Since the study began in 1992

Karen Kochel, a professor in social and family dynamics at Arizona State University School of Social cheap gucci bags and Dynamics, and her co-authors analyzed data from 486 children in fourth to sixth grade. Since the study began in 1992, parents, teachers, peers and the students themselves were surveyed each year about signs of depression and bullying. Students depressed in fourth grade were linked to problems with bullying in fifth grade and difficulty with peer acceptance in sixth grade, the researchers said in Wednesday’s online issue of the journal Child Development. The finding supports the thinking that depressive symptoms influence peer acceptance, they said. For example, it could be that depressed youth may talk about their problems too much, which is a turn-off for their peers. In contrast, the researchers found little evidence that being bullied increased a child's risk for later depression. "Depressive symptoms leave a lasting scar" that undermine normal development such as establishing healthy peer relationships, the study's authors concluded. The findings have important implications for prevention and early intervention of depression symptoms in youth, since social adjustment in adolescence seems to be important for social functioning in adulthood, Kochel said. Parents and teachers need to be aware of the signs of depression in children and help them, the researchers stressed. In the study, parents and teachers reported if the children cried a lot, lacked energy and showed other signs of depression. Bullying included hitting someone, saying mean things, talking behind someone's back or picking on someone. The study doesn't exclude the possibility that peers can make a depressed child even more depressed.For 11 months, the rest of Syria has been asking the same question about Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city. Often described as sitting on the sidelines of the bloody 11-month national uprising, Aleppo now appears wavering and uncertain. While Assad's security forces continue to crack down on the antigovernment movement across much of the country, Aleppo's populace seems unsure just where to stand. "Are you with or against?" is a common question among friends and family. The answer leads to heated discussions. The debate is of great consequence to the future of the nation. Like Syria's capital, Damascus, Aleppo has escaped much of the mayhem that has engulfed areas where wide-scale dissent has been violently stifled by government forces. A hundred miles to the south, Homs, Syria's third-largest city, is an opposition stronghold and a battleground. No one is yet predicting such a turn of events in this longtime loyalist bastion, which serves as the nation's commercial hub. But the government is keeping a tight lid on both Aleppo and Damascus, mindful that major unrest www.discount-sell.com in either could truly threaten Assad's rule. Protests have broken out in the suburbs and surrounding provinces of Aleppo, but the city itself has so far been devoid of large demonstrations. At the same time, more than a dozen residents of the impoverished neighborhood of Marje were reported shot and killed by government forces during Friday protests in the last two weeks. And Aleppo's streets are now nearly empty of once-ubiquitous images of Assad after a series of attacks on shop fronts and car windows during the last two months. In the city's old, mazelike bazaar, where shoppers, donkeys and motorcycles coexist on narrow cobblestone paths, merchants by and large continue to support Assad. In their shops, which offer everything from gold jewelry to spices, undershirts to wedding dresses, TVs are turned to Al Dunya or a government-run station. But it is no longer unusual to see people watching the Qatar-based Al Jazeera channel, itself a possible indication of where one stands. Al Jazeera's reports have consistently played up Syrian government attacks on civilians, to the point that the official Syrian news agency now accuses foreign satellite networks of fomenting "sedition" against the government. "Are you still watching Al Dunya?" asked a man who writes for an online newspaper, as he walked into a relative's home and glanced at the TV. "Why are you watching Al Jazeera?" replied the woman with suspicion. "Our life is Al Dunya." If the future here is uncertain, one thing most people agree on is that Aleppo has fast become a city on edge. In a place where people frequently dined late into the night at restaurants or impromptu sidewalk grills, they now exhibit fear of the dark as reports emerge on kidnappings, holdups and rapes. People no longer argue with taxi drivers over fares; each worries that the other might be carrying a gun. When one boy, a scrawny high school student, recently discovered "Bashar fall" graffiti on an elevator door, he decided to remove it. Those around him debated whether the simple act would put him at risk — either from security forces who might think he had put it there himself or from opposition activists who might retaliate against him. Billboards at most roundabouts and intersections have begun urging patriotism and order. "Freedom doesn't come with chaos," one reads. On the side of an ice cream delivery truck is an enlarged photo of a frozen treat in the colors of the Syrian flag. The ads seem careful to avoid equating opposition to the uprising with loyalty to Assad. Meanwhile, an economic slowdown is pinching wallets. Gas, diesel and heating fuel prices have risen dramatically as supplies have dwindled. There is also a bread shortage, and one hairdresser noted an increase in short haircuts as women try to save on conditioners and longer showers. On days when fuel trucks come to deliver gas, motorists wait in line for hours to fill up, gucci bags cheap and traffic is snarled citywide.