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Parent alert: the Walt Disney Company is now offering refunds for all those ”Baby Einstein” videos that did not make children into geniuses. They may have been a great electronic baby sitter, but the unusual refunds appear to be a tacit admission that they did not increase infant intellect. “We see it as an acknowledgment by the leading baby video company that baby videos are not educational, and we hope other baby media companies will follow suit by offering refunds,” said Susan Linn, director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which has been pushing the issue for years. Baby Einstein,...

Saturday, October 17, 2009 Presented by The teenage-ification of manhood Robert Fulford,  National Post  Parents often complain that kids grow up too fast these days. But many adults, it seems, aren't growing up at all. In an ongoing series, the National Post comment pages have been probing this annoying phenomenon. In today's final instalment, Robert Fulford explains the social construct we now call "the teenager."---The word "teenagers" appeared in the late 1940s, signalling the arrival of a new tribe of young people, the replacements for what were once called adolescents. These self-important newcomers were not just adults-in-training, as young people...

San Antonio, TX - San Antonio Living Show - Entertainment Stories -- Homeless 'American Girl' doll part of new collection

September 13, 2009 Why Can’t She Walk to School? By JAN HOFFMAN TO get to school, the child leaves home by herself, proudly walking down the boulevard in a suburb of a small city in upstate New York. The crossing guard helps her at the intersection. She lives only a block and a half from school. Yet she walks by older children waiting with parents for buses to the same school. She is 7, a second-grader, and her mother, Katie, hears the raised-eyebrow remarks: ‘Are you sure you want to be doing this?’ Katie said friends ask. ‘She’s just so...

a study conducted by the Violent Crimes Institute reports that between 1999 and 2006, there were nearly 1,000,000 sex crimes committed in the United States by illegal aliens. So why does the crime of child molestation seem to be so prevalent among illegal aliens from Mexico?…The answer may lie within the age-old Mexican culture of "machismo," as well as within the actual laws of that country. The crime of rape or child molestation is incredibly under-reported in Mexico, because there is so much shame placed upon the victim as well as the difficulty in proving the case. The crime of...

I finally had to sit down with my 11-year-old daughter for “the talk.” Despite my best efforts to preserve her innocence and protect her from growing up too quickly, I simply had to tell her some important facts of life. No, we didn’t have a talk about how babies are born. This talk was about America’s assault on girlhood. The time finally came for me to explain to my daughter the relationship between media and marketing and money, and why some people think nothing of exploiting girls if it increases their ratings, sells advertising and beefs up the bottom line....

It’s a spectacular day at Harmony Playground in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, with children swinging and running through sprinklers. An “icy man” with his pushcart of fruit ices stands near the jungle gym, as parents look toward the gated entrance. A second ices vendor enters, also setting up shop inside the playground’s cast-iron fence. Vicki Sell, mother of 3-year-old Katherine, tenses when the vendor starts ringing his little bell, over and over, hoping her daughter doesn’t have the typical Pavlovian response. Ever since Katherine had an inconsolable meltdown about not being able to have a treat, Ms. Sell has been trying...

The house was as big as a large barn, although in shape it in no way resembled a barn, being of some plain unadorned vague architectural style that has no name. It had been built in 1910, by the local banker, and had obviously been designed more for social entertaining, and not for the usual domestic sort of life. This was my childhood home alongside the Platte River of Nebraska, from the time I was a year old, until we moved away into the heart of Nebraska, the Sandhills, when I was ten years old. The house was perhaps the...

Bike helmets? SPF? Veggie meals? No way, if you grew up in '50s, '60s, '70s When Phyllis Murphy's mother was pregnant, back in the 1950s, her doctor advised her to take up smoking for relaxation. A few years later, that same mom smeared her toddler's skin with a concoction of baby oil and iodine for a deep, rich tan. Now, safely in adulthood in Vancouver, B.C., Murphy fondly recalls childhood as a time of leaping from rooftops and accumulating “more scars than Joan Rivers.” And Tim Palla, a 46-year-old pastor, spent his childhood just north of Pittsburgh where he got...

Free, imaginative play is crucial for normal social, emotional and cognitive development. It makes us better adjusted, smarter and less stressed. Childhood play is crucial for social, emotional and cognitive ­development. Imaginative and rambunctious “free play,� as opposed to games or structured activities, is the most essential type. Kids and animals that do not play when they are young may grow into anxious, socially maladjusted adults. On August 1, 1966, the day psychiatrist Stuart Brown started his assistant professorship at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, 25-year-old Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the University of Texas Tower...

excerpt: Social scientists have long questioned the origin of President Obama’s most deeply-held economic philosophy. Is it, they wondered, rooted in the mixed up mélange of cultures in which he was raised? Did it spring, as others suggested, from some genetic link to his father’s exotic homeland? Or does it arise, as some have proposed, from the spiritual awakening of his college years? Now the truth can been discovered and can finally be revealed.

Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose. He says that young children have faith even when they have not been taught about it by family or at school, and argues that even those raised alone on a desert island would come to believe in God. "The preponderance of scientific evidence for the past 10 years or so has shown that a lot more seems to...

Sliding down memory lane (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published April 13, 2003.) Recently, my little brother Phil (he's only 50) gave me a box that wound up with him some years ago, when our mom died and a bunch of family flotsam drifted down one generation. The box contains slides. For you young digital readers, I should explain that slides are transparencies made from photographs. They used to be very popular. When you wanted to look at big, bright images of your vacation, you'd get out your slides, spend a few seconds thinking about what a pain...

Imagine if liberal principals were applied to sports, so that the best team is shamed and punished for oppressing the others, and the team that manages to lose the most games is awarded the championship to encourage self-esteem. In Little League, it's already happening: Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player — too good, it turns out. The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last...

A noted child and family psychologist says spanking a child can be an effective form of discipline, despite a recent study that states otherwise. A new report titled "A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in U.S. Public Schools" shows that more than 200,000 children received corporal punishment in U.S. schools. Texas accounted for the majority of the cases, although 21 U.S. states allow the use of corporal punishment. The study was conducted by Humans Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. According to a Reuters article on the study, "liberal groups regard corporal punishment as a barbaric relic...

Oh, to be in England. Theodore Dalrymple: Childhood’s End - Britain, land of bleak houses and low expectations Growing up in today's England is far from the idyll depicted in this nineteenth-century lithograph. kate greenaway/Victoria & Albert Museum, London/Art Resource, NY Growing up in today’s England is far from the idyll depicted in this nineteenth-century lithograph. Britain is the worst country in the Western world in which to be a child, according to a recent UNICEF report. Ordinarily, I would not set much store by such a report; but in this case, I think it must be right—not because I...

MELBOURNE: It is possible that cricket, a game venerated all over the Commonwealth, is older than currently thought. In fact, Jesus may have played the game (or a similar bat-and-ball combination) as a child, according to an ancient Armenian manuscript. Long before the English launched cricket some 300 years ago, similar games were being played as early as the 8th century in the Punjab region, Derek Birley writes in his Social History of English Cricket. But an Armenian scholar says there is good reason to believe that similar games were played in the Middle East long before that time. Dr...

ScienceDaily (Aug. 5, 2008) — A growing number of the world's children are mildly to severely nearsighted (myopic), with rates especially high among urbanized East Asians. In addition to coping with poor distance vision, children with severe myopia are more prone to visual impairment and blindness later in life. Although genetic inheritance plays a role, the rapid rise of myopia suggests that environmental factors are driving the trend. Myopia usually begins and progresses during children's school years, but research on the role of intensive reading or other "near work" has determined that this is a minor factor. A new study...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Injuries are the leading cause of death among children after the first year of life, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a new study, a University of Missouri professor found that children living in households with unrelated adults are six times more likely to die of maltreatment-related unintentional injuries, compared to children living with two biological parents. The risk of maltreatment death is double for children living with foster or step-parents, or other related adults. However, the risk is not higher for children living in households with a single biological parent and no...

An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party. The boy's school says he has violated the children's rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament. The school, in Lund, southern Sweden, argues that if invitations are handed out on school premises then it must ensure there is no discrimination. The boy's father has lodged a complaint with the parliamentary ombudsman. He says the two children were left out because one did not invite his son to his own party and he had fallen out with the...

Center feels singling out players can hurt youthful self confidence. Thursday, June 26, 2008 (Beachwood) - Beachwood has cancelled its annual 4th of July Rec League All-Star Game for 9 to 12 year olds. In a letter to coaches, Assistant Recreation Supervisor Frank Vicchiarelli announced that the decades old tradition would end because certain kids were being singled out as better players than others.

BEACHWOOD, Ohio -- A local community has canceled an all-star game for youth baseball players because it doesn't want to exclude anyone. People in Beachwood are upset, and it's not just parents and children. The issue is when is a child just learning a game and when are they old enough to compete in it? The city of Beachwood and its recreation department drew the line at age 12. The phone lines lit up on WTAM on Thursday morning as parents and sports fans called to voice their opinion on the city canceling its all-star game for 9- to 12-year-olds....

Several years ago my husband borrowed a Shania Twain CD from the library. When my then 5-year-old daughter saw me roll my eyes at the barely dressed singer's provocative poses on the liner notes, she was smitten. She played the CD over and over, tossing her hair and wiggling her hips in imitation of those photos, oblivious to the innuendo but aware that she was doing something daring and rebellious. What, I thought, am I going to do when she's 13? Reading The Lolita Effect five years later, I wonder why that episode even stands out in my memory. To...

A playground pastime is getting a timeout this spring at a McLean elementary school. Robyn Hooker, principal of Kent Gardens Elementary School, has told students they may no longer play tag during recess after determining that the game of chasing, dodging and yelling "You're it!" had gotten out of hand. Hooker explained to parents in a letter this month that tag had become a game "of intense aggression." The principal said that her goal is to keep students safe and that she hopes to restore tag (as well as touch football, also now on hold) after teachers and administrators review...

Why Don't Kids Walk To School Anymore?No sidewalk and no green buffer makes walking feel unsafe. A wide treed buffer between a sidewalk and the street encourages walking. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Michigan) ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2008) — Maybe when we were their age, we walked five miles to school, rain or shine. So why don't most children today walk or bike to school? It's not necessarily because they're spoiled, lazy or over scheduled. According to a University of Michigan researcher, concerns about safety are the main reason that less than 13 percent of U.S. children walked or...

Extra Vitamin D In Early Childhood Cuts Adult Diabetes Risk ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2008) — Vitamin D supplements in early childhood may ward off the development of type 1 diabetes in later life, reveals a research review published ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder, in which insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas are destroyed by the body's own immune system, starting in early infancy. The disease is most common among people of European descent, with around 2 million Europeans and North Americans affected. Its incidence is rising at...

LONDON: Childhood is the golden era in one's life. But, a new study has found that it now effectively ends at the age of 11 with parents increasingly succumbing to "pester pressure" from their kids. Researchers in Britain have found that children are forcing their parents to authorise freedoms that belie their years in contrast with the traditional upbringings experienced by their moms and dads. According to the study, more and more teenagers are being allowed to drink alcohol, stay out late, sleep over at their boyfriend's or girlfriend's house and have sex, The Daily Telegraph reported on Monday. Little...

More than half of parents believe that childhood is now over by the age of 11, according to a survey. The poll shows that children, desperate to keep up with their peers, are forcing parents to authorise freedoms that belie their years, in contrast with the traditional upbringings experienced by their mothers and fathers. Teenagers are increasingly being allowed to drink alcohol, stay out late and sleep over at their boyfriend or girlfriend's house, according to the survey for Random House Children's Books. But many adults feel that parents are wrong to succumb and that youngsters grow up alarmingly quickly,...

On a drizzly Tuesday night in late January, 200 people came out to hear a psychiatrist talk rhapsodically about play — not just the intense, joyous play of children, but play for all people, at all ages, at all times. (All species too; the lecture featured touching photos of a polar bear and a husky engaging playfully at a snowy outpost in northern Canada.) Stuart Brown, president of the National Institute for Play, was speaking at the New York Public Library’s main branch on 42nd Street. He created the institute in 1996, after more than 20 years of psychiatric practice...

Hillary Clinton isn’t the only woman struggling to find an ideal mix of feminism and femininity, one that allows a woman to behave both like and unlike a man without being penalized either way. Mothers of daughters, even if they don’t support the former first lady, feel, if not her pain, at least her conflict. You need only look at the staggering success, in a publishing industry gone soft, of two advice manuals for young women, “The Daring Book for Girls” and “The Girls’ Book: How to Be the Best at Everything.” Those volumes were inspired by “The Dangerous Book...

Boys' learning 'helped by toy guns' 31 December 2007 Boys' learning is aided by playing with toy weapons and should not be discouraged at nursery schools, the government has claimed. In new guidance on the issue of boys' education, the government has claimed that development in boys is improved when they are allowed to play and act out their games. The guidance says that staff should resist the 'natural instinct' to stop boys from playing with weapons, although this has been criticised by a number of groups, which have claimed that toy guns and weapons are a symbol of aggression....

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau is credited with the famous remark, "La guerre! C'est une chose trop grave pour la confier à des militaries" -- war is too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military. The idea that Clemenceau was trying to project through these words is that experts are often incapable of seeing beyond their profession and understanding the greater domains of necessity. Here in Hawaii, we are facing a transportation infrastructure crisis of the highest degree of peril. I assert to every single man, woman, and child of these Hawaiian Islands that our future is too...

Children at Oakdale School here in southeastern Connecticut returned this fall to learn that their traditional recess had gone the way of the peanut butter sandwich and the Gumby lunchbox. No longer could they let off youthful energy — pent up from hours of long division — by cavorting outside for 22 minutes of unstructured play, or perhaps a vigorous game of tag or dodgeball. Such games had been virtually banned by the principal, Mark S. Johnson, along with kickball, soccer and other “body-banging” activities, as he put it, where knees — and feelings — might get bruised. Instead, children...

We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. — Autism SO reads one of the six “ransom notes” that make up a provocative public service campaign introduced this week by the New York University Child Study Center to raise awareness of what Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, the center’s founder and director, called “the silent public health epidemic of children’s mental illness.” Produced pro bono by BBDO, an Omnicom agency that worked on two previous campaigns for the Child Study Center, the campaign...

How much to you know about the lives of the presidential contenders before the election campaign? Take the quiz to gauge your expertise.

...I argue frequently with my students about whether a child can succeed in school without parental support or involvement. Students believe in the power of the strong individual but often the playing field is too slanted, the teams too uneven. As early as preschool and Head Start, certain three-to-five-year-olds are already at a great advantage because of parental educational support while other children are beginning a lifelong struggle to keep pace. ...Children who are not learning basic skills in the home during the most important years of brain development (0-5 years) will enter kindergarten already at an educational disadvantage. Since...

In the New York Times, Gary Cross, a professor of history at Pennsylvania State University, pens a confusing op-ed on the dangers of, not only outsourcing toy manufacturing, but allowing "licensed toys" (Dora, Barbie, etc...) from being introduced to kids. "Young people" just haven't developed the critical judgment necessary to, gulp, deal with "consumerism." Like any good nannyist, Cross uses a scare (the recent Mattel recall, in this case) to kick things off. We quickly jump to commercials. ….In the early 1970s, child advocates like Action for Children's Television recognized that television ads for toys had a magical power over...

Many of you may have seen the following reflection many, many times. I had not. It brought back many pleasant memories of growing up "American." So, for those who have not read it, I share it with a whimsically nostalgic wink and smile: TO ALL THE KID S WHO SURVIVED the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our...

Springs elementary gives tag a timeout By BRIAN NEWSOME THE GAZETTE On the playground of a northern Colorado Springs elementary school, tag is not “it.” The touch-and-run game and any other form of chasing was banned this year at Discovery Canyon Campus’ elementary school by administrators who say it fuels schoolyard disputes. “It causes a lot of conflict on the playground,” said Assistant Principal Cindy Fesgen. In the first days of school, before tag was banned, she said students would complain to her about being chased or harassed. Fesgen said she would hear: “Well, I don’t want to be chased,...

PERHAPS YOU'VE HEARD of the hot new book, "The Dangerous Book for Boys." It has been a mad bestseller in England and is now topping the lists here, too. It was written by two British brothers who wanted to bring back the idea of free and unfettered boyhood, when boys were not tempered with excessive scheduled activities or indoor play. The idea of the book intrigued me, but I was afraid of it. Was this going to be like some junior version of the TV show "Jackass," where boys did stupid things like riding on a skateboard attached to the...

When I was 10, I founded an international organization known as the Black Cat Club. My friend Richard was the only other member. My younger brother, Hal, had "provisional status," which meant that he had to try out for full membership every other week. We told him we would consider his application if he jumped off the garage roof - about 8 feet from the ground. He had a moment of doubt as he looked over the edge, but we said it wouldn't hurt if he shouted the words "Fly like an eagle!" When he jumped, his knees came up...

A new guidebook reaffirms boyhood in all of its politically incorrect glory. The frontispiece in Conn and Hal Iggulden’s The Dangerous Book for Boys says it all—a skull and crossbones boldly heralds adventure, treasure, and unbridled boyish fun. According to its English authors, this is a book for boys who want to be “self-sufficient and find their way in the stars.” It’s a delightful compendium of knowledge, life tips, building projects, games, and hands-on invention. At its heart, the book unabashedly reaffirms and celebrates the traditional moral leather that has guided untold generations of men in their voyage through life. ...

When I had a son of my own six years ago, I looked around for the sort of books that would inspire him. I was able to find some, but none with the spirit and verve of those old titles. I wanted a single compendium of everything I'd ever wanted to know or do as a boy, and I decided to write my own. We began with everything we had done as kids, then added things we didn't want to see forgotten. History today is taught as a feeble thing, with all the adventure taken out of it. We wanted...

How children lost the right to roam in four generations http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462091 http://tinyurl.com/yt6geg By DAVID DERBYSHIRE Last updated at 01:03am on 15th June 2007 When George Thomas was eight he walked everywhere. It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision. Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas's eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom. He is driven the few minutes to school, is taken by car to a safe place to ride...

The Final Word: Maybe it's time to let boys be boys — outside http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/finalword/2007-05-01-final-word_N.htm http://tinyurl.com/ythtr3 By Craig Wilson, USA TODAY May 1, 2007 E-mail Craig Wilson at cwilson@usatoday.com

Parents' fears are robbing children of their childhood. ___ My three boys sprawl on the couch, fingering their Game Boys. I wish I could shoo them outside until dusk. I wish they could tromp to the marsh to search for polliwogs. I wish we didn't have to live in a fortress. But we don't let our children play in the front yard, because a sex offender lives two doors down. Instead, like other families in this neighborhood, we've built private playgrounds in the back. From my kitchen window, I see two wooden play structures, three trampolines, and four basketball hoops,...

JOSEPH GALLO, 10, of Santa Cruz, Calif., is well armed in the battle against childhood boredom, with a bedroom arsenal that includes a computer hooked to the Internet, a DVD player, two Game Boys, as well as an Xbox and GameCube. But in recent weeks, the hum of that war room of machinery has quieted because Joseph has acquired a new playtime obsession that would have seemed quaint even in his parents’ day: marbles. But lately, a number of educators like Mr. Cohill, as well as parents and child-development specialists are trying to spur a revival of traditional outdoor pastimes,...

First, there was the question of the title: "The Dangerous Book for Boys." HarperCollins Publishers' Chief Executive Jane Friedman just didn't understand what it meant. Sure, the book had been a hit in England and Australia, but that didn't mean it would work in the U.S. But the sales staff urged her to stick with it, and in just two weeks, "Dangerous" has become the breakout hit of the season. The News Corp. unit initially ordered up 91,000 copies. There are now 405,000 copies in print. One senior HarperCollins executive, extrapolating from overseas sales and population data, projects that "Dangerous,"...

The 'Dangerous' book puts girls on the side http://www.star-telegram.com/408/story/80188.html By JILL LAWLESS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON -- Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. In these frenzied, media-saturated times, the lure of a simpler past is more powerful than ever. That may explain the success of The Dangerous Book for Boys, a deliberately retro tome that has become the publishing sensation of the year in Britain. Exuding the brisk breeziness of Boy Scout manuals and Boy's Own annuals, The Dangerous Book is a childhood how-to guide that covers everything from paper airplanes to go-carts, skipping stones to skinning a rabbit....

Power lines in new link to childhood leukaemia By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 3:14am BST 21/04/2007 A leaked Government-commissioned report has raised fresh fears of a link between power lines and cancer. The Government has been urged to consider a ban on building new homes and schools near overhead high voltage power lines The draft paper urges ministers to consider banning the building of homes and schools close to overhead high voltage power cables to reduce significantly exposure to electromagnetic fields from the electricity grid. The Stakeholder Advisory Group on Extremely Low Frequency Electromagnetic Radiation (Sage) says a...