Can babies beat bullies? The New York Times has an in-depth look at the school-based Roots of Empathy antibullying program — TIME explored it earlier here and here — which works by introducing schoolchildren to a mother and …
Childhood
Study: Parent-Only Education Helps Children Lose Weight
Before you even think about shipping your zaftig not-so-little ones off to fat camp, consider a new study published in the journal Obesity: when nutrition and exercise education was given only to parents, their children shed …
A Glimmer of Hope in a Bad-News Survey About Bullying
The bad news: half of all high school students, regardless of gender or type of school, say they have bullied someone in the past year, and 47% of students say they have been bullied in a way that seriously upset them. The good …
Deaths Rise in Children Monitored by Los Angeles Child Services
The number of neglected or abused children dying in Los Angeles, even after the county’s Department of Children and Family Services has become involved in their cases, is on the rise, according to confidential documents seen by …
Study: More Screen Time May Cause Social Problems for Kids
Children who spend more than two hours in front of a television or computer screen were more likely to report behavioral and social problems than kids who watched less, according to a University of Bristol study that will be …
Study: Why Child Abuse Investigations Don’t Help Kids
Child welfare agencies have a thankless task: investigate reports of child maltreatment and determine, first, whether they are true or false, then whether more damage will be done by a) leaving children in a potentially harmful …
Side Effect of the Recession: An Increase in Child Abuse
Losing your job when the economy takes a dip can have some damaging effects on your health; the stress, anxiety and depression among the unemployed has been linked to heart disease and an increased risk of suicide. But according …
Cyberbullying? Homophobia? Tyler Clementi’s Death Highlights Online Lawlessness
When a Rutgers University freshman allegedly streamed video on the Internet of his roommate’s homosexual encounter in their dorm room, leading the roommate to leap to his death from the George Washington Bridge, it highlighted …
New at the School Fete: The Possum Throwing Contest!
A rural school in New Zealand has become the center of a brouhaha over a recent school fair in which an informal possum throwing contest was held.
Another Cause of Early Puberty in Girls: Absent Dads
Kids getting older younger — KGOY, as it’s known — is not just a cultural phenomenon. Girls are literally hitting puberty at a younger age, and alarming the health community, since early onset puberty is often associated with …
It Had to Happen: Breasts in 3D
Several years ago when Jeffrey Katzenberg was doing his full-throttle media tour to sing the praises of 3D cinema, a couple of journalists in the audience had the same question in mind: what does this mean for pornography?
New Study: Gay Parents = Great Kids
Let’s see, so far, California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage has been found to be unconstitutional, unnecessary (or did we miss the collapse of traditional marriage in Massachusetts, Connecticut or the four other …
Does Lack of Sleep for Children Mean Obesity?
As if parental sleep deprivation weren’t bad enough, now there’s something else to fret about when your tyke doesn’t get enough Z’s.
A new study in September’s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine reports …