Archive for August, 2012

Pinterest features many braid options.

Braids are back in a big way and I am wondering if they have hit Georgia schools yet. The Associated Pres found that across the country salons are offering braid bars for about $30 a braid.

Why are they popular now? One salon owner suggests it’s because of “The Hunger Games” character Katniss, who wears a signature braid.

From AP:

“CHICAGO — A staple of the stylish grade-school set, braids have moved from the playground to the red carpet and now, local salons.

Salons from Los Angeles to New York and cities in between are weaving “braid bars” into their services, offering special menus of different braid styles for a fixed price.

Danielle Maddox, 25, a Chicago personal trainer, made an appointment at the Braid Bar at Maxine salon for a look to transition from work to a date night with her boyfriend. Stylist Cliff Freeman, who incorporates techniques from crochet and knitting classes into braids, twisted Maddox’s hair into three …

Continue reading Braids are back: Are your girls wearing them? »

Bill Nye The Science Guy has created a two-minute You Tube video for online knowledge group Big Think in which he defends evolution and ask parents not to raise creationist kids. Nye hosted a popular kids science show in the 1990s.

From NBC News via Channel 11’s website:

“Denial of evolution is unique to the United States,” Nye says in the video. After praising the U.S. as the world’s most advanced technological society, he credits that ranking to “intellectual capital we have, the general understanding of science. When you have a portion of the population that doesn’t believe in that, it holds everybody back, really.”

Nye goes on to say that he asks those who don’t believe in evolution to explain to him why they feel that way, and that “your world just becomes fantastically complicated when you don’t believe in evolution…”

“And I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we …

Continue reading Bill Nye The Science Guy: Parents, do not teach creationism »

Why is Honey Boo Boo, breakout star of TLC’s “Toddlers and Tiaras” and star of her own new show  “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” so popular?

Slate magazine has offered one explanation The author believes the popularity has to do with the faltering economy and the rise of the Hillbilly.

From Slate:

“As Anthony Harkins observes in Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, one of the hillbilly’s signature moves is to peak, popularity-wise, just when Americans sense that things in general are headed south. Its first true zenith came in the depressed 1930s, a handmaiden to the birth of commercial country music. Another arrived in the turbulent 1960s, when The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres and Hee Haw were in their prime. (Those are hardly the only examples, of course: It also popped up in the Ma and Pa Kettle films of the 1940s and 1950s and Paul Webb’s 1930s Esquire cartoons about “The Mountain Boys,” among other places.)”

“Though the term first referred …

Continue reading Why is Honey Boo Boo so popular? »

Are you a Democrat that raised an Alex P. Keaton? Do you wonder how that happened? Does it make holidays and election years fun?

AP writer Leanne Italie took a look at what happens when parents rear children of the opposite political persuasion. Here’s what she found:

From AP:

“NEW YORK — When David Burrows took on Barry Goldwater and Ayn Rand as “mentors” at age 14, his parents wanted to know what else he was doing that they might be ashamed of.

Andrew LaGrone’s grandmother was an Edmund Muskie delegate at the Democratic National Convention in 1972 and was stunned when Andrew became a Republican at 19.

Growing up in Buffalo, Jake Wagner’s dad assumed he’d be a Democrat. NOT.

While young people have gone “liberal” on their conservative parents for decades, teen crossovers to the GOP are more of a rarity. How do parental Dems and their Republican kids manage the familial bond when partisan politics are on the line?

As the Republican National Convention got off to a slow …

Continue reading What happens when parents disagree with kids politically? »

Three daycare workers in Dover have been arrested for allegedly watching and encouraging toddlers to fight. The employees were released after posting $10,000 secured bond.

From CBS Philly:

“On Monday, three employees from the Hands of Our Future Daycare in Delaware were arrested after a cell phone video showed employees watching and encouraging two 3-year-olds fight each other.”

“Tiana Harris, 19, Lisa Parker, 47, and Estefania Myers, 21, were charged with Assault, Endangering the Welfare of a Child, Reckless Endangering and Conspiracy for the incident, which occurred in March of 2012 and was captured on cell phone video.”

“In the video, police say one child can be heard crying and yelling, ‘He’s pinching me,’ while a daycare worker responds, ‘No pinching, only punching.’”

What do you think people? How you can know Daycare Fight Club isn’t happening in your facility? What can parents do to know their kids are safe? Have you ever heard or seen anything …

Continue reading Daycare Fight Club? Workers arrested for allegedly encouraging toddlers to fight »

A dad with a 3-year-old wrote a story for Babble about the dad dress code after having kids. To promote the story, Babble ran a photo on its Facebook page of the dad sitting on a front porch swing with his 3-year-old daughter. (You can see the photo here.) It was right before bed and the 3-year-old was in a diaper. The dad had a can of beer in his hand.

The father was taken out to the woodshed and beat in the comments. How dare he photograph himself having a beer with his child next to him. How dare he show his daughter on the Internet in a diaper! How dare he expose her to pedophiles!

The dad couldn’t believe the criticism but knew he was caught in a “virtual” mob.

So did the dad do anything wrong in the photo or by showing the photo?

Here’s my take: First off I loved the photo. I think it’s an adorable snapshot of America – a dad and a baby swinging on the porch.  They look so relaxed and happy. It was a moment captured and one I bet he will always remember. …

Continue reading Should dad be criticized for photo of toddler in diaper, him holding a beer? »

For the 17th year, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University interviewed 12 to 17 year olds about drug use in schools.

Here’s what they found. From CNN:

“About 17% of American high school students drink, smoke or use drugs during the school day, a new survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University says.”

“It’s no surprise to their classmates, either: 86% say they know the 2.8 million who are abusing substances during the day, according to the latest version of the center’s annual back-to-school survey. The estimate is based on information gleaned from telephone interviews with about 1,000 kids ages 12 to 17.”

“The survey found that 44% of high school students know a classmate who sells drugs at school, and 60% say that drugs are available on campus. Marijuana was the most-sold on school grounds, students said, as well as prescription drugs, cocaine and ecstasy.”

But what I thought was most …

Continue reading Social media, private schools among changes in drug use »

I was surprised to find out that my middle schooler’s curriculum night would last two hours. You have time with each teacher, and you rotate to each class just as your child does. I appreciate that you get to meet and hear from each teacher, and you also get more insight into what it’s like for your tween/teen to navigate the school. (They joked they were giving the parents one extra minute to get to class.) I understand that you are meeting with each teacher but that seems like a really long time.

The elementary school curriculum night usually lasts about 30 minutes for each grade.

Our sometimes fill-in host Keith says her school has three-hour curriculum nights. She has one in high school now and one in middle school, and she says both are scheduled for three hours! So she’ll spend six hours this week in curriculum meetings

She says she doesn’t mind that it last that long because often that is the only time you get to hear from the teachers, and it is valuable …

Continue reading Should curriculum nights last two to three hours? »

On of our regulars MotherJaneGoose sent me a good question and one many parents with college graduates will face: In today’s terrible economy and job market, would you encourage your young adult to take a job far from home? MotherJane writes:

“I am just back from an out of town trip and overheard a recent graduate, on the airplane, telling her seat mate that she is coming back from North Carolina with a 1st grade teaching position that starts August 27.  She was from Michigan and was both excited and nervous. She sat right behind me and her enthusiasm increased her volume. She proceeded to say that no one was hiring in her area and that she had posted her credentials online.  She got a call, flew to North Carolina and was offered 5 different positions from which to choose. They even took her out to look at apartments and told her she would rarely use her heat. ( which seemed amazing to her  being from Michigan).  I was intrigued and when the plane landed, I …

Continue reading Would your encourage your college graduate to move away to find a job? »

I always loved when Scooby Doo joined forces with people on TV – Laurel and Hardy, The Globetrotters, and Sonny and Cher to name just a few.  And now in a new straight to DVD movie Scooby will be working with the wrestlers of the WWE.

The PlayList reports:

“Warner Bros. is teaming up with the wrestling company on a new “Scooby-Doo” that will involve a mystery at WrestleMania. No, seriously. Here’s the plot: When Shaggy and Scooby win tickets to WrestleMania, the entire gang travels in the Mystery Machine to WWE City to attend the epic event. However, when a mysterious ghostly bear appears and threatens to ruin the show, Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne and Fred work with WWE Superstars to solve the case.”

“Listen, we’re not naive enough to believe that any childhood favorites will reach the big screen without being wholly pillaged in the name of corporate tie-ins, branding and advertising (please see “The Smurfs“). But WrestleMania? Do kids even watch that anymore? As …

Continue reading Scooby Doo joins forces with WWE: Is it for the parents or the kids? »