New Delhi, Jun 5 (PTI) Rugby India”s Development Manager Greg Davey feels the recent training-cum-competition trips to New Zealand and Fiji have helped iron out flaws in the team”s preparation for this year”s Commonwealth Games. “New Zealand and Fiji tours have given boys the confidence required at the international level.
They trust themselves more, they believe in their strengths. They have learned to take decisions quickly on the field and have rectified their mistakes,” Davey told PTI. “They were exposed to some great teams during the tour.
Now I would like to see the boys applying these skills in tournaments like Shanghai Sevens, Buenos Aires Sevens and the big Delhi Commonwealth Games,” he added. During their three-week trip, the 23-member Indian contingent met former champions and legends of the game, visited state-of-the-art gymnasiums, world class pitches and fitness professionals and competed in a few practice matches.
“The trip was very important keeping the Commonwealth Games in mind. Boys need to step up their performance and produce good results in front of home crowd.
What matters is attitude and aggression. They have the killer instinct in them and need to show that on the field against opponents,” said Davey.
On the Indians” performance in the just-concluded Asian5 Nations Rugby tournament where they finished runners-up after losing to lowly ranked Philippines 12-34 in the summit clash, Davey said it was disheartening to see the team lose after coming so close to the title triumph. “We had prepared hard for the tournament and that showed in our performance.
But we faltered at the last hurdle. Anyway the tournament has given us many positives and we hope to continue our good form” he said.
The New Zealander said inclusion of youngsters in the team was a positive step taken by the national federation and “it will pay rich dividends in the future.” “It”s a good step taken in right direction.
It”s good for the overall development of the team. But the young guns need to prove their talent to retain their place in the side,” he said.
In Davey”s native New Zealand, rugby is the most popular sport and he foresees the sport to become as popular in cricket-mad India as well. “I think in two-three years, we can have 50,000 players, a good scenario for India.
There is a need to build the strong foundation at the school and college level. I believe Rugby has what it takes to appeal to sport loving Indians,” he said.
Davey is aiming to put in place a proper coaching and administrative infrastructure to ensure all-round growth of the sport.
Spanking found to have negative effects on low-income toddlers
Washington, September 16 (ANI): Spanking negatively affects the behaviour of toddlers in low-income families, according to a new study.
Published in the journal Child Development, the longitudinal study looked at how low-income parents discipline their young children.
It showed that spanking 1-year-olds leads to more aggressive behaviours and less sophisticated cognitive development in the next two years.
Verbal punishment, however, was not found to be associated with such effects, especially when it was accompanied by emotional support from mothers.
Besides, 1-year-olds’ fussiness predicted spanking and verbal punishment at ages 1, 2, and 3.
The study explored whether mothers’ behaviours lead to problematic behaviour in children, whether children’s challenging behaviours elicit harsher discipline, or both.
It looked at more than 2,500 exclusively low-income White, African American, and Mexican-American mothers and their young children, interviewing and observing them at home when the children were 1, 2, and 3 years old.
All participants’ family incomes were at or below the federal poverty level.
Using their own interpretations of spanking, mothers reported how often anyone in the home had spanked their children in the past week.
The study also looked at how often mothers verbally punished-scolded, yelled, or made negative comments-their children.
It showed that African American children were spanked and verbally punished significantly more than the other children in the study.
The authors speculated that that might be due to cultural factors, such as belief in the importance of children’s respect for elders and in the value of physical discipline to instil that respect.
Moreover, some African American mothers said that in preparing their children for a harsh, physically dangerous, and racially discriminating world, there was little room for error in their childrearing.
The study also shed light on information about the effects of such types of discipline.
“Our findings clearly indicate that spanking affects children’s development,” said Lisa J. Berlin, research scientist at the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University and the study’s lead author.
Specifically, children who were spanked more often at 1 behaved more aggressively when they were 2, and had lower scores on tests measuring thinking skills when they were 3.
Similar findings were made even after taking into consideration such family characteristics as mothers’ race and ethnicity, age, and education; family income and structure; and the children’s gender.
The study also found that children who were more aggressive at age 2, and had lower cognitive development scores at ages 1 and 2, were not spanked more at ages 2 and 3.
“So the mothers’ behaviours look more influential than the children’s,” said Berlin.
Unlike spanking, however, verbal punishment alone didn’t affect either children’s aggression or their cognitive development.
Interestingly, when verbal punishment was accompanied by emotional support from moms, the children did better on the tests of cognitive ability. (ANI)