Endless summer: A Venice sunbather reads in a hammock in this July 23 photo by Chi Fai Chow.
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Two youths were charged in connection with a stabbing of a man at the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona late Sunday, police said.
The two minors, who were not identified because of their age, apparently argued with the victim before one of them stabbed him at 10 p.m., according to Pomona Police Lt. Eddie Vazquez.
It was not clear what the fight was about or what was used as a weapon, Vazquez said.
"It doesn’t seem there was any motive or rhyme or reason to it,” he said.
The youths were detained and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and were being held at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, he said.
The victim, who was not identified, was taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center where he was recovering and in good condition Monday, Vazquez said.
Vazquez said there have been no other major incidents at the fair since it began Saturday.
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Now that children are back in the classroom, are they really learning the lessons that will help them succeed?
Many child development experts worry that the answer may be no. They say the ever-growing emphasis on academic performance and test scores means many children aren’t developing life skills like self-control, motivation, focus and resilience, which are far better predictors of long-term success than high grades. And it may be distorting their and their parents’ values.
“What are we really trying to do when we think about raising kids?” asked Dr. Kenneth R. Ginsburg, an expert in adolescent medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “We’re trying to put in place the ingredients so the child is going to be a successful 35-year-old. It’s not really about getting an A in algebra.”
Take the question of praising a child’s academic achievement. In his new book “Letting Go With Love and Confidence: Raising Responsible, Resilient, Self-Sufficient Teens in the 21st Century” (written with Susan Fitzgerald), Dr. Ginsburg draws a crucial distinction between hard work and simply getting an A or “being smart.”
In one set of studies, children who solved math puzzles were praised for their intelligence or for their hard work. The first group actually did worse on subsequent tests, or took an easy way out, shunning difficult problems. The research suggests that praise for a good effort encourages harder work, while children who are consistently told they are smart do not know what to do when confronted with a difficult problem or reading assignment.
“When we focus on performance, when we say ‘make sure you get A’s,’ we have kids who are terrified of B’s,” Dr. Ginsburg said. “Kids who are praised for effort, those kids learn that intelligence is something that can be built.”
Academic achievement can certainly help children succeed, and for parents there can be a fine line between praising effort and praising performance. Words need to be chosen carefully: Instead of saying, “I’m so proud you got an A on your test,” a better choice is “I’m so proud of you for studying so hard.” Both replies rightly celebrate the A, but the second focuses on the effort that produced it, encouraging the child to keep trying in the future.
Praise outside of academics matters, too. Instead of asking your child how many points she scored on the basketball court, say, “Tell me about the game. Did you have fun? Did you play hard?”
Dr. Ginsburg notes that parents also need to teach their children that they do not have to be good at everything, and there is something to be learned when a child struggles or gets a poor grade despite studying hard.
“One of the feelings people often have is that in order to succeed, a child has to be good at absolutely everything,” he said. “Human beings in the adult world are absolutely uneven, but we don’t accept that in our children — which pressures them in a way that’s incredibly uncomfortable for them.”
One strategy is to teach children that the differences between easy and difficult subjects can provide useful information about their goals and interests. Subjects they enjoy and excel in may become the focus of their careers. Challenging but interesting classes or sports can become hobbies. Subjects that are difficult and uninteresting are just something “you have to get past,” Dr. Ginsburg said.
“We need to approach failure and difficulty and struggle as data that teach us what we should do with our lives,” he said. “It’s when you say to a child, ‘I expect you to do well in everything,’ that we’re preparing them to fail.”
Outside of school, parents have many opportunities to teach children about focus, self-control and critical thinking, said Ellen Galinsky, author of “Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs” and president of the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit research group in New York.
When reading to children, for example, ask them what a character is thinking or feeling. That simple exercise helps develop perspective, an important social cognition skill.
In one experiment, children are given a crayon box but discover it really contains paper clips. Then the child is asked what a friend might think is in the box. Children younger than 4 typically respond “paper clips” because that’s what they know to be true. But about 4, they begin to see things from others’ perspective, understanding that the packaging would mislead another person just as it misled them.
“Perspective taking helps with school readiness and literacy,” Ms. Galinsky said. “The child has to understand a teacher has a different perspective, their friends have different perspectives.”
In young children, playing board games or games like Simon Says or Red Light, Green Light can help develop focus and self-control.
And in older children, parents willing to put in a little extra effort can help children develop critical thinking skills rather than just answering their questions. Ms. Galinsky recalls the time her son complained about boys being portrayed more negatively than girls on television.
She suggested he conduct an experiment: collect data on positive and negative portrayals by watching different shows and keeping a record. And when her son thought his data proved his point, Ms. Galinsky challenged the television sample, noting that he had watched only shows aimed at boys.
“Rather than dismiss it, I told him it was interesting, let’s make a chart,” she said. “I kept pushing back and talked about how to design a really good experiment. He got really into it, and it was an example of not answering him too quickly and letting him find out himself in order to help him become a critical thinker.”
Of course, parents don’t have to help children set up complicated experiments every time they ask a question. But when a question arises, Ms. Galinsky said, resist the temptation to say, “Look it up.” Instead, say, “Let’s look it up,” and guide your child in ways to get the information.
“It’s not just knowing the information,” she said. “It’s knowing how to find the answers to the questions that is the basis of critical thinking.”
The Los Angeles Police Department continues to investigate a shooting Sunday morning that left two USC students wounded.
There have been no arrests and officers are still searching for the shooter, Officer Gregory Baek said Monday.
The incident occurred at about 2 a.m. Sunday at a party in an apartment complex on West 37th Place, police said. Several students confronted a stranger who they said appeared to be stealing items. The stranger pulled out a gun and began firing. A male student was hit in the chest and a female student was shot in the hand. Their names were not released.
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Los Angeles authorities have closed the southbound lanes of the 405 freeway at Skirball Center Drive as they attempt to extinguish a fire in a pickup truck.
Two northbound lanes of the 405 freeway also have been closed, according to California Highway Patrol Officer Francisco Villalobos.
Villalobos said the pickup truck caught fire at about 10:48 a.m. Monday. No injuries were reported, no other vehicles were damaged and the fire had not spread to surrounding brush, he said, but Los Angeles firefighters were still battling the blaze late Monday morning. It was unclear how the fire started, he said.
Villalobos said they hoped to bring it under control and reopen the roadway within a half-hour.
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Two youths were charged in connection with a stabbing of a man at the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona late Sunday, police said.
The two minors, who were not identified because of their age, apparently argued with the victim before one of them stabbed him at 10 p.m., according to Pomona Police Lt. Eddie Vazquez.
It was not clear what the fight was about or what was used as a weapon, Vazquez said.
"It doesn’t seem there was any motive or rhyme or reason to it,” he said.
The youths were detained and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, and were being held at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, he said.
The victim, who was not identified, was taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center where he was recovering and in good condition Monday, Vazquez said.
Vazquez said there have been no other major incidents at the fair since it began Saturday.
RELATED:
Database: Mapping crime in Los Angeles
After 17 years, three strikes law hotly debated
-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske
People with misophonia have an extreme reaction to certain sounds, often becoming enraged or anxious at the sound of chewing or someone clearing his throat, reports today’s Science Times.
Many people can be driven to distraction by certain small sounds that do not seem to bother others — gum chewing, footsteps, whispering, humming. But sufferers of misophonia, a newly recognized condition that remains little studied and poorly understood, take the problem to a higher level.
They also follow a strikingly consistent pattern, experts say. The condition almost always begins in late childhood or early adolescence and worsens over time, often expanding to include more trigger sounds, usually those of eating and breathing….
Misophonia (“dislike of sound”) is sometimes confused with hyperacusis, in which sound is perceived as abnormally loud or physically painful. But they are not the same, said Marsha Johnson, an audiologist in Portland, Ore.
“These people like sound, the louder the better,” she said of misophonia patients. “The sounds they object to are soft, hardly audible sounds.” One patient is driven crazy by her beloved dog licking its paws. Another can’t bear the pop of the plosive “p” in ordinary conversation.
To learn more, read the full report, “When a Chomp or a Slurp Is a Trigger for Outrage.“
