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• Teen Mom Must Visit Cemetery for Abandoning Baby

  The sixteen-year-old mother of a baby abandoned at a South Carolina fire department has to visit a cemetery, mortuary and a maternity ward, get her GED and a long list of other requirements. The baby's father, a twenty-one-year-old who graduated from high school, has a shorter list - but he'll have to make the rounds with his girlfriend.  The couple, who have an eleven-month-old baby and a two-year-old toddler at home, apparently left their newborn at a firehouse because they knew they couldn't care for the six-hour-old baby. Firehouses meet safe haven criteria under South Carolina law, but the couple failed to give the baby to an actual person at the firehouse - which means they've been facing felony charges for leaving the child on the doorstep in the cold weather. Read More... Posted Dec 15 2008, 02:33 PM by JeanneSager with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: birth control, teen pregnancy, parenting classes, Safe Haven Laws, Jeanne Sager, fire department, safe haven, teen parents, reproductive classes, abandoning babies

• Toddler Killed Months After Being Returned To Abusive Parents

  It's sad and frustrating and tragic when Child Protective Services drops the ball or fails to follow up and a child ends up dead.  But at least in those cases, there's a lesson to be learned, a motivation to shore up the system so maybe the next case will have a happier ending. But how much more sad and frustrating and tragic is it when Child Protective Services does everything right, and a child still ends up dead?  What kind of lesson can be learned from a case like that?   Read More... Posted Jun 07 2008, 02:02 PM by Amy S.F. Lutz with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: child abuse, parenting classes, Child protective services, Christopher Barcenas

• Heading Down the Aisle? Not So Fast

  First comes love, then comes marriage, then come the baby carriage? Not neccesarily in that order, if  it happens that way at all. But New York's Rockland County has a legislator, Jacques Michel, who apparently thinks we're still back in 1955. He's advocating a measure that would require people to take parenting classes before applying for a marriage license. It's one of those things that sounds like a good idea – until you think about it. Read More... Posted May 15 2008, 11:02 AM by Amy Kuras with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: marriage, childfree, parenting classes, bad ideas, nontradtional families, Jacques Michel, Rockland County

• Couple Who Left Kid in Car Face Charges

  Seems like there's been some serious crackdowns on leaving kids in the car while running errands. A couple in Carmel are going to court with misdemeanor charges after they left their two-year-old asleep in the car in a supermarket parking lot for about 15 minutes. Concerned people saw the toddler and called the cops, but the couple had driven away by the time the law arrived. However, a few people got the car's plate number. Now, the obvious question in this particular instance is...   Read More... Posted Apr 28 2008, 04:02 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: kids, law, crime, child safety, police, car seat, parenting classes, car, misdemeanor, parked car

• Classes Don't Stem The Tantrum Tide

  Hah! I knew it!! According to this study, published in the British Medical Journal, parenting classes actually don't do a whole lot to improve the behavior of toddlers. Researchers enrolled 300 mothers and their eight-month old babies in the Melbourne area into a parenting class. Unlike earlier studies, this one studied families across the income spectrum instead of just focusing on poorer, higher-risk families. Harriet Hiscock and her team of researchers at the Centre for Community Child Health in Parkville, Australia, compared the test group with another set of mothers and kids who did not receive any special counseling over an 18 month period.   Read More... Posted Feb 02 2008, 02:46 PM by Amy Kuras with | with no comments Filed under: toddler, tantrums, parenting classes, British Medical Journal

• Why Can't We Be More Like Sweden?

  They say, somewhat irreverently but at the same time with more than a grain of truth, that your first child is your "practice kid." Firstborns get a lot of attention and they also get the learning curve. Once you're in the territory of two or three, some things seem relatvely easy and don't elicit that huge feeling of panic that occurs with baby #1. Hellllp! Which is where Sweden comes in. It's already known as a parent-friendly and child-friendly country, giving support to new parents and providing child-friendly public spaces. But guess what else Sweden does that we could really really use elsewhere as well?   Read More... Posted Jan 08 2008, 02:32 PM by Karen Murphy with | with no comments Filed under: parenting, spanking, sweden, parenting classes

• Dads Get Boot Camp

  If, like me, you're old as hell, your dad probably was not even in the room when you were born. Lucky for my brother and I, that early separation certainly didn’t end up setting the tone for our relationship with our father, but I can’t help contrasting that with the birth of my own daughter. My husband went to as many OB appointments as he could, sat through our childbirth classes with me and was the first one to hold her and introduce her to her grandparents. Gen X and Gen Y dads are, unquestionably, far more involved than our fathers' generation was. A dad today who said he wouldn’t change diapers, didn’t help with middle-of-the night feedings or won't at least play with the kid so mom can get a shower would be rightfully branded a jackass. Read More... Posted Dec 26 2007, 06:03 PM by Amy Kuras with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: fathers, boot camp for new dads, parenting classes

• Divorce Doesn't Have to Suck for the Kids

  I've said it before: divorce sucks. For the kids. And in zillions of cases, it does. But it doesn't have to, not if the parents keep one thing paramount throughout the entire experience and, well, for the rest of their lives actually (because they will always be tied together in a fashion if there are kids involved). That one thing? Simple. The kids.   Read More... Posted Nov 06 2007, 10:07 AM by Karen Murphy with | with 9 comment(s) Filed under: kids, divorce, families, communication, parenting classes, non-violent communication