Is your child gifted?

By Julie Landry Laviolette, McClatchy Newspapers

For some parents, getting a child into the gifted program is akin to winning a gold medal in the academic Olympics. It’s a label parents and some students crave as much for the prestige as the potential for higher learning.

Educators say parents who clamor to get the inside track on gifted testing should consider whether it’s really right for their child.

“This is not a club you’re getting into. It is services by the school system and some gifted kids need them and some gifted kids don’t,” said Cynthia Park, director of Advanced Academics for Broward County Public Schools.

Take a look at your child. Is he or she challenged in school? What behaviors do you...

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Help your teen get the most out of required community service

By Ana Veciana-Suarez, McClatchy Newspapers

To encourage social responsibility and civic engagement, most high schools require volunteer hours for graduation. But for some reluctant students, community service becomes one more dreaded assignment to rush through.

“There are so many opportunities out there, yet too many students wait until the last minute to get their hours,” says Christine Siwek, community-service coordinator for Cooper City High School in Broward. “They come to me in the last part of their senior year desperate for a project, and by then it becomes a burden.”

Looking ahead to the two-week winter break, when many students try to rack up hours, what can parents do to steer them toward meaningful community...

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My son isn’t going to college, and I’m proud of him for it

By Tracy, New Jersey Moms Blog

My kid’s not going to college. That used to be a hard sentence to get out because people looked at me funny. During my son’s high school junior and senior year, friends would talk about where their kids applied to college, who they’d heard from and where they were going, maybe. And the plans, Oh! The plans. When they asked me I was honest, “My son’s not going to college.” My son’s always had other plans. The look I got was a cross between pity for me and embarrassment for asking.

My son is in a luthier apprenticeship. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what that means; spell check doesn’t either. A luthier is someone who makes or repairs stringed instruments; in my son’s...

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Watch out for SAT scammers

By Tim Darragh, The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)

The scam: High schoolers thinking about the next leg of their educational journey just took the PSAT, the precursor to the dreaded SAT. The big test is one of the key steps for students looking to get into college. Since the SAT is so important to so many, it’s not at all surprising that rip-off artists have taken advantage of those who want to improve their scores.

How it works: The Better Business Bureau in Dallas reported earlier this year about one test-prep business. It said the company called homes and falsely told parents that their children asked for help preparing for the standardized test. Parents were pressed into agreeing to buy $120 of software and materials and...

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Free online math games have kids hooked

FamilyFun magazine

I never dreamed I’d find math games that my 5-year-old, Tom, couldn’t wait to play. But that’s exactly what happened when we logged on to Dream Box Learning, a fee-based Web site (with a two-week free trial) that delivers fun math lessons.

Kids choose from the site’s four themes (pets, pixies, pirates, and dinosaurs) and complete math-related tasks to earn objects that help the animated stories progress (earn a hammer to repair a pirate ship, for instance).

With about four games per task, six tasks in each story, eight stories in a theme, and four themes — well, that adds up to a lot of fun math. After finishing a story, players earn a certificate. Tom racked up seven certificates in 17 hours. How do I know? The...

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Kids will love watching how a school bus is made

By Deborah Geigis Berry, FamilyFun magazine

Just like millions of other children, my kids, Cady, age 10, and Hudson, 8, ride a bus to school each morning. Yet we never really thought about its mechanical marvels until we watched “How’d They Build That? School Bus.”

The DVD highlights the production process, from design (there are 36 different bus lengths) to paint (federal law requires all buses to be School Bus Yellow, a highly visible shade). Hudson was fascinated with the tools and machinery, particularly the humungous red machine that flips the just-welded bus floor right-side up.

“Now when I get on the bus,” says Cady, “I think of all the parts that go into it.”

All ages, Marvelous Media, $9....

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Shaping my daughter’s thoughts about gender

By Cecily, Philadelphia Moms Blog

Lately my daughter, who is slightly over three (but not quite three and a half), has been making all kinds of blanket, wide-reaching statements about all things gender related. “Boys can’t wear pink!” “I can’t use that nail file, it’s for boys!” Oddly enough, she doesn’t limit what girls can do as much as she restricts boys. In other words, both she and boys can play with trucks, but boys aren’t allowed to wear dresses.

While I acknowledge that much of this is developmental — kids this age are inclined to put everything, including gender, into nice neat little boxes — I still want to talk to her about gender stuff, just as much as I want to challenge her on issues of race,...

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Kids would play (and learn) with Halloween candy than eat it

By Loralee Leavitt, FamilyFun magazine

Our tradition: After Halloween, we don’t eat most of our candy; we conduct cool experiments with it. Our projects get us all stirring, melting, mixing and pouring, and the kids look forward to each round of tests. The results are often amazing, as is the fact that Katherine, 6, and Alex, 4, now eagerly donate their treats to science.

How we got started: Two years ago, Katherine wondered what would happen if she dropped Nerds candies into water. Seeing a chance to get rid of some sugary loot, I filled several glasses for Katherine and Alex. The Nerds dissolved, coloring the water, and both kids were intrigued. So we plopped another type of candy in a fresh glass, then another, and...

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Are we praising our children into mediocrity?

By Kim Hays, OrlandoSentinel.com/momsatwork

I’m not sure when the trend started.

You know, the one where all children are given awards for just showing up at school or trophies for simply putting on a uniform.

All the “good jobs” and “way to gos” and “you tried your bests.”

Maybe that’s why I clicked when a friend shared a link to a Slate review of a new book called “NutureShock: New Thinking About Children” with the headline: “Parents: Most of what you’re doing is wrong.”

And among the things we’re accused of doing wrong is over-praising our children.

Slate interviews Po Bronson, one of NutureShock’s authors, about what exactly we’re...

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Schools say dads are vital in ‘100 Book Challenge’

By John Higgins, Akron Beacon Journal

Destry Brooks beamed while his father, also named Destry, served sweet potato pie, barbecued chicken and Hawaiian meatballs last week at Crouse Elementary school’s annual kickoff for the “100 Book Challenge” reading program.

His dad, a PTA member, long has been involved in his education and that suits his son just fine.

“It’s good. Actually it’s not good, it’s awesome,” said Destry, 10.

Brooks helped recruit other fathers for the reading kickoff when he participated in the second annual Fathers Walk earlier this month. Some 2,500 fathers took their children to school in Summit County that day.

School officials say fathers are especially important for the 100...

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