Many companies describe their products as ‘educational’ for marketing purposes, but almost none provide information on how their toys increase early learning – usually because there are no data to support their claims. Follow these seven simple rules to pick presents that support early development and check out our expert recommended toys below!

Children’s nutrition, home stability, and good jobs go hand in hand. We’re failing at all three.

Oh, I’ve got your attention now, right?

Maybe there are a few of you whose kids will eat everything. Good for you. In fact, I used to be one of you. When daughter one was little, we would tell her that we were having kale for dessert, and she was thrilled.

Maybe it was the birth of my second, pickier child. Was she born with crazy taste buds? Was the breast milk just too delicious? She instantly emerged as a white food only kind of girl. Somehow, it rubbed off on the big one too. Now my children do not eat vegetables.

We learn today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees at Guantanamo will now face criminal trials in the Southern District of New York. Because his children are still missing, should any statement made by KSM at the trial be considered to be delivered under duress?

The Irish Times and Andy Worthington report on the release of an Uzbek detainee who was a juvenile taxi driver in Afghanistan before he was shipped to Guantanamo.

Real money in the hands of the poor? Finally something worth reading about!

The US went down the wrong path after Columbine, demonizing our kids and turning our schools into way-stations in the road to prisons.

How the hierarchy in the Catholic church and in organized Orthodox Judaism is reacting to the possibility of facing more lawsuits in NY on cases alleging child abuse and child sexual abuse.

A response to Christy’s excellent post: Will Children Be Casualties Of The Stimulus “Compromise”?
By: Christy Hardin Smith Sunday February 8, 2009 8:32 am

Two small children, 7 and 9 years old, were kidnapped and given to the CIA and disappeared in 2002. They have reportedly been tortured. We don’t known whether they are alive or dead.