By age 6, children should have vaccinations against 14 diseases, the U.S. government advises. More than 1 in 10 parents reject that, refusing or delaying shots mainly because of safety concerns, a national survey found.

Worries about vaccine safety were common even among parents whose kids were fully vaccinated: 1 in 5 said they think delaying shots is safer than the recommended schedule. The results suggest more than 2 million infants and children may not be fully protected against preventable diseases, including some that can be deadly or disabling.

The nationally representative online survey of about 750 parents of kids ages 6 and younger was done last year, and results were released online today in the journal Pediatrics. They are in line with a federal survey released last month, showing at least 1 in 10 toddlers and preschoolers lagged on vaccines including chickenpox and the measles-mumps-rubella combination shots.

Kandace O’Neill of Lakevillehas a 5-year-old son who has had no vaccinations since he turned 1; her 7-month-old daughter has received none of the recommended shots. O’Neill said she thinks parents — not doctors or schools — should make medical decisions for her children.

Study author Dr. Amanda Dempsey, a pediatrician and researcher at the University of Michigan, said skepticism is fueled by erroneous information and reports that sensationalize misconceptions. Some parents dismiss the severity of diseases because they’ve never seen a child with those illnesses.

But vaccine-preventable diseases can be deadly, said Dr. Buddy Creech, associate director of Vanderbilt University’s Vaccine Research Program. “From being someone in the trenches seeing children die every year from influenza and its complications ... I would not do a single thing to risk the health of my kids,” he said. Creech has served on advisory boards for vaccine makers and has accepted their research money.

Dempsey, the survey’s lead author, has been a paid adviser to Merck but said that company made no contributions to the research. Knowledge Networks conducted the survey, which had an error margin of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

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Children with both asthma and diabetes seem to have a harder time keeping their blood sugar under control, a new study released Monday suggests. According to Reuters, researchers found that among 2,000 3- to 21-year-olds with diabetes, 11 percent had asthma -- slightly higher than the 9 percent rate among children and young adults in the United States.

Additionally, when the researchers looked at young people with type 2 diabetes, they found that 16 percent in that group had asthma, compared with 10 percent of those with type 1 diabetes.

In the study, kids with both type 1 diabetes and asthma were more likely to have poor blood sugar control than their peers who were asthma-free[15.5 percent versus 9 percent], although the reasons are not exactly clear.

But according to lead researcher Mary Helen Black, of the department of research and evaluation at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, the higher rate of asthma among young people with type 2 diabetes suggests a role for obesity, Reuters was told.

"It's pretty well-established that there's an obesity-asthma connection," Black told Reuters Health in an interview. One reason why young people with type 1 diabetes and asthma had poorer blood sugar control is that there is a "real biological connection," Black continued.

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The majority of grandparents feel their children are far too lenient and don’t set clear ­boundaries of behaviour. Many grandparents think this leads to a lack of ­respect for ­authority.

According to a recent study, two thirds of grandparents think their grandchildren are not as firmly ­disciplined as their own offspring were.

Almost half said they were stricter with their own kids than their ­children are with their young families. Haven’t you heard this ­before? Each older generation ­condemns the younger for ­failing to bring up their ­children in the way the older one sees fit.

There’s nothing new about the findings of this study. If those grandparents thought back to when they were bringing up their own children, they would ­remember that their parents ­complained about lack of discipline, bad manners, ­no respect for their elders and so on. ­I remember it with my own mother.

On one occasion, she chastised me for not punishing one of my four little boys for a misdemeanour towards the end of the day. I refused to punish my tired child, saying that I didn’t want him to go to bed feeling sad and unhappy, possibly even tearful, and that I would bring him to book at another time when he was in a fit state to cope with harsh words.

My mother responded that he “wouldn’t learn a lesson” if I didn’t act immediately. On the other hand, I knew in my own mind that I could put things right further down the line and that my desire to have my little son go to sleep untroubled ­outweighed any need to ­reprimand him.

Like many other grandparents and their children, my mother and I fell out over the issue of how to correct a child’s behaviour. The grandparents in this ­survey, by the over-50s free newspaper Mature Times, say that modern parents are far too lenient with their children and they’re shying away from ­imposing discipline for fear of ­appearing too harsh. Well, thank ­heavens for that because harsh punishment is cruel and has been shown not to work.

The grandparents also said that modern parents want to be seen as a friend rather than an authority figure. Three cheers! Only half of grandparents believe that children still feared being told off. Yippee! Who wants children to be ­fearful of their parents?

I have a great deal of respect for today’s grandparents. But this survey suggests that some of them may be stuck in a time warp.

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With autumn officially here, KidsPost really needs some fall-themed weather art to be featured in the upper right-hand corner of our page Monday through Thursday. So get out your markers, crayons and pencils and think falling leaves, pumpkins, turkeys. Keep in mind that the artwork runs pretty small, so simple drawings and bold colors work best.

Send your drawings to KidsPost, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 or have a parent, guardian or teacher e-mail them to us at kidspost@washpost.com (put “weather art” in the subject line). Please include your full name, age and home town. Plus a phone number where we can reach you if we have any questions!

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Children were less likely to have health insurance in Arizona than in any state except Texas or Nevada, according to data released Thursday by the Census Bureau. It said 12.58 percent of children in the state – roughly one of every eight age 17 and under – was uninsured in 2010, when the numbers were gathered. The national rate was 8 percent.

A state official said the number of uninsured children in Arizona “tends to be a little bit deceiving” because of the high number of undocumented immigrant children who are ineligible for most coverage.

But child health advocates in Arizona said the numbers sound about right. “If you look at a number of factors in this state … then it’s not a surprise,” said Arizona’s Children Association President Fred Chaffee. The recession has been the primary cause of the high rate of uninsured children, said Matt Jewett, director of health policy for the Phoenix-based Children’s Action Alliance.

Many Arizonans have health insurance through their or a family members’ work, according to Census data. But as parents lose jobs, families lose that health coverage.

For such families, privately purchased health insurance is often unaffordable, according to a Census report based on the data. “As the economy deteriorates … yes, we do have more children that are uninsured,” said Chris Sexton, director of the Apache County Public Health Services District.

Apache County had the highest percentage of uninsured children in the state, among the counties broken out by the Census. The bureau did not release numbers for the five smallest counties, even though they were included in the overall state figures.

Arizona does provide KidsCare, a state–federal insurance program for eligible children whose families earned between one and two times the federal poverty limit and have no other options for healthcare, Jewett said. But the state froze enrollment in KidsCare in January 2010.

Nearly 30,000 children who were on the program have lost coverage since the freeze began and the KidsCare waiting list has ballooned to more than 120,000.

“If you have people (at) that lower end of the income scale who would be eligible for KidsCare, they may not have the option for private insurance, so they basically have no options,” said Dr. Eve Shapiro, a Tucson pediatrician.

The Census data, which was gathered throughout 2010, likely does not reflect the full impact of the KidsCare freeze, Jewett said. Without insurance, families will wait until an emergency to seek care for their children, Chaffee said.

“In many instances, their primary–care physician will become the emergency room,” he said. But Monica Coury, spokeswoman for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, cautioned against reading too much into the Census numbers.

“Aggregated data is good … but it doesn’t always tell the specific state story,” Coury said. She noted that the rate of uninsured children in Arizona is inflated by the state’s unique demography, which includes many undocumented immigrants.

“Our number tends to be a little bit deceiving in that regard,” she said. Whatever the reasons for the high rate, child health advocates believe the KidsCare freeze to be the wrong decision.

“The policies they have chosen to balance the budget on the backs of children (are) ridiculous,” Shapiro said. “Because in the long term it’s going to have such far-reaching implications.”

Chaffee of Arizona’s Children Association agrees. “Kids who are sick don’t thrive as well as healthy kids in school,” he said. “There will be some … workforce issues in the intermediate to long term.”

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Last week I wanted to know if you read tabloid newspapers, and zero of you felt you were addicted.  However, not quite the same when applied to gossip news sites on the internets, where 40% of you often find yourself reading about the newest fight between Blake Lively and Leo DiCaprio.  23% of you only read the newspaper version at the checkout line, and 36% of you swear that you never do, even when the annoying lady in front of you is writing a check.

Today, I want your feedback on a post and picture that originally appeared on Consumerist.  It seems the father of the little boy posing with Chuck E. Cheese up there felt that Chuckie was giving his son the finger. He complained to the restaurant, where they insisted that wasn’t the case.  He then took it to Consumerist to “ …stir up some debate and maybe make some other parents more aware for when it comes time to take their kids’ photos with the big mouse.”

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Medications such as fluoxetine (Prozac) or sertraline (Zoloft) are often the first-line treatment for kids who have OCD.

However, "Most kids on medication still have symptoms," said John Piacentini, head of the Child OCD, Anxiety and Tic Disorders Program at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The new findings show that, "If you try medications and you don't get the benefits that you would like, if you can find quality (cognitive behavioral therapy) it should make a big difference," Piacentini, who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health.

About one in every 100 kids has OCD, researchers estimate. It often shows up as repeated hand-washing until hands are raw and chapped or checking homework so many times that it can't get done, said lead study author Martin Franklin, from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

While many kids (and adults) have obsessions and behaviors they do repeatedly, what defines OCD, he added, is when kids feel like they have to do those behaviors to calm themselves down or make sure everything will be okay -- the compulsive part.

Franklin said that for many youngsters who don't get better on one drug, doctors will typically try adding a second or switch to a new medication. But because of worries about possible side effects, his team was interested in whether a kind of talk therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) could help those kids.

In CBT, therapists help patients recognize and change the problematic thoughts behind their behaviors.

The new study involved 124 kids aged seven to 17 with OCD. All of them had been taking at least one OCD drug -- most for more than a year -- but still had some symptoms.

The kids stayed on their current medication during the study. In addition, researchers split them randomly into three groups: one that didn't get any extra treatment, one that had hour-long CBT sessions about once a week and a third that talked with doctors briefly about CBT during their regular medication check-ins.

After three months, kids who had gotten the full CBT therapy -- and not just talked about it -- were better off, on average, than the other participants. Close to 70 percent of them saw an improvement in their OCD symptoms, compared to 35 percent who had gotten quick instructions about doing CBT and 30 percent of kids who didn't have any extra treatment.

Those results, the researchers report in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week, mean in effect that three kids would have to get CBT for one to see a positive response, compared to just taking medication alone.

Jonathan Abramowitz, an OCD researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that "all things being equal," CBT is the best choice for OCD treatment. "CBT is a relatively short-term treatment and you learn skills that no one can ever take away from you," he told Reuters Health.

But, he added, good CBT can be hard to find, and in the short term is more expensive than medication. "Medicines are easy to take. They're more available," said Abramowitz, who was not involved in the new research.

Franklin said that the talk-therapy sessions might cost about $100 to $200 per hour. The generic versions of some OCD medications may cost $10 per month or less.

"The results of this study really underscore the importance of making CBT more accessible," he told Reuters Health. "We know we have a therapy that works for these kids. It's not perfect... but it works really well."

The new study didn't test talk therapy alone in kids who weren't on medication. Still, Franklin said that if CBT was readily available, he would start most kids with OCD on therapy before prescribing drugs -- except those with very high anxiety.

"Before we put chemicals into kids it's important that we get them CBT," Abramowitz agreed. Parents "should seek out that CBT first."

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Law officers are stressing the need for parents to follow Georgia's new child safety seat law. According to a AAA survey, 25% of you don't think a booster seat is necessary after a child outgrows a car seat. But the law changed in Georgia in July. Now, children must be properly secured in a car seat or booster seat until they're 8-years old.

Keeping your child in a car seat or booster seat keeps you and your child safe. And children should stay in a safety seat until the seat belt fits them correctly, across the hips and collar bone. Sarah McCary's 3 year old son has outgrown his car seat, so now he sits in a booster seat.

"It kind of keeps him in the right position, keeps him from moving around a lot, keeps him secure," says Sarah McCary, Parent. Even though a child is too big for a car seat, that does not mean a seat belt will fit them properly.

"Since the child has a shorter torso and their body is shorter, whenever you put hem in a seat belt instead of the seat belt coming across the shoulder, it goes across their face or somewhere else it is not supposed to go, and then the lap belt is supposed to go across the upper thighs, but on a child it is going to go across their stomach, it you got in a wreck, that could cause some internal damage," says Don Berger, Senior State Trooper.

On July 1st 2011, The Georgia Child Passenger Safety Law changed, keeping children in a safety seat longer. Children now must be in a safety seat until they're 8 years old unless they're 4-feet 9-inches tall before that age.

"It increases the safety for the child, it increases the stability and if someone were to be in an accident, then it would keep them safer than if they were not," says McCary. And keeping your children secure is not only safe for your child but for you as well.

"Kids are getting smarter these days, they can unbuckle seat belts and get loose while parents are driving, trying to concentrate driving," says McKnzie Childs, Parent. "Statistics I believe show that it is probably more safe for them to be in a booster seat, and I would not take any chances," says McCary.

So it might take a few extra minutes to properly secure your child in a safety seat, but those few minutes could save their life. Make sure you always read and follow instructions to make sure you are using the safety seat correctly.

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Ken Rubeli didn't want to forge his identity as the son of a casino boss. His father, Paul, is a former chief executive officer of Aztar Corp., which once owned the Tropicana hotel-casinos in Atlantic City and Las Vegas and riverboats in Indiana and Missouri. Instead of following in his father's footsteps, Rubeli pursued a different career.

With a business administration degree from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Rubeli cut his own lucrative path in the corporate world, working for an investment bank in New York, trading stocks on Wall Street and managing energy industry risk in Houston.

He came to Las Vegas in 2005, after his father had retired, for a management career with Caesars Entertainment and Station Casinos, becoming assistant general manager at Sunset Station.

Taking interest in the community, Rubeli served on the board of directors for the Henderson Boys & Girls Club. When the nonprofit organization's chief executive officer retired in 2010, Rubeli jumped at the opportunity to leave his six-day, 72-hour workweeks for a warm and fuzzy position working with kids.

Rubeli, a member of the Boys & Girls Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., when he was 11, said he wants to help kids fulfill their potential to be productive, responsible and caring citizens.

It's a great organization and one of the best-kept secrets in town, especially for working parents with latchkey kids, Rubeli said.

Annual membership at most clubs is $20, with additional charges for after-school programs that include picking children up from school, taking them to the club, feeding them a snack and setting aside time for homework and time for fun. Some fees can be waived for low-income families.

Question: How is working for a corporation different than working for a nonprofit organization?

Answer: I believe the pressure to perform at a nonprofit is greater during these times because we don't have the luxury of refinancing our balance sheet to solve underperforming leverage bets, nor do we have the option of stretching payables or squeezing vendors. I no longer live in a three-strikes-and-you're-out world. Ultimately, our donors and the public trust us to be good stewards of their investment and we can't afford to make mistakes. It's not like Joe the Public Shareholder loses when we make a mistake. It's the kids who lose.

Question: Has your stress level dropped now that you're running a nonprofit, as opposed to the days when you worked for companies like Bear Stearns, Enron Corp. and Station Casinos?

Answer: Not at all. I now operate in a true cash flow business where bills and staff don't get paid if we fail to meet our financial projections. Leaning on financial leverage -- as for-profit businesses routinely do -- is simply not an option in our organization. We only do things if we can afford to pay for them up front. You won't find a company credit card in my wallet.

Question: How is the financial health of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Henderson?

Answer: My predecessor, Mike Meyer, spent the last six years building a very strong board of directors. ... Under (its) leadership our balance sheet has remained squeaky clean and we've continued to grow the revenue side of our business while maintaining a tight control on expenses.

Question: Do you miss the casino industry?

Answer: I miss the camaraderie of having a thousand team members, but I don't miss working six days a week and smelling like smoke. The casino industry is by far our biggest supporter and I have nothing but respect for the industry. While I enjoyed my time in the casino world and certainly miss interacting with team members, I sleep better at night now knowing I've made a difference in the life of a kid as opposed to increasing slot hold five basis points.

Question: You opened a $6 million Boys & Girls Club in Southern Highlands. Aren't you supposed to serve underprivileged children in lower-income neighborhoods?

Answer: We actually have about 70 kids on financial assistance. Last I checked, most parents in Southern Nevada are struggling with record-high unemployment, negative home equity and are simply struggling to make ends meet. These issues are prevalent across all ZIP codes in Southern Nevada, including Southern Highlands. It's one of the highest foreclosure rates here.

It just blows up the myth that you don't need a Boys & Girls Club in affluent areas. There are 6,500 homes and a lot of starter families out here. We operate seven locations, and while our name pays homage to our first club, which was founded in Henderson in 1954, we now operate all across Southern Nevada with locations in Henderson, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Southern Highlands.

Question: Was it risky opening new clubs during these brutal economic times?

Answer: Absolutely. Like with a new casino, not only do you need folks to come to your new facility, you need to make sure the project cash-flows (work) and your investors receive an appropriate return. We opened at the end of June and after eight weeks ... we have 725 members and average 240 a day. This place is jam-packed every day, all day. I'm 41 and this is the most successful opening I've ever seen. All you need to do is walk into the building and it becomes obvious we have a 10-bagger return on investment in the making.

Question: Are you looking at other locations around the Las Vegas Valley?

Answer: We are actively exploring opportunities in the west and northwest parts of town and hope to have new locations running by next summer.

Question: What childhood issue has you the most concerned these days?

Answer: In a world where kids are tethered to their hand-held game devices several hours a day, I'm very worried about childhood obesity and the alarming rise in diabetes in young kids. Kids simply don't exercise enough these days. This issue is personal for me as I was slightly overweight as a kid and remained so until I was 38. Three years ago I decided to take up running as a way to drop weight and get healthy.

Question: Now you're an ultramarathon runner, competing in 100-mile races. What do the kids think about that?

Answer: The kids at my clubs all know that three years ago I couldn't even run one mile without stopping. Through hard work, I was eventually able to run farther and farther. I have this saying, "Go beyond your limits." I never thought I'd be able to run a marathon. That was my limit. Then I ran 50 miles and 100 miles and now my goal is to run 250 miles in 72 hours. That, for me, seems beyond my limits. I tell kids to push beyond their perceived limits and remove the word "can't" from their vocabulary.

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Children may be coming up short when it comes to drinking low-fat milk, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

A recent report from the National Center for Health Statistics finds that, although milk and milk products are recommended in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and by the American Academy of Pediatrics, kids may not be drinking enough of the lower-fat kind. Overall, 72.6% of teens and children drink milk daily. Boys drink more milk than girls -- 77.7%, compared with 67.4%.

When it came to what types of milk they were usually drinking, 32.4% said they drank whole milk, 45.4% chose 2% milk, and 20.2% went with low fat. As defined by the study, low-fat milk is 1%, also called skim or fat-free. Reduced-fat milk is 2% milk. The difference in fat percentages may seem small, but in serving sizes disparities are revealed: One cup of 2% milk has 3.1 grams of saturated fat, while 1% has 1.5 grams of saturated fat. Nonfat milk has about 0.4 gram, but whole milk contains 4.6 to 5 grams of saturated fat.

Older children drank low-fat milk more often than younger kids; among children ages 6 to 11, 21.1% said they drank low-fat milk, and among teens 12 to 19, 23.3% drank the stuff. But among children ages 2 to 5, 13% reported regularly drinking low-fat milk.

Differences were seen among ethnic and socioeconomic groups as well. About 5% of black children and about 10% of Latino children said low-fat was their usual milk, while about 28% of white children typically drank that type. Kids in the highest income brackets drank low-fat milk far more than their peers living below the poverty line. Statistics come from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2007 to 2008.

"The overall low consumption of low-fat milk suggests the majority of children and adolescents do not adhere to recommendations by Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010, and the American Academy of Pediatrics for all children aged 2 years and over to drink low-fat milk," the report said.

While this report shows that the majority of children are drinking milk on a regular basis, there may be competition from other, less healthful beverages. Two CDC reports released this year focused on sugary beverages and soda. One NCHS report found that about half the people in the U.S. drink a sugary beverage daily. About 70% of boys ages 2 to 19 drink the stuff on any given day, and teens and young adults consume more than other age groups.

The CDC also discovered that water, milk and fruit juice were the three top beverages among high school students. But almost one-fourth surveyed said they drank sweetened soda, and when adding in sugar-sweetened coffee drinks, sports drinks or flavored milk, 63% said they drank sweetened beverages daily.

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