In four years, the nation’s kindergarten classrooms will be filled with Emmas and Isabellas, Jacobs and Michaels.

Those were the most popular names for babies born in 2008, according to the “Social Security Administration”:http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/pr/baby-names2008-pr.htm.

Here’s the list:

Boys:
1)   Jacob        Girls:      1)   Emma
2)   Michael                  2)   Isabella
3)   Ethan                     [...]

The number one topic of conversation where ever I’ve been in the past day is the Scarsdale mom who got so fed up with her two kids bickering in the back seat that she threw them out of the car in downtown White Plains.

If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t read the “story”:http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090421/NEWS02/904210347, [...]

YMCAs across the nation will hold free and fun activities for kids on Saturday as part of Healthy Kids Day. The event “celebrates making fitness fun, and  introduces kids to an array of YMCA programs and tools that teach healthy behaviors and healthy ways to play,” according to the group.

In Rockland, events will be held [...]

Most adults old enough to be parents remember kindergarten activities like finger painting, cutting triangles and circles out of colorful construction paper and spending long periods of time on the playground.

Not any more. As most parents known, today it’s full-day kindergarten, with lots of time spent on reading, spelling, even math. Not so much time [...]

Sometime between Saturday and Sunday, I became the parent of a teenager. That’s because my oldest daughter was born on Feb. 29, 1996—  Leap Day. This year was an off year, so we wished her a happy birthday on both Saturday, Feb. 28 and Sunday, March 1.

We can joke all we want that she is [...]

I wrote a check early this morning for $4 at the request of my 7-year-old daughter, who wanted to buy “Hotel for Dogs,” the book upon which the popular movie was based. Her second grade teacher sends home a pamplet every month from Scholastic Inc.,  the publisher of popular books for kids.

Of course there’s no [...]

Remember the old days, when you had to turn the radio up high and wait for the long alpabetical list of school closing to find out if yours was cancelled for the day? No longer.

Now, most school districts have invested big bucks in automated calling systems. In our home, that means that the phone rings [...]

It was my turn to work Saturday. So my husband took the kids ski tubing at a small ski resort in Orange County. Wouldn’t you know that my assignment for the day was to cover a candle light vigil for a 13-year-old girl who died last week while snow tubing?

Aleyris Martinez died when the snow [...]

Both my kids watched the historic inauguration of President Barack Obama in school yesterday. Their reactions were positive – but not for the reasons their teachers would have liked.

My seventh grade daughter thought the televised spectacle was great. But not because it was a day of huge historic importance.  She loved watching it because it [...]

Snow is still covering the ground, but many parents, myself included, are starting to make plans for the summer. For many kids, that means camp. Brochures are starting to arrive from local camps. The prices on many are eye-popping.

The Girl Scouts, long one of the less expensive options, has increased its prices by 17 percent. [...]

There probably isn’t a child in the world who has made it through the winter without a cold or cough.

We’ve all heard a lot this winter about the dangers of over-the-counter cough and cold medicines. So what are we supposed to do when our kids get sick?

The “American College of Emergency Physicians”:http://www.acep.org. has some advice.

Acetaminophen [...]

My kids have 15 days of school for the entire month of February and that’s counting Leap Day! There’s that pesky Superintendent’s Conference Day that will keep them home this Friday. (Do they really have to schedule that in February???)

Then one week of school before the week-long February break. What’s a working parent to [...]

If you have a Girl Scout in your family or know someone who does, chances are that you are going to be asked in next couple of days to buy some cookies. The annual sale has started. For the first in years, it’s being held in the winter instead of the fall.

The time of [...]

I have a child who loves to eat sushi – that’s right: Raw fish. I can’t even look at the stuff without getting queasy, but I tend to indulge her because seafood is such a healthful food, right?

Maybe not.

With all the talk about mercury and other nasty stuff lurking in our fish, I’m starting to [...]

If your kids are like mine, they’re probably clamoring for a Wii. I didn’t even try to buy one during the busy Christmas/Chanukah season. But someone in my family has a birthday coming up. So I started asking around…..The news wasn’t encouraging. All local stores seemed to be sold out. No better luck with on-line [...]