"Sugar high" is a myth?

I remember reading that "sugar high" isn't actually real! In other words, children don't actually get overexcited after eating a bunch of sugar.

I find this hard to believe!

But, here's a (pretty old - 1995) meta-analysis which is pretty clear: sugar high is probably a myth.

The meta-analysis covered 23 other studies, and none of them found a significant effect (of sugar intake and child behaviour).

I'm still somewhat skeptical though 😆. Would be interested to delve into more recent analysis and debate.

Do phone bans in schools work?

Most parents have some concerns about phone use. This is an interesting study from the UK, that investigated phone bans in schools.

The study covered 30 schools (20 had phone bans, 10 didn't), with the students aged 12-15.

Their main finding: phone bans don't meaningfully affect/improve mental wellbeing.

Basically the phone bans only reduced phone and social media use slightly, and kids still used their phones at home.

Important point: the phone bans weren't uniform or super strict in all cases -- e.g. some schools just told students keep their phones in their bags.

So we can't say that "phone bans will NEVER work". They just didn't have a huge impact, on average, in the way they were implememted in those 20 schools.

Is "screen time" bad?

As a parent, I wonder if screen time is bad. I came across this study, that seems to be widely debated.

The study basically analysed some large datasets, to examine whether screen time negatively affected teens (controlling for various factors).

What they found: basically almost no effect.

Caveats:

• "screen time" is a huge category: it could include social media doomscrolling, but it could also include doing homework on a computer.

• also, the study didn’t separate how screen time may affect different teens differently (e.g. boy vs girl, different ages).

Subsequent papers have delved deeper, and indeed found not all screen time is harmless.

Thoughts:

1. screen time per se is not necessarily good or bad. We need to look into the specific screen activity.

2. I still worry about eye sight though (kids staring at screens will have worse eyesight?). Need to explore more papers!

The "Marshmellow" test

I remember reading somewhere about the "marshmellow test" – the finding that: if a child could wait longer for a marshmellow (or other snack they liked), the child would be more likely to do well later in life.

Found the original 1990 experiment!

Interestingly, this 2018 study replicated the 1990 experiment.

It basically found the link (between waiting for the marshmellow and later outcomes) to be smaller than the 1990 original – especially after controlling for other factors (like family background, early cognitive ability, etc).

What does this mean?

It doesn't "debunk" the marshmellow test entirely, it just says that other factors matter more.

It seems to me the "marshmellow test" is still an interesting "proxy" test for later outcomes – but unsurprisingly, the full picture matters more.

Ok to let babies cry themselves to sleep?

Came across this study (a small randomised control trial) that tested (a version of) this question.

Basically, they say it's fine. (well, a "gentler" version -- where parents don't completely ignore babies, but wait a few minutes before checking in on crying babies)

The researchers compared two techniques (to put babies to sleep):

• (A) "graduated extinction" (parents wait longer and longer before responding to a baby's cries)

• (B) "bedtime fading" (bedtime is gradually moved later)

• [and a control group, where parents were given basic information]

They were trying to test whether method A (graduated extinction) was harmful (since you let the babies cry by themselves).

Their main conclusion (from the credo summary):

both graduated extinction and bedtime fading led to babies falling asleep faster. The graduated extinction group also woke up less during the night and spent less time awake after falling asleep.

...

After one year, there were no differences between groups in children's emotional or behavioral problems, and no differences in how securely children were attached to their parents

Sleep training -- impact on child 5 years later?

Another "baby sleep strategy" post! This one focused on longer-term impacts of sleep training strategies.

This paper follows an experiment, where one group of parents/baby received nurse assistance (to help with baby sleep strategies), and the other didn't. Researchers also followed up after 5 years.

What did it find? No effect after 5 years -- on parent or child. (But in the immediate term, sleep training does help)

My takeaway? Try specific sleep strategies with your baby; but if it's too late and you didn't -- it's not a long term worry!

Should we tell our kids "good effort" instead of "you're smart"?

TLDR: For some kids (from low socio-economic status / lower-achieving students), it helps. For kids in general, it might help though only a little bit (but might as well do it).

I've heard (a version of) this advise on social media / podcasts a few times (including on this Huberman Labs episode). The idea (roughly speaking) is: we should praise children's "effort" (as opposed to their "ability") -- because if we praise effort, kids will take a "growth" mindset, and try new things/improve (as opposed to have a "fixed ability" mindset and stagnate).

Sounds logical, but I was curious what the research actually says. I looked into two studies:

(1) This 2018 study by Sisk et al. investigated whether growth mindsets improve academic performance. The meta-analyses (covering over 300 other studies) found:

• Overall, having a "growth mindset" or having growth mindset intervention (in schools) only has weak effects on academic achievements.

• However, it also found that students with low socioeconomic status or at academic risk might benefit more from these interventions.

(2) This 2019 standalone randomised control trial by Yeager et al. tested a "growth mindset" lesson with 12,490 ninth graders from 65 schools in the US. It found:

• Critically, among "lower achieving students", the intervention worked. Check out the paper's credo summary to check out the specifics (which are really interesting!).

Following the public debate, it sounds like a takeaway from the 2018 Sisk paper was that "oh growth mindset works, but not by that much", and the 2019 Yeager paper helped emphasised that "well actually for students who aren't doing so well, it actually helps quite a bit".