How to be a good parent in bad times: constructing parenting advice about terrorism.
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Caregivers↗
Biomedical subjects
M S Zeedyk
Publications and source records attributed to M S Zeedyk.
Tackling children's road safety through edutainment: an evaluation of effectiveness.
The burgeoning market in electronic media has encouraged a trend toward 'edutainment', where entertaining, media-based materials are used to facilitate educational outcomes. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of a video that has recently been released by a popular children's entertainment group to help tackle Britain's poor record on children's road safety. We wished to determine whether the video had an impact on either children's knowledge or parents' awareness of pedestrian skills, when used in a standard home-based fashion. A total of 120 families participated, all of whom had children 5 years of age. Half the families received videos at the beginning of the study, while the other half served as a control group against which to measure change in the treatment group. Data were gathered at baseline and again 1 month later, using a series of tailored questionnaire items. A robust pattern of null findings indicated that the video, when used in this casual fashion, had no educational impact on either parents or children. Crucially, however, parents strongly believed that it had. The discussion explores the implications of such a mismatch and highlights similarities with outcomes of other health education interventions.
Accidents, Traffic↗
Children and road safety: increasing knowledge does not improve behaviour.
BACKGROUND: Programmes designed to teach children about road safety have often failed to assess their effectiveness in terms of either an increase in children's knowledge or an improvement in children's behaviour. AIM: The two studies reported here sought to address both issues, by focusing on the abilities of Primary 1 children (5 years old). SAMPLE: A total of 120 Primary 1 children within the age range 4-5 years old participated in this study, drawn from three different primary schools within an educational district of Scotland. METHODS: In the first study the effects of three different road safety interventions were tested, all of which employed commercially marketed products: 1) a three-dimensional model of the traffic environment; 2) a road safety board game; and 3) illustrated posters and flip-chart materials. In the second study the transfer of knowledge to children's behaviour in a real-life traffic environment was tested, using a subsample of 47 children who had taken part in the first study. RESULTS: Results from the first study showed, surprisingly, that all three interventions were effective in increasing children's knowledge about safe and dangerous locations at which to cross the street, and that this knowledge was retained for a period of six months. Study 2, however, showed that increased knowledge did not result in improved traffic behaviour. Children who had received training performed no better than children in a control group. CONCLUSION: These findings highlight the need to distinguish between children's road safety knowledge and their behaviour, particularly for teachers and parents, who may mistakenly believe that children who know more will be safer on the road.
Accident Prevention↗
Tooth-brushing practices of parents and toddlers: a study of home-based videotaped sessions.
The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the tooth-brushing behaviour of parents and toddlers, by analysis of tooth-brushing sessions videotaped in families' homes. Eighteen families (self-selected from an ongoing preventive-intervention study) videotaped all home tooth-brushing sessions involving their toddler (average age 2.5 years) over a 24-hour period. The vast majority of families (89%) engaged in at least two sessions per day, usually supervised by mothers. The average length of the sessions was 142 s, although the brush tended to be in the child's mouth for less than half of that time. On average, only 10 s were spent brushing the front teeth, 13 s the back teeth, and 29 s spent on non-brushing activities (e.g., biting brush, sucking water). Three styles of brushing were identified, and families tended to be consistent in their use of these styles: exclusively parent-led (least common), exclusively child-led, and shared between parent and child (most common). In contrast with these poor behavioural outcomes, feedback from parents indicated that they were generally confident that the sessions had been effective in achieving clean teeth. These findings suggest that home-based tooth-brushing activity falls far short of professional expectations. Tooth-brushing, even with fluoride toothpaste, may be seriously compromised as a method of reducing caries in toddlers because teeth are being brushed too briefly.
Child, Preschool↗