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You read about all these studies and research projects on ParentDish. Have you ever thought to yourself, "Gee, I wish scientists from Pennbrook University would do medical research on my child"?

Most parents overlook the possible benefit of children participating in medical research. How do we know? Guess what? There's been a study.

Researchers from the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health surveyed parents earlier this year and found one in nine adults have participated in medical research -- compared with only one in 20 children.

A university press release also reports that 68 percent of adults are aware of medical research opportunities for themselves. However, 84 percent of parents are not aware of medical research opportunities for children.

So, c'mon, kids, who wants to play guinea pig? It's not as bad as it sounds.

"Medical research is the backbone of improving medical care. Without volunteers, medical research cannot move forward," Matthew Davis, an associate professor at the University of Michigan's medical school, says in the release.

Participation in research is essential to continued medical progress, Davis says.

Over the last 100 years, infant mortality in the United States has been reduced by 90 percent. Millions of deaths from diseases such as polio, diphtheria, pneumonia and influenza have been prevented by vaccines.

Children with life-threatening diseases such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and diabetes now survive beyond childhood, into adult years.

All thanks to kids participating in medical research.

"Awareness about research opportunities, which is a necessary step before participation, is reasonably high among adults but strikingly low for children's research," Davis adds. "To improve participation rates among children, researchers and institutions evidently need to do a better job of getting the word out to parents."

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]]>child healthchild researchchild studiesmedical researchTom HendersonFri, 29 Jul 2011 17:00:00 ESTWhen New Mom Can't Breast-Feed, Dozens of Women Help Outhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/29/when-new-mom-cant-breast-feed-dozens-of-women-help-out/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/29/when-new-mom-cant-breast-feed-dozens-of-women-help-out/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/29/when-new-mom-cant-breast-feed-dozens-of-women-help-out/#commentsFiled under: ,

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Eva van Dok Pinkley, a Brooklyn, N.Y., actress and magazine researcher can't breast-feed her newborn because she had a double mastectomy last year.

No matter. The London Daily Mail reports 25 women are pumping and donating their breast milk.

"What they are doing, it's not easy to do," van Dok Pinkley tells the newspaper. "I'm just stunned at the amount of trouble that they are going through for me. I think of them and what they have done and give thanks."

Van Dok Pinkley got pregnant last September after a battle with breast cancer so intense she had given up having children. She had abandoned hope after miscarriages, failed fertility treatments and then her cancer.

When she and her husband, Stuart, finally found out they were having a baby, she knew she couldn't breast-feed. So she began doing research on the Internet.

After consultations with doctors and lactation consultants, the Mail reports, she began asking for donations from other expecting mothers at her yoga studio, via email lists and through friends.

Among the women who responded was Kristi Guigliano, the mother of an 8-month-old boy.

"The first time Eva and I met, it was a very emotional thing to, first of all, have found someone so perfect, so close and so in need of the milk," Guigliano tells the newspaper.

The Mail reports the women are either ongoing donors, one-time donors or soon-to-be moms who have pledged milk if they have some left over.

"When they told me what they were doing, I thought, 'Only in New York,' " Stuart Van Dok Pinkley tells the Mail.

Only in New York? Not really.

In 2009, ParentDish reported on Robbie Goodrich, a widowed English professor in Marquette, Mich. When his wife died shortly after his son, Moses, was born, more than two dozen women shared their breast milk with the infant.

Related: Women Rally Around Widower to Breast-Feed Infant Son

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]]>breast milkbreastfeedingbreastmilk donorsTom HendersonFri, 29 Jul 2011 16:00:00 ESTHis Lordship: Lazy 14-Year-Old Hooligan! Get a Job!http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/29/his-lordship-lazy-14-year-old-hooligan-get-a-job/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/29/his-lordship-lazy-14-year-old-hooligan-get-a-job/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/29/his-lordship-lazy-14-year-old-hooligan-get-a-job/#commentsFiled under:

Credit: Amazon

"Boy for sale!"

A member of Britain's House of Lords is beginning to sound like something out of "Oliver Twist." Lord Jones says he's had it up here with hooligans and wants to put them to work.

Half a mo', guvnah.

This is Britain. So make that, e's ad it up to ere with ooligans and wants to put them to work, e does.

No matter how you pronounce it, the politician formerly known as Digby Jones, the head of the Confederation of British Industry, says young scalawags should be sent out to work at age 14 to "earn a few bob" rather than being forced to stay in school.

His Lordship tells the London Daily Mail the unruly and disruptive would be better off getting jobs and starting apprenticeships. He adds firms are being forced to recruit overseas because of the lack of properly skilled British workers.

"We've got to appreciate that the world has changed and there are loads of kids in school today who at 14 are more mature, and so many of them are disruptive," he says.

"This isn't about saying, 'School's out, away you go kids.' This is about going to a technical college, doing a couple of days a week on a vocational course and going into a business or indeed a public sector employer and getting the link in their mind, in their DNA, that if you get better skilled, you make more money," he adds.

With a weak pound, Lord Jones suggests that not-so-Great Britain could re-establish its manufacturing base.

Russell Hobby of the National Association of Head Teachers cries bullocks.

"Allowing children to leave school at that age, without good levels of literacy and numeracy, would trap them in low-paid jobs for the rest of their lives," he tells the Daily Mail.

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]]>british house of lordshouse of lordslord digby jonesteen jobsworking teensTom HendersonFri, 29 Jul 2011 15:00:00 ESTTeacher Reinstated After Blogging That Students are 'Whiners'http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/29/teacher-reinstated-after-blogging-that-students-are-whiners/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/29/teacher-reinstated-after-blogging-that-students-are-whiners/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/29/teacher-reinstated-after-blogging-that-students-are-whiners/#commentsFiled under:

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A teacher in suburban Philadelphia blogged that her students are "rude, disengaged, lazy whiners."

No doubt. They're high school students.

But can anyone be that honest and remain employed? Natalie Munroe has defied the odds. Reuters news service reports the English teacher will return to face a fresh crop of rude, disengaged, lazy whiners in the fall. She might just select different adjectives.

Munroe was suspended with pay earlier this year after her comments ("My students are of out of control," she blogged) turned parents into a chorus of scorched cats.

Although school officials have reinstated her, Reuters reports Munroe has misgivings about returning to Central Bucks East High School on Aug. 30. She had to be escorted from the building in February.

"She wants to be an effective teacher and does not know what environment she will be going back to," her lawyer, Steven Rovner, tells Reuters.

Meanwhile, Munroe is blogging again. This time, Reuters reports, she's outlining the sequence of events that led to her return. She whines (uh, make that complains) she had to contact the district five times about returning and portrays the phone calls as unpleasant.

Not that it will keep her out of the classroom. She would just prefer a different high school.

"She's a teacher and will be glad to be going back to the classroom," Rovner tells Reuters. "As a teacher, she is like a celebrity now. Emotions would not be as high if she went to another school."

Related: Teacher Calls Students 'Little Criminals' on Facebook

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]]>natalie munroeteacher blogteacher blogsteacher reinstatedteacher suspendedTom HendersonFri, 29 Jul 2011 13:00:00 ESTBathtub Pads Recalledhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/bathtub-pads-recalled/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/bathtub-pads-recalled/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/bathtub-pads-recalled/#commentsFiled under:

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Pads sold to keep children from falling in the bathtub may have the opposite effect. They're not sticking to the tub and could pose a hazard to children.

Bathtub Non-Slip Pads (made by Prime-Lime Products Inc.) are being recalled because some of the pads are defective.

A company press release, reprinted in the Sacramento Bee, says the voluntary recall was issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in cooperation with company officials.

"Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed," the press release says. "It is illegal to resell or attempt to resell a recalled consumer product."

No injuries have been reported.

The whale-shaped, white pads are made out of vinyl and textured surfaces with adhesive backings. They're supposed to help prevent children from slipping and falling in bathtubs. The pads come in sets of 12 and 15.

Each set contains pads ranging in size from 2- to 4-inches tall.

The defective pads were sold at Ace Hardware and Menard's Inc. nationwide between May 24, 2010 and June 13, 2011 for about $6.

The model number is S-4630 and SKU number is 049793846303. Both are printed on the back of the packaging.

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]]>bathtubbathtub padsbathtub recallconsumer product safety commissionprime-lock productsrecallTom HendersonThu, 28 Jul 2011 18:00:00 ESTKids are Like Scientists, and Not Just Mad Oneshttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/kids-are-like-scientists-and-not-just-mad-ones/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/kids-are-like-scientists-and-not-just-mad-ones/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/kids-are-like-scientists-and-not-just-mad-ones/#commentsFiled under:

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"Experiment. Make it your motto day and night. Experiment. And it will lead you to the light." -- Cole Porter

We commonly refer to something simple as mere child's play.

However, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University say there is nothing "mere" about child's play. Children are actually performing complex experiments.

They are little scientists, Wired magazine reports.

To prove just how scientifically children approach their work, researchers gave a group of them a toy that lights up and plays music when the child places certain beads on. When children didn't know which beads would activate the toy -- what scientists call "ambiguous evidence" -- they tested each variable in turn.

Laura Schulz, a professor at MIT, tells Wired it's like someone trying unsuccessfully to open a door with a key.

"You might change the position of the key, you might change the key, but you're not going to change both at once," she says.

Researchers say their study begins to "bridge the gap between scientific inquiry and child's play."

Remember that the next time you find flour scattered all over the kitchen. Scientific discovery can be messy.

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]]>child researchchildren at playchilds playscientific experimentsTom HendersonThu, 28 Jul 2011 17:00:00 ESTKids With Special Needs Get (Gasp!) Bulliedhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/kids-with-special-needs-get-gasp-bullied/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/kids-with-special-needs-get-gasp-bullied/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/kids-with-special-needs-get-gasp-bullied/#commentsFiled under: , ,

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Brace yourselves for a shocker. Kids with special needs -- who struggle with medical, emotional or emotional issues -- tend to have more problems in school and are bullied more often than other kids.

Researchers at the Poindexter Institute for the Painfully Obvious reached this conclusion after examining their middle school yearbooks and remembering how they spent all of seventh grade trapped inside their lockers while asking if someone would please pass them their inhalers.

Their conclusions were backed up by researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

According to U.S. News & World Report, researchers there tracked more than 1,450 kids in fourth through sixth grades from 34 rural schools. A third of the kids had problems such as asthma, chronic pain, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities or emotional and behavioral problems.

These children were a more likely to be (wait for it, wait for it) bullied or feel socially isolated. These conclusions were further confirmed by everyone who has ever attended public school.

"Health affects school performance," lead researcher Christopher Forrest tells U.S. News. "Special health care needs have manifold effects on school outcomes that increase the likelihood that these kids are not going to successfully transition to adulthood."

Researchers obtained data from kids and their parents from a questionnaire. Children were classified as having a special health care need if they had a condition lasting at least 12 months and needed prescription drugs, therapy, counseling or other services.

School records on attendance, grades and standardized tests also were analyzed.

Kids with special health care needs "have significant differences in their engagement in school and their school relationships as well as academic achievement," Forrest adds. "It sets up a trajectory for these kids that's highly distressing."

Communities can help if they look at the whole child, he says.

"I also believe it's the kind of challenge we're starting to understand in the 21st century," Forrest says. "We have to look at the child as a whole person ... and recognize that individuals need health systems and education systems to work together."

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]]>adhdasthmaautismbullied at schoolbullyingspecial needsTom HendersonThu, 28 Jul 2011 15:00:00 ESTParents' Attitude Affects Kids' Diabeteshttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/parents-attitude-affects-kids-diabetes/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/parents-attitude-affects-kids-diabetes/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/28/parents-attitude-affects-kids-diabetes/#commentsFiled under: , , , , ,

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Kids with diabetes need to regulate their diets, monitor their blood-sugar levels and take the appropriate amount of insulin.

They also need parents with the right attitude.

Researchers at the Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel find that parenting styles and attitudes play a big role in how well teenagers manage their diabetes.

Internal Medicine News reports lead researcher Maayan Shorer and her colleagues defined three parenting styles:

  • Authoritative. This is characterized by clear limits on the child set by the parents in a caring, noncoercive manner.
  • Permissive. This is characterized by few efforts by the parents to direct and limit the child's behavior.
  • Authoritarian. This is characterized by a coercive, harsh and punitive approach and parental attempts to control the child's behavior.
Researchers looked at 100 adolescents, as well as 79 mothers and 63 fathers, and found an authoritative approach, especially by fathers, resulted in kids doing a better job managing their diabetes. On the flip side, kids did a lot worse when parents were either permissive or authoritarian.

The worst results came when kids picked up on a sense of helplessness, especially among mothers.

There are several morals to the story, researchers tell Internal Medicine News. One of the biggies is that dads need to get more involved.

"Unfortunately, our clinical experience along with the empirical evidence suggests that compared with mothers, fathers tend to take a too-small role in their child's diabetes management and exert fewer efforts at monitoring the child," Shorer says. "We believe fathers should be more engaged in their child's routine diabetes care, and to do so, specifically, by adopting an authoritative stance."

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]]>diabeteshealthkids and diabetesparental attitudesparenting stylesTom HendersonThu, 28 Jul 2011 13:00:00 ESTThe Kids Are All Right, Even if Their Parents Grow Pothttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/the-kids-are-all-right-even-if-their-parents-grow-pot/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/the-kids-are-all-right-even-if-their-parents-grow-pot/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/the-kids-are-all-right-even-if-their-parents-grow-pot/#commentsFiled under:

Credit: AP

Just because the folks next door are drug dealers doesn't mean they're bad parents.

In fact, researchers at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children say the children of couples who operate marijuana grow rooms are often extremely healthy, physically and emotionally. And they rarely use illegal drugs.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports researchers question whether parents caught growing marijuana should automatically lose custody of their children.

"After examining 75 of the kids over several years, we came to very clear conclusions that a vast majority of these kids are doing well -- well fed, well kept, doing well in school and developing well," lead researcher Gideon Koren of the University of Toronto tells the CBC. "Taking a small child from his or her parents in a well-adapted environment causes fear, anxiety, confusion and sadness."

Traditional procedure in Toronto, the network reports, has been to remove children from homes where illegal marijuana operations have been discovered and place the kids in foster care.

Patrick Lake, executive director of York Region Children's Aid Society, tells the CBC child welfare workers have learned more about the effects marijuana growing operations have on children since 2006, and have changed how they maintain the children's safety.

"We have developed a more customized and comprehensive process to determine best response, on a case-by-case basis, while looking for ways to safely maintain children with their parents or relatives," Lake says.

Koren tells the CBC he hopes Canadian authorities will see the children of pot growers a little differently after his study.

"When police and children's aid go into that situation, they have to look much more carefully on what happened to that child, and not blanket-wise moving kids out of their homes," he says.

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]]>child custodydrugsmarijuanapot growersTom HendersonWed, 27 Jul 2011 18:00:00 ESTIn Vitro Kids More Advanced, But is it Nature or Nurture?http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/in-vitro-kids-more-advanced-but-is-it-nature-or-nurture/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/in-vitro-kids-more-advanced-but-is-it-nature-or-nurture/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/in-vitro-kids-more-advanced-but-is-it-nature-or-nurture/#commentsFiled under:

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British researchers have found children conceived through in vitro fertilization start school with verbal skills eight months more advanced than those born through unplanned pregnancies.

It has nothing to do with biology, researchers at Oxford University tell the London Daily Telegraph. Rich and educated couples can afford in vitro fertilization more than poor couples, who are more prone to unplanned pregnancies.

That's why, researchers tell the Telegraph, their study found children who came as a surprise where at least five months behind other kids at age 5 and eight months behind the in vitro crowd.

There differences disappeared when family background was taken into account.

Dorothy Bishop, a professor of developmental neuropsychology at Oxford, tells ther paper the study shows how important it is to take social factors into account when looking at children's development.

"Children from unplanned pregnancies have lower scores on cognitive tests than those from planned pregnancies, but they are also much more likely to come from single parent, low income households," she says. "Once this is taken into account, there is no impact of an unplanned pregnancy on children's development."

Oxford researcher Claire Carson analyzed data on 12,136 children. She concluded the differences were explained by the "generally advantageous socioeconomic position" enjoyed by those born after fertility treatment.

Children born after unplanned pregnancies were more likely to have poor, young or less educated mothers, and to have less access to "books, puzzles, trips to library," Carson found.

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]]>In Vitro Unplanned Pregnancy Britain Vocabulary Development OxfoTom HendersonWed, 27 Jul 2011 17:00:00 ESTHappy Meals Get a Little Less Happy With Half the Frieshttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/happy-meals-get-a-little-less-happy-with-half-the-fries/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/happy-meals-get-a-little-less-happy-with-half-the-fries/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/happy-meals-get-a-little-less-happy-with-half-the-fries/#commentsFiled under:

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Happy Meals may be a little more healthy but a little less happy now that McDonald's is cutting the number of fries kids get in half.

The New York Times reports restaurant officials announced July 26 the company is putting kids on strict french fry rations to cut the total number of calories in Happy Meals by 20 percent. At many locations, parents already may substitute apple slices and other healthier foods for fries.

The meals will still come with toys -- often promoting movies -- despite criticism that the toys make the meals too happy, causing children to form an emotional link between feeling happy and eating unhealthy food.

San Francisco officials banned the toys in kids' meals that fail to meet nutritional requirements. A city councilor in New York City is proposing a similar law.

The Times reports Happy Meals account for less than 10 percent of all McDonald's sales, but the Happy Meal has become a recurring target for crusading lawmakers and consumer advocates as child obesity has become an increasingly popular cause.

Other fast-food restaurants also have bowed to public pressure.

The Times reports Jack in the Box officials announced in June they would quit putting toys in children's meals.

Burger King, IHOP and more than a dozen other restaurant chains vowed this month to promote and serve healthier options for kids.

"McDonald's is not giving the whole loaf, but it is giving a half or two thirds of a loaf," Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, tells The Times.

The center represents a woman in California who is suing McDonald's for including toys in its Happy Meals.

"This is an important step in the right direction," Jacobson tells the newspaper.

McDonald's officials also pledged to reduce the salt content in all of its foods by 15 percent, with the exceptions of soda and desserts, by 2015. The slightly-less-Happy Meals will be introduced in September.

"It's a trade-off between everybody getting a small portion and 10 percent of kids getting a larger portion, which is better than nothing and maybe will accustom kids to eating fresh fruits and vegetables when they go out to eat," Jacobson tells The Times.

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]]>childhood obesityfast foodfrench frieshappy mealsmcdonaldsTom HendersonWed, 27 Jul 2011 16:00:00 ESTSneak Veggies Into Your Kids' Mealshttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/sneak-veggies-into-your-kids-meals/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/sneak-veggies-into-your-kids-meals/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/sneak-veggies-into-your-kids-meals/#commentsFiled under: , , , , , ,

Credit: AP

Can't get your kids to eat their veggies?

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have a cunning plan. They suggest you discreetly add broccoli, zucchini and all that other green stuff to kids' meals.

Reuters news service reports their research found kids get more vegetables that way. And, while most of us might detect puree of broccoli on our macaroni and cheese, the little rubes don't even seem to notice the difference.

"We think of it as not deception, but recipe improvement," Barbara Rolls, one of the researchers, tells Reuters. "In this group of kids, we got most of them meeting their daily vegetable requirements -- that's pretty amazing."

Although the study was done in day care centers, researcher Maureen Spill tells Reuters parents could easily pull the same stunt at home. All they need is a blender.

Rolls says the technique can even work on older but equally stubborn children ... like husbands.

Adding pureed vegetables into adults' meals meant they ate more veggies and fewer total calories, she adds. Most of them couldn't taste the extra veggies, either.

According to Reuters, researchers fed prepared meals to 40 kids ages 3 to 5 one day a week for three weeks. The meals looked the same each day -- zucchini bread at breakfast, pasta with tomato sauce at lunch and a chicken noodle casserole at dinner.

One day's worth of meals was prepared normally -- with a typical veggie in each entree. On the other two days, researchers added pureed cauliflower, broccoli, squash, zucchini and tomatoes to triple or quadruple every dish's dose of vegetables.

After each meal, researchers weighed the food to determine how much kids ate. The preschoolers were also allowed to eat non-doctored side dishes and snacks during the day -- including fruit, cheese and crackers.

Compared to the day when they ate standard meals, Reuters reports, kids almost doubled their total vegetable intake on the day they ate high-vegetable dishes.

"I would urge parents to try to get vegetables into their kids' meals wherever they can," Rolls tells Reuters. "This is an additional strategy that you put on top of exposing kids to real vegetables, eating the vegetables with the kids, (and) being persistent in exposing them to vegetables."

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]]>healthy eatinghealthyl lunchesnutritionsneak in vegetablessneak in veggiesvegetablesTom HendersonWed, 27 Jul 2011 15:00:00 ESTFlorida Child Welfare Investigators Criticized for Incompetancehttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/florida-child-welfare-investigators-criticized-for-imcompetance/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/florida-child-welfare-investigators-criticized-for-imcompetance/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/27/florida-child-welfare-investigators-criticized-for-imcompetance/#commentsFiled under:

Credit: Corbis

Say you're a child welfare investigator.

You get numerous reports that children in a particular family are being abused. Most recently, you hear they are being tied up and confined to a bathtub.

How can you tell if these allegations are true?

This is where your skill, training and experience as a professional investigator comes in. You go to the house and ask the parents if they are abusing their children. They say no.

And that's that. Case closed. No need to see the children. Why would their parents lie?

Being an investigator always looks so tough on TV. But it's really quite simple -- at least if you work for the Florida Department of Children and Families.

The Miami Herald reports caseworkers for the department are coming under fire for being Florida's answer to the Keystone Kops. A Miami grand jury released a report July 25 accusing investigators of "a persistent, insidious bias of trust" in responding to numerous complaints that a couple was abusing their adopted twin children.

One of the twins, 10-year-old Nubia Barahona, died -- allegedly due to abuse and neglect at the hands of her adoptive parents, Jorge and Carmen Barahona.

While the Barahonas stand trail for murder, many fingers are pointing at child welfare investigators. One of the investigators went to the Barahona house Feb. 10 after hearing the children were tied up in the bathtub. She left without physically checking on the children, taking the parents' word that everything was all right.

"Were Nubia and [her brother] Victor in the house tied up in that bathtub at that very moment?" the Miami Herald quotes from the grand jury's 25-page report. "We will never know."

Four days after the abuse report was filed, the Herald reports Jorge Barahona was found passed out next to his pickup truck along Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach. Nubia's decomposing body was in a garbage bag in the flatbed. Her twin, Victor, had allegedly been doused with deadly chemicals and was slouched in the cab.

Prosecutors say the couple kept the twins bound in the bathroom of their West Miami-Dade home for months, beating and starving them. The Barahonas were indicted on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and neglect for Nubia's death and her brother's alleged abuse. They both face the death penalty.

As a result of the crime, the Herald reports, the Department of Children and Families is revamping its abuse hotline, hiring more investigators and and improving relationships with law enforcement agencies and other community groups.

"We appreciate the hard work and effort that the grand jury put into their report and recommendations. The tragic death of Nubia affected everyone in our community," the Herald quotes from a prepared statement from department spokesman Lissette Valdes-Valle.

"We are thoroughly reviewing the Grand Jury's recommendations in order to see what supplemental actions we can incorporate to prevent a similar tragedy from occurring in the future."

The grand jury listed numerous red flags from the twins' foster care records and asked: "How could anyone have missed the looming disaster if they had read all of this information in one place and at one time?"

"Patterns were still recognizable early on, and increasingly, as time went by," the report goes on. "Immediately prior to the finalization of the adoption, alarm bells should have been going off for all to hear."

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]]>child abusechild murderchild neglectchild serviceschild welfarefloridaTom HendersonWed, 27 Jul 2011 10:00:00 ESTKids Eating More and More Meals Away From Homehttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/kids-eating-more-and-more-meals-away-from-home/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/kids-eating-more-and-more-meals-away-from-home/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/kids-eating-more-and-more-meals-away-from-home/#commentsFiled under: ,

Credit: AP

People used to complain that kids eat too often in front of the television instead of at the family dinner table.

Have no fear. Researchers have found kids rarely eat at home at all.

They get their nutrition (if you use the word "nutrition" loosely) from fast-food restaurants. And they're going for the large fries.

Coincidentally, there seems to be this obesity epidemic in the United States.

Research in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association points to the increasing amount of food kids take from fast-food restaurants, as well as food that comes fully prepared at grocery stories.

"Overall, this study highlights the continuing rapid shifts in the sources of food for children in the United States -- both where it's eaten and where it's prepared," Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, tells Medical News Today.

"These results underscore the need to deepen our understanding of food preparation and consumption patterns, and further pinpoint where research and programmatic activity should focus," he adds. "The differences in energy intake by eating location revealed in this analysis demonstrate that eating location is an important factor in the diet of American children."

Popkin says American children increased their daily calorie consumption by 179 calories between 1977 and 2006.

His study found that it is linked to a rise in calories consumed away from home -- estimated to be an increase of about 255 calories per day.

In 1977, he estimates kids consumed 23.4 percent of their daily calories away from home, compared with 33.9 percent in 2006.

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]]>childhood obesityeating outfast foodkids eating outTom HendersonTue, 26 Jul 2011 17:00:00 ESTCrossing the Street Can Be Risky for Kids With ADHDhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/crossing-the-street-can-be-risky-for-kids-with-adhd/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/crossing-the-street-can-be-risky-for-kids-with-adhd/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/crossing-the-street-can-be-risky-for-kids-with-adhd/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Credit: Getty Images

Albert Einstein may have helped unlock the secrets of the universe, but something as simple as crossing the street might have been difficult for him.

It's really not that simple. There are some pretty complicated physics involved. For one thing, your body and your mind have to occupy the same point in the time-space continuum. Your body can't be at Fourth and Main while your brain is somewhere in the Pleiades star cluster.

Kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a similar problem, according to researchers in Alabama.

Because these kids are what we used to refer to less clinically as "absent-minded," researchers say, they sometimes make incorrect decisions about when to cross the street and how long it will take to the get to other side.

WebMD reports some 5 percent of the American population has ADHD, a behavioral condition marked by impulsiveness, hyperactivity and (seeming) inattention. They can actually be quite attentive. It just may be to last Saturday's episode of "Doctor Who" instead of looking both ways at the intersection.

That's the problem, according to research presented in the journal Pediatrics.

"I came in thinking that kids with ADHD probably won't look left and right before they cross, but they did display appropriate curbside behavior," Despina Stavrinos, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Injury Control Research Center, tells WebMD. "The big difference occurred in the outcome of cross."

Researchers looked at 78 children ages 7 to 10. They tested the kids' ability to cross streets using a simulated street scene with cars approaching from the left and right. All the children looked left and right before crossing and waited to cross.

But the 39 children with ADHD had more "close calls" with oncoming traffic and less time to spare when they reached the other side.

Medicating kids -- a popular response to ADHD -- might not help, Stavrinos tells WebMD. A lot of ADHD kids take meds in the morning, but they wear off by the afternoon. They also take "medication holidays" during the summer when they're outside more.

However, Stravinos adds studies of drivers with ADHD have shown that treatment can improve driving performance.

In the meantime, she tells WebMD, "parents may need to delay the age at which they allow children with ADHD to cross the street independently."

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]]>adhdcrossing streetkids with adhdTom HendersonTue, 26 Jul 2011 16:00:00 ESTTechnology May Help Save Kids Left in Hot Carshttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/technology-may-help-save-kids-left-in-hot-cars/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/technology-may-help-save-kids-left-in-hot-cars/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/technology-may-help-save-kids-left-in-hot-cars/#commentsFiled under:

Credit: AP

It happens with depressing frequency. A parent accidentally leaves a small child alone in a car. By the time the parent remembers what he or she has done, the child is dead.

Almost 50 children died that way last year -- a record, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. This year, the tally is already at 22.

Maybe technology could help.

There could be a weight sensor in the back seats of cars that beeps if the driver turns off the car and leaves a child behind.

Janette Fennell, founder and president of KidsAndCars.org, a nonprofit safety advocacy group, suggested the sensors during a roundtable discussion hosted by the Department of Transportation this week.

The New York Times reports transportation officials held the roundtable specifically to discuss what could be done to prevent further deaths of children left in hot cars.

Fennell says her idea seems reasonable given that our cars already know when we are not buckled in or have left our lights on. Newer cars even know when we're getting too close to another object.

The Times reports Fennell wants a federal law to require automakers to include sensors in cars that would beep if drivers leave a passenger in the back of the car and remind drivers to make sure backseat passengers are buckled up in the first place.

"Technology must be part of the solution, just as it has been with seat belts and airbags to prevent crash injuries," Fennell tells The Times. "Warning systems to alert drivers that a child has been left in the car would prevent many of these tragic heat stroke deaths."

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]]>car technologychild seatshot car deathsweight sensorsTom HendersonTue, 26 Jul 2011 15:00:00 ESTBreast-Feeding Reduces Children's Risk of Asthmahttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/breast-feeding-reduces-childrens-risk-of-asthma/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/breast-feeding-reduces-childrens-risk-of-asthma/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/26/breast-feeding-reduces-childrens-risk-of-asthma/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Credit: Getty Images

While women's breasts often make grown men gasp and wheeze, they seem to have the reverse effect on nursing infants.

The Daily Telegraph in London reports babies who are not breast-fed are 50 percent more likely than develop asthma symptoms than babies who do breast-feed.

Researchers at Erasmus Medical Centre in The Netherlands studied more than 5,000 children and found those who were never breast-fed were 50 percent more likely to have persistent phlegm and 40 percent more likely to wheeze regularly.

They also reportedly suffered more from shortness of breath and a dry cough in the first four years of life.

Breast-feeding could cut the chance of asthma by reducing the number of serious colds and flu virus infections, researchers concluded.

"These results support current health policy strategies that promote exclusive breast-feeding for six months in industrialized countries," Agnes Sonnenschein-van der Voort tells the Daily Telegraph. "Further studies are needed to explore the protective effect of breast-feeding on the various types of asthma in later life."

The Daily Telegraph reports past studies have shown that breast-feeding cuts the risk of infections in the first six months of life.

Others have found it also cuts the chance of childhood obesity and can lead to more intelligent and better behaved children.

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]]>asthmabreast milkrbsTom HendersonTue, 26 Jul 2011 10:00:00 EST'Molescular Scalpel' Offers Hope in Muscular Dystrophy Fighthttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25/molescular-scalpel-offers-hope-in-muscular-dystrophy-fight/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25/molescular-scalpel-offers-hope-in-muscular-dystrophy-fight/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25/molescular-scalpel-offers-hope-in-muscular-dystrophy-fight/#commentsFiled under: ,

Credit: Getty Images

A "molecular scalpel" could help children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

The gene for the protein dystrophin is damaged in people with the affliction, but the BBC in London reports a drug given to 19 children used a microscopic chemical "scalpel" to remove the damage and restore dystrophin production.

Leaders of Britain's Muscular Dystrophy Campaign tell the BBC the new drug offers "real hope" for victims of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which affects one in every 3,500 newborn boys.

The disease causes muscles to waste away rapidly through the victim's life, confining many children to wheelchairs before their 10th birthdays. The condition can fatal before the age of 30.

The BBC reports the instructions for making a protein are in the genetic code. However, those instructions can get garbled. Scientists have used stem cell and gene therapy research to find ways to introduce a functional dystrophin gene.

In this latest study, researchers tried to do the best they could with the damaged code. Researchers at the Institute of Child Health at University College London injected tailored pieces of antisense RNA to remove a piece of the genetic code allowing it to be matched up either side of the mutation.

In the trial, seven out of the 19 children had some degree of dystrophin protein production restored.

"The best result was 20 percent of normal dystrophin levels," lead researcher Francesco Muntoni tells the BBC. "That is quite remarkable considering the study was for 12 weeks.

"I've worked with patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy for many years and this is the first time we can say with confidence that we've made a significant breakthrough towards finding a targeted treatment."

However, he adds that the treatment was tailored to a specific mutation. It could not benefit everyone. He estimates only 13 percent of patients could be helped.

Nonetheless, Marita Pohlschmidt, director of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, tells the BBC the study is "quite a big deal."

"If we can change severe symptoms in Duchenne into something milder, that would be fantastic," she says. "We have fought to find a treatment for this devastating condition for the past 50 years. Today, we can say with real confidence that we're going to win that battle. Parents of these boys can have real hope for the future."

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]]>ducheneduchene muscular dystrophymuscular dystrophyTom HendersonMon, 25 Jul 2011 18:00:00 ESTFootball Star Eli Manning Scores $2.9 Million for Children's Hospitalhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25/football-star-eli-manning-scores-2-9-million-for-childrens-hos/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25/football-star-eli-manning-scores-2-9-million-for-childrens-hos/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25/football-star-eli-manning-scores-2-9-million-for-childrens-hos/#commentsFiled under: ,

Eli Manning. Credit: Getty Images

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning does a lot of impressive things on the football field, winning a lot of young fans. But what he does for another group of youngsters is even more impressive.

Manning and his wife, Abby, have helped raise $2.9 million for the outpatient clinic at Blair E. Batson Children's Hospital -- the only children's cancer care center in Mississippi.

The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., reports Manning does more than raise money. The 30-year-old athlete visits children in the hospital every summer. However, there are certain strings attached. He insists on no media and no doctors.

"The only thing he asked was that someone go with him to help carry the boxes of gifts he had brought for the children," James Keeton, vice chancellor for health affairs at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, tells the newspaper. "He wanted one-on-one time with them all. He said he would sign whatever they wanted. He wanted to play video games with the ones who felt like it ... anything to make them smile and feel better for a little while.

"That's about as classy as it gets. This guy is a superstar in the NFL, a Super Bowl most valuable player. You don't see many of them wandering the halls of children's hospitals. I just don't know how much more fortunate we could be."

Keeton tells the Clarion-Ledger Manning started with a goal in 2007 of donating $2.5 million in five years. He's surpassed that goal by $400,000.

"That just doesn't happen in this day and time, whether you're trying to raise $50 million or $100,000," Keeton says. "You always set what you hope to do, but rarely do you get there."

Manning tells the newspaper it was a point of honor.

"Any time you put your name on something, you should want it to be done right," he says. "I said we could do this, and I wanted to be a man of my word."

That included keeping a promise he made when he entered professional sports after five years at the University of Mississippi. He promised to give back to the state.

Manning was 26 when started raising money for the hospital and visiting children. At first, he admits, he was nervous about visiting young cancer patients.

"I didn't really know what to say or what to do to make them feel better," he tells the Clarion-Ledger. "It left me feeling sort of helpless, to be honest."

Now he loves visiting the kids.

"It's never what I would call easy," he tells the newspaper. "You walk into a room and a child is sick ... he or she may not be feeling too good that day. They may be down. But what I've learned is, just do the best you can to get a smile out of them. And even though they may not say anything then -- I mean, kids can be shy -- afterward you hear from their parents that the visit meant so much and that their child hasn't stopped talking about it.

"And I try to do the same thing for the parents. It's a tough time for them. So anything I can do to lift the morale of the whole group is a good thing."

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]]>celebritycelebrity fundraiserchildren with cancerchildrens hospitaleli manningTom HendersonMon, 25 Jul 2011 17:00:00 ESTDiscipline More About School Authorities Than Student Behaviorhttp://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25/discipline-more-about-school-authorities-than-student-behavior/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25/discipline-more-about-school-authorities-than-student-behavior/http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25/discipline-more-about-school-authorities-than-student-behavior/#commentsFiled under:

Credit: Getty Images

Students at South Allegory High School rarely get suspended. Meanwhile, across town at North Allegory High, kids are suspended left and right.

Wow. North clearly has some serious discipline problems. The school must be overrun with hooligans. You should definitely send your kids to South.

Then again, the suspensions at North could say more about the administrators than it does about the students.

The Washington Post reports researchers in Texas are exploding some myths about academic discipline. One of the biggies is that schools with a lot of suspensions and expulsions have more discipline problems than seemingly quieter schools.

Not really, researchers for the Council of State Governments Justice Center and Texas A&M University's Public Policy Research Institute found out. It really depends on who is cracking the whip.

"The bottom line is that schools can get different outcomes with very similar student bodies," researcher Michael Thompson tells the Post. "School administrators and school superintendents and teachers can have a dramatic impact."

Researchers looked at nearly a million kids in Texas. Some of the kids found themselves in schools more tolerant of misbehavior or with educators better able to manage their classrooms. Researchers accounted for such variables as race, economics, test scores, attendance, teacher salary and experience and expenditures per student.

"It's a really important finding," Russell Skiba, an Indiana University professor who has studied discipline issues for 15 years, tells the Post. "It says it's not totally about what kids and communities bring but it's a choice that schools make."

Researchers claimed their study was the first of its kind -- analyzing the records of all of Texas' 6.6 million seventh-graders in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and tracking them for the next six years or more.

Researchers uncovered a disturbing level of injustice in the way school authorities treat kids.

They found African-American students had fewer of what are called "discretionary" offenses than Hispanic or white kids. (Discretionary offenses can include serious fights but more often refer to classroom disruptions and insubordination.)

Even though African-American students had fewer of these offenses than their classmates, researchers found they were 31 percent more likely to be punished for them.

"The numbers are heartbreaking," Matt Cregor of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund tells the Post. "What we're seeing in Texas is no different than what we are seeing nationally. We're not going to close the so-called achievement gap or end this graduation or dropout crisis until we take a hard look at the numbers like these and the practices and policies that created them."

Texas state Sen. John Whitmire, the chairman of the state Senate's Criminal Justice Committee, tells the Post the report confirms his growing belief that school discipline is broken. Safety is important, he says, but too many students are suspended for typical teenage lapses.

"It's just become the easiest thing to do," Whitmire tells the newspaper. "It's easier than working with kids."

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]]>disciplineeducationexpulsionracism in schoolsschool suspensionstexas schoolsTom HendersonMon, 25 Jul 2011 17:00:00 EST