An Apple a Day

             Now here is the question: Can you teach someone how to raise a child?  Although I know better, I usually say “no,” you can’t.  When someone’s child goes astray, you don’t want the parents, your friends, to carry the guilt. Guilt seldom solves a problem.

            The National Institute of Health (NIH) has recently selected Beauregard and Vernon Parishes as one of 102 sites nationwide where they will evaluate the factors that impact a child’s development.  Sounds like a serious project.  They will begin tracking development before a child is born and will continue tracking until the child is twenty-five years old.  That’s right.  This is a twenty-five year study.

             The study is scheduled to receive funding in 2009.  The plans call for an office in DeRidder.  At its peak, the project will employ fifteen people.  Certainly the jobs will be good for DeRidder.

             I have never claimed to know much about child rearing.  I know that luck is a factor.  You probably remember the old saying: “Our parents make us miserable the first half of our lives and our children make us miserable the second half.”  If this is not true, well there you are.  You are lucky. 

             This study, as explained to me by the NIH field representative, an impressive fellow with both an M.D. and a Ph.D., will cover all of the bases.  They will examine water and air quality, diet, exercise, genetic factors – they are going to look at the whole picture.  Let’s just hope they don’t tell us DeRidder is a bad place to live.  My old friend Frosty Allen used to say, “You cannot beat Beauregard Parish water.”  We have that base covered.

             I just saw a report on television the other night.  They said Johnny still needs a good breakfast.  I think we all know that.  The twist is, according to this new study, that a good breakfast prevents childhood obesity.  The theory is that without a good breakfast Johnny will nibble all day long.  It’s an old truth with a new explanation.

             I never read a book on childhood development.  I am not proud to admit that.  I did once ask a psychologist friend, Dr. Richard Rogers, what was the key to raising a child.  Our wives were both pregnant at the time, and I figured he had been thinking on this.  “The key”, he said, “is to expose your child to as many stimuli as possible.”  I know I’ll get in trouble for saying this, but Richard’s advice makes sense to me.  Seems like the over-protected child is often the troublesome child. 

             Kathy Bruner, our receptionist here in City Hall, recently handed me an article about why one person becomes a conservative and the next person becomes a liberal.  This being the campaign season, this article is good reading.  Just so you won’t think I am making this up, I’m going to quote one of their eight observations in full.

             “As preschoolers, future conservatives have rather stable family lives – but they also tend to be “rigid,” “distrustful,” “easily victimized,” and quick to cry.  Though liberals report higher levels of childhood stress and less nurturing from their fathers, researchers tracking subjects from daycare to adulthood found liberals – to – be were more “resourceful,” “confident,” and “self-involving” at age 3 than future right-wingers.”

             That is from the Journal of Research in Personality.  If those folks can draw conclusions like that just by observing kids, there is no telling what the NIH may conclude about us.  Let’s welcome them.  We should be proud to be a part of this twenty-five year study.  It will compare us to other regions and discuss our commonalities and differences, our social assets and liabilities.  It will in a very real way, tell us who we are.