European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 3, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 16 of. The stars and stripes saturday May 3, 1986 sneaking a peek from under the stand at a football game. Accepting a dare is one of the first decisions children Are Likely to  children s decision making skills by Glenn Collins new York times t hey Are the kinds of experiences thai nearly every child faces Al some time or another. Being teased. Feeling shut out of group of friends. Playing with schoolmates when there s Homework to be done. Accepting a playmate s dare. Going along with peer pressure to do something dangerous mean or destructive. These experiences Are often opportunities for decision making or problem solving Maurice j. Ellas said. Yet Many children ust Haven t been Given the skills to think about their options in such situations or to use their critical reasoning  Ellas an associate professor of psychology at Rutgers University believes that the encouragement of parents can be crucial in developing children s problem solving skills. Parents Are the primary teachers of decision making to children he said. But Many parents Foster decision making in a hit and miss fashion said John Clabby a psychologist at the University of Medicine and dentistry of new Jersey. And others discourage their children from decision making by their authoritarian parenting  Ellas and Clabby As co directors of the social problem solving project have conducted six years of research with parents and school systems can Foster youngsters decision making skills. The continuing project has so far received $500,000 from the National Institute of mental health the William t. Grant foundation and the Middlesex county n.j., Board of freeholders. Working with the elementary and Middle school teachers and principals in Middlesex Borough n.j., the researchers have been developing and testing school based instruction programs in problem solving. The researchers have summarized their findings for parents in a new Book teach your child decision making Doubleday $16.95. Children raised in quite authoritarian families Are not required to use critical reasoning Ellas said. In these families parents Are the Only decision makers and have the Only control. An authoritarian style of parenting produces children less Likely to exercise flexible  children need warmth Structure firmness and limits said Clabby who has four children age 1 to 7. There Are non negotiable rules that every Parent has like bedtime for example. But within that framework we can give children Freedom to choose Between alternatives and this builds Strong confident competent  Many parents think the authoritarian approach is the easiest Ellas said. In being authoritarian though they May win the Battle but lose the War he said. The children May seem easier to manage on a Day to Day basis but when the kids get to make decisions beyond the parents control As they inevitably will the kids Haven t developed any problem solving skills to turn  children who have been skilled in decision making the researchers findings show have higher self esteem. In addition teachers see these children As better adjusted and their Peers go to them with questions and problems. In the research program teachers spend about a half hour a week with fourth and fifth graders during the school year to develop their problem solving abilities students Are presented with everyday situations As when they Are teased or dared to do something and through instruction role playing techniques and class discussion Are taught a strategy for dealing with these problems. That strategy is based on the Mastery of several skills. The students Are taught first to become aware of their own feelings of tenseness or distress so they can better recognize that a problem has Arisen. They Are then trained to identify the problem to decide on a goal for resolving it and to brainstorm solutions to the problem. After considering the consequences of various possible solutions the children Are encouraged to choose one alternative. Then they Are taught to create a plan for carrying out a solution and to put the plan into action. A general problem solving strategy say for resisting peer group pressure has helped children Cope with specific problems such As the peer pressure to use drugs or alcohol. The researchers believe that general decision making skills taught in their program May be More effective in the Long run than school based programs that focus Only on target problems like drug abuse. Coming in and telling kids about drugs for six weeks May not mean much to kids who Haven t yet been thinking about drugs Ellas said. We re trying to give kids a broader and More Long lasting foundation of decision making skills skills they can solve a Host of different  is the tendency to Hoard genetic by Rob Stein United press International s ome people collect rubber bands in their desks at work. Others stack old newspaper so High at Home there s barely enough Roo to squeeze through a narrow path to their bed. Just about everyone collects things to some degree. But some people take hoarding to an extreme and some researchers Are beginning to believe the tendency to act like a Squirrel could be genetic. We be seen families where there Are four generations of hoarders said or. Steven Rasmussen a psychiatrist at Butler Hospital Providence r.i., studying the behaviour. There s been a fair amount of animal work to show that certain types of rodents tend to Hoard things said Rasmussen. There May be an inherited or genetic pattern in  Rasmussen and an associate Are studying hoarders As part of their work with obsessive compulsive people who exhibit extreme forms of behaviour such As the irresistible urge to Wash their hands. We noticed that Many of our obsessive compulsive patients Are hoarders said Rasmussen. Everyone has a variance in this. There s a certain amount of Normal behaviour. Everyone has certain things that Are special to them that Don t have any meaning to anyone else he said. But some people go Way overboard. Many people collect things because they think it s going to come in Handy sometimes. But it can get to the proportions where you can barely get into the House said Rasmussen. The researchers have visited patients whose Homes Are overrun with piles of newspapers magazines boxes of coupons and other items they can t seem to part with. It just seems to be passed Down from one generation to the next said Rasmussen. He pointed out however More studies Are needed possibly with identical twins to prove or disprove the genetic theory about hoarding. Previous studies traced the hoarding instinct in animals to a part of the brain located in the Center near the top. If this part of the brain is Cut the hoarding behaviour disappears. Researchers also suspect hoarding May be closely associated with maternal instincts since the tendency to build nests or feed the Young also disappears when this part of the brain is Cut. People who exhibit severe hoarding tendencies also tend to be Overly maternal Rasmussen said. This has led experts to suspect that the hoarding instinct May be related to the trauma of being separated from mothers. There s a certain Point of development when the Mother is gone you develop an attachment to something like a Blanket to substitute for the Mother he said most people go through this stage and begin to develop relationships with other people but some people retain their attachment to objects Nilsso people who have High Levels of separation anxiety we think end up being the collectors. They lend to be loners they tend to be singles introverts. They develop a relationship that most people would to other people to whatever they collect he said so when other people demand they get rid of hey in met with