can be limited in rural areas, Tyler Harris reports for Nebraska Farmer. And women who live on farms often face added mental health burdens, said Tina Chasek, associate psychology professor at the University of Nebraska.

"Women in agriculture are sometimes called third-shift workers," Chasek told Harris. "They work outside the home to provide a steady income and insurance benefits. Then they take care of the family and work on the farm, in addition to being social support. So, they have three jobs. If a male farmer is going to talk, it's usually to his wife. Women on the farm often take care of everybody's emotional needs. So, there's a huge burden on them as well."

The Rural Health Information Hub has a Rural Suicide Prevention Toolkit with links to resources that can help rural policymakers implement suicide prevention programs. Click here to access it.

Study confirms more children, especially rural children, are entering foster care because their parents abuse drugs

Chart from the study; click the image to enlarge it.

Since 2000, the number of children in foster care because of parental drug use has more than doubled, and rural children make up an increasing share, according to a newly published study in JAMA Pediatrics.

"Using data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, researchers found that child removals due to parental drug use rose 147 percent over the last two decades -- from 39,130 in 2000 to 96,672 in 2017," Mattie Quinn reports for Governing magazine. "Parental substance abuse now accounts for about a quarter of foster care entries across the country."

Of all children in foster care because of parental drug use, the percentage of rural children rose from 1.84% in 2000-05 to 2.52% in 2012-17 — a nearly 37% increase. Among all children in foster care for reasons other than parental drug use, the share of rural children decreased from 2.02% in 2000-05 to 1.85% in 2012-17 — an 8.4% drop, the study found.

Among children who entered foster care because of parental drug use, almost half were from the South, and more than half were white. Black children were more likely to enter foster care for other reasons than parental drug abuse, and Hispanic children were equally likely to enter foster care for parental drug use or for other reasons, the study says.

"These troubling trends are playing out at a time when the foster-care system is in the middle of a major overhaul," Quinn notes. "The Family First Prevention Services Act, which was signed by President Trump last year, will restructure the system to focus more on preventing family separations and reducing the dependence on group homes. The new law requires foster care entities to provide mental health care, in-home parenting programs and substance abuse treatment to parents at risk of losing their children."

The law takes effect in October, but the federal government has been slow in announcing details, s most states have chosen to defer implementation for two years, Quinn reports. It will limit stays in group homes, which could complicate foster care in rural areas, which are short of such homes.

 "Critics of the law argue that while its intentions are good, the outcomes might initially do more harm than good," Quinn reports. "With many foster care agencies already struggling to handle the number of kids, dramatically revamping the system to focus on keeping kids with families ignores the maxed-out realities and the lack of resources available to switch to a new framework."