Free Republic

The pint-sized subject of this note is clearly headed for a life of crime. The neighbor charged that the small child was: Running free in his backyard Laughing Giggling Carrying on without end My advice to this neighbor: Get out and get some fresh air — maybe even engage in a little “carrying on” yourself. I bet your dogs will thank you for it! How would you respond to the busybody neighbor?

The Maryland parents who let their “free-range” kids walk home alone and were found responsible of unsubstantiated child neglect are under fire again for leaving the children unsupervised in a park. Child Protective Services is investigating Danielle and Alexander Meitiv after their children were found alone in a Silver Springs park Sunday, NBC Washington reported.

A growing body of research highlights the importance of how kids feel and how they manage those feelings, or not. Emotions drive attention, learning, memory, and decision-making. They affect relationships and psychological well-being. Learning to handle emotions well is especially important in adolescence, a time when neural networks are being sculpted that will influence behavior patterns for life.

Coach or First Class? Why walk through a desert to get to the United States when you can just fly? That’s the new policy being adopted by the Obama administration for illegal alien children whose parents want them to come to the United States. As long as the parent maintains any kind of legal status they can apply to have their child picked up in central America and flown to the U.S. to be reunited. Millions of children may qualify for the program under refugee status. And because of the refugee designation, once the children arrive in America their families...

Apparently, parents should visit the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) website to find out how to teach their children good eating habits.The agency in charge of the country’s agricultural sector is now in the nanny business, thanks to First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative to fight childhood obesity, which links to choosemyplate.gov on its website.In the kids’ section of My Plate, advice is dished out on how parents can help pre-schoolers “develop healthy eating habits,” including a warning about praising an empty plate.“Avoid praising a clean plate,” the website states. “Your child should stop eating when he or she...

A bill, ready for a House vote, would allow private adoption agencies to use religious and/or moral reasons to deny gay couples wanting to adopt children. ... Republican Rep. Jason Brodeur said if gay couples want to adopt, they can go to the Department of Children and Families or a private agency that don’t have a problem with it.

A three-year-old named Lee defends the abortion of his sister in a new children’s book – by an author with her own “ghost sister.” “Sister Apple, Sister Pig” by Mary Walling Blackburn focuses on an adult topic: abortion. The story follows Lee as he (or “she,” as the author stressed) searches for his sister – who might be an apple, a pig, or somewhere in a tree. Lee later decides “Sister is a happy ghost!” and explicitly says he’s glad Sister isn’t around to inconvenience his parents.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is promoting a giant full-body exhibit for kids to walk through to promote healthy eating habits.While encouraging schools to apply for nearly $6 million in grants to help them comply with the First Lady Michelle Obama-promoted Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act new lunch standards, the USDA highlighted efforts by the Kansas State Department of Education.“Body Venture, a traveling health education exhibit sponsored by Kansas State Department of Education travels to schools to teach students about nutrition and physical activity,” the USDA said in a blog post Friday.Body Venture is a 45-foot by 50-foot exhibit that starts...

While waiting at the airport for a recent flight, I observed a bright-eyed little girl who came running over into the gate area. She was full of the exuberance you would expect from a six or seven-year-old. Rushing over to the window, she gazed in amazement as the planes took off and landed. I could not suppress a smile as I saw her bright eyes and cheerful face. However, my smile faded as two women came over to grab her hand and lead her back to the seating area. Both women were wearing wedding rings and there were visible signs...

A parish priest on the troubling news he's learned from kids in the confessional The Need for Questions in Lent Lent is a penitential season, a time of purification and of clarification: of being purified of our sins and of clarifying the roots of what has been keeping us from God in the first place. Purification and clarification can come about through the typical Lenten observances: prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. Fasting, for example, not only acts as an immediate purification of something (ie, a thing is taken away), but it can also clarify in that, as we are feeling the...

This is disgusting. I've seen some pro-aborts become enamored with all sorts of pagan oddities such as reincarnation to justify their support of killing the unborn. Thanks to Newsbusters for exposing this icky crazy story:A three-year-old named Lee defends the abortion of his sister in a new children’s book – by an author with her own “ghost sister.” “Sister Apple, Sister Pig” by Mary Walling Blackburn focuses on an adult topic: abortion. The story follows Lee as he (or “she,” as the author stressed) searches for his sister – who might be an apple, a pig, or somewhere in a...

Bureaucrats from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will weigh and measure children in daycare as part of a study mandated by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. The agency published a notice in the Federal Register on Friday proposing data collection on what meals are served in professional and home daycare facilities and how much physical activity children perform. Aside from assessing how healthy the food in daycare is, the USDA will also check the weight and height of roughly 3,000 children.

Bureaucrats from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will weigh and measure children in daycare as part of a study mandated by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. The agency published a notice in the Federal Register on Friday proposing data collection on what meals are served in professional and home daycare facilities and how much physical activity children perform. Aside from assessing how healthy the food in daycare is, the USDA will also check the weight and height of roughly 3,000 children. “Children will be asked to cooperate with study staff who will weigh and measure them...

Children remind us that “we are always children”, they bring their way of seeing reality, with a “confident and pure” gaze (“they have not yet learned the science of duplicity which we adults have learned”), they can “teach us to smile and cry again”. “Of course they also bring concerns and sometimes many problems, but a society with these concerns and these problems is far better than a society that is sad and gray because it has no children!” This was the crux of Francis’ message at this Wednesday’s General Audience in St. Peter’s Square.  After reflecting on the different figures...

RUSH: All right. The Israelis have rejected the ceasefire proposal made by the haughty John Kerry, who served in Vietnam. The Israelis reject ceasefire deal. The only thing a ceasefire does is allow Hamas to regroup. I think Hamas is on the ropes and that's why everybody wants a ceasefire. I'm telling you, everything over there is ass backwards. Everything in this conflict is 180 degrees out of phase. They want the ceasefire to give Hamas time to regroup. "Well, we have to make it fair, Mr. Limbaugh, because the Israelis have such an unfair advantage. They're richer and they're...

The superintendent of the Watchung Hills Regional High School District in New Jersey has confirmed that she sent an email to fellow superintendents Tuesday about her concern that education publishing giant Pearson is “monitoring” children’s social media accounts for possible leaks about the Common Core-aligned PARCC tests.

When the going gets hard, do you have confidence in yourself to meet the challenge? Do you have what it takes to persevere? If you listen to many politicians, you can understand why many Americans have more self-doubt than self-confidence. They're told that the shrinking middle class is a victim of the success of the wealthy and that the next generation of Americans won't even have the opportunities you have now. When teens ask futurist Dan Burrus what career they should pursue, he replies, "Fifty percent of what you could do hasn't been invented yet." Your best strategy--learn how...

More than 7,000 immigrant children have been ordered deported without appearing in court since large numbers of minors from Central America began illegally crossing the U.S. border in 2013, federal statistics show. The high number of deportation orders has raised alarm among immigrant advocates, who say many of those children were never notified of their hearing date because of problems with the immigration court system. In interviews and court documents, attorneys said notices sometimes arrived late, at the wrong address or not at all. In some cases, children were ordered to appear in a court near where they were initially...

Jalene Salinas loves Taylor Swift. All the 4-year-old Texas girl wanted was a chance to meet her idol and dance to her hit song “Shake It Off.” Meeting the pop singer was the only thing left on what the toddler’s bucket list – as the family calls the list that they started about 10 months ago after she was diagnosed with brain cancer. On Monday night, the little girl got her wish. Jalene’s mom Jennifer Arriagas told Eyewitness News that the pop singer chatted with the family for 20 minutes during a surprise call via Facetime.

What a wonderfully faithful girl. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t destroy evil when it threatens innocents, we should, but we should always remember to pray for our enemies for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Let’s hope and pray they get some relief from the.....