parenting

Honestly, I think we may have gone a little toy safety crazy in our country. It’s one thing to use common sense—cover electrical outlets, don’t let infants play with marbles, that sort of thing. It’s quite another to recall all blinds ever because they pose a risk we’ve known about since, oh, the invention of blinds. I fully expect butter knives and Gillette razors to be recalled due to safety hazards soon, at this rate.

That said, I think we need to approach toy safety in a different manner than we’ve been doing. We think about toy safety as whether an object can physically harm a child, right? What about the entire emotional and social contexts of a toy? Read more

If you bought a bunch of Baby Einstein videos and hoped to use them to create a genius out of your infant, I’ve got bad news for you. Not only does research indicate that little kids who watch a bunch of TV—educational or otherwise—score lower on language tests; the company itself falsified claims that their videos made kids smarter, and now has to pay for their dastardly deeds.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, kids under two shouldn’t watch any television. The thing is, less than 10% of parents know that—and almost 50% of parents think that educational videos are good for their developing toddlers. Read more

The purpose of National Chemistry Week is to help schools, businesses and entire communities recognize the importance of chemistry to the quality of human life. The American Chemical Society, which sponsors the event, has more information, including how to participate, at their website.

There are plenty of ways to celebrate chemistry, however. As I was telling a fellow writer, I hated chemistry in school. It was dry and boring, with plenty of bookwork and limited experimentation. The same went for physics. When people asked me about science I would usually wrinkle my nose and murmur how I hated it—no matter that it had been a favorite subject up until my high school days. Read more

My dad used to get a kick out of embarrassing me when I was growing up—embarrassing all three of his daughters, actually, was one of his favorite hobbies. He’s a fantastic dad, always has been—but if he’s got a chance to fart during a school event, do a Cheech & Chong or Ernest impersonation, or bang on the dashboard of his truck like he’s wildly playing along with an AC/DC song, he will totally do it.

I made a vow to never embarrass my daughter like my dad did—if not to help keep her face non-beet-red, then to simply satisfy my own need to keep a low profile. That said, I’m sure I’ve done plenty of things that have embarrassed her already—from checking her diaper in front of people when a sinister smell is afloat to randomly wiping her nose or covering her with kisses, also in public. Read more