American Children's 'Well-Being' Has Risen, New Report Says

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Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 4/28/2008 2:00:00 PM

America's sixth graders feel safer in school. Educational attainment is on the rise, fueled by the dramatic increase in the number of children aged four to six enrolling in full-day kindergarten. Performance on standardized math and reading tests among nine-year-olds has improved. And more parents are reading to their children daily.

Those are just some of the hopeful findings from an overall-positive report about the nation's children, ages 6 to 11, in the years 1994–2006. The report, "Trends in Infancy/Early Childhood and Middle Childhood Well-Being, 1994–2006," was just issued by the Foundation for Child Development.

The New York-based foundation is a private, grant-making foundation which focuses on improving the life prospects of children. Its special focus report, "Trends in Infancy/Early Childhood and Middle Childhood Well-Being, 1994–2006," released April 25, claims to be "the first report to look comprehensively at the overall health, well-being, and quality of life of America's youngest children" and track and compare child well-being across primary stages of development.

Although the foundation's findings were, on the whole, encouraging, the prevalence of obesity among children ages 6 to 11 was found to be nearly four times what it was in the 1960s; and for kids ages 2 to 5, the rate was three times more than in the 1960s.

Other areas of health, though, showed "steady improvement," driven, the report said, by declining infant and child death rates, which themselves are attributed to better prenatal and health care, improved nutrition, seat-belt laws, decreased rates of mothers smoking during pregnancy, a decreased incidence in lead poisoning (from 7.6 percent to 1.2 percent of children below age six), and increased rates in vaccination.

Other categories were positive across the board. Over the study period, the rate of homicide for children was cut in half, and the percentage of sixth-grade children who reported feeling unsafe or fearful of attack or harm at school was down, from 14.3 percent to 9.1 percent.

In the educational area, the number of children, ages three to five, read to daily by their parents rose from 57 percent to 59.8 percent."These findings suggest that it is important to invest in children's well-being from as early as birth to prepare children on the path to success throughout their lives," the study's authors wrote.

Methodology for the report used federal data compiled for the U.S. Child Well-Being Index. The study focused on 25 "key national indicators" across six domains or areas of study, such as health, education, safety, and social relationships. For the current 2008 report, children were categorized into two age groups: infancy/early childhood, birth to age 5; and middle childhood, ages 6 to 11.