Health & Development Articles

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  • Adolescents, Sleep and Learning
  • Recently, adolescent’s sleep habits have been in the news. Research has shown that adolescents need more sleep now then children and parents are worried. Teenagers especially seem to need more sleep....

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  • Break the Cycle: Teen Dating Violence and Prevention Week
  • February 5 through 9 was “National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Week”. Unfortunately, it went unnoticed throughout most of the country. However, teen dating violence is on the...

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  • Breakfast, Kids and Learning
  • For generations parents have been telling their kids that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and believe it or not, it’s true. Children go to bed early. When they wake up the next...

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  • Cell Phones... the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread or the Worst Invention in the World?
  • Cell phones are wonderful, the best things humans have ever invented! They help us keep in touch with work, our family, and friends. Hand-held phones have so many uses now-cameras, video cameras,...

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  • Cut the Credit and Save You Some Money
  • Today’s society glorifies a get-it-now mentality. Children learn this early. You probably noticed this when you were at the grocery store with your toddler. She wanted a candy bar or a special toy...

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  • Democracy in Action
  • There is still over a year until the general election, but the election cycle has been in full swing for almost a year now. With such a long election season, it’s easy to get overloaded and it’s so...

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  • Everyone Loves Going to the Doctor and Dentist
  • Going to the doctor or dentist can be traumatic for children of all ages. Many adults do not always like going to their regular checkups, and we don't need to get shots! But health and dental...

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  • Exciting School Lunch Ideas
  • Earlier this week I had reason to drop by my grandsons’ school at lunch time. While waiting for the boys outside the office, I was appalled to see several students throw their lunches into the trash...

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  • Feeling Good in Your Own Skin
  • Body image is a very touchy issue with today’s kids. Since the 1950s, when Barbie was first released, the picture of the “ideal woman” has been almost impossible to attain. With her proportions, if...

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  • Grammar...not Just Extended Family Anymore!
  • Can I talk to y’all abit about grammar? Right grammar and punctuations got to be some of the mostest important parts of English. They is also some of the mostest misunderstood parts of the...

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  • Helping Your Child Leave the Nest
  • It’s all come down to this: Eighteen years of good times and bad, and now your baby bird is ready to leave the nest. You have one last thing you need to do before your little bird stretches his or...

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  • Hurt: A Book Report
  • My last book report was over 15 years ago, and I’m a bit rusty, but here goes (Don’t forget: book reports are full of personal opinion, and the opinions herein may or may not reflect those of the...

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  • Idle Hands
  • The worst affliction affecting our kids today is not teen pregnancy, drugs and alcohol, or Internet predators. No. In fact, all those dangers can be traced to-in most cases-a common root....

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  • Imho
  • I was watching Headline News’s news ticker when I read something that made me LOL. The ticker said that English teachers R concerned CUZ more & more they R seeing IM abbreviations such as “UR” &...

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  • Just a Harmless Vanilla Bean?
  • Some of the greatest, most used, and most profitable breakthroughs in science have not been made by scientists. They have been made by just regular people with too much time on their hands. And the...

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  • Keep Your Licensed Teen Safe This Summer
  • Every year hundreds of teenage drivers lose their lives in motor vehicle accidents. Statistics show that the leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 20 is motor vehicle...

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  • Keeping Our Kids Safe in the Post 9/11 World
  • Recently, radio talk show host and CNN personality did a week-long special entitled “The Perfect Day.” According to Beck and others, “The Perfect Day” is a coordinated, planned terrorist attack...

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  • Kids and Competition
  • In the backyard, the classroom, the community and while participating in sports and other competitive activities, kids are provided with excellent opportunities to learn new skills while having fun....

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  • National Memories
  • Few events are seared into our memory, and bring the country together-not as Democrat and Republican, not as Black and White, but as Americans, or as human beings. And it’s amazing how your age...

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  • Nothing New Under the Sun
  • “I had to go through the same thing when I went to school.” Every parent has uttered this phrase, or something similar. We have used the phrase to comfort a kindergartener who comes home crying and...

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  • Parent and Family Involvement in School
  • When visiting my grandson’s school, I often hear administrators and teachers complaining that not enough families are involved in their children’s education. I got thinking about his and decided it...

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  • Siblings and Individual Identity in High School
  • When the first day of high school looms in the near future, teens are both excited and anxious. They worry about such things as finding the correct classrooms, being on time for classes, strict...

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  • Strategies to Help Kids Cope with Stress
  • Many parents believe that kids don’t experience stress. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kids have a great deal to worry about in school, in the community and at home. Grades, their social...

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  • Teaching Kids to Deal with Peer Pressure
  • Parents usually become very concerned when they hear the term “peer pressure.” However, peer pressure can be both negative and positive and children need to learn how to deal with negative peer...

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  • The Cervical Cancer Vaccine
  • All across North America girls between the ages of 11 and 12 have the opportunity to be vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV,) and it may soon be available for girls as young as nine. The...

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  • The Difference Between Boys and Girls
  • Boys and girls are different. Give a toddler girl a G.I. Joe and she'll probably try to mother it. Give a toddler boy a Barbie, and he'll pull off its head or pretend it’s a gun. Boys and girls are...

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  • The Impact on Adopted Children at School
  • Children who are adopted can be affected both academically and socially at school. Many times adopted children fantasize and grieve over their birth family. This affects their ability to concentrate...

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  • The Most Used Form of Communication
  • Writing has, quite surprisingly, become more and more important in today’s electronic society. Everywhere you look on-line there are words. Many used to think that the written word was becoming...

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  • The Very Best Things in the World
  • A recent poll in the U.K. revealed that children view the “very best thing in the world” as being a celebrity. The poll of 2500 children showed that good looks and being rich came in at two and...

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  • Those Pesky Little Transitions
  • Transitions are rarely easy, yet we have to encounter them every day of our lives. For school-aged children, transitions are extremely traumatic, though they may not admit that. The first day of...

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  • What to Do when Your Child Hates School
  • All kids grumble about going to school at one time or another. This is perfectly normal, but what if your child truly hates school? Statistics show that five to ten percent of school children hate...

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  • What to Do when Your Student is Held Back
  • Kids develop at different speeds, and everyone has different skills and abilities. School is easy for some and extremely difficult for others. So what should we do when school becomes too difficult...

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  • Who is Safe?
  • Between September 26 and October 2, 2006, there were three deadly school shootings and countless gun scares around the country. To date, seven people (all but one of them students) have died....