A 9-Year-Old Son Saves His Father from Leukemia by Donating Stem Cells

Nick Mondek with his family after the stem cell procedure – Credit: Cedars-Sinai

A boy in California may have saved his father from a deadly returning cancer by becoming one of if not the world’s youngest stem cell donor.

9-year-old Stephen Mondek from Torrance loves playing catch with his dad, Nick, who himself loves nothing more than being a father.

In 2022 Mr. Mondek was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, and had to be treated rapidly with an injection of donor stem cells from his older brother who was a perfect genetic match.

He went into remission but the cancer came back “ferociously fast,” and Mondek’s only option was that he had to find another stem cell donor. This form of leukemia affects the blood-forming cells in the bone marrow, but an injection of stem cells can form the basis of a new immune arsenal that can locate and attack the leukemia tumors.

A search through the National Bone Marrow Registry failed to turn up a match, but remembering the case of a friend of his, Mondek went into Cedars-Sinai Cancer center in April with a question to his doctors. He was remembering the case of a friend of his who received a lifesaving stem cell donation from his 18-year-old son to cure lymphoma.

“As my doctor came in the room, I said, ‘Could a 9-year-old who’s 70 pounds give us enough stem cells?’” Mondek said to NBC Nightly News.

Ronald Paquette, the clinical director of the Stem Cell and Bone Marrow Transplant Program at Cedars-Sinai Cancer, confirmed that Stephen Mondek who turned 10 back in August, was a possible donor. A child receives half of their DNA from each parent, so Stephen would naturally be a half-match.

Reporting on the story itself, Cedars-Sinai wrote that Paquette said a half-match might make the transplant more effective. A half-matched immune system might more easily recognize and kill the cancer cells in Mondek’s bone marrow, and transplants from younger donors tend to be most successful.

“The conversation with Stephen was pretty simple,” Mondek said. “I said, ‘Hey, Buddy, Dad’s sick and they need someone to give me stem cells, and they want to know if you want to get tested to see if you can do it.’”

Stephen’s response: “When do we go?”

“I wanted to make my dad’s cancer go away, and if I was sick, I would think he would do the same thing for me,” Stephen said.

After confirming that Stephen was a suitable match, he had the procedure explained to him so that he could give his own informed consent before visiting Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s Hospital for the donation that required general anesthesia. The stem cells were collected via a process of blood cycling over 6 hours.

A week later, Mondek underwent pre-donation chemotherapy to suppress his own immune system before eventually receiving the stem cells. After 6 weeks in the hospital, he was back home, but not before arriving in time to watch the final inning of Stephen’s little league game.

“Stephen was very brave, and our team made sure everything went perfectly so that this young boy could help his father,” said Hoyoung Chung, DO, a critical care pediatrician at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s.“He donated six million stem cells to save my life, so it’s not just an honor to call him my son, I’m proud to call him my hero,” Mondek said. A 9-Year-Old Son Saves His Father from Leukemia by Donating Stem Cells

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Dozens of Free Summer Camps Opened By Paul Newman Give Sick Kids and Their Families ‘Serious Fun’

June marks the start of summer camps opening their doors to kids who want fun in the wild—and for children with an illness or disability, there’s a camp that provides ‘serious fun’ for those who need it most.

The legendary actor Paul Newman started it all with a single summer camp for sick kids back in 1988.

He called it the “Hole in the Wall” camp, a reference to the sharpshooting gang from his iconic Oscar-winning film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

He wanted to provide an escape for children facing serious illnesses—but one that would include their parents and siblings too—where, as Paul liked to say, families could “kick back, and raise a little hell.”

Most important of all, everything was always free.

Since then, the camps have gained a new name—SeriousFun—and have grown into a network of 30 camps across the world. In all, they have provided two million incredible experiences for kids facing medical challenges in 19 different countries.

Paul Newman with his daughter Clea – Credit: Serious Fun

Each of the 30 SeriousFun camps is fully equipped for pediatric care, with a staff that administers medication in a manner that doesn’t disrupt the fun. Camp activities include boating and swimming—but also high-end excitement like high-ropes courses and zip lines. (See the video at the bottom.) Best of all, kids love it…

“You automatically click (with everyone) because you have something in common. You’re not alone in this,” said Alex, a child with Sickle Cell Disease that has attended the SeriousFun Flying Horse Farms Camp in Ohio. “It puts a smile on so many people’s faces. It makes them feel connected. It definitely is the highlight of my year, every year.”

Clea Newman—the youngest daughter of Paul and his wife of 50 years, actress Joanne Woodward—has dedicated the last 12 years of her life to the beloved organization, working enthusiastically to continue her father’s legacy.

Clea Newman – Credit: Serious Fun

“I am so passionate about this work. Our kids and our families are just the most extraordinary people. I learn from them every day, so it’s a gift,” Clea said.

“My father believed in the importance of giving back. He always said we are committed to giving these children one hundred percent… and, in return, the joy of these kids gives back one thousand percent to everyone who works with and supports them.”

All those efforts are paying off for the kids, too. According to surveys conducted by SeriousFun, more than 80% of campers reported that their experience played a role in the development of lasting traits that they use in their everyday adolescent and adult lives. These attributes include a willingness to try new things, self-confidence, perseverance, empathy, compassion, and an appreciation for diversity.

Other benefits for families may be too great to even measure.

“It’s brought the family unit back together,” a parent at the SeriousFun camp at Barretstown in Ireland said.

“It was bringing back an element of fun that had been missing for a long time because all we’d been used to was going in and out of hospitals. It helped heal the kids’ souls. It helped us find that new normal… it’s all about maximum fun in minimum time.”

Proceeds from the Newman’s Own food brand partially fund the camp (along with corporate and private donations), so the next time you’re shopping for frozen pizza, pasta sauce, salad dressing, lemonade, or popcorn, look for Paul’s face and the slogan ‘All profits to charity’. (You can buy their products in the grocery store or on Amazon.)Now you know you’ll always be supporting a seriously fun charity. Check out the heartwarming camp in the video below… Dozens of Free Summer Camps Opened By Paul Newman Give Sick Kids and Their Families ‘Serious Fun’

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Rescued Crow Is Boy’s Best Friend, Waiting for Him to Get Home from School Every Day: ‘We’re his flock’

Otto and Russell the crow – Courtesy Lærke Luna / Instagram

Get ready to drop your jaw when you see the images that a Danish family has shared on Instagram of how a wild Eurasian crow has become part of their flock.

The crow will come and visit all of them, including the dog and the cats, but it’s for the little boy Otto whom Russell reserves the vast majority of his love—and their friendship is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Russell is no caged corvid. He disappears from the family’s property in Denmark often.

However, whether it’s pecking at the door, flying through the window onto the couch, or waiting for Otto on top of the house when he gets home from Kindergarten, the bird is never far away.

After finding the orphaned juvenile bird, Otto’s mom and dad were not able to find anyone in the area to rehabilitate him, so while nursing him back to health, and then into its fledging stage, the crow grew to trust the family.

Otto and Russell – Courtesy of @laerke_luna on Instagram

He’s been with them a while now, and has been nearby to welcome the couple’s second child, Hedwig, into the world.In fact, too often he tries to steal the baby’s pacifier. Rescued Crow Is Boy’s Best Friend, Waiting for Him to Get Home from School Every Day: ‘We’re his flock

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Four-year-old Credited with Saving Her Teacher’s Life at Tennessee Daycare

The lifesaver, Kyndal Bradley – credit, family photo

4-year-old Kyndal Bradley knows how to use a phone to call her mother, but how to call 911, or even when to do so, has not been talked about.

So imagine the surprise of her mother and the teaching staff at a Tennessee daycare when, during a medical emergency, it was Kyndal who took action.

Witnesses say that the teacher at the daycare in Clarksville collapsed and suffered a seizure. She had been the only adult in the room, and while the rest of the class stood there confused, Kyndal ran to get help.

“I told the teacher,” Kyndal told local news. “I said the other teacher; she was sick”.

Paramedics on scene found out that the teacher had stopped breathing twice, and rushed her to the hospital where WSMV reports she is recovering.

Shortly after, the staff at the daycare arrived at the door of Taylor Moore, Kyndal’s mother for a deserved bit of show (off) and tell.

“They were like, ‘She’s our hero for the day,’ and I’m kind of looking like, what happened?” said Moore. “If she hadn’t have gone and got the assistance, this story could have gone a totally different way.”

“I never thought to introduce what to do if an emergency arises, so it was a shock to me to see that she knew exactly what to do in a situation like that,” Moore told WSMV over a videocall, with Kyndal in her arms smiling from ear to ear. Four-year-old Credited with Saving Her Teacher’s Life at Tennessee Daycare

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UK to Lift 100,000 Kids From Poverty With Free School Lunches for All Low Income Households

– credit Curated Lifestyle for Unsplash +

The UK government has announced that 500,000 additional children will receive a free school lunch following a major expansion in the program that provides it.

Previously, the free meal was available only to students who come from the lowest of low-income households. Following the expansion, most low and middle-class citizens will be able to qualify, and the government says it will lift 100,000 students out of poverty from the cost savings which will amount to around £500 per month, corresponding to nearly $700.

Despite having a ceiling of £7,400-per year for eligibility, last year an estimated 2.1 million students received a free school meal.

A rather arbitrary cut-off point, someone making £8,000 per year hardly possesses greater means to pay for the school meal than someone making below the cutoff point.

Under the new plan, any students from households on the UK’s universal credit will be eligible to receive one free meal a day. The universal credit replaced a number of British welfare programs, and provides a monthly cost of living assistance handout to people living in a variety of situations with a net worth of less than $20,000.

Set to begin at the outset of the 2026 scholastic year, the new expansion will also address food quality, and will be fully, rather than partially funded, to ensure there’s no delay in getting the expansion moving.

“Today’s historic step will help us to deliver excellence everywhere, for every child and give more young people the chance to get on in life,” the UK’s education secretary Bridget Phillipson said, adding “background shouldn’t mean destiny.”

The decision comes amid a record-high level of childhood poverty in one of Europe’s largest economies. The new Labor government under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to drive down poverty levels in the UK, and the expansion of the student meal program was a part of that.

Free school lunches became a hot topic during the administration of Boris Johnson, when the young black Manchester United star Marcus Rashford decided to criticize Johnson for reducing the size of the free school lunch program.

While some sport pundits believed Rashford’s aim was noble, they also felt he should focus on his soccer. But he persevered and the government relented. Through this and his work with hunger charities in the city of Manchester, he was presented with an MBE, the British order of merit below a knighthood, for his advocacy work on behalf of England’s poorest students. UK to Lift 100,000 Kids From Poverty With Free School Lunches for All Low Income Households

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Whatever happened to Barbie’s feet? Podiatrists studied 2,750 dolls to find out

Cylie Williams, Monash University and Helen Banwell, University of South Australia

What do you get when a group of podiatrists (and shoe lovers) team up with a Barbie doll collector? A huge opportunity to explore how Barbie reflects changes in the types of shoes women wear.

It all started with the blockbuster Barbie movie in 2023. In particular, we discussed a scene when Barbie was distressed to find she didn’t have to walk on tip-toes. She could walk on flat feet.

Soon, we had designed a research project to study the feet of Barbie dolls on the market from her launch in 1959 to June 2024. That’s 2,750 Barbies in all.

How this scene from the Barbie movie inspired our research project.

In our study published today, we found a general shift away from Barbie’s iconic feet – on tip-toes, ready to slip on high-heeled shoes – to flat feet for flat shoes.

We found, like many women today, Barbie “chooses” her footwear depending on what she has to do – flats for skateboarding or working as an astronaut but heels when dressing up for a night out.

We also question whether high heels that Barbie and some women choose to wear are really as bad for your health as we’ve been led to believe.

The movie that sparked the #barbiefootchallenge

Barbie’s feet – in particular her tip-toe posture – triggered TikTok’s #barbiefoottrend and #barbiefootchallenge. When the movie was released, fans made videos to re-create how Barbie stepped out of her high-heeled shoes, yet stayed on tip-toes. Margot Robbie, the Australian actor who played Barbie in the movie, was even interviewed about it.

Despite the obvious interest in Barbie’s iconic foot stance, there had been no specific research on her feet or choice of footwear.

So our research team decided to look at how Barbie’s feet had changed over the years to reflect the kinds of shoes she’s worn, and how that ties in with her different jobs and growing diversity.

What we did

One of our research team has an extensive Barbie doll collection. This guided our search through online catalogues to examine the foot positions of 2,750 Barbie dolls.

Our custom-made audit tool allowed us to classify Barbie’s foot posture as tip-toe (known as equinus) or flat.

We also looked at when the dolls were made, whether they were diverse or inclusive (for instance, represented people with disabilities), and whether Barbie was employed.

What we found

We were surprised that Barbie’s high-heel wearing foot posture was no longer the norm. Barbie does, however, still wear high heels when dressed for fun.

We found, just like Barbie in the movie, she’s made a transition from high heels (equinus foot posture) to flat shoes (flat foot posture), especially when employed.

We suggest this mirrors broader societal changes. This includes how women choose footwear according to how much they have to move in the day, and away from only wearing high heels in some workplaces.

Barbie ditched her high-heel wearing foot posture as she climbed the career ladder. In the 1960s, all Barbies tip-toed around, but by the 2020s, only 40% did.

Meanwhile, her resume expanded, going from not being represented as having a job to 33% representing real-world jobs.

She was an astronaut in 1965, before the Moon landing, and a surgeon when the vast majority of doctors in the United States were men.

US laws changed in the late 80s, supporting women to own businesses without a man’s permission. And Barbie mirrored this.

She started trading stilettos for flats and strutting into male-dominated fields. Barbie didn’t just break the mould, she kicked it off with low-heeled shoes.

Barbie also evolved to better reflect the population. We found a moderate link between her having flat feet and representing diversity or disability.

For example, she chooses a stable flat shoe when using a prosthetic limb. But it was also great to see her break footwear stereotypes by wearing high heels when using a wheelchair.

Are high heels so bad?

Some celebrities, the media and public health advice warn against wearing high heels. But we know women (and Barbie) choose to wear them from time to time. In fact it’s discussions about women’s shoe choices that also gave us the idea for this fun research.

For instance, health professionals often link high-heeled shoes with developing bunions, knee osteoarthritis, back pain or being injured.

However bunions, and knee and back pain are just as common in people who don’t wear high heels.

Studies exploring the risk of high heels are also often performed with people who don’t usually wear high heels, or during competitive sports.

We couldn’t find any investigations exploring the long-term effect of wearing high heels.

Research does show that high-heeled shoes make you walk slower and make it harder to balance.

But high heels have different features, such as heel height or shape. So different types of high heels probably present a different risk. That risk also probably differs from person to person, including how often they walk in heels.

Lessons for all shoe lovers

But back to Barbie and lessons we learned. We know Barbie is a social construct that reflects some aspects of the real world. She chooses heels when fashion is the goal and flat shoes when needing speed and stability.

Rather than demonise high heels, messages about footwear need to evolve to acknowledge choice, and trust women can balance their own priorities and needs.

As Barbie’s journey shows, women already make thoughtful shoe choices based on comfort, function and identity.

Cylie Williams, Professor, School of Primary and Allied Health Care, Monash University and Helen Banwell, Senior lecturer in Podiatry, University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Child Born with Heart Outside Chest Becomes Solitary Survivor Thanks to Surgical Procedure Invented for Her

Vanellope with her mom – credit, supplied by the family

Last Wednesday, a team of English surgeons and attendants arrived in the city of Leicester to be briefed on an upcoming surgery never before attempted or imagined in the history of the country.

Their patient was Vanellope Wilkins, the solitary survivor known to British medicine of ectopia cordis, a condition where a fetus develops with its heart outside its body.

Over a period of 9 hours, the team which included visiting surgeons from London would form a protective cage around Vanellope’s heart by reforming her ribs, and though her team included some of the best pediatric surgeons in the country, the procedure had never been done before, and was invented specifically for Vanellope’s case.

Born in November 2017, the child had to be kept in intensive neonatal care for the first 14 months of her life.

Requiring a large amount of medical supervision, she is both autistic and nonverbal. Graphic imagery obtained by the BBC shows Vanellope—her heart exposed in the center of her chest after it got caught and then fused onto her skin during development.

Ectopia cordis occurs in just a few babies per million births and has a low survival rate, and Vanellope required surgery immediately upon entering the world, a process which itself required 50 people to oversee.

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Consultant pediatric surgeon Nitin Patwardhan was there when it happened, and was one of the surgeons who recently stitched Vanellope’s heart back behind her chest bone.

“I’d lie if I say I don’t get nervous,” Dr. Patwardhan told the BBC on the morning of the surgery. “But having been in this profession for so many years, you actually look forward to it because at the end of the day, you’re doing something that will change somebody’s life.”

A handful of children in the US have also survived this condition, and now at 7 years of age, Vanellope has been deemed suitable for a permanent solution to her unique medical hazard.

Placed on a bypass machine, Dr. Patwardhan and his team detached her right ventricular outflow tract and pulmonary artery from where they were attached to the skin, before breaking her ribs and reforming them in a protective cage around the heart’s new location.

A sense of history and anticipation was present in the theater before and during the procedure, BBC reports. The operation was a success, and when the team was allowed to retire from the day’s work, they dubbed Vanellope “one of a kind,” in the truest sense of the word.

“The best satisfaction we derive from this is when you get a text message from the mom to say ‘thank you, you guys are amazing’,” Ikenna Omeje, another of the surgical team who also operated on Vanellope when she was born, told the BBC.

“I think personally, I have just done my job, but it has made a difference to someone and that is very satisfying.”Naomi Findlay, Vanellope’s mother, says that in the past, bringing her into the hospital has always been a frightful episode, but now, with her daughter recovering in the pediatric intensive care unit, she’s become quietly confidant, and can’t wait to take her back home to see her brothers and younger sister. Child Born with Heart Outside Chest Becomes Solitary Survivor Thanks to Surgical Procedure Invented for Her

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How to learn a language like a baby

Kateřina Chládková, Charles University; Šárka Šimáčková, Palacky University Olomouc, and Václav Jonáš Podlipský, Palacky University Olomouc

Learning a new language later in life can be a frustrating, almost paradoxical experience. On paper, our more mature and experienced adult brains should make learning easier, yet it is illiterate toddlers who acquire languages with apparent ease, not adults.

Babies start their language-learning journey in the womb. Once their ears and brains allow it, they tune into the rhythm and melody of speech audible through the belly. Within months of birth, they start parsing continuous speech into chunks and learning how words sound. By the time they crawl, they realise that many speech chunks label things around them. It takes over a year of listening and observing before children say their first words, with reading and writing coming much later.

However, for adults learning a foreign language, the process is typically reversed. They start by learning words, often from print, and try to pronounce them before grasping the language’s overall sound.

Tuning in to a new language

Our new study shows that adults can quickly pick up on the melodic and rhythmic patterns of a completely novel language. It confirms that the relevant native-language acquisition mechanism remains intact in the adult brain.

In our experiment, 174 Czech adults listened to 5 minutes of Māori, a language they had never heard. They were then tested on new audio clips from either Māori or Malay – another unfamiliar but similar language – and asked to say if they were hearing the same language as before or not.

The test phrases were acoustically filtered to mimic speech heard in the womb. This preserved melody and rhythm, but removed the frequencies higher than 900 Hz which contain consonant and vowel detail.

Listeners correctly distinguished the languages more often than not, showing that even very brief exposure was enough for them to implicitly grasp a language’s melodic and rhythmic patterns, much like babies do.

However, during the exposure phase, only one group of participants simply listened – three other groups listened while reading subtitles. The subtitles were either in the original Māori spelling where speech sounds consistently map onto specific letters (similar to Spanish), altered to reduce sound-letter correspondence (like in English, for example “sight”, “site”, “cite”), or they were transliterated to a script unknown to any of the participants (Hebrew).

The results showed that reading alphabetic spellings actually hampered the adults’ sensitisation to the overall melody and rhythm of the novel language, reducing their test performance. As complete beginners, the participants were able to learn more Māori without textual aids of any kind.

Initial illiteracy helps learning

Our research builds on previous studies, which have found that spelling can interfere with how learners pronounce individual vowels and consonants of a non-native language. Examples among learners of English include Italian learners lengthening double letters, or Spaniards confusing words like “sheep” and “ship” due to how “i” and “e” are read in Spanish.

Our study shows that spelling can even hinder our natural ability to listen to speech melody and rhythm. Experts looking for ways to reawaken adults’ language-learning capabilities should therefore consider the potentially negative impact of premature exposure to alphabetic spelling in a foreign language.

Early studies have proposed that a putative “sensitive period” for acquiring the sound patterns of a language ends around age 6. Not coincidentally, this is the age when many children learn to read. There is also research on infants that shows that starting with the global features of speech, such as its melody and rhythm, serves as a gateway to other levels of the native language.

A reversed approach to language learning – one that begins with written forms – may indeed undercut adults’ sensitisation to the melody and rhythm of a foreign language. It affects their ability to perceive and produce speech fluently and, by extension, other linguistic competences like grammar and vocabulary usage.

A study with first- and third-graders confirms that illiterate children learn a new language differently from literate children. Non-readers were much better at learning which article went with which noun (like in the Italian “il bambino” or “la bambina”) than at learning individual nouns. In contrast, readers’ learning was influenced by the written form, which puts a space between articles and nouns.

Learn like a baby

Listening without reading letters may help us to stop focusing on individual vowels, consonants and separate words, and instead absorb the overall flow of a language much like infants do. Our research suggests that adult learners might benefit from adopting a more auditory-focused approach – engaging with spoken language first before introducing reading and writing.

The implications for language teaching are significant. Traditional methods often place a heavy emphasis on reading and writing early on, but a shift toward immersive listening experiences could accelerate spoken proficiency.

Language learners and educators alike should therefore consider adjusting their methods. This means tuning in to conversations, podcasts, and native speech from the earliest stage of language learning, and not immediately seeking out the written word.

Kateřina Chládková, Assistant professor, Charles University; Šárka Šimáčková, assistant professor, Palacky University Olomouc, and Václav Jonáš Podlipský, Assistant Professor of English Phonetics, Palacky University Olomouc

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Children in need of ‘rescuing’: challenging the myths at the heart of the global adoption industry

Samara Kim, Southern Cross University; Kathomi Gatwiri, Southern Cross University, and Lynne McPherson, Southern Cross University

Korean adoptees worldwide are grappling with a devastating possibility: they were not truly orphans, but may have been made into orphans.

For decades, adoptees were told they were “abandoned”, “rescued” or “unwanted”. Many were told their Korean families were too “poor” or “incapable” to raise them – and they should only ever feel grateful for being adopted.

But these long-held stories are now under scrutiny.

Our recent research interrogates the narratives that have obscured the darker realities of intercountry adoption. Rather than viewing adoption solely through the lens of “rescue”, our work examines the broader power structures that facilitated the mass migration of Korean children to western countries, including Australia.

South Korea’s reckoning with its adoption history

In March, South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its preliminary findings after collecting records and testimony from a coalition of overseas Korean adoptee-led organisations (including the Australia–US Korean Rights Group).

The preliminary report revealed a disturbing pattern of human rights violations in the country’s adoption industry, including:

• forced relinquishments
• falsified records
• babies switched at adoption
• inadequate screening processes, and
• deep-rooted institutional corruption.
  

The commission’s chair described finding

serious violations of the rights of adoptees, their biological parents – particularly Korean single mothers – and others involved. These violations should never have occurred.

The commission is expected to release its final report soon, but due to the upcoming presidential election and political uncertainty in South Korea, the timeline remains unclear.

Chilling cases

This is not the first time intercountry adoption has made headlines for irregularities, human rights abuses, or illicit and illegal practices.

While Australia was expanding the number of children for intercountry adoption from South Korea in the 1980s, Park In-keun – director of South Korea’s infamous Brothers Home, an illegal detention facility that sent children overseas for adoption – was arrested for embezzlement and illegal confinement.

He was ultimately acquitted of the most serious charges in South Korea before escaping to Australia. He was then charged again in 2014 for embezzlement, including government subsidies and wages of inmates forced into slave labour in South Korea. He died two years later.

Other allegations of human rights violations and abuses came to light around the same time with the arrest of Julie Chu.

She was accused of facilitating a “baby export” syndicate. Children were believed to have been kidnapped from Taiwan to send to Western countries, including Australia, in the 1970s and 80s. She was convicted of forgery, but denied being involved in trafficking.

Since then, other cases have continued to emerge involving countries such as Chile, Sri Lanka, India, Ethiopia and Guatemala.

What is the adoption industrial complex?

Intercountry adoption is not just a social practice. It’s also an economic and political system sometimes known as the transnational adoption industrial complex.

This network of organisations, institutions, government policies and financial systems created a globalised adoption economy worth billions of dollars. According to numerous investigations, Western nations, as “receiving” countries, drove the demand for the continuous sourcing of children.

As Park Geon-Tae, a senior investigator with South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said:

To put it simply, there was supply because there was demand.

Australia received an estimated 3,600 Korean children from the 1970s to the present, as part of more than 10,000 intercountry adoptions.

Prospective parents typically paid between US$4,500 and $5,000 to facilitate acquiring a child in Australia in the 1980s, equivalent to A$21,000 today.

Since colonisation, Australia has had a long and painful history of child removal. From the Stolen Generations involving First Nations children to the forced adoption of children born to unwed mothers, child separation has been deeply embedded in the nation’s social policy.

While national apologies have acknowledged the irreparable harms caused by these policies, the same ideologies and structures were repurposed as the blueprint for intercountry adoption.

In recent years, other western nations, such as Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, have begun to investigate their own roles in the intercountry adoption industry. These nations have either suspended their adoption programs, issued formal apologies or launched formal investigations.

Thus far, Australia and the United States have not.

Challenging the ‘rescue’ myth

Intercountry adoption has long been framed as a humanitarian act. The central idea was that children needed “rescuing” and any life in a Western country would be “better” than one with their families in their home country.

Many adoptees and their original families were expected to just move on or be grateful for being “saved”.

However, research shows this gratitude narrative disregards the deep trauma caused by forced separation.

Studies have reported that adoptees experience lifelong ruptures due to cultural, familial and ancestral displacement. Forced assimilation makes reconnection with family and culture complex or nearly impossible.

Many intercountry adoptees have also voiced concerns about abuse, violence and mistreatment in adoptive homes.

Questioning the ‘orphan crisis’ myth

The myth of a global orphan crisis has also been a powerful driver of intercountry adoption.

Adoption groups often reference outdated UNICEF estimates that there are 150 million orphans globally. However, this figure obscures the fact most of the children classified as “orphans” are children of single parents, or children currently living in homes with extended family or other caregivers.

This was the case in South Korea. Most children sent for adoption were not true orphans, but children who had at least one parent or extended family they could have stayed with if they were adequately supported.

The belief that millions of children of single parents were “orphans” in need of “rescue” was used to justify calls for faster, less regulated adoptions.

Labelling these children as “orphans” also helped attract millions of dollars in philanthropic donations. However, donors were rarely interested in supporting children to stay with their families and communities in their home countries.

Instead, the focus was often on removing and migrating them for the purpose of intercountry adoption.

The question then emerges: was this about finding families for babies or finding babies for Western families?

Samara Kim, PhD Candidate & Researcher, Southern Cross University; Kathomi Gatwiri, Associate Professor, Southern Cross University, and Lynne McPherson, Associate Professor, Southern Cross University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Girl Joins Mensa at 13 After Scoring Higher Than Albert Einstein–Even with No Exam Prep

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A 13-year-old girl has been invited to join the Mensa society after getting the maximum score on the IQ test—higher than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

Sofia Kot Arcuri has been accepted into the club after achieving 162, the highest possible score for a girl of her age.

Proud mom Cecylia Kot Arcuri said she always knew Sofia was smart, but didn’t expect her to ace the test without any preparatory work.

“She just walks around throwing random facts at you,” Mrs. Arcuri said, adding that she has been top of her class from the moment she started school. “When you think of someone of high intelligence, you’d think they’d be quite geeky, but really, she’s a normal girl.”

“She’s got loads of friends, is bubbly, and loved by everyone.”

The Mensa High-IQ Society has been around for over 100 years, and focuses on welcoming those extremely gifted minds among us into a space of collaboration and camaraderie. The American chapter of Mensa boasts 50,000 members of the over 150,000, located in 90+ countries worldwide.

Isaac Asimov, Commander Chris Hadfield, Steve Martin, and John McAfee were all members of Mensa, along with the inventor of the mobile phone and author of The Clan of the Cave Bear novels.

Due to Sofia’s intense workload from school, she “didn’t have time to prepare” for the Mensa test in January, and hadn’t practiced any Mensa tests prior to the big day.

Her mother said she was over the moon after receiving her results on March 14th.

Sofia is top of her class in computer science and wants to pursue a career in coding when she grows up.

“She came home one day and said, ‘there was a bug the teacher didn’t even know how to solve, and I did it,” said the understandably proud Cecylia.

SWNS

“She’s also a ballet dancer and performs in shows with her dance school. She loves musical theatre and is always playing the piano.”

Cecylia’s father and Sophia’s grandfather, Antoni Kot, was a head teacher and mathematician who was very well known in his homeland of Poland, tutoring students until age 86 when he died.“His brain was sharp even in his last minutes, and we believe Sofia inherited her love of math and coding from him,” she said. Girl Joins Mensa at 13 After Scoring Higher Than Albert Einstein–Even with No Exam Prep

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10-Year-old Paramedic Teaches Adults Lifesaving Skills and CPR as ‘The Mini Medic’

10-yo paramedic Jack Dawson teaches lifesaving skills – SWNS

Meet the 10-year-old paramedic who teaches adults life-saving procedures as an in-demand mini-medic.

Jack Dawson was just two-years-old when it became obvious he was interested in becoming a paramedic.

His grandfather owns a first response company in Staffordshire, England, and Jack would ride along in his ambulances with the flashing blue lights. By age three, he would start “randomly performing CPR on his teddies, pumping the bear’s chest”.

“So, at the same time he was learning to speak, my husband and I decided to teach him first aid,” said his mother, Danielle. “He was like a sponge. He just picked everything up so quickly.”

Jack, quickly grasped the act of CPR, understanding the different recovery positions, and learned how to use a defibrillator.

Then, at age seven, the youngster started to lead workshop sessions of his own, overseen by his father and other trainers for their charity, Tamworth Have A Heart, which aims to make automatic defibrillators publicly accessible and train people to use them confidently.

Jack teaches both children and adults how to perform CPR and use defibrillators, while also patrolling his town centre and checking that the public defibrillators’ pads and batteries are up to date and fit for use. (Watch a demonstration at the end of the article…)

“His motto was ‘if I can save a life, then you can’,” says Danielle.

The sessions often draw 20-40 people and sometimes Jack gives presentations teaching in front of 100 people.

10-yo mini-medic Jack Dawson teaches lifesaving skills to adults – SWNS

He does step-by-step walkthroughs on how to perform CPR with practice dummies laid on the floor, informing people about the dangers—including “looking into patients airways before pumping, in case of vomit or blood”. He gives tutorials on how to operate defibrillators which are used to revive someone from sudden cardiac arrest.

“He absolutely loves teaching,” Danielle told SWNS news agency. “I’ve never seen him so confident before and the fact he’s helping people to save a life determines him even more.”

“People are very surprised. He gets a lot of positive feedback and even special requests to teach people.

“I think people appreciate the information coming from a child, as it makes them think that if a 10-year-old can do it, then they can.”

Under the name ‘Mini Medic’, Jack has a YouTube channel and a page on TikTok posting medical tutorials and training nights for those unable to attend.

As a result of his community work, the 10-year-old is a finalist for Children of Courage Birmingham Awards.

Looking forward, Danielle said he’s enthusiastic about going to university and being a paramedic. “It’s all he thinks about!”WATCH the video below from the news agency SWNS.com… 10-Year-old Paramedic Teaches Adults Lifesaving Skills and CPR as ‘The Mini Medic’

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How to watch a scary movie with your child

Carol Newall, Macquarie University

On Halloween, the cinemas and TV channels are filled with horror movies. But what should you do if you have a young child who wants to watch too?

Many of us have a childhood memory of a movie that gave us nightmares and took us to a new level of fear. Maybe this happened by accident. Or maybe it happened because an adult guardian didn’t choose the right movie for your age.

For me it was The Exorcist. It was also the movie that frightened my mum when she was a youngster. She had warned me not to watch it. But I did. I then slept outside my parents’ room for months for fear of demonic possession.

Parents often ask about the right age for “scary” movies. A useful resource is The Australian Council of Children and the Media, which provides colour-coded age guides for movies rated by child development professionals.

Let’s suppose, though, that you have made the decision to view a scary movie with your child. What are some good rules of thumb in managing this milestone in your child’s life?

Watch with a parent or a friend

Research into indirect experiences can help us understand what happens when a child watches a scary movie. Indirect fear experiences can involve watching someone else look afraid or hurt in a situation or verbal threats (such as “the bogeyman with sharp teeth will come at midnight for children and eat them”).

Children depend very much on indirect experiences for information about danger in the world. Scary movies are the perfect example of these experiences. Fortunately, research also shows that indirectly acquired fears can be reduced by two very powerful sources of information: parents and peers.

In one of our recent studies, we showed that when we paired happy adult faces with a scary situation, children showed greater fear reduction than if they experienced that situation on their own. This suggests that by modelling calm and unfazed behaviour, or potentially even expressing enjoyment about being scared during a movie (notice how people burst into laughter after a jump scare at theatres?), parents may help children be less fearful.

There is also some evidence that discussions with friends can help reduce fear. That said, it’s important to remember that children tend to become more similar to each other in threat evaluation after discussing a scary or ambiguous event with a close friend. So it might be helpful to discuss a scary movie with a good friend who enjoys such movies and can help the child discuss their worries in a positive manner.

Get the facts

How a parent discusses the movie with their child is also important. Children do not have enough experience to understand the statistical probability of dangerous events occurring in the world depicted on screen. For example, after watching Jaws, a child might assume that shark attacks are frequent and occur on every beach.

Children need help to contextualise the things they see in movies. One way of discussing shark fears after viewing Jaws might be to help your child investigate the statistics around shark attacks (the risk of being attacked is around 1 in 3.7 million) and to acquire facts about shark behaviours (such as that they generally do not hunt humans).

These techniques are the basis of cognitive restructuring, which encourages fact-finding rather than catastrophic thoughts to inform our fears. It is also an evidence-based technique for managing excessive anxiety in children and adults.

Exposure therapy

If your child is distressed by a movie, a natural reaction is to prevent them watching it again. I had this unfortunate experience when my seven-year-old daughter accidentally viewed Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, which featured a monster with knives for limbs who ate children’s eyeballs for recreation.

My first instinct was to prevent my daughter watching the movie again. However, one of the most effective ways of reducing excessive and unrealistic fear is to confront it again and again until that fear diminishes into boredom. This is called exposure therapy.

To that end, we subjected her and ourselves to the same movie repeatedly while modelling calm and some hilarity - until she was bored. We muted the sound and did silly voice-overs and fart noises for the monster. We drew pictures of him with a moustache and in a pair of undies. Thankfully, she no longer identifies this movie as one that traumatised her.

This strategy is difficult to execute because it requires tolerating your child’s distress. In fact, it is a technique that is the least used by mental health professionals because of this.

However, when done well and with adequate support (you may need an experienced psychologist if you are not confident), it is one of the most effective techniques for reducing fear following a scary event like an accidental horror movie.

Fear is normal

Did I ever overcome my fear of The Exorcist? It took my mother checking my bed, laughing with me about the movie, and re-affirming that being scared is okay and normal for me to do so (well done mum!)

Fear is a normal and adaptive human response. Some people, including children, love being scared. There is evidence that volunteering to be scared can lead to a heightened sense of accomplishment for some of us, because it provides us with a cognitive break from our daily stress and worries.

Hopefully, you can help ensure that your child’s first scary movie experience is a memorable, enjoyable one.

Carol Newall, Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Three Children Receive ‘the Best Christmas Present Ever’ – Bionic Arms

Colette Baker, Finley Jarvis, and Zoey Pidgeon-Hampton with their new Open Bionics arms – credit: SWNS

Three children were overjoyed after receiving ‘the best Christmas present in the world’—bionic arms.

Zoey Hampton-Pigeon, Finley Jarvis, and Colette Baker were given their new ‘life-changing’ Hero Arms on December 12th thanks to the fundraising work of a woman whose own child needed a prosthetic years ago.

Sarah Lockey saw her daughter Tilly lose both hands to meningitis. Today though, Tilly is a confident young woman who wears two Hero Arms daily, who hosts, together with her mom, a fundraising campaign every year called the Big Hero 3, which selects three random children across the UK to receive a prosthetic made by the Open Bionics Foundation.

Advanced, intuitive, robust, and light, the Hero Arm is “the world’s most affordable advanced multi-grip prosthetic arm,” according to the Foundation. The Hero Arm is available in over 801 locations across the US for below-elbow amputee adults and children aged 8 and above, and all throughout the UK where it is manufactured.

This year, the Big Hero 3 campaign raised £20,000. Two other charitable foundations, along with an anonymous donor, made up the rest of the £40,000 required, allowing Finley, Colette, and Zoey to have what will probably be the best Christmas ever.

To wit, Colette’s mom Alyse said her daughter ‘screamed’ when she found out she was not only receiving a Hero Arm, but would get one before Christmas.

“For Ettie, she’s excited about being able to do things like handstands, ride her bike without an adaption, and tying her shoes,” she said. “As parents, we are excited about these things too, but also all the other ways the Hero Arm will change Ettie’s life.”

Zoey was born with a missing limb, which the family discovered during an ultrasound in the 20th week.

“When Zoey was born she saw several specialists but there are no answers about why this happened to Zoey, it’s just one of those things,” said her father Thomas.

His daughter is an active young girl and member of a gymnastics club. She goes to swimming lessons and loves trampolining, but she’s most looking forward to being able to use a jump rope.

“A Hero Arm will make such a massive difference to her independence enabling her to do all these tasks, as well as her beloved skipping, without relying on help from others.”

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The last child is Finley Jarvis—born with no hand due to his mom being involved in a serious car accident whilst carrying him.

“Finn is a happy-go-lucky boy—he is kind, fearless, and extremely switched on,” said his father Ben. “He is now 11 and about to attend Brymore Academy secondary school—an agricultural school. With this opportunity of a Big Hero Arm the possibilities for him to excel are endless.”

MORE HERO ARM RECIPIENTS:

Lockey said she and Tilly are hoping to do another campaign next year if any donors who want to get involved to help are interested.“It is just incredible for three children to benefit and for their families all to meet and fundraise together,” Lockey said. Three Children Receive ‘the Best Christmas Present Ever’ – Bionic Arms

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Anonymous $3.5 Million Gift to Milwaukee Art Museum Provides Free Admission for Children

The Milwaukee Art Museum’s Art:Forward Gala in 2024 – Credit: Front Room Studios and courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Thanks to the kindness of a generous donor, children 12 and under will now be able to visit the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) for free.

The gift of $3.5 million was given anonymously but with instructions to establish an endowment supporting child attendance at the museum.

The donor “shared fond memories of visiting the museum with their family throughout their life” and “expressed their wish for the endowment to foster similar experiences for future generations of families,” according to the museum’s Tuesday announcement.

“This wonderful gift is a celebration of the way that philanthropy can have a significant and lasting impact for generations,” MAM chief development officer André Allaire said in the news release.

“Every day, our youngest museum visitors will be able to access, engage with, and learn from world-class exhibitions and programs free of charge thanks to the generosity of an individual who believes in the power of art to strengthen our community.”

Children ages 12 and under will have free access not only to the museum’s collections, but also its exhibitions and youth and family programs.

At the moment, MAM’s exhibitions include a collection of photography, images, and videos from American image artist Robert Longo, entitled Acceleration of History, and a collection of woodblock prints from the Baltimore-based artist, wife, mother, and educator LaToya M. Hobbs.

“Since our earliest days as an institution, the Milwaukee Art Museum has provided free educational experiences for children,” said Marcelle Polednik, the MAM director. “The endowment established from this inspirational donation will keep that tradition alive for future generations of the communities we serve.” Anonymous $3.5 Million Gift to Milwaukee Art Museum Provides Free Admission for Children

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Torn Between Volunteering and Dream of Adopting a Cat, 6-year-old Starts Poop Scooping Business

credit – @poopa.scoopa.luca

This is Luca Arpin, better known to his neighbors as “Poopa Scoopa Luca.“

His moniker is well-earned, as the 6-year-old styled himself the neighborhood’s #1 number to call for cleaning up after dogs and cats.

“People hate picking up dog poop,” said the first-grader from Warwick, Mass. Speaking with WJAR, Arpin said he has an appreciation for all things tidy, and prefers cleaning up above other activities.

His rate is $15 for one dog, or $20 for multiple dogs. He even has his own business card.

His mother says that volunteering is one of their family’s core values. She and Luca have an enduring love for animals and together have fostered 98 four-legged friends through her work at a local animal shelter.

First to fold laundry or mop a floor, Luca’s mother said that his tendencies to offer his help pro bono at the shelter slowly landed him in a predicament where he wanted to afford to permanently adopt a cat, but couldn’t afford to do so.

Asking mom how he could earn money, the two settled on that poo patrol, which he says is work he doesn’t mind at all.

“I have the coolest kid in the entire world,” said his mother proudly.

It didn’t take long for Luca to save enough money to bring ‘Pebble’ a little female kitten he decided he couldn’t live without, into the busy embrace of their home. Luca continues to work, raising money which he hopes can go to help other animals. Torn Between Volunteering and Dream of Adopting a Cat, 6-year-old Starts Poop Scooping Business

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Woman Gives Birth in Lobby of Welsh Cinema and the Daughter Now Has Free Movies for Life

Father Gareth, son Liam, mother Sarah, and their newborn Lowri wrapped in a blanket at Cinema World

Welsh news media described it as a “blockbuster” arrival at a local movie theater—no not Deadpool 2—a beautiful baby girl whose mom gave birth in the lobby.

Sarah Vincent was 39 weeks-pregnant when she went to the Cinema World in her hometown, near the capital city of Cardiff, with her 3-year-old son Liam and her parents when, 20 minutes into the screening of Sing 2, she began to feel discomfort.

Adjourning to the restroom, the discomfort grew until she had to lay down in the lobby and that’s when her water broke. The cinema staff were quickly there to help, and help they did—calling an ambulance and assembling screens to block the sight of passersby.

On the instructions of the paramedic who picked up the phone, cinemagoer Amy Screen, and the manager on duty at the cinema Jacey Howcroft, arrived to help should the baby be unwilling to wait for the ambulance.

And it’s all a good thing too, because Lowri, the newborn baby girl, did not in fact wait for the ambulance.

With Screen and Howcroft’s assistance, Lowri Miles was born 7 pounds just 10 minutes from the point at which Vincent had gone into labor.

Missing the momentous occasion, father Gareth Miles was working in Cardiff when he got a call from Vincent’s dad explaining what was happening. He rushed down to the cinema to find his baby girl waiting for him.

“The staff were great,” he said. “Jacey was the staff member who went to get Sarah’s parents from the cinema and helped with delivery, Andrew at Cineworld rang the ambulance and talked with paramedics on phone to help with the birth, the rest of the staff were great at putting up screens, also one member of the public, Amy, helped with delivery as well.”

He told Wales Online that Liam, their son, was also born extremely quickly but in a car rather than a movie theater.

“It’s one we’re never going to forget. I thought the car was bad enough, and we’ve got the cinema story to tell as well now!”Mo Williams, the General Manager of the Cinema World, said his staff were understandly proud of their teamwork during the unexpected emergency. He added that little Lowri is now an honorary Cinema World Member for life, and will never have to pay for a movie ticket as long as she lives. Woman Gives Birth in Lobby of Welsh Cinema and the Daughter Now Has Free Movies for Life

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Shortsightedness is on the rise in children. There’s more we can do than limit screen time

Flora Hui, The University of Melbourne

Myopia in children is on the rise. The condition – also known as shortsightedness – already affects up to 35% of children across the world, according to a recent review of global data. The researchers predict this number will increase to 40%, exceeding 740 million children living with myopia by 2050.

So why does this matter? Many people may be unaware that treating myopia (through interventions such as glasses) is about more than just comfort or blurry vision. If left unchecked, myopia can rapidly progress, increasing the risk of serious and irreversible eye conditions. Diagnosing and treating myopia is therefore crucial for your child’s lifetime eye health.

Here is how myopia develops, the role screen time plays – and what you can do if think your child might be shortsighted.

What is myopia?

Myopia is commonly known as nearsightedness or shortsightedness. It is a type of refractive error, meaning a vision problem that stops you seeing clearly – in this case, seeing objects that are far away.

A person usually has myopia because their eyeball is longer than average. This can happen if eyes grow too quickly or longer than normal.

A longer eyeball means when light enters the eye, it’s not focused properly on the retina (the light-sensing tissue lining the back of the eye). As a result, the image they see is blurry. Controlling eye growth is the most important factor for achieving normal vision.

Myopia is on the rise in children

The study published earlier this year looked at how the rate of myopia has changed over the last 30 years. It reviewed 276 studies, which included 5.4 million people between the ages of 5–19 years, from 50 countries, across six continents.

Based on this data, the researchers concluded up to one in three children are already living with shortsightedness – and this will only increase. They predict a particular rise for adolescents: myopia is expected to affect more than 50% of those aged 13-19 by 2050.

Their results are similar to a previous Australian study from 2015. It predicted 36% of children in Australia and New Zealand would have myopia by 2020, and more than half by 2050.

The new review is the most comprehensive of its kind, giving us the closest look at how childhood myopia is progressing across the globe. It suggests rates of myopia are increasing worldwide – and this includes “high myopia”, or severe shortsightedness.

What causes myopia?

Myopia develops partly due to genetics. Parents who have myopia – and especially high myopia – are more likely to have kids who develop myopia as well.

But environmental factors can also play a role.

One culprit is the amount of time we spend looking at screens. As screens have shrunk, we tend to hold them closer. This kind of prolonged focusing at short range has long been associated with developing myopia.

Reducing screen time may help reduce eye strain and slow myopia’s development. However for many of us – including children – this can be difficult, given how deeply screens are embedded in our day-to-day lives.

Green time over screen time

Higher rates of myopia may also be linked to kids spending less time outside, rather than screens themselves. Studies have shown boosting time outdoors by one to two hours per day may reduce the onset of myopia over a two to three year period.

We are still unsure how this works. It may be that the greater intensity of sunlight – compared to indoor light – promotes the release of dopamine. This crucial molecule can slow eye growth and help prevent myopia developing.

However current research suggests once you have myopia, time outdoors may only have a small effect on how it worsens.

What can we do about it?

Research is rapidly developing in myopia control. In addition to glasses, optometrists have a range of tools to slow eye growth and with it, the progression of myopia. The most effective methods are:

• orthokeratology (“ortho-K”) uses hard contact lenses temporarily reshape the eye to improve vision. They are convenient as they are only worn while sleeping. However parents need to make sure lenses are cleaned and stored properly to reduce the chance of eye infections

• atropine eyedrops have been shown to successfully slow myopia progression. Eyedrops can be simple to administer, have minimal side effects and don’t carry the risk of infection associated with contact lenses.

What are the risks with myopia?

Myopia is easily corrected by wearing glasses or contact lenses. But if you have “high myopia” (meaning you are severely shortsighted) you have a higher risk of developing other eye conditions across your lifetime, and these could permanently damage your vision.

These conditions include:

• retinal detachment, where the retina tears and peels away from the back of the eye

• glaucoma, where nerve cells in the retina and optic nerve are progressively damaged and lost

• myopic maculopathy, where the longer eyeball means the macula (part of the retina) is stretched and thinned, and can lead to tissue degeneration, breaks and bleeds.

What can parents do?

It’s important to diagnose and treat myopia early – especially high myopia – to stop it progressing and lower the risk of permanent damage.

Uncorrected myopia can also affect a child’s ability to learn, simply because they can’t see clearly. Signs your child might need to be tested can include squinting to see into the distance, or moving things closer such as a screen or book to see.

Regular eye tests with the optometrist are the best way to understand your child’s eye health and eyesight. Each child is different – an optometrist can help you work out tailored methods to track and manage myopia, if it is diagnosed.

Flora Hui, Honorary Fellow, Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences, Melbourne School of Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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