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A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home. NC Pre-K (before this year known as More at Four) is a state-funded education program designed to “enhance school readiness” for four year-olds. The mother, who doesn’t wish to be identified at this time, says she made her daughter...

I watched an extremely disturbing TV program about two boys in high school who killed a girl solely for the experience. Both boys, having aspirations of becoming movie producers, documented their murder adventure on video. Their video included a playful interview with their unsuspecting victim at her school locker. The obviously bright and beautiful girl looked into the camera, laughing while answering the boys' silly questions. Later that evening, the boys bludgeoned and stabbed her to death. One of the two boys commented, "Making murder illegal makes people want to do it." I realize that this case is an extreme...

This probably won’t shock most people because we live in an age where the envelope has been pushed so far it’s disappeared over the horizon.  According to the Daily Mail, pink and leopard-print thong panties with no crotches sized to fit a seven-year-old were being sold at Kids N Teen in Greeley, Colorado.  The panties were yanked after a mortified mother complained. As one writer put it: “It’s a new kind of memory: A daughter’s first pair of crotchless panties.” It’s also a sign of the times when a retailer decides there’s nothing wrong with selling sleazy leopard-print thong panties...

..... Heath and Deborah Campbell, the New Jersey parents of three children with Nazi-inspired names, lost custody of their fourth child 17 hours after he was born, the Express-Times of Lehigh Valley, Pa., reported. Hons Campbell was taken into custody by the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services late Thursday night after the doctor who delivered the baby called the agency, the paper reported. “There’s no legal binding court order. It’s basically a kidnapping, but they use different terms,” Heath Campbell told the Express-Times. The Campbell family stepped into the spotlight in December 2008 when a ShopRite grovery...

Heath and Deborah Campbell, the New Jersey parents of three children with Nazi-inspired names, lost custody of their fourth child 17 hours after he was born, the Express-Times of Lehigh Valley, Pa., reported. Hons Campbell was taken into custody by the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services late Thursday night after the doctor who delivered the baby called the agency, the paper reported. “There’s no legal binding court order. It’s basically a kidnapping, but they use different terms,” Heath Campbell told the Express-Times. The Campbell family stepped into the spotlight in December 2008 when a ShopRite grovery store...

MEMPHIS, TN - (WMC-TV) - A new meal program for some students of Memphis City Schools was the subject of a recent rant by nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh. Students in dozens of Memphis City Schools are receiving an extra meal - dinner - during the district's after-hours enrichment programs. A recent story in the Commercial Appeal about the federally funded program caught Limbaugh's attention. "The writer, this Jane Roberts, (writes as if) 'oh this is wonderful...this is the greatest invention ever: supper at school,'" Limbaugh said. The article spotlighted an 11-year-old student at Shelby Oaks Elementary who expressed...

November 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com)  - This week’s episode of Fox Television’s prime-time musical comedy show “Glee� featured two teenage couples, one heterosexual and one homosexual, engaging in sex for the first time. Titled “The First Time,� the episode depicted two couples - a young man and woman, Finn and Rachel, and two young men, Kurt and Blaine - each losing their virginity. The development occurs after a fellow student and school play director tells Blaine and Rachel, who are practicing their roles as Tony and Maria for a production of West Side Story, that they won’t be believable as...

(CNN) -- A Cleveland couple faces child endangerment charges after giving away their neglected 2-year-old girl, authorities said. The parents were arrested Thursday after authorities learned that they gave away the toddler 10 days earlier, according to Cleveland police reports. Police got a tip Thursday and went to the parents' home, where they found an emaciated pit bull and fecal matter. The child was nowhere to be found, police said. Officers learned the suspects had given the child away to friends in their neighborhood, who said they agreed to take custody of her if the couple agreed to get help...

JERUSALEM, Israel, October 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Now that Hamas has freed Gilad Schalit, thousands of Israeli parents are asking the Ministry of Welfare to return their children being withheld from them by social workers. "The welfare system uses a 'divide-and-conquer' method to break up distressed families," says David Weisskopf, founder of the UnPromisedLand channel. (http://www.youtube.com/user/UnPromisedLand) The YouTube channel raises public awareness about ongoing corruption in the Israeli welfare system. One of the victims, a retired elite air force pilot, alleges that social workers kidnapped his infant son to put up for adoption. Such allegations are nothing new. The most...

Police have arrested a mentally-ill man in connection with the death of his parents, whose bodies were found at their home on Friday. David William Hamilton, 26, from Huntersville, North Carolina, was arrested at a motel on Friday night after his sister reportedly found their parents' bodies. Huntersville Police Captain Michael Kee said Hamilton was living with his parents - James and Stephanie Hamilton - at the home after being released from a mental institution earlier this year.

In record numbers, they're struggling to find work, shunning long-distance moves to live with mom and dad, delaying marriage and raising kids out of wedlock - if they're becoming parents at all. Young adults are the recession's lost generation in the U.S. The unemployment rate for them is the highest since World War Two, and they risk living in poverty more than others - nearly one in five. There are missed opportunities and dim prospects for a generation of mostly 20-somethings and 30-somethings coming of age in a prolonged period of joblessness.

... We are educated professionals who work with kids every day and often see your child in a different light than you do. If we give you advice, don't fight it. Take it, and digest it in the same way you would consider advice from a doctor or lawyer. I have become used to some parents who just don't want to hear anything negative about their child, but sometimes if you're willing to take early warning advice to heart, it can help you head off an issue that could become much greater in the future. Trust us. At times when...

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The next time you plan a movie night without the kids, you may have to provide more than just pizza for your babysitter. Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento are fast-tracking a bill that would require workers’ compensation benefits, meal breaks and paid vacation time for all “domestic employees”, including nannies, housekeepers and even babysitters. Assembly Bill 889, authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), has already cleared the Assembly and is expected to receive overwhelming support from Senate Democrats, who control both houses of the California legislature. Under AB 889, parents legally become household “employers” and are...

We live in an age of babies. It's official. And I HATE it. Today, as I was fundraising for the YAF 9/11 Never Forget Project, I was pulled into the office of my head of school. I was told to take down the posters we had up, that read "Never Forget" with pictures of various attacks on Americans, such as 9/11, the bombing of the Marine barracks, and a picture of Daniel Pearl with a gun to his head. Now, my head of school said that the picture with the gun was inappropriate. Granted, I do go to a school...

A child in a Hamburg residential complex: A new report has found that parents in 7 percent of German households can't afford to finance hobbies for their children. Despite substantial subsidies aimed at increasing the birthrate, the number of children in Germany continues to shrink. A new report by the federal government has found there are 14 percent fewer children under 18 than in 2000 -- and 15 percent of them, alarmingly, live in poverty. For Germany, the figures are the warning signs of a demographic time bomb in a fast-graying society. The number of children under the age of...

Many retailers and schools are advocating waste-free options for back-to-school shoppers this year, especially when it comes to lunch. School lists call for Tupperware instead of Ziplocs, neoprene lunch bags instead of brown paper ones, and aluminum water bottles, not the throwaway plastic versions. Sales of environmentally friendly back-to-school products are up just about everywhere. At the Container Store, the increase is 30 percent over last year for some items, said Mona Williams, the company’s vice president of buying. “We have seen a huge resurgence,” she said. The trend makes the schools happy (much less garbage). It makes the stores...

A lesson in finance: Parents, teachers prepare for back-to-school expensesBy Megan Hart | The Muskegon Chronicle Updated: Monday, August 22, 2011, 10:14 AM **SNIP** Handing out the list early gives parents a chance to hit the sales, minimizing costs, Beal said, and the school still buys supplies so students who can't afford them aren't left behind. “If they have tough times, we'll make sure they get what they need,” she said. At North Muskegon Elementary, the youngest students need relatively few supplies for personal use, but are asked to contribute items to the class, such as colored paper, plastic bandages,...

Since California Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 48 into law on July 14, the curriculum for California public schools must include “the role and contributions of…lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans” in California and American history. Already, those on the left are preparing to defend the law in courts, while those on the right are driving petitions to overturn the law by a ballot initiative. Why go to all that trouble? Because the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over California and a handful of other states, has already made clear that there can be no opt-outs of...

At last. Parent groups are catching on to how unions rope unwary parents into their schemes. This has spawned a Big Flap between teacher’s unions and parents. If you are a parent, please hear me out. Covertly, teacher’s unions are either using you or undermining your authority to get what they want for teachers. It has always been curious to me, even peculiar, why local parents groups have allied with teacher unions on some issues that are central to the union playbook. For example, some parents’ groups in Palm Beach County played into the union’s multi-year scheme to discredit a...

Well that didn’t take long. Yesterday, in a post discussing a New York Times op-ed that called for heavy taxation on “unhealthy” foods, I asked, “How long before some starry-eyed but angry-faced Democrat proposes legislation to force ‘healthy food’ advertising?” Now The Daily Caller reports that food producers could face government regulations requiring “healthy” composition profiles for foods marketed to children two to seventeen years old.If enacted, new regulatory criteria will reclassify many foods which the FDA presently considers healthy as off limits for advertising to children. In the present formulations, eighty-eight of the top 100 most-consumed foods will be...

Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) -- If you're the kind of parent who allows your 5-year-old to run rampant in public places like restaurants, I have what could be some rather disturbing news for you. I do not love your child. The rest of the country does not love your child either. And the reason why we're staring at you every other bite is not because we're acknowledging some sort of mutual understanding that kids will be kids but rather we want to kill you for letting your brat ruin our dinner. Or our plane ride. Or trip to the grocery...

Children whose mothers return to work within the first year after birth are less likely to fight with their classmates or become anxious than if their mothers stay at home, according to new research. Despite concerns that young children suffer if they are left in childcare during the early years of their lives, academics at University College London found that there were “no detrimental effects” resulting from mothers going back to work. The best arrangement for children’s emotional stability is a home in which both parents are in paid jobs, partly because mothers who work are less likely to be...

Yet another bill opposed by the state’s Catholic bishops is on its way to the governor for his signature – this one co-sponsored by homosexual advocacy groups that seek to redefine fatherhood in a way that favors children with same-sex parents. The bill, AB 1349, sponsored by Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, passed the state Senate by a vote of 23-14 on July 14. It cleared the Assembly 52-22 in May. The measure was co-sponsored by Equality California and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “AB 1349 is a bill that is intended to redefine fatherhood for children born to...

Those who paint U.S. Supreme Court justices with a broad brush only prove they don't really understand the court. Justice Antonin Scalia was dead wrong in striking down California's restriction on selling horribly violent video games to children. And Justice Clarence Thomas did a spectacular job of showing why the Founders would uphold this law. California enacted a law restricting the sale of graphically violent video games to children, requiring an adult to make the purchase. One such graphic game involves the player torturing a girl as she pleads for mercy, urinating on her, dousing her with gasoline and setting...

DEXTER, Minn. - The Dexter parents who pleaded guilty to chaining one of their sons to his bed have been denied visitation rights. Thirty-three-year-old Brian Dale Miller and 26-year-old Charity Lynn Miller requested visitation with the younger of their two sons Friday. They both pleaded guilty earlier this month to gross misdemeanor false imprisonment. They were accused of chaining their 5-year-old son to his crib and withholding food and access to the bathroom from him and his 8-year-old brother.

Meet Storm. With those big blue eyes, fair hair and chubby cheeks, the four-month-old is certainly adorable. But whether this baby is a bruising boy or a blushing girl is, the parents say, a secret. In fact, they’re leaving the decision up to him – or her. The bizarre move has led to Kathy Witterick, 38, and husband David Stocker, 39, being labelled the most politically correct family in the world.

When many couples have a baby, they send out an email to family and friends that fills them in on the key details: name, gender, birth weight, that sort of thing. (You know the drill: "Both Mom and little Ethan are doing great!") But the email sent recently by Kathy Witterick and David Stocker of Toronto, Canada to announce the birth of their baby, Storm, was missing one important piece of information. "We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now--a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in...

Parents who let their kids drink when supervised – because they think it's safer than an outright ban on underage drinking – may want to rethink their approach due to a new study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Co-authored by University of Washington professor Richard Catalano, the study (PDF) found that teens who drank with adult supervision had more drinking-related problems than teens raised with a zero-tolerance attitude. "Kids need parents to be parents and not drinking buddies," Barbara McMorris, the study's lead researcher, said in a statement. McMorris is a senior research associate at the...

One in four children in the U.S. is being raised by a single parent - a percentage that has been on the rise and is higher than other developed countries, according to a report released today. Researchers found that the U.S. had 25.8 percent of children being raised by a single parent, compared with an average of 14.9 percent across the other countries.

McDonald's grimaces at Happy Meal lawsuit Photo 12:20pm EDT By Dan Levine SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A lawsuit seeking to stop McDonald's Corp from offering toys with Happy Meals must be dismissed because parents can always choose not to buy the meals for their children, the hamburger giant said in a court filing late on Monday. The lawsuit accuses McDonald's of unfairly using toys to lure children into its restaurants. The plaintiff, Monet Parham, a Sacramento, California mother of two, charges that the company's advertising violates California consumer protection laws. The Happy Meal has been a huge hit for McDonald's...

There are few things more thrilling in life than having your first baby. But newbie baby namers are prone to making some mistakes that more experienced name choosers are able to avoid. If you're choosing a baby name for the first time, don't make one of these seven common mistakes: 1. Believing that the names that were popular -- and creative -- when you were a kid still have the same status. Name tastes have changed radically over the last decade or two. Goodbye, Jessica and Josh, hello Layla and Serenity, Landon and Tristan -- all top 100 names. 2....

Tucson and Arizona parents have been given a say over what education materials are used in public schools.

The U.S. Supreme Court building in D.C. Washington D.C., Apr 5, 2011 / 05:56 am (CNA).- In what's being lauded as a major victory for parental choice in education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Arizona residents have a right to claim tax credit for donations to non-profit groups that provide scholarships to religious schools.“Parents should be able to choose what’s best for their own children,” attorney David Cortman of the Alliance Defense Fund said. “This ruling empowers parents to do just that.”On April 4, the high court ruled 5 – 4 to dismiss a lawsuit backed by the...

7/21/2010 By Lance Cpl. Jolene Cooper, Marine Corps Recruiting Command MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va.- Marine Corps Recruiting Command launched a new web page www.lifeasamarine.com on Monday. The Web page allows parents, teachers, coaches and others to communicate about their experiences with the Marine Corps. The site may be especially useful for parents who have concerns about their son or daughter joining the Marine Corps. Anyone is able to access and browse this Web site, but those who sign up on the site will have the opportunity to upload photos, videos and stories about how the Marine Corps has impacted...

It’s college admissions season, when parents will open their mailbox and find out the bad news: Their kids were accepted to an elite, big-name college. That’s right: bad news. Higher education is one of those topics — like the current state of Islam, illegitimacy rates in the black community or Bill Belichick’s overrated reputation — that people in polite society are not allowed to discuss honestly. And the obvious, glaring truth is that too many parents are sending kids to college, kids who don’t have the academic firepower to make it through a round of “Jeopardy,” much less four years...

"'Becoming a grandmother at 29 is my worst nightmare' says mum after discovering her 14-year-old daughter is pregnant" A woman who is set to become Britain's youngest grandmother at 29 said it was 'her worst nightmare' when she discovered her 14-year-old daughter was pregnant. Kelly John said she always hoped Tia would not repeat her mistake and become pregnant at 14. But after getting over the shock, the grandmother-to-be has vowed to do 'everything' to bring up the new baby.

In the early fall of 1980, our family was stationed at an Army Post named Ft. Huachuca, Arizona. The town next to the base was Sierra Vista, Arizona. The teachers of Sierra Vista schools became a testing ground for collective bargaining by the NEA, in one of their early excursions into union control vs taxpayers. But a strange turn of events happened that fall that bear revisiting, since the strikes in Wisconsin center around collective bargaining, and as a consequence, local taxes. In 1980, teachers at all the schools in the town of Sierra Vista decided to go on strike....

Lost in the wake of the horrific shootings in Tuc son was a modest battle in the culture war: The State Department quietly decreed that some passport applications would henceforth be gender neutral. No more "mother" and "father"; such terms were apparently too retro, too judgmental for the Foggy Bottom bonzes. Instead, Parent One and Parent Two would do just fine. O Brave New World, that has such bureaucrats in it. A backlash quickly ensued, so Secretary of State Hillary Clinton backed away (some), ordering that the terms "mother" and "father" could peacefully coexist with the new "parent" designations on...

Have you read the article on wsj.com by Amy Chua, a Chinese-American mother (and law professor at Yale)? If not, you probably don’t have children. It is a must-read! I was both mesmerized and appalled by the article; like driving past a horrific car accident and wondering whether anyone survived. I realize that her article has lit up the blogosphere, but, as the author of three parenting books and the father of two girls myself, I just couldn’t resist tossing my two cents into the cyber-well.

An Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter (Kruggmann)has been placed on administrative leave from his job at a Minnesota high school after he insulted President Obama’s intelligence and challenged the commander in chief to a fight.

<p>TUCSON, Ariz. – The 22-year-old man accused of trying to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a deadly shooting rampage wrote "Die, bitch" in a note found at his home, a sheriff's official told The Associated Press on Tuesday.</p> <p>Investigators believe Jared Loughner's handwritten message was a reference to Giffords, Pima County Chief Rick Kastigar said. It was found in a safe alongside other ones, including "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and the name "Giffords."</p>

The devastated parents of accused Tucson shooter Jared Loughner released a statement today saying they "don't understand" what prompted their son to allegedly go on a "heinous" shooting rampage that killed six and injured 14 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It was the first word from Loughner's family since the carnage on Saturday. "This is a very difficult time for us. We ask the media to respect our privacy. There are no words that can possibly express how we feel. We wish that there were so we could make you feel better. We don't understand why this happened. It may...

A neighbor says the parents of the suspect in Saturday's shooting spree in Tucson are devastated and guilt-ridden. Jared Loughnerappeared in court Monday on federal charges that he tried to assassinate U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed a federal judge. He is also accused of killing five others and wounding or injuring 13 others. Wayne Smith, who lives across the street from the family, said Randy and Amy Loughner blame themselves.

George Steinbrenner famously refused to let Yankees players compete with any facial hair, or "unruly" haircuts. While those relatively manic standards were applied to professionals (extremely highly compensated professionals, at that), a similar measure is now being used to keep an eighth grader off his junior high basketball team. According to a number of sources, the Indianapolis Star and Associated Press chief among them, the parents of a Greensburg (Ind.) Community Junior High School student have filed a lawsuit against the district citing discrimination against their son, who was kicked off the team because his hairstyle violated a code of...

What makes a good parent? Many things, of course. But an obvious prerequisite is someone whose parenting goals have less to do with what he or she wants and more to do with what children need. Sadly, this attitude no longer prevails in mainstream American society. Elton John and Eva Longoria (Neil Patrick Harris, too) are the latest to jump on the Me first, Child last bandwagon. Longoria is in the process of divorcing husband Tony Parker (like most women in Hollywood eventually do), but she has no intention of letting a small thing like that stop her from being...

By Marlene Romero’s count, her son has had just one effective teacher in his five years at McKinley Elementary School here. Most of the time, she said, he has merely shuffled through classrooms, struggling in math without ever getting extra help. So when an organizer came knocking at her door promising that if she signed a petition, her son’s school could radically improve, Ms. Romero immediately pledged her support. Now, she is one of more than 250 parents in Compton who are using a new state law to force the failing school to be taken over by a charter school...

The Associated Press might actually be onto something in its education coverage. “An Associated Press-Stanford University Poll on education found that 68 percent of adults believe parents deserve heavy blame for what’s wrong with the U.S. education system — more than teachers, school administrators, the government or teachers unions,” Donna Gordon Blankenship wrote in an AP story that went out on December 12, 2010. “Only 35 percent of those surveyed agreed that teachers deserve a great deal or a lot of the blame.” “Moms were more likely than dads — 72 percent versus 61 percent — to say parents are...

When Facebook was entirely dominated by people under the age of 25, things were simple. But now an important social question has arisen - should you "friend" your child, or accept a parent as a "friend"? For a generation brought up on social networks, your "friends" can range from closest confidants to someone you met at a conference. People you've "friended" for networking purposes are afforded equal status to your sister. Your friends on social networks might also be your 20-something son who's travelling round Thailand or your 13-year-old daughter. These are tricky waters for a parent to navigate, unsure...

If you’ve ever seen Teen Mom, you know that it in no way glorifies teen parenthood. Those young moms and dads are struggling, and despite the rumors that MTV pays them around $60,000 a season, (which MTV refuses to comment on) many of them are shown relying on government assistance to get by. The young women on the show, as much as their lives are put under the microscope, do get famous in their way.

GRISWOLD —A father shot and killed his 24-year-old son, after the son had repeatedly stabbed him and his wife while they were in bed Saturday night, state police said. At about 7:40 p.m., David Gemeasky Jr. entered the bedroom of a home at 655 Bethel Road and stabbed David Gemeasky Sr., his father, police said. Gemeasky Jr. then stabbed Tamara Brennan, who is his biological mother, as she was trying to flee the attack, state police said. Gemeasky Sr., although suffering from serious stab wounds, was able to get his shotgun and shoot Gemeasky Jr., police said Gemeasky Jr. was...