Dozens killed in bus accident in Afghan mountains

At least 30 people are dead after a bus plunged off a road near the Salang Pass, a major route through the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan.

Dr. Sanim Rasouli, health director in Baghlan province, says the bus picked up speed, struck other vehicles and then plunged off the road about 70 miles (115 kilometers) north of the capital, Kabul.

He says dozens of people – some of them children – burned to death when the bus caught fire.

The Afghan Interior Ministry reports that 35 people died in the accident just north of the 12,700—foot (3,800—meter) —high Salang Pass, the site of an avalanche earlier this year that killed more than 170 people.

Convincing kids to eat healthy food

A file photo of “NUTRI FEST” organised by Madhuram Narayanan Centre for Exceptional Children on the topic ‘Breakfast for Children’.

Parents should pay attention to colour, appearance and texture when trying to make healthy food appealing to their children’s tastes.

“Colourful, crunchy pieces of fruit go quicker into a child’s mouth than colourless fruit,” said Monika Niehaus, a paediatrician in Germany.

Brown spots on fruit and vegetables, or a slimy texture, such as that of some types of mushrooms, cause most children to reject the piece of food, said Niehaus, spokeswoman for Germany’s professional association of paediatricians, citing the results of studies conducted by the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands.

Parents should take advantage of the fact that children are creatures of habit.

“If they always eat fruit or vegetables at a certain time, as dessert, for example, they reach for it more frequently,” Niehaus said.

Vegetables typically are not popular with most children. But when parents give their children a choice of several types of vegetables, they tend to start helping themselves, said Niehaus. Every child likes at least one type of vegetable. Tomatoes or cucumbers are often their choice. Strawberries and apples are typically favourite fruits among children

Encouraging empathy

Children learn very early in life to put themselves in others’ shoes. But to get that going, they must share a positive and caring relationship with parents and caretakers

Empathy, the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and recognise and respond to what that person is feeling, is an essential ingredient of a civilised society. Manifestations of empathy often show up early in life, as when a toddler brings a favourite toy or blanket to another child who is injured or in distress. Some experts maintain that infants display empathy when they whimper or cry upon hearing another baby cry.

Lacking empathy, people act only out of self-interest, without regard for the well-being or feelings of others. The absence of empathy fosters antisocial behaviour, cold-blooded murder, genocide.

Children may enter the world with different capacities for empathy, a result of neural connections in the brain. The capacity for empathy may be partly or wholly lacking in disorders like autism and schizophrenia, in which the mind is focused inward.

Environment is crucial

But in otherwise normal children, the environment in which they are reared can make a big difference in whether empathy is fostered or suppressed. Healthy self-esteem is essential to empathy, so anything that helps children feel good about themselves will also help them recognise and respond effectively to the feelings of others.

If children are to relate positively to others, they must feel secure themselves and “have a secure attachment to another person,” said Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin. Infants and young children whose own distress is ignored, scorned or, worse yet, punished, can quickly become distrustful of their environment and feel unsafe.

Nancy Eisenberg, a psychologist at Arizona State University, agrees. “Children need a positive, caring relationship with their parents or caretakers,” she said in an interview, “if they are to be able to go beyond themselves to care about others.”

“Empathy comes from being empathized with,” Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan, a clinical professor of psychiatry and paediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine, wrote in his book “Great Kids”.

Children should also be helped to recognise their own feelings and express them, he wrote. By learning to identify and label their feelings, children are better able to recognise the feelings of others. For example, when a child becomes frustrated with a toy car and throws it across the room, his caretaker could say something like: “You’re feeling upset because the car isn’t working the way it should. You don’t like it when toys don’t work.”

Zahn-Waxler says the kind of discipline a child receives should “help the child regulate emotion, to calm down rather than become more agitated”. She advises parents to stay calm: “The more emotionally aroused you are, the more aroused the child is likely to become. Hitting or screaming at a child results in anger and fear and interferes with the child’s ability to care for others.”

Eisenberg emphasised that in addition to avoiding physical punishment, “children should never be threatened with a loss of love” for misbehaviour.

Caretakers can help young children understand how other people feel, say, when a child cries because a toy breaks or is snatched by another child. When a child acts kindly toward someone, Marjorie Taylor, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, suggests that saying something like “You’re very kind for doing this” or “You’re the kind of person who does nice things like that” can help make empathy a part of a young child’s identity.

Even very young children need to know how their behaviour affects others, experts say. They need to have it explained why certain behaviours are hurtful or helpful, and how to make up for bad behaviour.

“Be really explicit, because children can’t draw conclusions as easily as an older person,” Taylor said.

Also helpful, she said, is reading books together and talking about how people (or animals) in a story feel and why they feel that way.

Even televised events of natural disasters can help, by encouraging a child to imagine what it must be like for people whose lives are devastated by an earthquake or tsunami.

Although an early start is ideal, experts say it is possible to instil empathy later — even, for example, in children whose emotional security was neglected in an orphanage.

Undoing the damage may require extra effort on the part of adoptive parents, as well as unconditional love.

Parents and teachers can set a good example of empathetic behaviour by how they behave themselves. The old saying “Do as I do” has particular relevance for fostering empathy in children.

“Parents need to be models of altruism, compassion and caring,” Zahn-Waxler said. “It’s not enough to talk the talk. You need to be seen doing it and you need to show caring behaviour toward your children. Remain calm, not punitive.

750,000 children need help in flood hit Andhra, Karnataka

 

 

 Sending out a call for help, international NGO Save the Children estimates that around 7,50,000 children are in desperate need of clean water, medical care and food in the flood-hit districts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

If help doesn’t reach fast, there is an imminent threat of an outbreak of diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases that will further risk the lives of millions of children and others, the NGO said.

“Thirteen per cent of all under-five children in Andhra Pradesh are already acutely malnourished. The high levels of acute malnutrition in this region mean that children are far more likely to die of diarrhoea and acute respiratory disease -the biggest killers of children in India,” Thomas Chandy, CEO of Save the Children, said.

P. Raghu of ActionAid, another international NGO working for the flood victims in both Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, added: “Our flood rescue teams are overwhelmed. Thousands are still languishing without food and water.”

According to Save the Children, over 2,75,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, leaving behind everything. Two hundred villages have been completely submerged. “Children are most vulnerable in any emergency and the floods come on top of an already dire situation. This is a crisis on top of an emergency,” Mr. Chandy said.

“Around 3,50,000 children under five die annually of diarrhoea in India and this time we fear the worst. We need corporate houses, individuals, everyone to come forward to strengthen our efforts on the ground. Any little help that we receive will ensure that one more child will be safe, healthy and protected.”