Sunday, April 14, 2013
Research published this month by the Journal of Pediatrics found no relationship between autism and the increasing number of recommended vaccines. But skeptics still aren't buying it.
For parents concerned about vaccines and the possibility of harm they may do, the newest research tests the “too many, too soon” theory, and encourages us to put it to rest. Today the central worry questions the large number of vaccines given, and how many are given at one time, especially when they’re being administered to the vulnerable bodies of very young children. The new study, published online April 1 in the Journal of Pediatrics, found no relationship between the increased exposure to vaccines and autism. As the number of recommended childhood vaccinations has grown over the decades, so have autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses – and in the public mind, the two have been difficult to separate. Fifteen years ago, a now-…
Friday, January 25, 2013
A Patch blogger's post about not helping her children on the slide is being debated across the country.
A Patch blog from Alameda, CA, called “Please Don’t Help My Kids” has struck a nerve with readers across the country. Posted in September, the blog has taken off over the past few weeks as it has found a second life through social media sharing. The blog has 124,000 Facebook recommendations and 833 people have tweeted the blog. The blog is an open letter to other parents at the playground. The blogger Kate Bassford Baker’s basic request is for parents to not help her daughters on the slide. She wrote that she wants her daughters to do things and learn things on their own. Learning to walk up the slide’s ladder is the first step to learning new things and overcoming obstacles, she wrote. “Because, as they grow up, the ladders will only get…
Friday, December 28, 2012
A year after writing a major story on overparenting, Katherine Ozment talks about how she remade herself as a mom.
Give a boy a watch and send him out the door: After her 10-year-old leaves the house, Katherine Ozment may not see her son again until he reads his wrist and knows it’s dinnertime. Today, she’s fine with that. But one year ago, Ms. Ozment was just coming to terms with her parental hovering habits. Going out to play meant dressing everyone for the weather, packing snacks and water, mom loading the baby into the stroller – a real group activity. Her intense monitoring of her three kids’ every mood and management of their days was, as she wrote, “changing the very nature of their childhood.” So she decided to become a different kind of parent. Last December, Ozment wrote a story for Boston Magazine about how we overprotect our children, …
Friday, November 30, 2012
Raw emotions surface when parenting a tween daughter who's learning how to handle the 'mean girls.'
“You’re just like Sophia!” Slap. Right there on the street, I hit my child. On her face, with my hand, in the heat of the moment, my temper the winner, my daughter the loser. We were walking home after school: three bulging backpacks, a stroller, and two siblings arguing in the rain. Eldest daughter was trying to get me to react to her complaint about her sister combatant. When I didn’t respond, she said a desperate thing – she compared me to the girl in her world who’s been best friend and foe and everything in between. After I’d spent the day trying not to worry so much about this child of mine, the verbal slap stung. For months, this daughter has been trying to cross the line that separates the bullied kids from the ones who, somehow, …
Friday, November 16, 2012
TEDxBeaconStreet promises to introduce a wealth of ideas to adults and kids, in a weekend of participatory events and super-short speeches.
There is a vocational path from balloon-twisting artist to NASA flight engineer, and this weekend Joseph Maydell will demonstrate that connection at TEDxBeaconStreet. Instead of the squeaky, air-filled latex tubes Mr. Maydell once used in his old part-time gig to entertain kids, he’ll use a giant weather balloon and its attached camera and computer. During the balloon’s flight, families on the field at the Lincoln School in Brookline will get a real-time look at Earth’s beauty from 20 miles up in the atmosphere. Inspired by the video coming from the International Space Station one night at work, Maydell knew he wanted to share with non-NASA folks the spectacular view of Earth from space. So last year he finished developing a weather …
Saturday, November 3, 2012
From Boston’s brush with the superstorm, a lesson in gratitude.
On the morning after Hurricane Sandy, our routine rush released the kids from its boredom – their main takeaway. They returned to school toting raincoats and lunchboxes, ready for normalcy and catch-up. But even as Sandy was still moving past us, my husband and I were already soaked in the non-stop reports of an enormous storm that had not yet finished with this continent. Here in Boston, the effects were relatively light. At no point was more than 2 percent of the city without power (although if you were kept waiting in the dark, “light” is not how you might describe it). Yet like many in Boston, we have friends up and down a certain span of the East coast. So the images and stories of the “worst ever seen” conditions for our neighbors …
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Parents spend effort keeping kids safe, and money on gear and fun stuff. But what happens when that cool thing you bought is suddenly considered unsafe? Buckyballs are now targeted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
My kids’ crib is embarrassingly languishing in our den – despite the fact that it hasn’t been used as a sleeping place in a very long time. Our Bumbo baby seat has stuck around too, although it was useful for mere months, since it’s meant just for the baby who’s learning to sit up. And can I add our Maclaren stroller to this list? We have one of about a million of them sold in the U.S. from 1999 through November 2009. None of these items were exceptionally well-loved or well-used, but they served their time and I’m more than ready to see them go. Yet they were all recalled, which adds a taint that makes them tougher to get rid of (unless you count tossing in the trash a good solution). While improving controls over the lead and phthalate…
Monday, September 24, 2012
Add scientific research to your list of activities for children in Boston.
Even if you're buying diapers and wipes instead of No. 2 pencils and notebooks this month, you can still go back to school. The idea of college – sleeping in until your first class, learning instead of teaching, even institutional food (at least you didn’t have to cook it, and then do the dishes) – might be pretty appealing compared with, well, everything about being a grown-up. So, since there’s no escaping the grown-up part, here’s a compromise: Go back to school, and take the baby with you. In our research-rich city, you can make a little contribution to science by volunteering to participate in child development studies at many of the colleges and universities in Boston. Your child might be asked to perform simple tasks such as …
Monday, September 17, 2012
You don't need to do yoga to use these concepts with kids to help them return to school stress-free.
Many people view yoga as a physical practice only, and while they know that there’s a philosophical side, many feel that they’re not “spiritual,” so they can only relate to the physical aspect of the practice. The fact is that many of the central principles of yoga are very basic, relatable thoughts and can be appreciated and utilized even if you never step foot on a yoga mat. Additionally, most of these concepts can be appreciated by both adults and children and can provide kids with an understanding of how the practice of mindfulness can help them scholastically as well as physically and emotionally. Here are a few you can share with children during this stressful and exciting time of a new school year: Feel better fast: take 10 deep …
Monday, August 27, 2012
List-Mania: Recent rankings score Boston high for young and old alike, making it a fine place to live for a long time.
The flow of frozen-yogurt seekers kept the door of the Allston shop in near-constant motion. With the skies already dark, for our little kids spooning into their scoops, it was late. But not for the customers coming in: With school yet to start, the relaxed, homework-free summer faces and bodies around us were uniformly young, as befits a neighborhood of students. We were with friends who were visiting Boston to tour colleges with their high schooler and two younger children. As the other mom at our table turned slightly to see the crowd, a bit of a shudder passed through her. “I can’t be around so many people this age,” she said, smiling and shaking her head. She was thinking of all the parenting she’d done, and all that was left to do. I…
Matthew
4:52 pm on Friday, January 25, 2013
This is ridiculous. Parents today are equally ridiculous. With so many issues facing kids and parents nowadays, I hardly think PLAYGROUNDS are the most important issue we should be dealing with. We're so into micro managing every aspect of kids' lives that we've now arrived in the land of the asinine. P.S. i livd in the Bay Area for years. This is the kind of ridiculous crap they preoccupy … more ›