Children’s Thought

Muscle Weak Point

What is hypotonia?

Hypotonia is a disorder that causes low muscle tone (the amount of tension or resistance to movement in a muscle), often involving reduced muscle strength. Hypotonia is not a specific medical disorder, but a potential manifestation of many different diseases and disorders that affect motor nerve control by the brain or muscle strength. Recognizing hypotonia, even in early infancy, is usually relatively straightforward, but diagnosing the underlying cause can be difficult and often unsuccessful. The long-term effects of hypotonia on a child’s development and later life depend primarily on the severity of the muscle weakness and the nature of the cause. Some disorders have a specific treatment but the principal treatment for most hypotonia of idiopathic or neurologic cause is physical therapy and/or occupational therapy to help the person compensate for the neuromuscular disabilitySince the muscles that support the bone joints are so soft, there is a tendency for hip, jaw and neck dislocations to occur. Some children with hypotonia may have trouble feeding, if they are unable to suck or chew for long periods. A child with hypotonia may also have problems with speech or exhibit shallow breathing.

What causes hypotonia?

Hypotonia can be caused by a variety of conditions including those that involve the central nervous system, muscle disorders and genetic disorders. Some common causes can include but are not limited to Down syndrome, Muscular dystrophy, Cerebral palsy, Prader-Willi Syndrome, Myotonic dystrophy, Marfan syndrome and Tay-Sachs disease.Some hypotonias are not progressive and are of an unknown origin. Central nervous system function and intelligence in children with this kind of hypotonia, benign congenital hypotonia, is normal. Children with benign congenital hypotonia may not experience developmental delay, although some children acquire gross motor skills (sitting, walking, running, jumping) more slowly than most.

What are the symptoms of hypotonia?

The following are common symptoms associated with hypotonia. Each child may experiences symptoms differently. Symptoms vary depending on the underlying cause of the problem: decreased muscle tone, muscles feel soft and doughy ability to extend limb beyond its normal limit failure to acquire motor related developmental milestones (such as holding head up without support from parent, rolling over, sitting up without support, walking) problems with feeding (inability to suck or chew for prolonged periods) shallow breathing mouth hangs open with tongue protruding (under-active gag reflex) The signs and symptoms of hypotonia resemble that of other conditions. Always consult a physician for a diagnosis.

How is hypotonia diagnosed?

Your child’s doctor will obtain a medical history for your family and your child and will perform a physical examination that will likely include a detailed muscle function and neurological examination. The latter, also called a neuro exam, may be performed with instruments, such as lights and reflex hammers, and usually does not cause any pain to the child. The nervous system consists of the brain, the spinal cord, and the nerves from these areas.There are many aspects of this examination, including an assessment of motor and sensory skills, balance and coordination, mental status (the child’s level of awareness and interaction with the environment), reflexes, and functioning of the nerves. The following diagnostic tests may also be used. (Tests will vary depending on the suspected cause of hypotonia): blood tests computerized tomography scan (Also called a CT or CAT scan) – a diagnostic imaging procedure that uses a combination of x-rays and computer technology to produce cross-sectional images (often called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) – a diagnostic procedure that uses a combination of large magnets, radiofrequencies, and a computer to produce detailed images of organs and structures within the body. EMG (electromyogram) – a test used to evaluate nerve and muscle function. EEG (electroencephalogram) – a test that measures the electrical activity in the brain, called brain waves. An EEG measures brain waves through small button electrodes that are placed on your child’s scalp. spinal tap – also called lumbar puncture, a spinal tap is done to measure the amount of pressure in the spinal canal and/or to remove a small amount of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) for testing. Cerebral spinal fluid is the fluid that bathes your child’s brain and spinal cord. karyotype – This test, a chromosomal analysis from a blood test, is used to determine whether the problem is the result of a genetic disorder. muscle biopsy – a sample of muscle tissue is removed and examined under a microscope.

Treatment for hypotonia:

Specific treatment for hypotonia will be determined by your child’s physician based on: your child’s age, overall health, and medical history the extent of the condition the underlying cause of the condition your child’s tolerance for specific medications, procedures, or therapies expectations for the course of the condition your opinion or preference No specific therapy is required to treat benign congenital hypotonia, but children with this problem may periodically need treatment for common occurrences associated with hypotonia, such as recurrent joint dislocations. See Dislocations.Treatment programs to help increase muscle strength and sensory stimulation programs are developed once the cause of your child’s hypotonia is established. Such programs usually involves physical therapy through an early intervention or school-based program among other forms of therapy.

Chickenpox on Children

Chickenpox is a common illness among kids, particularly those under age 12. An itchy rash of spots that look like blisters can appear all over the body and may be accompanied by flu-like symptoms. Symptoms usually go away without treatment, but because the infection is very contagious, an infected child should stay home and rest until the symptoms are gone.

Chickenpox is caused by the varicella-zoster virus (VZV). Kids can be protected from VZV by getting the chickenpox (varicella) vaccine, usually between the ages of 12 to 15 months. In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended a booster shot at 4 to 6 years old for further protection. The CDC also recommends that people 13 years of age and older who have never had chickenpox or received chickenpox vaccine get two doses of the vaccine at least 28 days apart.

A person usually has only one episode of chickenpox, but VZV can lie dormant within the body and cause a different type of skin eruption later in life called shingles (or herpes zoster). Getting the chickenpox vaccine significantly lowers your child’s chances of getting chickenpox, but he or she may still develop shingles later.

Symptoms

Chickenpox causes a red, itchy rash on the skin that usually appears first on the abdomen or back and face, and then spreads to almost everywhere else on the body, including the scalp, mouth, nose, ears, and genitals.

The rash begins as multiple small, red bumps that look like pimples or insect bites. They develop into thin-walled blisters filled with clear fluid, which becomes cloudy. The blister wall breaks, leaving open sores, which finally crust over to become dry, brown scabs.

Chickenpox blisters are usually less than a quarter of an inch wide, have a reddish base, and appear in bouts over 2 to 4 days. The rash may be more extensive or severe in kids who have skin disorders such as eczema.

25 Signs That You Are Pregnant

Pregnancy (latin graviditas) is the carrying of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, inside the uterus of a female. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets. Human pregnancy is the most studied of all mammalian pregnancies. Obstetrics is the surgical field that studies and cares for high risk pregnancy. Midwifery is the non-surgical field that cares for pregnancy and pregnant women.

On the chart below are 25 of the most common signs of pregnancy and what they mean. You can also click the sign to get more information on each sign of pregnancy. The three categories of pregnancy signs are: possible, probable and positive.

When does Guidance become Manipulation?

Many homeschooling parents have puzzled over the distinction between “guidance” and “manipulation”. As a parent strongly committed to “unschooling” (learner-directed homeschooling) with my son Jason, now 17, I have sometimes wondered if I should encourage certain activities in spite of a lack of interest on his part, or at least remind him of areas he has ignored for a while. I was most likely to wonder about these things after reading about an unusually dedicated child who has excelled in a particular field of activity, such as music. It was at those times that John Holt, through his inspiring books, reminded me that trust is the most essential ingredient of a homeschooling program.

While it is indeed important to make a variety of subjects available to the child, I think that is almost impossible to avoid. This is the age of information. Children are surrounded by information of all kinds, through conversations, books, television, films, the Internet, stores, and nature. One day when Jason was five, he asked me about opera. This surprised me, as we had never discussed this topic. I asked what had led to his question, and learned it had been a Disney cartoon! He asked me several questions about types of operas, and we had a brief discussion. In spite of my own lack of interest in this subject, I trusted him to know if and when he would want more information. He knew that our encyclopedia had articles on opera, and that he could find additional information at the library, or from knowledgeable people. (These days, of course, virtually every topic is also covered on the Internet.) While modeling by the parent can be helpful, if the interest the parent shows is not sincere, it will have little value; I would never feign an interest in opera or anything else. Over the years I have often seen him study subjects at great depth despite my own lack of interest, and I trust him to set his own “curriculum” in this way.

A subject either “clicks” with Jason, or it does not – who knows why? Initially, art, astronomy, math, and physics “clicked” strongly; and over the years he has studied other areas as well. What would have been gained by requiring him to study those other areas sooner? The most likely result would have been resentment, frustration, and less interest in that particular area. If I can trust him to know what he needs to learn, and when he needs to learn it, he may some day become interested in the areas he has “missed” so far, and with that kind of inner motivation, he can learn them quickly. Even if he “misses” a subject all his life, there should be little reason for concern. After all, no one is interested in everything, nor is every field of study essential to living a good life.

In some circumstances, we should direct and model important concepts that children may not be ready to learn all by themselves – avoidance of danger, constructive handling of anger, peaceful conflict resolution, compassion for others, and so on. But does Shakespeare really fit into this category? I think not, and besides, what is the rush? There seems to be an unspoken assumption in our society that if a child has not mastered each and every subject by the age of ten, we have failed in our homeschooling. But a child has a lifetime to learn whatever interests him as an adult; homeschooling advocate John Holt demonstrated this beautifully, when he learned to play the cello in his 50’s.

Children are very adept at hearing our hidden messages. Regardless of how carefully we phrase it, when we tell a child that a certain activity is required, we imply that it must be so unpleasant or difficult that he would never want to do it on his own; otherwise, why are we going to the trouble of requiring it? No one has ever required a child to eat ice cream!

Another problem with requiring a child to do something is that it implies potential punishment. If the child refuses, then what happens? If we require a certain activity, and the child is unable or unwilling to comply, then we are forced into the position of either rescinding the requirement or punishing the child (if we do nothing, we weren’t really requiring the activity after all). If we punish, then we give many harmful messages to the child. As Susannah Sheffer, Editor of the homeschooling newsletter Growing Without Schooling once suggested, using force to further learning is a mistake because “it is discourteous and probably won’t work anyway, and the risks of doing it are so great.” 1 Perhaps one answer to the question, “When does guidance become manipulation?” is “when it becomes threatening”.

The goal of homeschooling is to help a child learn how to learn. At the same time, we should not dictate what that learning must be, or when it must take place. As John Holt so often reminded us, the simple truth is that we can and should trust children.

by Jan Hunt, M.Sc.

Child Psychology Studies

Child psychology – or, more broadly, developmental psychology – is not just the study of children, it is the study of you and me and how we came to be this way. Just as discovering your history can teach you about the future, so child psychology shows us what we once were and even what we will become.

Just because a study is old doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant. Indeed, the effects of many older studies are still being felt in psychology today. Generations of psychology students have wandered out of lectures, seeing themselves and other people in a new light. So, in this series of posts I look at ten studies that have changed psychology and the way we see humanity.

Have a read and vote for the one that most captures your imagination below.

1. What Are Babies Watching?

“What do babies understand about the world and how can you possibly find out, given that babies are not so hot on answering complex questions about their perceptual abilities?”

2. The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.

“It’s not just Miller who was persecuted by this number though, it’s all of us. What this magical number represents – 7 plus or minus 2 – is the number of items we can hold in our short-term memory.”

3. Revolutionary Treatment of Depression

“It seems incredible that a successful form of psychological therapy could be based on telling people their thoughts are mistaken. And yet that is partly how cognitive therapy works.”

4. Euphoria Induced by Experimental Trickery

“Imagine it’s the 1960s and you’re a first year psychology student at the University of Minnesota. Being a brave soul, along with wanting a better final grade, you’ve agreed to take part in a psychology experiment. You’ve heard that it involves testing a new vitamin injection but that hasn’t put you off.”

5. Even 24,576 Measurements Couldn’t Prove Plants Have Souls

“It was Fechner who, with the publication of his masterwork Elements of Psychophysics in 1860, is often credited with helping to found experimental psychology (Fechner, 1860). Strange, really, for a man who set out to prove plants have souls.”

6. Stanley Milgram: Obedience to Authority Or Just Conformity?

“What psychological experiment could so be so powerful that simply taking part might change your view of yourself and human nature? What experimental procedure could provoke some people to profuse sweating and trembling, leaving 10% extremely upset, while others broke into unexplained hysterical laughter?”

7. Memory Manipulated After The Event

“…we examine the quality of our memories, in particular the ways in which memory can be changed after the event we are remembering. The work of Elizabeth Loftus has been extremely influential in this area as one of her early studies demonstrates.”

8. Personality or Situation? The Psychology of Individual Differences

“…what can psychologists tell us about the systematic differences between people? To answer this question I have to break the pattern just this once and include two studies, from two apparently warring factions of personality psychology.”

9. Nobel Prize-Winning Research on Risky Decision Making

“Would you bet £10 on the flip of a coin if you stood to win £20? So you’ve got a 50% chance of losing £10 and a 50% chance of winning £20. This seems like a good bet to take and yet studies show that people tend not to take it. Why?”

10. Sigmund Freud and Unconscious Mental Processes

“To really understand the revolutionary nature of Freud’s work you need to do something for me: to forget you’ve every heard of him or his ideas. Just lie back…relax….”

Child Employment

Child employment,Child labour, or child labor, refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour.

Not all work is bad for children. Some social scientists point out that some kinds of work may be completely unobjectionable — except for one thing about the work that makes it exploitative. For instance, a child who delivers newspapers before school might actually benefit from learning how to work, gaining responsibility, and a bit of money. But what if the child is not paid? Then he or she is being exploited. As Unicef’s 1997 State of the World’s Children Report puts it, “Children’s work needs to be seen as happening along a continuum, with destructive or exploitative work at one end and beneficial work – promoting or enhancing children’s development without interfering with their schooling, recreation and rest – at the other. And between these two poles are vast areas of work that need not negatively affect a child’s development.” Other social scientists have slightly different ways of drawing the line between acceptable and unacceptable work.

International conventions also define “child labor” as activities such as soldiering and prostitution. Not everyone agrees with this definition. Some child workers themselves think that illegal work (such as prostitution) should not be considered in the definition of “child labor.” The reason: These child workers would like to be respected for their legal work, because they feel they have no other choice but to work.

Cellular Phones and Kids

Nowadays with the increasing number of threats at schools, it is obvious for parents to be worried about their child’s safety and a mobile phone can be one of the convenient ways for parents to rest assured about their children’s safety. Another point that can be possibly considered as an advantage is the fact that handling a cell phone might give the child a sense of responsibility and make him comfortable with the society. However parents should make sure whether or not their children are ready to handle the kind of responsibility. In case you are planning to get a cell phone for your teen, there is an advantage that your teen will not be constantly blocking the home phone.

As for the cons of cell phones, there are many. First and foremost, the parents have to be really sure whether their child is capable of handling the responsibility of carrying a mobile phone. Having a cell phone might lead the child to all the probable ways in which the cell phone can be misused. It is one thing to make the children comfortable with technology but giving them their very own mobile phone at an early age might turn them into mobile junkies who are addicted to their mobile phones with constant short messaging, cell phone games and other add-ons. Also think of it from the health point of view. In a world where we hear reports about excessive use of mobile phones being harmful for the health, how could we possibly allow the children to be exposed to these threats?

The cell phone market has come up with some of the most attractive models for the kids segment. However even if the cell phones are provided with the safety interests in mind, the kids will soon start demanding the higher range and fancy cell phones that would be next in line. Providing expensive mobile phone to kids would actually attract muggers and threaten your child’s security instead of safeguarding it. Giving cell phones to kids is actually providing them with an addictive luxury under the guile of a necessity.

Now that we have weighed the pros and cons of having cell phones for children, finally it comes down to the parents who have to judge the capabilities and needs of their children and make the decision accordingly. In case you are dabbling with the thought of getting your child a cell phone think of all these suggestions in mind. First of all do not get a phone for your child if the child is demanding the cell phone for fitting in the school crowd. Do not encourage materialistic thinking in your children and explain properly to your child why she/he cannot have the cell phone at a young age. Opt for a pay-as-you-go plan, which will help you keep a track of the usage of the cell phone. Do not fall prey to marketing tactics and hype and allow your children to talk you into getting expensive and fancy phones and upgrading the model with every new arrival. Explain your children the safety concerns that are the sole reason for provision of the mobile phone and discourage excessive time spent on cell phone gaming and short text messaging. Parents always expect their children to grow up to be responsible adults, but they should realize that it is their own decisions in matters like these that are instrumental in shaping the future of their children.

Short Stories for Young Person

The short story refers to a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, usually in narrative format. This format or medium tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas (in the 20th and 21st century sense) and novels or books. Short story definitions based upon length differ somewhat even among professional writers, due somewhat in part to the fragmentation of the medium into genres. Since the short story format includes a wide range of genres and styles, the actual length is mitigated somewhere between the individual author’s preference (or the story’s actual needs in terms of creative trajectory or story arc) and the submission guidelines relevant to the story’s actual market.

Naaman The Leper

Naaman was the captain of the host of King of Syria.  He was a great and honourable man but he had a disease called Leprosy.  The little maid that served Naaman’s wife told her if her master, Naaman, was with the prophet in Samaria, he would be healed.  So the King of Syria sent Naaman, along with a letter to the King of Israel.  When the King of Israel received the letter, he tore his clothes.  The King was upset because he knew that he could not heal Naaman.  When Elisha(a man of God) heard that the King of Israel was so upset, he told him to let Naaman come to him.

So Naaman went to Elisha’s door, and Elisha sent out a messenger to tell Naaman to go and dip in the Jordan River seven times, and he would be healed.  Naaman was very angry because Elisha did not come out himself and heal him right there.  Naaman wanted to dip in some of the other rivers that were cleaner then the Jordan River.  Therefore, he went away
very mad.  His servants told him that if he had been asked to do some great thing, would he not have done it?  So he wnet and dipped in the Jordan River according to what the man of God had told him, and he was healed.

The Red Shoes
by Hans Christian Andersen(1845)

ONCE upon a time there was little girl, pretty and dainty. But in summer time she was obliged to go barefooted because she was poor, and in winter she had to wear large wooden shoes, so that her little instep grew quite red.

In the middle of the village lived an old shoemaker’s wife; she sat down and made, as well as she could, a pair of little shoes out of some old pieces of red cloth. They were clumsy, but she meant well, for they were intended for the little girl, whose name was Karen.
Karen received the shoes and wore them for the first time on the day of her mother’s funeral. They were certainly not suitable for mourning; but she had no others, and so she put her bare feet into them and walked behind the humble coffin.

Just then a large old carriage came by, and in it sat an old lady; she looked at the little girl, and taking pity on her, said to the clergyman, “Look here, if you will give me the little girl, I will take care of her.”
Karen believed that this was all on account of the red shoes, but the old lady thought them hideous, and so they were burnt. Karen herself was dressed very neatly and cleanly; she was taught to read and to sew, and people said that she was pretty. But the mirror told her, “You are more than pretty—you are beautiful.”
One day the Queen was travelling through that part of the country, and had her little daughter, who was a princess, with her. All the people, amongst them Karen too, streamed towards the castle, where the little princess, in fine white clothes, stood before the window and allowed herself to be stared at. She wore neither a train nor a golden crown, but beautiful red morocco shoes; they were indeed much finer than those which the shoemaker’s wife had sewn for little Karen. There is really nothing in the world that can be compared to red shoes!

Karen was now old enough to be confirmed; she received some new clothes, and she was also to have some new shoes. The rich shoemaker in the town took the measure of her little foot in his own room, in which there stood great glass cases full of pretty shoes and white slippers. It all looked very lovely, but the old lady could not see very well, and therefore did not get much pleasure out of it. Amongst the shoes stood a pair of red ones, like those which the princess had worn. How beautiful they were! and the shoemaker said that they had been made for a count’s daughter, but that they had not fitted her.

“I suppose they are of shiny leather?” asked the old lady. “They shine so.”
“Yes, they do shine,” said Karen. They fitted her, and were bought. But the old lady knew nothing of their being red, for she would never have allowed Karen to be confirmed in red shoes, as she was now to be.
Everybody looked at her feet, and the whole of the way from the church door to the choir it seemed to her as if even the ancient figures on the monuments, in their stiff collars and long black robes, had their eyes fixed on her red shoes. It was only of these that she thought when the clergyman laid his hand upon her head and spoke of the holy baptism, of the covenant with God, and told her that she was now to be a grown-up Christian. The organ pealed forth solemnly, and the sweet children’s voices mingled with that of their old leader; but Karen thought only of her red shoes. In the afternoon the old lady heard from everybody that Karen had worn red shoes. She said that it was a shocking thing to do, that it was very improper, and that Karen was always to go to church in future in black shoes, even if they were old.
On the following Sunday there was Communion. Karen looked first at the black shoes, then at the red ones—looked at the red ones again, and put them on.
The sun was shining gloriously, so Karen and the old lady went along the footpath through the corn, where it was rather dusty.

At the church door stood an old crippled soldier leaning on a crutch; he had a wonderfully long beard, more red than white, and he bowed down to the ground and asked the old lady whether he might wipe her shoes. Then Karen put out her little foot too. “Dear me, what pretty dancing-shoes!” said the soldier. “Sit fast, when you dance,” said he, addressing the shoes, and slapping the soles with his hand.
The old lady gave the soldier some money and then went with Karen into the church.
And all the people inside looked at Karen’s red shoes, and all the figures gazed at them; when Karen knelt before the altar and put the golden goblet to her mouth, she thought only of the red shoes. It seemed to her as though they were swimming about in the goblet, and she forgot to sing the psalm, forgot to say the “Lord’s Prayer.”

Now every one came out of church, and the old lady stepped into her carriage. But just as Karen was lifting up her foot to get in too, the old soldier said: “Dear me, what pretty dancing shoes!” and Karen could not help it, she was obliged to dance a few steps; and when she had once begun, her legs continued to dance. It seemed as if the shoes had got power over them. She danced round the church corner, for she could not stop; the coachman had to run after her and seize her. He lifted her into the carriage, but her feet continued to dance, so that she kicked the good old lady violently. At last they took off her shoes, and her legs were at rest.

At home the shoes were put into the cupboard, but Karen could not help looking at them.
Now the old lady fell ill, and it was said that she would not rise from her bed again. She had to be nursed and waited upon, and this was no one’s duty more than Karen’s. But there was a grand ball in the town, and Karen was invited. She looked at the red shoes, saying to herself that there was no sin in doing that; she put the red shoes on, thinking there was no harm in that either; and then she went to the ball; and commenced to dance.

But when she wanted to go to the right, the shoes danced to the left, and when she wanted to dance up the room, the shoes danced down the room, down the stairs through the street, and out through the gates of the town. She danced, and was obliged to dance, far out into the dark wood. Suddenly something shone up among the trees, and she believed it was the moon, for it was a face. But it was the old soldier with the red beard; he sat there nodding his head and said: “Dear me, what pretty dancing shoes!”
She was frightened, and wanted to throw the red shoes away; but they stuck fast. She tore off her stockings, but the shoes had grown fast to her feet. She danced and was obliged to go on dancing over field and meadow, in rain and sunshine, by night and by day—but by night it was most horrible.

She danced out into the open churchyard; but the dead there did not dance. They had something better to do than that. She wanted to sit down on the pauper’s grave where the bitter fern grows; but for her there was neither peace nor rest. And as she danced past the open church door she saw an angel there in long white robes, with wings reaching from his shoulders down to the earth; his face was stern and grave, and in his hand he held a broad shining sword.

“Dance you shall,” said he, “dance in your red shoes till you are pale and cold, till your skin shrivels up and you are a skeleton! Dance you shall, from door to door, and where proud and wicked children live you shall knock, so that they may hear you and fear you! Dance you shall, dance—!”
“Mercy!” cried Karen. But she did not hear what the angel answered, for the shoes carried her through the gate into the fields, along highways and byways, and unceasingly she had to dance.
One morning she danced past a door that she knew well; they were singing a psalm inside, and a coffin was being carried out covered with flowers. Then she knew that she was forsaken by every one and damned by the angel of God.

She danced, and was obliged to go on dancing through the dark night. The shoes bore her away over thorns and stumps till she was all torn and bleeding; she danced away over the heath to a lonely little house. Here, she knew, lived the executioner; and she tapped with her finger at the window and said:
“Come out, come out! I cannot come in, for I must dance.”
And the executioner said: “I don’t suppose you know who I am. I strike off the heads of the wicked, and I notice that my axe is tingling to do so.”
“Don’t cut off my head!” said Karen, “for then I could not repent of my sin. But cut off my feet with the red shoes.”

And then she confessed all her sin, and the executioner struck off her feet with the red shoes; but the shoes danced away with the little feet across the field into the deep forest.
And he carved her a pair of wooden feet and some crutches, and taught her a psalm which is always sung by sinners; she kissed the hand that guided the axe, and went away over the heath.
“Now, I have suffered enough for the red shoes,” she said; “I will go to church, so that people can see me.” And she went quickly up to the church-door; but when she came there, the red shoes were dancing before her, and she was frightened, and turned back.

During the whole week she was sad and wept many bitter tears, but when Sunday came again she said: “Now I have suffered and striven enough. I believe I am quite as good as many of those who sit in church and give themselves airs.” And so she went boldly on; but she had not got farther than the churchyard gate when she saw the red shoes dancing along before her. Then she became terrified, and turned back and repented right heartily of her sin.

She went to the parsonage, and begged that she might be taken into service there. She would be industrious, she said, and do everything that she could; she did not mind about the wages as long as she had a roof over her, and was with good people. The pastor’s wife had pity on her, and took her into service. And she was industrious and thoughtful. She sat quiet and listened when the pastor read aloud from the Bible in the evening. All the children liked her very much, but when they spoke about dress and grandeur and beauty she would shake her head.

On the following Sunday they all went to church, and she was asked whether she wished to go too; but, with tears in her eyes, she looked sadly at her crutches. And then the others went to hear God’s Word, but she went alone into her little room; this was only large enough to hold the bed and a chair. Here she sat down with her hymn-book, and as she was reading it with a pious mind, the wind carried the notes of the organ over to her from the church, and in tears she lifted up her face and said: “O God! help me!”
Then the sun shone so brightly, and right before her stood an angel of God in white robes; it was the same one whom she had seen that night at the church-door. He no longer carried the sharp sword, but a beautiful green branch, full of roses; with this he touched the ceiling, which rose up very high, and where he had touched it there shone a golden star. He touched the walls, which opened wide apart, and she saw the organ which was pealing forth; she saw the pictures of the old pastors and their wives, and the congregation sitting in the polished chairs and singing from their hymn-books. The church itself had come to the poor girl in her narrow room, or the room had gone to the church. She sat in the pew with the rest of the pastor’s household, and when they had finished the hymn and looked up, they nodded and said, “It was right of you to come, Karen.”

“It was mercy,” said she.
The organ played and the children’s voices in the choir sounded soft and lovely. The bright warm sunshine streamed through the window into the pew where Karen sat, and her heart became so filled with it, so filled with peace and joy, that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunbeams to Heaven, and no one was there who asked after the Red Shoes.

Suitable Toys For Offspring

There are lots of toys available in the market and you will get suitable toys for any age group you want. The toys are perfectly divided into categories for kids of different ages keeping in mind the mental status and ability of the child. If you have a toddler you will need to purchase something that will be of interest for your small child and also keep him busy. He must enjoy the game or play with the toy and have fun. At the same time, if you buy some sensible toys, you can teach him about the different colors, shapes and sizes, and make his concept clear about opposites like big and small, fat and thin etc. If you will tell at the store the age of your child, the salesperson will give you the information of what type of toys will be the best for your child.
Dolls

Through the ages children have used dolls to mimic the nurturing received from their parents, giving kids a taste of caring responsibilities. With a tremendous variety of size and characteristics, selecting a welcome and comforting companion for a child may require research.

Dollhouses

Dollhouses are traditional stationary play areas with the rear wall removed to give children entry to the individual rooms.  Scales range between small figurines and fashion dolls.  Accessories are as detailed as their real counterparts allowing kids to practice diminutive interior decorating.

Action Figures

Action figures are dynamic childhood stimulants for imagination and role-playing. Classic action figures have become collectibles and special edition action figures commemorate major media releases.

Baby Toys

A baby learns through playing, so toys are an important part of development.  Sounds, textures, and motions are all serious components for exploring the world.  Fun and colorful baby toys encourage further sensory experience.

Electronic Toys

The range of electronic toys keeps expanding to embrace a wider variety of age groups and interests.  Joining talking figures and interactive musical devices are learning systems and robotic gadgets, to provide ongoing entertainment and fun.

Outdoor Toys

Transform an ordinary yard into an adventure play land by selecting among water activities, sandboxes, riding toys, or outdoor sports to promote healthy fitness levels. Sizes vary to accommodate small or large play areas.

Building Toys

Building toys engage creative thinking, hand-eye coordination, and three-dimensional visualization. Comprised of wood, metal, plastic or a combination of these materials, these sets encourage both following steps to duplicate a model and experimenting with components to create new designs.