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Strollerderby
Cindy Brady, Sally Draper, Sylvester the Cat. All cute. All lisp. It’s part of their charm. Or, in the case of Sally Draper was part of her charm.
Kiernan Shipka, the lovely 10-year-old who plays Sally on AMC’s wildly popular “Mad Men” has done away with her lisp. In addition to a little speech therapy, Shipka did with her lisp what most kids who have one do: she out grew it.
Your lisper most likely will too, but here’s what you should know about lisps. Continue reading »
The American economy is so awful, the Wall Street Journal reports that parents of means are now resorting to buying franchise businesses to keep their adult children employed, shelling out six figure sums to purchase their little darlings Pita Pit restaurants and College Hunks Hauling Junk moving trucks:
Watching fellow college students working for $7.50 an hour after graduation, Tana Walther, a fashion-design major at Kent State University in Ohio, snapped up an alternative offered by her father — to run a Pita Pit restaurant he would buy.
“I guess I bought her a job,” says her father, Jan Walther, of North Canton Ohio. Prospects of a career in fashion seemed remote, and Tana, a college athlete, loved eating at Pita Pit restaurants while traveling with her track team. Her first new restaurant opened last year near campus in Kent, and the 25-year-old hopes to open several more.
Before we all let out a collective “yuck” let’s take a look at what’s driving the trend. Continue reading »
The diagnosis of Parental Alienation Disorder is being considered for inclusion in the upcoming edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Advocacy groups and clinicians are pushing for it to go through – saying that it’s a real condition that affects a huge number of children.
The clinical picture: a divorced family in which the child is brainwashed by one parent to believe that the other parent is the bad guy (without good reason). In mild form it means withholding or interfering with visits to the other parent, not being able to tolerate being in the same room, or making subtle negative comments that influence the kid’s feelings about his mom or dad. The severe form? Continue reading »
Summer vacation won’t make you happy, it’s true. The science says so! Sharon Begley (ahem, defending her vacation-less summer) writes in Newsweek that data analysts have confirmed what she always suspected: vacations aren’t all that great.
Oh, come on. Vacations aren’t perfect. If you’re traveling with kids especially, things can get stressful and you might not even sleep that well. But still. Vacations aren’t uniform misery, now, are they? Continue reading »
There are generally two schools of thought when it come to social networking and kids. Facebook is either a great way for kids to interact with each other and develop emotional bonds with larger numbers of people or it’s a potentially dangerous time suck that prevent kids from having meaningful relationships with people in the real world. Either way, one thing is certain: The pros and cons of social networking shouldn’t be an issue for kids under 13 because they aren’t even supposed to be there.
But they are, aren’t they? Caroline Knorr at Common Sense Media writes about how many parents have a hard time saying no to their underage kids who want to be a part of the social networking community. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz or YouTube, little kids are logging on with their parent’s permission. Why is this?
For many parents, it comes down to peer pressure. If all her friends are on Facebook, it’s hard to tell your kid that she’s too young. And besides, most parents who do allow their kids to set up accounts on social networking sites are pretty good at keeping tabs on their online behavior. They “friend” their kids and make sure they know how to behave responsibly online. They set time limits and lay down rules.
But what about those rules? In order for a kid under 13 to set up an account on most social networking sites, she has to lie about her age. And lying is against the rules, right? So, how do parents reconcile this contradiction?
I don’t know because I won’t do it. I am not particularly afraid of what my 9-year-old might get up to should she have a Facebook account. She’s a good kid who is mature enough to set limits for herself and steer clear of things she knows are inappropriate. But despite the fact that she would love to be on Facebook, I am holding firm because by allowing her to break the age limit rule, I would be consenting to behavior that she and I both know is wrong. For me, that’s a slipperly slope that is easily enough avoided with the word “no.”
What about you? How do you feel about underage kids joining grown up social networking sites?
Image: Franco Bouly/Flickr
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When it comes to family size, bigger seems to be better these days — at least judging by celebrity couples like Heidi Klum and Seal (four kids) and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (six kids).
On television, large families dominate on reality shows like Jon & Kate Plus 8, 19 Kids and Counting and 9 By Design.
Do these shows send the message that parenting is cheaper by the dozen? Continue reading »
When I call my 5-year-old daughter’s name at the playground in our neighborhood, it seems as if all of the girls turn around. That’s because my daughter’s name is Ruby, which may not be very popular nationwide, but is very trendy in my neck of the woods (Park Slope, Brooklyn). Although I love the name dearly (and have no regrets about her name), I can safely say it is no longer a “cool” baby name. Am I the slightest bit disappointed that Ruby’s name has only grown in popularity and is not as unusual as I had hoped? Perhaps.
Why are parents these days constantly on the lookout for the next unusual name? As my colleague KJ recently wrote, “what we’re searching for is a name that no one’s used yet, scouring the top baby name lists for monikers like Purple or Whipcord. But name your child Snapfree and someone will surely follow: there’s something about baby names that follows an indefinable zeitgeist.” Continue reading »
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Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
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Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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