Parents Daily News Roundup

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013

Student Fires Police Officer’s Handgun On Northern Virginia School Bus
A student accidentally shot a police officer’s handgun on a Northern Virginia school bus on Monday. Four students were on the bus at the time, along with the police officer, the bus driver and a bus aide, and no one was hurt. (via Huffington Post)

Bed rest during pregnancy could worsen risk for premature birth, study shows
New research is raising fresh concern that an age-old treatment for troubled pregnancies – bed rest – doesn’t seem to prevent premature birth, and might even worsen that risk. (via Fox News)

Video Game to Help Kids Fight Cancer
Re-Mission 2 is a collection of six free online games–accessible via Web browser or Apple iPad–that share the theme of taking the fight to cancer. They do this by arming patients with a virtual arsenal of chemo, radiation and targeted cancer drug attacks designed to crush advancing malignant forces. (via Yahoo News)

Philadelphia doctor guilty of murdering infants in late-term abortions
A Philadelphia abortion doctor was found guilty on Monday of murdering three babies during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women. (via Yahoo News)

Buena Vista School District Officially Closes For Year, Offers ‘Skills Camp’
For the 400 or so students in Buena Vista, Mich., school is over, even though the academic year isn’t supposed to end until the middle of June. Instead, they will likely attend “skills camp.” (via Huffington Post)

A Fatal Birthday Gift

Friday, May 3rd, 2013

There’s been a steady stream of gun tragedies involving young kids. This one could be the worst: On Tuesday, a 5-year-old Kentucky boy shot and killed his 2-year-old sister with his own gun. The .22-caliber Crickett rifle, a child-sized model, was a gift that the boy received on his birthday last November. The firearm, marketed as “My First Rifle,” is one of many children’s firearms made by Milton, Pa.-based Keystone Sporting Arms LLC, according to USA Today, and comes in colors including blue and pink.

Although teaching children to use rifles may be an age-old tradition in parts of this country, 2-year-old Caroline Sparks’ death should serve as a stark warning of the dangers of allowing children access to firearms.

The AAP recommends that all kids’ environments be free of firearms. But if you choose to own one, it’s your responsibility to keep your child safe. Teach him what to do if he sees a gun:
1. Stop.
2. Don’t touch.
3. Leave the area.
4. Tell an adult.

If you haven’t done so already, take the Parents Gun-Safety Pledge to show your support for protecting kids from gun accidents.

Image: Boy playing with toy gun via Shutterstock.

Yet Another Gun Tragedy

Wednesday, April 10th, 2013

Growing up with a dad who is a homicide detective, gun safety was always a normal topic of conversation in my home. According to my father, children are naturally curious, and simply saying “don’t touch” isn’t enough. Every so often, he would let us look at—and even touch—his gun. He would always empty it, and then have my siblings and me put one finger in the chamber to make sure that he didn’t miss anything. He had a strict rule that the barrel should never be facing anyone. “I don’t think that you’d want anyone you love to get hurt, would you?” he would often say. Then he’d lock it away in his room out of our reach and tell us that if we ever wanted to see it again, all we had to do was ask.

You’d think such gun-safety measures would be a no-brainer for parents, but sadly that’s not the case. The latest evidence: Yesterday, a 6-year-old New Jersey boy was accidentally shot and killed by his 4-year-old neighbor while they were playing. According to the town’s police chief, the children were outside the 4-year-old’s home when he went inside, got his dad’s rifle, and shot the 6-year-old. It’s unclear whether he pulled the trigger intentionally or the rifle accidentally discharged.

If this tragedy sounds like an exception, you’re sadly mistaken. On Saturday, a pistol in the hands of a 4-year-old boy in Tennessee went off, killing his aunt, the wife of Wilson County Sheriff’s Deputy Daniel Fanning. It happened while Fanning was showing off his loaded gun collection. Then there’s the tragic February death of 3-year-old Tmorej Smith, who shot himself, thinking his mother’s pink gun was a toy. These shootings have one thing in common: In every case, a young child had easy access to a loaded weapon that belonged to a family member.

The AAP recommends that all kids’ environments be free of firearms. But if you choose to own a weapon, it’s your responsibility to keep your child safe. Teach him what to do if he sees a gun:

1. Stop.
2. Don’t touch.
3. Leave the area.
4. Tell an adult.

But don’t stop there. Locking guns in a safety box and storing the ammunition separately could be the difference between life and death. More than 1.5 million children live in households where firearms are kept unlocked and loaded, and 140 kids are killed accidentally by guns every year. Is your child safe?

Take the Parents Gun-Safety Pledge to commit to keeping your child safe.

Parents Daily News Roundup

Tuesday, March 19th, 2013

Test of Anthrax Vaccine in Children Gets Tentative OK
A presidential ethics panel has opened the door to testing an anthrax vaccine on children as young as infants, bringing an angry response from critics who say the children would be guinea pigs in a study that would never help them and might harm them. (via Reuters)

Most Parents Don’t Follow Doctor’s Orders
Two-thirds of parents say they don’t always follow the advice they get from their child’s doctor, according to a new poll. The findings showed that 56 percent of parents said they follow the advice they’re given most of the time, while 13 percent said they follow it only occasionally, according to the findings from the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. (via NBC News)

Student Suspended for Pop-Tart Gun, Josh Welch, Files Appeal with Maryland School System
An attorney for an Anne Arundel County 7-year-old suspended from school for nibbling a pastry into the shape of a pistol has filed an appeal with the county school system to have the suspension overturned and the student’s record expunged, saying he will “go all the way to the Maryland Court of Appeals” if needed to pursue the case. (via Huffington Post)

New Guidelines for Athletes with Concussions
A major medical group is updating its guidelines for handling amateur or professional athletes suspected of having a concussion. The American Academy of Neurology says the athletes should be taken out of action immediately and kept out until they’ve been cleared by a health care provider with training about concussions. (via FOX News)

Organic Baby Food: It’s More Expensive, but it May Not Be More Nutritious
Parents go organic for a variety of reasons, including environmental concerns and a desire to avoid pesticide residue. And in some cases, they just want a status symbol. According to the consumer market research firm Mintel, organic baby food made up about 10 percent of the $1.4 billion U.S. baby food and snacks market in 2011. But studies show that parents who are aiming to buy the best food for their infants may not need to spring for the expensive organics. (via The Washington Post)

Parents Daily News Roundup

Monday, March 18th, 2013

Armed Teachers Bill: Florida Rep. Greg Steube Meets Opposition In School Boards
Your child’s third-grade teacher might be packing more than a lesson plan in the classroom if a bill designed to make schools safer becomes law. (via Huffington Post)

Denver School Cheating, Moody’s Likes Philly School Closings: Ed Today
According to Ed News Colorado, about 35 high school students figured out how to go into their teachers’ computer system. They changed their grades on instant “mastery tests” to make it look as if they’d entered the correct answers in the first place. (via Huffington Post)

Despite Evidence, Parents’ Fears of HPV Vaccine Grow
More parents of teen girls not fully vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV) are intending to forgo the shots altogether – a trend driven by vaccine safety concerns, new research suggests. (via Reuters)

Grandparents Stepping Up to Help Fund Grandkids’ Education
Go to a workshop on how to pay for your kids’ college education, and you’ll see more gray hair in the audience than in years past. (via Today)

Faced With Eviction and Medical Bills, Parents Take Kids Along for Crime
Police in Utah say they’ve arrested a husband and wife bank robbery team that took their two young children along for the ride. (via ABC News)

Parents Daily News Roundup

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

Indiana Teacher Gun Threat? Lake Station Teacher On Leave Over ‘Guns’ Message On Chalkboard
A northwest Indiana teacher is the subject of a police probe over a threatening message he scrawled on the chalkboard of his classroom. (via Huffington Post)

Transgender Student Rights Would Be Guaranteed Under Proposed California Law
A California lawmaker has introduced legislation aimed at guaranteeing transgender students the right to use public school restrooms and participate on the sports teams that correspond with their expressed genders. (via Huffington Post)

Mom’s Placenta Reflects Her Exposure to Stress and Impacts Offsprings’ Brains
According to a new study by a research group from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, if a mother is exposed to stress during pregnancy, her placenta translates that experience to her fetus by altering levels of a protein that affects the developing brains of male and female offspring differently. (via Science Daily)

Is Baby Still Breathing? Is Mom’s Obsession Normal?
A new Northwestern Medicine® study found that women who have recently given birth have a much higher rate of obsessive-compulsive symptoms than the general population. (via Science Daily)

U.S. Baby’s Cure From HIV Raises Hope, New Questions
The remarkable case of a baby being cured of HIV infection in the United States using readily available drugs has raised new hope for eradicating the infection in infants worldwide, but scientists say it will take a lot more research and much more sensitive diagnostics before this hope becomes a reality. (via Reuters)

Michelle Obama: I Don’t Talk About Weight With My Daughters
Michelle Obama offered a peek inside the first family’s healthy habits on Monday, revealing there’s one thing they never talk about at home: weight. (via Today)

Reflections: Joe Biden Speaks to Parents About Gun Safety

Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

I had the privilege of sitting down with Vice President Joe Biden last week at the White House (well, technically the Old Executive Office Building behind the president’s actual house). The topic was gun safety and reducing gun violence, the questions came from you, our readers and Facebook fans, and the venue was a live video feed carried on our Facebook page as well as the White House website.

As you can see from watching the video of the interview, Biden’s answers were thorough, substantive–and occasionally unexpected. He sparked a media frenzy with his advice to “buy a shotgun” instead of an assault weapon, a remark that was picked up and replayed on major news shows, political sites, and in newspapers nationwide.

But if all you know of the event is the shotgun remark, it’s worth watching or reading more of our discussion. The interview also addressed school safety, guns at home and on playdates, and the effects of violent video games. I found his comments about that last issue particularly interesting: He pointed out that the federal government is legally barred from funding research on gun violence, and so we simply don’t have enough data to make a judgment about the effects of violent media on spurring gun violence.

Biden and some members of the media expressed surprise that these questions came from Parents readers. But these are the questions you are interested in, and they deal with that most fundamental of needs–protecting our families. Some of you define this as the right to own whatever gun you want while others see it as restricting the types of guns that are allowed. But as Rachel Maddow astutely put it, when you have the ear of the Vice President, Americans (you, our readers) will ask “hard questions” about policy and public safety.

As for the substance of the shotgun remark, Biden has said similar things before, and he’s always made clear that he is an advocate for gun rights even as he pursues restrictions on certain types of weapons and ammunition. So it didn’t strike me immediately as big news, even as it did surprise me with the forwardness and bluntness of the advice. But within an hour or so, it had gone viral, and I spent much of my trip back home to N.Y. reading and watching the first wave of coverage.

I am grateful that the Vice President made time to speak with us about this essential issue. It’s not every day that the VP sits down with a representative from the parenthood-focused media. It is a sign of the power and influence that you, the moms and dads of America, wield. Your voices matter to those who are shaping our country’s policies, so keep making those voices heard.

See the whole interview with Joe Biden about gun safety and reducing gun violence.

Parents Daily News Roundup

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013

Lee Bright, South Carolina Senator, Proposes High School Gun Class Bill
As the fight continues on whether teachers and school staff should carry weapons, one South Carolina lawmaker is turning the armed attention to students. Republican state Sen. Lee Bright has introduced a new bill that would create a guns and shooting class for the state’s high schoolers, taking one step further National Rifle Association CEO Waayne LaPierre’s assertion that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” (via Huffington Post)

Can Carrots Reduce the Effect of Diabetes-Causing Genes?
In the latest revelation about the human genome, researchers say diabetics with a certain genetic mutation may be able to rely on beta carotene to reduce their symptoms. (via TIME)

Limited Impact on Child Abuse From Visits, Intervention: Study
Home visits and doctor’s office interventions to prevent child abuse appear to have only limited success, with evidence mixed on whether they help at all, according to a U.S. analysis based on ten international studies. (via Reuters)

Education Committee Revs Back Up In 113th Congress
It’s back to school for Congress. Today, Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, held his first organizational meeting with the 113th Congress’s iteration of his committee. In his opening remarks, Kline said reauthorizing No Child Left Behind will remain a “top priority.” NCLB, the sweeping law that governs public K-12 education, expired in 2007. (via Huffington Post)

Brain Structure of Infants Predicts Language Skills at One Year
Using a brain-imaging technique that examines the entire infant brain, researchers have found that the anatomy of certain brain areas – the hippocampus and cerebellum – can predict children’s language abilities at 1 year of age. (via Science Daily)

More Children Being Diagnosed with ADHD in Past Decade
White children from high-income homes are most likely to be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, as more children overall are getting a diagnosis of ADHD, according to a study released Monday that looked at hundreds of thousands of California medical records. (via The Wall Street Journal)