Lots of news about food additives and hyperactivity this morning, raises a question based on the observation of the stillness of the children in St Mary's Cathedral Choir, Edinburgh.

Are children who do music less likely to be hyperactive than those who don't?

I haven't seen this particular report but I'm reminded of a children's birthday party I went to once (pre-school children). It was held at a children's "activity centre" and we adults left them to it for an hour or so and then went back at teatime. Tea was in full swing - all the children were sitting at the table eating the birthday tea. The only thing was, it was absolutely silent. No screeching, squealing, shouting - or talking! - no reaching over to each other's plate, shuffling about or getting off their seat. The adults were completely mystified at the complete silence and stillness, including the centre staff who were looking after them who had never seen anything like it. We came to the conclusion that since all the children went to the same day centre, this was how they had been trained to sit at the table when they were eating together. Make of it what you will!

We probably ate as many e-numbers when I was a child as they do now - if not more, because there weren't the restrictions then as now. But we were more likely to sit still and behave in class/at birthday parties when told than seems to be the case now. So there has to be something else that's causing all this 'hyperactivity' as well. I used to have a piano pupil who just couldn't sit still for more than 10 seconds - and he wasn't even allowed sweets!

I think the case that you state (and perhaps the historical differences Dulciana points out) are mainly due to expectations of children. They behave as they're expected to in certain situations, sometimes the rules are bent, and rarely the behavioural expectations are exceeded. I was in a choir at primary school and we used to be told rather a lot that we must sit still, it was expected of us and we did it. The same children (plus maybe 10% more who didn't pass the tests required to join the choir; the tests were note pitching, not behavioural) sat in the same church place didn't sit as impeccably still: there wasn't the same expectation, 'be good' or 'be quiet' rather than 'sit still and don't move, set a good example', even though it was still a school class situation....

I'd be more inclined to think that one of the criteria for getting into the choir is the ability to keep a lid on things during a service.

Kids are taught how to behave when "on duty" (I've seen plenty of choristers off duty and they're just like any other kids then) and any that really can't manage it aren't going to make it as far as the stalls.

I've been a chorister since I was about 8. My experience has been that, as long as you're paying attention and not distracting other people, you can get away with a /lot/ during rehearsals and not get called on it if sir knows that he can trust you to behave properly in services. I routinely stand on one leg through rehearsals (I don't know why - it's just how I end up standing when I'm not thinking about it) - one foot on the ground, the other resting against the edge of the bench. I also fidget a lot, surreptitiously munch snacks occasionally, pick at the scab on my arm, wear jeans/shorts and trainers, laugh when something funny happens, etc. But for services, I turn up in black trousers and my school shoes, I stand "properly" (not that you'd be able to tell under my cassock), don't fidget, don't even carry snacks and, at most, smile if something funny happens. Kids /know/ what's expected of them and will usually deliver it when they need to.

T.

i suppose that's just how 'we' musicians are trained to be! plus, it's human nature to behave differently in different situations.

my old piano teacher once remarked how i must hate being cooped up in my county concert band on a friday night, only to return early the next morning for the orchestra and then stay after that for the string orchestra.

she was a family friend, and her son was in my music class at school. needless to say i do not take authority very well and am forever in trouble at school for various reasons. as a family friend/mother of a boy in my class, she of course knows this and knows my personality very well. when i told her that i love my county groups and really look forward to them she looked surprised and said something to the effect of 'oh! but with all that being told what to do?!'

i guess music is just different. in orchestras and choirs we sit and take instructions and criticisms. i bet at break, those little choir boys are running round like hooligans pushing each other and laughing at each others bodily functions like all small boys! they just know that things are different in rehearsals

I have no evidence whatsoever to back up my thoughts here, nor do I claim to be any type of expert.

In my experience (of Coaching sport and partaking in music) children that voluntarily engage in any form of activity will increase their attention span, focus and disciplin. I am not a school teacher and have no training in the treatment of ADHD, but I've had very positive results from my students.

This is a very interesting answer - maybe I need to pose questions with a different slant. Do children who are hyperactive want to learn music? Or is there something in musical ability which provides the concentration to overcome hyperactivity?

I'm pretty skeptical about hyperactivity - or at least as it is reported in the press as I think there's always been a true "hyperactive" disorder but this is very rare.

When I was at school we were told during lesson 1 on day 1 that we had to stop talking and stand up whenever a teacher came into the room, and we were not to sit down again until told to do so. At the end of playtime, when the teacher blew her whistle, we had to go to a particular side of the playground and stand quietly in lines (one line per class) until told to go back to our class rooms!

It all sound incredibly draconian now, but that was just the way children were expected to behave.

When I look at a primary school playground now, what strikes me is how inactive the kids are. When I was at school play time was frantic activity.

Yup, the same expectations of children when I was at school StuMac and I'm younger than you. I'm also trying to work out when it all started to go pear-shaped in the classroom and when children started to become 'gobby' at an early age.

When I was 10, 11, 12 or even early teens, it was rare to find a child being 'lippy' to a teacher or their parents, unless they came from what was known at the time as a 'rough background', but these days some of them are threatening adults at the tender age of 7 or 8.

Our playtimes were frantic, we climbed on the climbing frame, ran around the playground like lunatics for an entire hour and in the summer we'd go back into class after lunchtime all hot and sweaty. (Kids would be demanding shower facilities and a change of clothes these days )

I think this so-called hyperactivity is not really hyperactivity at all, it's a lack of stimulation of the brain. Lots of children are spoon-fed these days, in many senses of the word and their brains just don't have anything to do, so it results in bad behaviour and so-called hyperactivity. I'm sure the cycle is a downward spiral eventually - the less they do, the more aggressive they become, but also the more lazy they become.

I agree that society has changed, but not necessarily for the better. Employers are complaining not only about poor spelling, reading and numeracy, but also the inability of teenagers and young adults to deal with situations at work. Apparently school children are now going to start receiving 'anger management' and 'caring' classes at school. What is all that about?!

Personally, I blame the materialistic driven society we now live in. Kids get everything they want when they are young and then when they are older, and they no longer get their own way all of the time, they start ranting and throwing verbal abuse at people, because they can't handle the answer 'NO'.

In a lot of cases, it's down to the parents and how they handle the childs early years, I'm afraid.

I agree. There is very little thinking involved in so much school work - just parroting. Even in subjects such as English, our teacher taught us a lot of interpretations, and we got good marks for spouting that off. It seems to be the right of all children that they can have whatever they want, whether they deserve it or not. And that is damaging!

I think alot is down to what is expected of children both at home and at school.
For as long as I can remember my parents have expected me to sit at the table for meals, talk to adults, talk to everyone politely and have taught me what is appropriate in different situations.
And at primary school, I remember there was a teacher I had at around 7 years old. We went to a local music festival and when we had to sit and listen, we all behaved. Apparently another teacher asked our teacher how she got us to behave so well and she said that we behaved because we were expected to.

In this day and age children are always being told about their rights. They don't seem to understand, or aren't being told, that with rights come with responsibility and respect for other people. For instance, as a year 7 and even up to year 9, I was almost scared of the year 11s and had a real respect for them. Today on prefect duty a year 7 who has been in the school a grand total of 4 days, to my 4 years, told me to eff off. Since when has that even been vaguely accpetable??

Maybe it happens that music is an area where there is a higher expectation of children than others. They are expected to go home from lessons and practice, expected to stand still and pay attention when singing, expected to sit still and play only at the right times in an ensemble.

A couple of years ago, our year group as a whole was constantly in trouble in assemblies. As a result, we used to get our break times taken away, being made to spend the time sitting in silence. Almost every time in the lesson after we'd had a break time taken away the behaviour of the class would be considerably worse.

I think that it is obvious that the behaviour of children in general has changed, but I think we are looking in the wrong place. Maybe E numbers are causing changes in behaviour or maybe not. But I think there are much more obvious changes that have happened in line with this change in behaviour. I think that these are the areas in which studies should be taking place, rather than continually going on about the possible effects of additives on children's behaviour.

I've cropped the quote, but agree entirely with what you have said here. For starters, respect from others is not something one demands or just gets (but doesn't give to others) and yet increasingly children are growing up with the idea that respect is some sort of birth right, alongside the world owing them a living. The world owes none of us anything. You only get out of life what YOU put in. In my days at school, even secondary school, if we were badly behaved, or played with hand-held computer games (the early Nintendo) in class, we used to have the items confiscated by teachers, often until the end of term! Can you imagine the what children would do now if that happened?!

One of the biggest changes in home life these days is the increase in working mothers. While I am not saying mothers shouldn't work at all, an increasing number of very young children are out of parental care for more hours every day than they are in it. While a creche does an excellent job of temporary childcare for tinytots, the staff there are no substitute for home-grown discipline or rules. The staff, frequently very young themselves (some trainees still in their late teens), can only tell them off, often rather too politely. Would it not be prudent to have more mature staff, perhaps in their thirties or forties, available to deliver a verbal telling off in a more meaningful and serious manner?

I will not get onto the subject of smacking here, other than to say that many people of my age, those older than me and probably a few who are younger than me, got the occasional tap on the leg from a parent, but we didn't grow up into raging psychopaths as a result of it.

Discipline can be strict without resorting to a beating, but today's society seems to lack discipline in many walks of life and in all age groups. We want everything and we want it now! That includes women who want both children and a company executive career. Maybe a lot of problems in society, including so-called hyperactivity, are a direct result of us all wanting everything? Perhaps there are simply too many opportunities and too many choices for us these days, which leads us into taking more bites of the cherry than we can cope with? Some parents lack discipline themselves and as a result this rubs off on their children. Additionally, is it my imagination or are there really a lot of children around who are extremely immature (mentally) for their years? It is a paradox that girls of 11 or 12 go out wearing make-up and mini-skirts these days and yet they often behave like an 8 year old

With the above in mind, I too agree that there is something more to blame for this downward spiral of behaviour than E-numbers.

As a final point for you to mull over, just think about how different the 20th century has been, especially since 1950 onwards, than any previous time before. In the last 100 years we've seen (and these are just a few of many) the invention of the motor car, the plane, electricity at the flick of a switch, the jet engine, space travel, the silicon microchip, home computers and the internet, mapping of the human genome and the realisation of potentially long-term damage to the planet with global climate change through carbon emission. Previously, humans had lived comparatively slow and sedately lives with candlelight or oil lamps and transportation using the horse. Technical competency was the domain of the relatively few highly educated and the extended family was common place. Maybe we just aren't supposed to alter our lives so quickly. It's been ten thousand years since humans first started to devise modern civilisation, so we sure ain't gonna adapt to our current stressful, high-tec, high demand, fast-paced existence in less than 100 years......

Can things only get worse? Is our current way of life actually killing us, as a species and as a society?

Whilst I agree with some of what you've said in your post AmandaL, I must put forward an alternative view with regard to creches/nurseries.



The first post I made in this thread pointed out that it was probably the staff at the nursery who had trained the children to sit absolutely still and silent at the tea-table. There could be no other explanation that we could think of - the mothers of these children had never seen anything like it so they must have been more used to a different standard of behaviour from their children at home.

A couple of weeks ago I visited a day nursery run by a family friend. She is 25/26 years old, and she bought the nursery from an older person about a year ago. I was completely knocked out by what I saw. She had everything under control, both staff and children, and I can't tell you how impressed I was. The activities which she had provided for the children and the environment she had created... there was absolutely no comparison with what the older person had provided. Some of the staff were very young, and whilst I was there she interviewed an older person who she did not think was suitable for the job. I would have been more than happy to leave any children of mine in the care of her and her young staff, and if anybody is looking for nursery care in South Wales, near Risca, I can thoroughly recommend her!

I'm not drawing the conclusion from these two scenarios that all nurseries have good discipline, or that all younger people do a better job in nurseries than older people. But some nurseries do have better discipline in the nursery than at home, and some younger people are more suitable than some older people. It's doing a great disservice to young people to generalise to the contrary, and of course it's now illegal to discriminate on the grounds of age at both ends of the age spectrum in order to overcome age-related prejudice

Just to clarify when I said creche, I meant the sort who take babies from 8 or 9 months old. I don't believe that being 'farmed out' at that age is good for a baby's development. Yes, socialise them, but nature intended an 8 month old baby to still be with its natural mother for most of the time, not in a creche for 9 hours a day.

On a parallel with what you have said, there are children I teach privately who are well-behaved and terribly polite to me, but totally out of control with their parents.

It is very likely the nursery schools you describe actually create an atmosphere that says, 'we ask you to respect what we say and that you behave as we request'. Verbally spoken words are not always required. I agree that a person in charge (whatever the situation) can very often have a personality or presence which instantly commands attention or respectful behaviour.

Additionally of course, young children don't quite know what to expect of people they don't live with. They know how far they can push things at home and they know they can get away with it too. Boils down to parental control, which should start sooner rather than later.

I think this is probably a very big issue. However in our 'child-centred/child-led' society they often never find out. If a child is sitting in a choir stall, the conductor will probaly make it clear from the outset what is expected, and the same can be the case with a private tutor. The chilren know that ultimately the conductor or tutor will have the final say. However these things are optional. School, for instance, is compulsory, and teachers can't just say, "You do this my way, you conform, or you're out." (Well, they can up to a point, as children are at least expected not to push drugs or murder each other, but really the children know that they will get away with a lot without much repercussion.)

Maybe a bit off-topic, but did anybody hear the recent reports about the child you was in court for throwing a cocktail sausage at a pensioner? What do others think of the fact that the pensioner decided to press charges? It's been viewed as a waste of police time and tax-payers' money, but personally I thought, (of the pensioner) "Good on you, mate!"