Today, Mrs. Obama announced an effort to combat childhood obesity. It feels like an enormous problem -- no pun intended -- and I hope she can get kids moving and slimming down. (Read about it here.)

If any public figure can do it, maybe she can. She's a strong role model: she feeds her kids a healthy vegetable-laden diet, she planted a garden with school kids ... those arms!

Full disclosure: My kids are slim, but I'm not about to wag my finger at others. Because I wish I could be as good a role model in my house as Michelle Obama is in the People's House. I do not exercise nearly as much as I should. Nutritious meals too often fall by the wayside -- because we are juggling five or six weeknight sports practices. We've got too much junk food in the cabinet.

I wasn't always this way. For my son's first birthday, I made him a cake that involved wheat germ and unsweetened apple sauce. It didn't taste very good. Maybe that traumatic experience turned my son into the picky eater he remains today. My daughter, however, is a great eater. Go figure.

I do think Mrs. Obama is on to something: That it takes a multi-pronged approach to fight a significant health issue.

It starts with parents, but communities and schools must play a role, too, in the form of healthy lunches and fun physical activities for kids.

Though last week I wrote how PE in middle school was a waste of time for some kids (mine specifically), my thoughtful collegue Lois Solomon disagreed. Believe me, if my kids weren't already active, they would be taking PE.

I just think all the fun has been taken out of it physical activity. Parents are afraid to let their kids run or bike around the neighborhood for fear of being snatched. Sports programs have become so competitive they weed out everyone but the very best.

One bright spot locally is the opening of a new YMCA at Lauderhill Middle School. This is an innovate partnership between Broward County Schools and Waste Management, which gave a $75,0000 grant. It's the first YMCA in a public school in Broward.

The new facility is now open to teachers and faculty and this summer will be open to students and the community. If it becomes anything like the Y I grew up with, it will be a safe place for kids to try all sorts of fun, physical, non-competitive activities.

Hopefully, Mrs. Obama can inspire more of these kinds of innovative programs.

PHOTO: AP

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Valentine's Day is all about romance: chocolates, wine and soft music. Even for parents.

In fact, what I learned from my mom, a mother of five children, is that the most important relationship in a family is the one between the adults - the couple, the parents of the household.

Their strength enables family stability, mom says. If they're happy as a couple, the family is happy, the kids are secure and the environment is nurturing for everyone.

Mom is also very pragmatic. I got that gene from her. So I'd like to take a few minutes here to discuss the business of loving your family.

A few years ago for Valentine's Day, I put my affairs in order

As a follow up, I suggested some tips and resources.

And later, I emphasized the importance of really taking on the task of getting wills.

No one got the warm fuzzys over wills that year. But we did get some peace of mind, we ensured as best we could, the continuity of the family (see above).

This year, I feel like I can be in a more playful mood.

We will celebrate Valentine's as a couple and as a family. We'll have an extra special dinner that includes The Kid.

We'll celebrate as a couple too - we always try to take advantage of "alone time," big people time," throughout the year.

But this year, instead of reaching into our purses and wallets for expensive gifts, we'll tap into our "inner Don Juan," and "inner Cleopatra" for a very special Valentine's evening.

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I read an advice column a while back that suggested it was OK to post videos on YouTube of, say, a children's birthday party, to share with other family members and parents of the kids who attended.

Whoa!

I'm not over protective, and I do have photos of my kids on Facebook. But I don't think it's OK for an adult to post videos of anyone else's child on YouTube. And I wouldn't post pictures of someone else's child online anywhere.

Here's a story in the New York Times that addresses this point. Parents are in wide disagreement about what's OK and what's not. The mom in the story posted photos of her daughter on Flickr and they turned up on someone else's page in Brazil.

I've heard parents warn that some pervert is going to print out childrens' pictures and paste them on his ceiling, but I don't spend a lot of time worrying about stuff like that. Is it possible that he's going to find my daughter and snatch her, or just salivate over her photo unbeknownst to me?

What do you guys think?

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In case you missed this story in Monday's Sun Sentinel, staff writer Marc Freeman reports on the usefulness of FCAT tutoring:

There are only four weeks left before the reading and math portions of the FCAT — the writing test begins Tuesday — and more than 9,500 struggling students in Palm Beach and Broward counties are each receiving up to $1,500 worth of free tutoring.

That adds up to more than $14 million in federal funds that the school districts pay local tutoring firms.

But South Florida educators say they aren't sure this tutoring produces smarter students and higher test scores. And the state hasn't had a method of grading tutors despite doling out $77 million yearly across Florida for the voluntary program, called Supplemental Educational Services.

"How do we know we're getting the bang for the buck?" asked Terry Pitchford, manager of state and federal programs for Palm Beach County schools.

The answers could come this year. Palm Beach County is one of nine districts around the country participating in a $1.4 million federal study on whether the tutoring leads to higher achievement. And the state Board of Education in March is expected to adopt a new scoring system that would rate firms excellent, satisfactory or unsatisfactory, based on various factors including whether students showed improvement in mastering skills.

Continue reading "Results mixed on whether FCAT tutoring works" »

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Let’s face it with the economy the way it is right now landing a good job is not easy. Many, who run their own businesses, have seen traffic slow down. Finding a lead on a job opening can be tough.

But should parents see the moms and dads at their child’s school as prospective clients or leads, or should they limit their contact to school related matters only.

I can see how this can be touchy. For one, you don’t want to rub a parent the wrong way and make them feel like you only sparked conversation with them to share your unemployment woes.

But what’s so wrong with throwing out to another parent that you’re job hunting or looking for a sale of some sort?

Every day deals are made on the golf course. Should we add the kindergarten recital to that list?

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I can still feel my tiny sleeping newborn snuggling on my chest, his breath in rhythm with my own. There is really nothing better than that pure and blissful moment.

Until you walk in the door from a long day, and his little arms fly up in the air in greeting and a huge drooly smile spreads across the infant's face he's just so happy to see you.

And it just keeps getting better. From smiling to walking to talking. I've always thought that each phase of a child's life is better than the last -- more miraculous, more fun.

Even now, when I walk in the door from a long day and I'm greeted with something closer to a snarl and a grunt from the gangly adolescent. I'm awestruck that I created this, and that everything is working the way nature intended. He's supposed to be drawing away from me at this age, in preparation for the day he's out on his own. Isn't that cool?

When I recently interviewed Maria Bailey, of Mom Talk Radio and BlueSuitMom.com, she said she hears from lots of moms who don't think like I do, who don't think each stage is better than the last.

Maria loves the teen years -- she has three teens and an 11-year-old. "I love it when they make good decisions," she said. And she loves to see how she has rubbed off on them.

I, too, like to watch my kids figure things out, learn from their mistakes, develop into their own personality. That's what's so much fun.

They toddle and fall, pick themselves back up to try again, and soon they are running out the door to play. They babble and imitate to form words and soon they talking back with their own opinions, however illogical and hasty they may be.

No doubt some stages are less complicated than others. As I recall, age 3 is...hard. And my daughter, at age 11, is so easy, I wouldn't mind stretching that out awhile.

What about you? Do you have a favorite stage in your child's life? Or are you really looking forward to age 16?

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Maggie Cary, a national board certified teacher has been an educator for more than 17 years. She is certified in secondary education and holds a master’s degree in early childhood education.

Over the years she has mentored countless teachers and advised hundreds of parents. Cary has taught children from preschool through high school. She also offers classroom advice on website Classroom Talk. She last wrote about knowing the lyrics to your child's music.

Learning the proper term for solid shapes at an early age gives your child a head start in geometry. It’s very simple to teach them some proper names.

1. Call a can a cylinder.
2. Call dice or square boxes a cube.
3. A cassette or a cereal box is a rectangular prism.
4. A sphere is a ball, an orange, a globe or any round object.
5. A cone shape is just like the bottom of an ice cream cone.
6. A pyramid is a fascinating shape that most children remember after they have seen pictures of one.

If you use the objects proper name and then its “household” name interchangeably, children can learn about a variety of 3D solid shapes before they enter kindergarten.

To take this lesson to the next level, talk about the number of sides (faces) of a shape, the number of corners (vertices) and what shapes have common attributes.

Does it roll?

Can you slide it?

What shape appears if you trace around the bottom of it with a pencil?

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Dr. Noel Alonso is a practicing pediatrician in South Florida. He writes a question-and-answer column for SunSentinel.com.

We asked him to weigh in on the retraction of a 12-year-old study that linked vaccines to autism.

On Tuesday, the British medical journal The Lancet retracted its 1998 study which had proposed a link between MMR, children with gastrointestinal symptoms, and the development of autism. This paper was for many the flashpoint in a debate that fired up passions on both sides and drew more attention to the entire anti-vaccination crusade.

All of a sudden, it became wholly unpopular to vaccinate. Battle lines were drawn, celebrities were enlisted, alternate vaccination schedules proposed, and the backlash was felt in doctors’ offices throughout the country.

The decision to retract the original paper will calm some fears but undoubtedly raise other questions and stoke the flames of conspiracy theorists everywhere that will see this as yet more proof that the government, the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry are in bed together. Yes, there are some in my profession that have not honored the ethical standards that they swore to uphold. I am arguing for the vast majority that does.

I should probably start by saying that no one-size-fits-all mentality is appropriate here. As parents, you should have the freedom and ease to speak to your pediatrician about any health issues and feel free to collaborate with the pediatrician on the best management plans for your children.

So what does the retraction of this study mean for parents? It means that today parents can more confidently vaccinate their children and not feel as if they are harming them. It also means that this retraction is in accordance to the Special Masters court of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims which last year reviewed over 900 medical journal articles and concluded that there was no link found between vaccination and the risk for developing autism.

Finally, one can safely conclude that notions such as “alternate” vaccination schedules, “overwhelming” a child’s immune system with too many vaccines, and delaying or separating vaccinations into their component parts have no basis in scientific methodology, and therefore are of no proven benefit.

Of course, this means nothing to the parent of a child with autism. Even with the removal of thimerosal from vaccines (except the flu vaccine) in 2001, rates of autism continued to climb. Recent figures place the rate at 1 in 90 to 1 in 110 children. These are alarming figures, but the debate over vaccine safety has delayed funding for research into more plausible reasons for this increase.

Are professionals better at picking this up than they were before?

Is it possible that kids that were previously under blanket terms such as “developmental delay” are now being recognized as having autism as a result of more sensitive diagnosis?

Could there be other genetic or environmental factors at play here?

Whatever the reason, the role of vaccines in the development of autism has been dealt a major blow and will hopefully shift the discussion to other possible causes rather than random musings with no sound basis. But I am not holding my breath.

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When I think about the hours my kids spend texting, doing homework and playing games on the computer, I am thankful for the new middle school physical education requirement.

I'm responding to my colleague Gretchen Day-Bryant's post yesterday about what she sees as the uselessness of this requirement. At our middle school, PE has been a positive experience, giving my kids skills and knowledge they can use the rest of their lives.

They actually get tests! These have included the parts of the body used in athletics (sacrum, fibula, tibia) and the rules of various team sports, including soccer, basketball and football. As for actual exercise, activities have included running around the track and setting goals for how fast they will go.

When you consider the American childhood obesity rate (32 percent!), it's clear that societal changes have forced kids into the house after school and their parents aren't doing anything to get them moving (not to mention our terrible dietary habits). Although they may have to give up some other fun subjects like fine arts, I say Florida is doing the right thing in this aspect of our kids' education.

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My colleagues at the Orlando Sentinel have an interesting story about how tens of thousands of Florida middle schoolers are opting out of the state's PE requirement. Of course, the subtext is that this is a tragedy.

I say, that's as it should be. I have a particular bias against PE classes, and not just because I never could throw a softball or do a chin-up.

My son took PE throughout middle school, and it was the biggest waste of time for him. After the time spent changing into and out of gym clothes, and the chatter from the PE teachers, you're left with about 20 minutes of activity, maybe. And that activity is still pretty traditional -- soccer, basketball, flag football. Where's the yoga? The aerobics? The tai-chi?

Kids who are not "ball kids" or into team sports aren't going to change their lifestyle because of PE. And kids like my son who are phsycially active could better spend their time in something more academic or enriching. My sixth-grade daughter will spend her middle school years in band rather than PE. She loves band, and I suspect a lot of kids who opted out of PE are just like her -- enjoying middle school because of music and other fine arts classes. If she didn't love music, or needed the exercise, she'd be in PE. But that's the thing: It's a option.

If the state is serious about encouraging physical activity, let's bring back intramural sports. Let's make it fun for kids to play sports in a way that's low pressure and inclusive of everyone -- the uncoordinated, the slow, the chubby. Open the gym before or after school for pickup games and other fun activities.

Organized sports have become so competitive that unless a kid is an above average athlete who has been playing nights and weekends for years, they have little chance of making a school team. Many many kids would love to play sports for fun, but they are shut out.

PE won't reverse obesity in this country, but putting fun back into childhood might make a dent.

Photo: Los Angles Times

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