Medical Marijuana For Kids

Most of us teach our kids that medicine is not candy. But at the medical marijuana dispensaries in California, sometimes it is. They sell THC-imbued candies, or “medibles”. They also sell plain old pot, in a variety of exciting flavors. The difference between a dispensary and a Dutch coffeeshop is just that in California, you need a doctor’s note to shop.

This week, the New York Times reports that some Bay Area doctors have begun giving those notes to kids as young as 14. They’re not just treating cancer or AIDS anymore, either. Some of these kids are getting the referrals for ADHD.

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Is Your Child An Orchid or a Dandelion?

Most kids grow like dandelions. They bloom everywhere, growing up sturdy and strong in the most desolate neighborhoods or the ritziest.

Others seem to come into the world fragile. They’re sensitive kids who are prone trouble, but also brilliance. The kind who grow up to poets or addicts or both.

In the new issue of Atlantic Monthly, David Dobbs outlines the “orchid hypothesis,” an emerging genetic theory that offers some insight into how, and why, our genetic differences shape how we grow and who we become. Continue reading »

Chemicals in Plastics are “Gender Benders”

Does your son play with dolls? Could just be his charming personality, or it could be something in the water.

A team of  scientists has found that chemicals commonly found in some plastics can make boys more like girls. Continue reading »

They Say: Fruit Juice as Bad as Soda

If you think you are making a better choice for your kids by serving fruit juice instead of soda, you are only partially right.  Drinks such as orange juice, apple juice and grape juice may offer more vitamins, minerals and other nutrients than soda, but they also contain a lot of fructose, high levels of which have been linked to heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.  In fact, a single glass of apple juice contains the fructose equivalent of six apples.

What’s more, juice contains more calories than soda: A cup of orange juice has 112 calories, apple juice has 114 and grape has 152.  A same-sized serving of Coke or Pepsi has only about 100 calories. Continue reading »

Day Care Sells Cocaine

Finding a good day care is so hard these days, you have to accept compromises. Maybe your kid’s day care is a little pricey, doesn’t stay open as late as you’d like, or maybe the day care sells cocaine.

An Arkansas couple was arrested for selling cocaine out of the same house where they operate a day care. Husband Timothy Boston got caught in a sting operation by police. Catching a whiff of the jig being up, Boston fled to Texas where he was arrested. His wife, Denise, was arrested at the couple’s home/child care center the same day.

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World’s Cutest Vegetarian Boy

PETA has named the winners in their Third Annual Cute Vegetarian Kids contest.

Grace Jenks of Park City, Utah was awarded their prize for Cutest Vegetarian Girl. Grace, a homeschooled 9-year-old, went vegan this year. The World’s Cutest Vegetarian Boy title was awarded to Perry Martijena, a 9-year-old from Jersey City, New Jersey. Continue reading »

2-Year-Old Can’t Cry, It Would Kill Her

Kids cry all the time. I think my son cried this weekend when I screwed up and didn’t call him by his recently chosen name “Grand Master Batman Flash” (I think I called him “Grand Master Batman Fletch“). There might be no mode that comes more naturally to children than crying.

But for Two-year-old Tianna McHugh crying is not an option. When Tianna cries her body seizes and stiffens, her skin turns white, her heart stops beating and she stops breathing.

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They Say: 1 in 5 Kids Suffered Flu-Like Illness in October

Cough cough, sniffle sniffle.  That’s what I hear every time I’m in the company of kids these days.  Not only is it prime time of year for back-to-school colds and fall allergies, we’re in the thick of another wave of H1N1.

In fact, experts say that more people have gotten sick with the pandemic flu strain in the last six weeks than since the virus was discovered in April.  And a recent telephone survey of 14,000 adults suggests that in October alone, one in five children came down with flu-like illness. Continue reading »

Overweight Parents Lose Kids For Being Fat

A mother who weighs over three hundred pounds and her husband who weighs around two hundred fifty pounds have had all seven of their kids, including a newborn baby, taken away from them.

The couple’s attorney says the kids were taken by UK officials because of her clients’ weight issues. Continue reading »

Toddler Denied Insurance For Being Too Small

First they’re too fat - now a kid has been denied health insurance because she’s TOO SMALL. Can we ever win?

Two-year-old Aislin Bates apparently weighs twenty-two pounds, putting her in the third percentile for kids her age. So United Health Care said no way to insuring her. Continue reading »