Making and Keeping Friends Is More than Child's Play

    When 6-year­-old Rachel returned to school on a recent Monday morning, her eyes immediately scanned the playground for her friend Abbie. “Though they were only separated by a weekend, the girls ran right into each other's arms and hugged,” recalls Rachel's mother Kathryn Willis of Gilbert. “It was like a scene from a movie.”

    Most parents instinctively (本能地) know that having friends is good for their child. Experts agree that friendship isnot simply child's play, but a powerful predictor of social adjustment throughout life.

A Skill for Life

  “Childhood friendships serve as a very important training ground for adulthood,” says Dr. Robbie Adler­Tapia, psychologist with the Center for Children's Health & Life Development at the East Valley Family Resource Center.

    Researcher William Hartup states,“Peerrelations contribute significantly to both social and cognitive (认知的) development.” Hartup concludes that the single best childhood predictor of adult social adaptation is not school grades or classroom behavior, butrather, how well a child gets along with other children.

    The work of Arizona State University professor of Developmental Psychology Gary Ladd proves that just as being ableto make and keep friends is beneficial to kids while the lack of friends is detrimental.

Good Friendships Don't Just Happen

    Experts agree that it is essential forchildren to establish high­quality friendships. But, researchers warn, these friendships don't necessarily just happen. Often, a good friendship begins with involvedparents.

    Psychologist Dr. Lynne Kenney Markan believes kids should be taught social skills in much the same way they are taught math and reading.

Bad Company

Many parents worry about the quality aswell as the quantity of their child's friendships. “When she was in 1st grade, her supposed ‘best friend' began calling her names and threatening to hurt her,”says Mindy Miller. “My daughter wasn't allowed to talk to or even look at other girls in her class. It really crushed her spirit. I told my daughter she didn't need a ‘friend' like that.”

    “I'll bend over backwards(拼命) to help my son get together with a friend I think is good for him,” Adler­ Tapiasays. “I don't look at it as manipulation (操纵)，just positive parental involvement.”

    If you need glasses to read this, you are among the majority of Chinese students. That's because most students in China are short-sighted which means they can only see things close up and distant things will be blurry. Four-fifths of high school students wear glasses and now more and more children in primary school need glasses, too.

    This epidemic of poor eyesight has two very simple causes: too much time spent indoors studying and too little time spent outdoors playing. Reading and writing for hours and hours, sometimes in poorly lighted rooms, causes eyesight to weaken. But students have to do this because there is so much pressure on them to succeed in school. And because they spend so much time indoors at school and at home, they have less time to spend outdoors enjoying the sun.

    The sun, as a consequence, is important in developing good eyesight. Exposure to daylight releases a chemical in the eyes that prevents, or at least delays, short-sightedness. According to a study by Ian Morgan of Australian National University, Australian children and Chinese children have the same level of eyesight before they start school, but once they enter primary school, Chinese children only spend about an hour a day outside, while Australian children spend three to four hours each day in the sunshine. The result is that while about 40 percent of Chinese primary school students need glasses, only three percent of Australian children do.

    Wearing glasses may not seem like a big deal. For some, wearing glasses can even be an opportunity to make a fashion statement. But poor eyesight at a young age can have serious long term consequences. As you get older, your eyesight can worsen and lead to things like macular degeneration(黄斑变性), a condition of the eyes for which there is no cure and which can eventually lead to blindness.

    With all that in mind, don't you think it's time to give your eyes a break? Try spending a little less time inside and go for a walk in the park, instead. It's the healthy thing to do and your eyes will thank you for it.

    The similarities between elephant and human behavior has been a curiosity to scientists worldwide. These huge beasts are not so different from us. Their devotion to their family is just as powerful as the friendships between humans. In order to prevent future elephant attacks, people must first understand the similarities between elephants and themselves.

    Because deaths are felt so deeply in elephants, memories of people harming or killing other members are not forgotten. Due to the Uganda-Tanzania War in Africa, poaching (偷猎) elephant increased during the 1970's and continued, despite government restrictions. However, ecologists like Eve Abe did not see this as simple poaching; they saw it as a “mass destruction. “Elephants that have witnessed the murder of a matriarch, are more likely to become violent and attack humans. Many aggressive elephants do not act without reason; they are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). At a young age, humans invade their life, kill their parents, and ultimately destroy their peaceful environment. More and more calves live neglected lives without a mother figure, and have to become a parent early for survival. Humans that had a difficult childhood or early family life also suffer from aggression and pain. Young elephants have been known to have “nightmares,” waking up suddenly and screaming. These are clearly signs of stress, as males grow up to be increasingly hostile (敌对的) humans and target certain villages where painful experiences had occurred.

    Although many see elephants as massive, violent, and simple-minded animals, their social structure is not unlike many human societies. Humans and elephants have been on parallel paths. However, if people continue practicing ignorance over the cruel treatment of these creatures, then collision will become inevitable. Cruel treatment of elephants still goes on, but by understanding the similarities between us, it can be stopped.

    Recently some American scientists have given a useful sincere piece of advice to people in industrialized nations that they would be much healthier if they ate more of the same kind of food eaten by humans living more than 10,000 years ago.

    The scientists say that the human body has changed very little since humans first appeared on the earth, but the way we live has changed greatly. Our body has not been able to deal with (处理,对付)these changes in life style and this has led to new kinds of sicknesses. These new sicknesses were not known in ancient times, so they are called "diseases of civilization". Many cancers and diseases of the blood system, including heart attacks and strokes (中风) are examples of such diseases.

    Scientists noted that people in both the Old Stone Age and the New Stone Age enjoyed very little alcohol (酒精) or tobacco (烟草), probably none. Ancient people also got a great deal of physical exercise, but a change in food is one of the main differences between life in ancient times and that of today.

    Stone-age people hunted wild animals for their meat, which had much less fat than domestic or tame ones (家畜). They also ate a lot of fresh wild vegetables and fruits. They didn't have milk or any other dairy products, and they made very little use of grains. But today, we eat a large amount of these. We eat six times more salt than our remote ancestors (祖先). We eat more sugar. We eat twice as much fat but only one third as much protein (蛋白质) and much less vitamin C.

    People today probably do not want to live the way people thousands of years ago did, but scientists say that we would be much healthier if we ate much the same way as remote ancestors did, cutting the amount of fatty, salty and sweet food.

    Can dogs and cats get along well in the same home? People who are thinking about getting a dog as a friend for their cat are worried that they will fight. A recent research has found that if the cat is taken back home before the dog, and if they are introduced when still young (less than 6 months for cats, a year for dogs), it is highly probable that the two pets will get along swimmingly. In two-thirds of the homes cats and dogs have a good relationship.

    However, it wasn't all sweetness and light. There was a reported coldness between the cat and dog in 25% of the homes, while aggression(侵略，好斗) and fighting were found in 10% of the homes. One reason for this is probably that some of their body languages are just different. For example, when a cat turns its head away it means aggression, while a dog doing the same means submission(顺从).

    In homes with cats and dogs living peacefully, researchers found a surprising behavior. They are learning how to talk each other's language. It is a surprise that cats can learn how to talk "Dog", and dogs can learn how to talk "Cat".

    What's interesting is that both cats and dogs have appeared to become smarter. They can learn to read each other's body languages, suggesting that the two may have more in common than was expected. Once familiar with each other's body language, cats and dogs can play together, and enjoy sleeping together on the sofa.

    The importance of this research on cats and dogs may go beyond pets — to people who don't get along well, including neighbors, colleagues at work, and even countries. If cats and dogs can learn to get along, surely people have a good chance.

    Living in a foreign culture can be exciting, but it can also be confusing(令人迷惑的). A group of Americans who taught English in other countries recently discussed their experiences. They found that miscommunication was always possible, even over something as simple as "yes" and "no".

    On her first day in Micronesia, an island in the Pacific, Lisa thought people weren't paying any attention to her. The day was hot. She went into a store and asked, "Do you have cold drinks？" The woman there didn't say anything. Lisa repeated the question. Still the woman said nothing. She later learned that the woman had answered her: She had raised her eyebrows(眉毛), which in Micronesia means "yes".

    Jan remembered an experience she had in Bulgaria, a country in Europe. She went to a restaurant that was famous for its cabbage. She asked the waiter, "Do you have cabbage today？" He nodded his head. Jan waited, but the cabbage never came. In that country, a nod means "no".

    Tom had a similar problem when he arrived in India. After explaining something in class, he asked his students if they understood. They answered with many different nods and shakes of the head. He thought some people had not understood, so he explained again. When he asked again, they did the same thing. He soon found out that his students did understand. In India, people nod and shake their heads in different ways depending on where they come from. You have to know where a person is from to understand whether they mean "yes" or "no"．