Children's quality of life has gone down, study says

The statistics coming out of The Child and Youth Well-Being Index Project at Duke University are overwhelming. According to the study, which was funded by the private philanthropy Foundation for Child Development, 21 percent of children in the United States will be living below the poverty line in 2010. That's the highest rate in 20 years. Furthermore, the economic well-being of families has nearly fallen to levels last seen in 1975.

Kenneth Jay Land, project coordinator and professor of sociology and demography at Duke University, puts it this way to CNN: "Virtually all of that progress is wiped out through job losses, through declines in real income, and other aspects of family economic well-being."


Poor indications, but rising hopes

Basing its predictions on 28 indicators of well-being (including economic stability, safe and risky behavior, social relationships, emotional and spiritual health, community interaction, and access to education and health care), the study goes on to list a number of troubling conclusions, among them:

· This year, as many as 500,000 children may be homeless in the United States. About 15.6 million may be living in poverty.

· Children living in families in which neither parent has secure employment will rise to about 20 million this year (that's a 4 percent increase from 2006).

· In the years from 2007 to 2010 an additional 750,000 children will live in food-insecure households, meaning houses in which all members do not have access to enough safe and nutritious foods. Experts warn that these conditions can lead to an increase of obesity in families, who buy cheaper, lower quality food to survive.

· Community engagement will decrease due to the reduction of teachers and cut back programs. The amount of time spent in school could even shorten, as it did in Hawaii last year, when the state implemented a four-day school week to save money in the recession.

While all of these statistics are disheartening, researchers also predict that the index is at a low for the decade this year, and will start rising slowly, which means that some of these numbers will shift for the better.

The study also cited one bright spot: Health insurance coverage for children will not be significantly reduced. Thanks to publicly financed health care programs, about 90 percent of children will be in families with some form of health insurance, the report said.


What can struggling families do?

When interviewed by CNN about the study's results, Dr. Alan Kazdin, a professor of psychology at Yale University and researcher at the Yale Child Conduct Clinic, maintained that troubled childhoods can take a toll years later, as adults battle higher rates of cancer, liver disease, and respiratory disease. So how can families hit hard by times protect their kids?

"A daily family ritual goes a long way," Kazdin told Shine. "There are all sorts of things that are fired at us as humans, there are an equal numbers of buffers available to us for protection." Kazdin added that spending even 15-20 minutes engaged in a free parent/ child activity-whether that is a walk, or a visit to a neighbor, or a game of cards-can give kids a sense of confidence and trust in their world. "It's not vacations or going to entertainment parts, or buying the newest thing that is important, it's spending a little time with your kid each day."

Have you found yourself spending more time with your kids during the economic downturn? What inexpensive activities keep your family occupied, communicating and together?