I happened to catch NPR’s Morning Edition today, something that happens only rarely when my son is preoccupied and doesn’t notice that I haven’t put on one of his Sesame Street or Music Together CDs. There was a piece about research on fetal cells. Scientists now believe that these cells linger in a bio-mom’s body […]
The American Academy of Pediatrics yesterday released updated guidelines on calcium intake for children. The AAP reemphasizes that calcium during childhood and adolescence determines peak bone mass development, which may help reduce the risk of fractures and osteoporosis later. They recommend three age-appropriate servings of dairy products per day (four for adolescents), preferably low-fat dairy
What do these two things have in common? Risk to children. A new study in the journal Pediatrics determined that increased time watching television means decreased time interacting with parents and siblings and playing creatively. For older children, it also means less time spent on homework. The researchers claim this is the first evidence to
Researchers at Florida State and Vanderbilt Universities claim parents have significantly higher levels of depression than adults without children. More surprisingly, this does not change when the kids leave home, and may in fact increase. Parents who do not have custody of their minor children may also experience greater depression than those who do. Parents’
Pioneering feminist author and one of the founders of NOW, Betty Friedan, died yesterday at the age of 85. I was a feminist before I (knew I) was a lesbian. I cannot claim, however, that Friedan’s seminal work, The Feminine Mystique influenced me directly. By the time I was old enough to read it, it
There’s been a lot in the media recently about how boys are struggling in the U. S. educational system. Newsweek ran a cover story in its January 30 issue titled “The Trouble With Boys,” and PBS this month aired the documentary “Raising Cain: Boys in Focus,” based on the book of the same name. Some
Xena and Gabrielle long lived in an aura of mystery, often baffling those who dealt with them. (Not least the legions of fans wondering if the two of them were more than just friends.) The same is true of two distant objects in the solar system, nicknamed—you guessed it—Xena and Gabrielle. Scientists recently confirmed that
My partner and I just booked ourselves on Olivia’s Grand Caribbean Cruise. This is our second trip with them, even though we’ve never considered ourselves “cruise people.” We typically prefer a do-it-ourselves vacation where we can either mingle with the natives or brave the wilds of nature. Since having a child, though, our time to
One of the latest trends in geekdom is creating “mashups,” combinations of data from multiple Web sites that result in a new service for users. The best-known of these are combinations of Google Maps and something else: movie showtimes or house listings, for example. My two-and-a-half-year-old son, showing his attunement to such innovations, has been
I’ve never been a fan of education that “teaches to the test.” Now, a new study from the UK supports the view that the relentless focus on preparing children for national exams has lessened their cognitive and conceptual development and ability to handle new ideas. In fact, they claim, 11- and 12-year-olds are “now on
