We’re in an era of what seems to be unprecedented information about parenting. Books, magazines, newspaper columns, and even websites like this one bubble over with advice and opinions about what you should and shouldn’t be doing for your kids and, more to the point, how they should be.

It’s enough to make us crazy. If you’re susceptible to the endless marketing barrage aimed at parents and the constant rush of advice books whose authors aren’t selling anything but themselves, you can really get into a lather. If you’re like me and pretty happy to march to your own drummer, that noise still gets in. I’ve stayed awake at night, worried that I’ve shortchanged both my kids because they’ve never done Gymboree or Kindermusik or anything other than low key stuff with me, have random playdates with whoever’s mum I like versus the alpha kids, and attend a pre-school we chose solely because the teachers seemed nice and they liked the swing. Read more »

Every parent thinks their kid is a genius. But for some people, their kids actually are far above the norm. They’re not just good in school — as a matter of fact, sometimes they are not good in school at all. Instead, they fall into the category of “gifted children.”

Actually, the idea that “gifted children do very well in school” is one of many myths surrounding gifted children. They are often either so bored they sort of mentally check out of school, or their brain is simply wired differently and a traditional classroom just can’t meet their needs. Because of that, they often do poorly when it comes to grades, although they might be doing things like writing a novel or conducting scientific experiments in their spare time. More fascinating stuff after the jump Read more »

It’s an impossible situation:  Your one-year-old baby is sick with a severe and progressive disease that leaves him without any quality of life, so sick that even his doctors recommend removing him from life support, sick enough that you can actually begin to imagine that letting him go is the right thing to do.

Or maybe not.

A British mum and dad — now separated — are at odds over the decision to let their son be removed from life support.  Baby RB’s condition is known as congenital myasthenic syndrome and causes his lungs to fill with fluid, even while he’s on the respirator. His mum, along with baby RB’s doctors, want to remove his respirator and let him go, calling his life “miserable, sad and pitiful,” according to CNN. The last three times they removed him from it, he breathed on his own for less than half an hour. Read more »

Ask a pediatrician why childhood obesity is a problem, and they point one finger directly toward fizzy drinks. It’s just one cause of many, but soft drinks are public enemy number one as far as legislators are concerned.

A US body, The Centre For Disease Control and Prevention has been debating the efficacy of obesity taxes on them for quite some time. So how much sugar really IS in those soft drinks?

According to a brand-by-brand breakdown at US newspaper the Boston Globe, the oft-quoted figure of 10.2 teaspoons of sugar for every 12 ounces of fizz is actually a little high. Read more »

These days, smokers everywhere are getting used to having to step outside to light up. But what if you can’t even do that? In the USA (Ayer, Massachusetts, to be exact), smoking is no longer permitted in the city’s parks, thanks to the efforts of Jason Mayo, a member of the Ayer parks and recreation committee. After watching a father blow smoke in his child’s face as he pushed him on a swing, Mayo decided the ban was needed.  “We can’t tell people how to parent,” he said, “but all the other kids around him were inhaling that cigarette too.”

Ayer is not alone in its banning of cigarettes. Other towns in the state and elsewhere — including San Francisco — have similar rules. It’s not just about second-hand smoke – nor are the bans an attempt to stop people from smoking entirely. In addition to the smell and health issues of the smoke, there is the problem of toxic litter. Even after the ban in SF was enacted, cigarette butts still covered playgrounds, offering small children a deadly snack.  “I’m not interested in fining people, I’m not interested in stopping smoking, nor do I see us making gobs of money off this,” said parks and recreation committee chairman Tim Taylor. “I just don’t want to see cigarette butts all over the ground.”

Personally, I completely support such bans.  If you want to breathe carbon monoxide and stink up your clothes, that’s your prerogative as an adult. Kids, however, need protection and it is a big part of the government’s job to make sure they are safe. As Jason Mayo put it, “when kids are involved, it becomes more of an issue for me.”  I couldn’t agree more.

Smoking is such a massively-contentious issue – and particularly so where parents and kids are concerned. So what do you think? Do you think smoking everywhere should be banned or what?

Photo: ardelfin

There’s a popular myth out there about pregnant teens: they’re disadvantaged youth who come from poor families. Oh yeah, and more likely than not, they haven’t seen their real Dad in a long, long time.

A nice pat way to explain how teens end up pregnant. Except it isn’t true.

A new study proves that the myth of the poor girl getting knocked up because she doesn’t have a strong male role model at home and mum is off working two jobs to make ends meet is just that – a myth.

A US body, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found 67% of Americans believe pregnant teens come from homes below the poverty line. Seventy per cent, they say, believe the teen girls are from single-parent households.

But a look at more than 14,000 kids in grades seven to twelve revealed that four out of every 10 teenage parents (including the fathers) lived in a home with both biological parents. An additional 19% of those kids lived with one biological parent and one step-parent, putting the number of teenage parents living in a two-parent household at more than 50%.

Only 28% of the teen parents lived in a home below the federal poverty line, and more than 40% lived in homes where the income level was at or above the poverty line.

Image: daquella manera

Friends show their support through a crisis in all kinds of ways. Some bring casseroles, some send nice notes to cheer you up, and if you’re Jason Sucharski, some grow beards.

Jason Sucharski’s son, Chase, was born months early, weighing only one pound and 7 ounces when he arrived in July. While he was being treated in the NICU at Sisters Hospital in Buffalo, Jason visited his very vulnerable little baby son and discovered, as he put it, that the baby had a little blond beard.

The hiar was lanugo, that downy fur that covers babies in the womb. Usually, they lose it before they are born but seriously premature babies like Chase often still have it. Read more »

Want an unedited, raw look at childbirth? You’ll soon get one. A first-time mum-to-be is planning to show her entire birth live online later this month.

She’s telling us only that her name is Lynsee (she’ll show us her hoo-ha, so it makes sense that we’re on a first-name basis) and she’s twenty-three, a teacher married to Anders.

The entire pregnancy is being documented on MomsLikeMe.com, with support from KARE-11, a TV station in the Twin Cities area (Lynsee lives in Minneapolis). They’re tracking her doctor’s appointments, her growth (there are pictures showing her tummy in different stages of baby bulge) and of course, the birth. Read more »

Cyberworld is chock-full of scary things. Social networking sites enable our kids to meet people that they never would in the real world — people you’d prefer they didn’t encounter at this age (or perhaps ever). Cyberbullying? It happens every day. And sexting? Yep, it’s a fact of life. Read more »

So you figured that it would happen at some point in your life and it finally did. You’ve been sacked or made redundant. Now what on earth do you tell the kids?

My initial gut would have been to sugarcoat it…spin a fairy tale worthy of Walt Disney himself. But then I read a piece in the Huffington Post by Mika Brzezinski’s, co-anchor of MSNBC’s Morning Joe.  A few years before landing the cable gig,  Brzezinski was a hot shot at CBS News: anchor of the weekend newscast and correspondent for 60 Minutes Wednesday.  A network shake-up sent her to the unemployment line, clutching a severance package and a bruised ego.

When the time came to break it to her two daughters, she “fed them a speech” on how good it was going to be, how mummy would be around more and isn’t that just wonderful?

Brzezinski felt satisfied that she had adequately protected her children from life’s harsher realities…but the next day, a teacher called. Her eight-year-old was beside herself and the teacher needed mum to come to school as soon as possible.  Here’s what happened… Read more »