While the Brangelina gang hangs out in the south of France awaiting the arrival of their newest members, a couple of the Pitt-Jolie kids got a sneak peek at what’s in store.

According to E! Online, Angelina scheduled a sonogram over the weekend, and Brad brought 7-year-old Maddox and 4-year-old Pax for a virtual meet-and-greet with their siblings-to-be.

“Angie was due for a scan and they thought it would be cool to do it on Mother's Day and take Maddox and Pax along to see the twins for themselves on the sonogram machine,” a family insider told E! News.
Zahara, 3, and Shiloh, who’ll turn 2 later this month, stayed behind while their brothers shared the rare tot opportunity. The source said the outing was just another example of Brad and Angie’s hands-on approach to parenthood.

“Brad and Angelina are very big on explaining things in a very simple way to their kids and they want the kids to feel included in the process of her pregnancy. Having them see the babies for themselves was a really exciting day out for them all."

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Parry Aftab wants to make the Internet safer--one social network at a time.

Founder of Wired Safety, a global Internet kids-safety nonprofit, Aftab is turning her passion for protecting kids online into a consulting business for the fast-changing world of Web 2.0 widgets, social networks, and virtual worlds. In July, she plans to launch Wired Trust, an Internet security business and certification program designed to act like an insurance policy for social sites.

Among other things, Wired Trust will advise companies on best practices involving spam, phishing attacks, member safety information, and moderating communities. It will also run a new best-practices seal program that, if effective, could give parents at least one clue about which social networks to trust.

CNET News.com talked to Aftab, a longtime attorney, before her planned announcement of Wired Trust.

Q: So what will Wired Trust do?
Aftab: (Last year) I started thinking about creating a consulting company that would assist everyone in the Web 2.0 space with managing all of the risks--from spam to phishing; to securing their networks; to creating safety information for their users; to creating safe content for kids; to reviewing age-verification technology; to creating and screening their moderation practices.

We will go in and kick the tires and tell companies what they need to do. If they need help writing their safety policies and practices, we'll do it for them. Or we'll do the moderation for them in six languages on a 24-7 basis. We'll develop the technology for them one time, and we'll spread that technology among all of the sites and spread the cost.

And we will certify best practices for the industry. So if a site, a Web 2.0 technology, or a widget meets our standards of practices, we will upload the Wired Trust seal from our site. What we're doing is professionalizing safety in the Web 2.0 space.

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Every day, people feed, bath, and clothe their children. They get them ready for school and take them to dance class. They help them with their homework, play games, read stories, and tuck them in at night.

This sounds like a typical day in the life of a parent. However, nowadays, it is also a common reflection of a grandparent's life.

"Nationally, there are 2.4 million grandparents who are responsible for most of the basic needs of one or more of their grandchildren who live with them," said Linda Waycie, outreach coordinator of Children's Home + Aid, a social service agency.

"The state of Illinois has 103,717 grandparents reporting they are responsible for their grandchildren living with them," she said, citing Census Bureau statistics.

To address this, Children's Home + Aid, along with sponsors, such as Catholic Charities, runs the Grandparents as Caregivers program. Catholic Charities' Northwest Senior Services also helps facilitate the program.

"Grandparents raising grandchildren often do not identify with being part of a larger group of grandparent caregivers," said Sheryl Madden-Pitter, a Catholic Charities' caregiver specialist. "They often do not know other grandparents raising grandchildren with whom they can relate common experiences. They have limited time to remove themselves from their caregiver responsibilities and may neglect their own needs for support, which actually enhances their care-giving abilities.

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It takes a North Carolina parent: Transforming education under the No Child Behind,” focused on school efforts in parent involvement.

Educators said NCLB was considered “The single greatest issue in education today, followed by meeting the needs of all students and a lack of parent involvement.”

It has been six years since NCLB was created and educators wanted to know if it’s made the differences it could have.

NCLB places a legal obligation with school districts to “provide timely, accurate, clear and honest information and to establish sincere, precise, and convenient mechanisms for parents to contribute in a meaningful way to improvement efforts.”

The report found that while the opportunities “for laminating projects and taking up tickets at football games may have increased, the opportunities for parents to participate in a meaningful way have not been created.”

 “Parents report that the law is frequently treated as a formality” said Edwin Darden, Appleseed director of education policy.

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The Government wants to SCRAP the current legal requirement to consider the importance of a youngster having a father when couples get fertility treatment.

The move which will be debated by MPs next week would make it easier for lesbian couples to have test-tube babies.
But the report by campaign group CARE blasts Labour’s proposals and proves dads play a vital role in bringing up kids.

The study brings together research from around the world which shows fathers:

ARE crucial in raising well-behaved kids, especially in poor families.

BOOST school results and confidence.

HELP kids stay active and to play sports.

The findings will fuel opposition to the plans in the Commons.
More than 20 Labour MPs have signed colleague Geraldine Smith’s motion condemning the proposal as “profoundly mis-informed”.

CARE spokesman Dan Boucher said last night: “The State should do everything to ensure children have a father – this will not be achieved by removing the explicit reference to a child’s need for a father.”

Children who lose a parent suddenly may suffer a "double whammy" to their mental and physical health from the shock of the loss and because of inherited risks, researchers reported on Monday.

They said the risk factors that contribute to many early deaths of parents such as mental illness or alcoholism can be passed on to children. Such children may be more vulnerable to the stresses of losing a parent, the researchers said.

"Kids whose parents die early are at risk because the conditions that their parents have, that predispose their parents to early death, are also heritable and therefore they get both," said Dr. David Brent of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Brent and colleagues studied 140 families in which one parent died prematurely and suddenly from suicide, accidental death, or sudden natural death.

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Adolescents who were adopted as infants are significantly more likely to have a psychiatric disorder than those who were not adopted, a study released Monday has found.

The researchers emphasizing that most of the adoptees in the study were psychologically healthy and faring well the said that as a group those adolescents faced a greater risk for two psychiatric conditions: attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder.

About 7 in 100 adolescents who were not adopted met the criteria for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, about half the rate for adopted adolescents, said lead author Margaret Keyes of the University of Minnesota.

Attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder interferes with a person's ability to concentrate, sit still and control impulsive behavior. Young people with oppositional defiant disorder are uncooperative and hostile toward authority figures in a way that seriously impairs their day-to-day functioning.

The study, published in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, compared a random sample of 540 adolescents who were not adopted, all born in Minnesota, with a representative sample of adoptees placed by the three largest adoption agencies in Minnesota. Of the latter group, 514 were foreign adoptions and 178 were domestic.

Researchers performed psychiatric assessments on all subjects, whose ages ranged from 11 to 21. Parents, teachers and the adolescents also were interviewed.

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In the study, the research team from the University of Maryland, Duke University and The Johns Hopkins University, used economic game theory to predict levels of parental discipline.

The researchers predicted that parental concern for their ‘reputation’ as a disciplinarian with the younger children would be a powerful motivator. This is especially true in the case of the older children, who expect stronger penalties because their parents are making an example of them. But as the younger siblings grow up and the ‘games’ get played out a second or third time, the parent’s resolve tends to dwindle, the researchers say.

“Tender-hearted parents find it harder and harder to engage in ‘tough love’ as they have fewer young children in the house, since they have less incentive to uphold reputations as disciplinarians,” said University of Maryland economist, Ginger Gin, one of three co-authors of the study, and herself an older sister and a parent of two. “As a result, the theory predicts that the last-born and the only children, knowing that they can get away with much more than their older brothers and sisters, are, on an average, more likely to engage in risky behaviours,” she added.

The study, Games Parents and Adolescents Play, is co-authored by V Joseph Hotz, an economics professor at Duke; Lingxin Hao, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins; and Jin at Maryland. To test the reputational theory, the research team analysed existing survey data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The National Longitudinal Study of Youth tracked more than 11,000 Americans for over 16 years (1979 to 1994).

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A weary Mississauga mom is celebrating a temporary win over bureaucrats who slashed home care for her seriously ill 5-year-old daughter.

Bowing to pressure, health officials agreed yesterday to restore Alessia Commisso's overnight care for 30 days so her mother can rest.

"I'm happy I'll be getting some consecutive nights' sleep," said Sonia Commisso, whose plight was featured on the front page of yesterday's Toronto Star after she pleaded for help from Health Minister George Smitherman. "But they've got to realize the challenges are still there after 30 days."

Commisso, 36, is the sole caregiver in her family and has been exhausted since Alessia's home care was cut to 15 hours a week from 54 in January. Her husband, Tony, is in a wheelchair with multiple sclerosis and son Cosimo, 14, has epilepsy and a learning disability.

Alessia has Leigh's Disease, a rare condition that causes degeneration of the central nervous system and has left her with 30 per cent heart function, eating difficulties and mobility problems. She also uses a wheelchair.

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When 48 fourth-graders make no noise and stand patiently beside their desks, adults notice.
“You’ll never hear it this quiet again,” whispered Jennifer Reed, one of their teachers, as parents and other visitors looked on, amused.

The students weren’t in trouble; in fact, they were smiling.

They were waiting to begin their final etiquette lunch of the year.

Teacher Terry Bartlow started having such lunches as part of his curriculum four years ago.

“I saw a need for kids to learn more manners at school, and it fits right into the curriculum for writing,” he said.

Reed joined Bartlow as a teaching partner two years ago, and they’ve teamed up to let both their classes experience etiquette.

The students hold two practice luncheons before the final one of the year, for which they invite honored guests. They write the invitations and send thank-you notes as well, all with proper spelling and grammar.  
 

The guests themselves are even part of the curriculum. Members of local and state governments, emergency service responders and other guests of honor tell about their jobs and how they help the community.

Friday, as guests arrived, several student greeters peered out the school’s front windows, big smiles on their faces.

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