Free Republic

Are smartphones making our children mentally ill?Leading child psychotherapist Julie Lynn Evans believes easy and constant access to the internet is harming youngsterstelegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/11486167/Are-smartphones-making-our-children-mentally-ill.html

The “historical Jesus” is only of passing interest in comparison to the Lord of Salvation. The Daily Mail has a piece about how archaeologists, reading medieval manuscripts, have identified a likely place … Hewn into a hillside, this is the humble stone and mortar house where a scholar believes Jesus was raised. It has been dated to the early 1st century by a British archaeologist who says an ancient text points to the building as being the home in Nazareth where Mary and Joseph brought up the son of God. Professor Ken Dark says De Locis Sanctis, written in 670...

A nine-year-old Texas schoolboy was suspended from his elementary school for posession of a “magic ring.” Remember the poptart gun? The Nerf gun? The Lego gun? The pointed finger gun? In another time, these typical childrens’ toys would have gotten as little notice as the old fashioned cap gun but in a world where the list of childhood offenses also includes possession of a novelty pen or a Hello Kitty bubble gun, it comes as little surprise that a Lord of the Rings “magic ring” would land Aiden Steward in suspension from his elementary school in Kermit, Texas. The story...

Modern Parenting is Impoverishing the Childhood ExperienceIn a fascinating article in The Atlantic, Hanna Rosin reveals how much parenting, and therefore also the childhood experience, have changed since we were kids. It’s hard to absorb how much childhood norms have shifted in just one generation. Actions that would have been considered paranoid in the ’70s—walking third-graders to school, forbidding your kid to play ball in the street, going down the slide with your child in your lap—are now routine. In fact, they are the markers of good, responsible parenting. One very thorough study of “children’s independent mobility,” conducted in...

It was a one-mile walk home from a Silver Spring park on Georgia Avenue on a Saturday afternoon. But what the parents saw as a moment of independence for their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, they say authorities viewed much differently. Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say they are being investigated for neglect for the Dec. 20 trek — in a case they say reflects a clash of ideas about how safe the world is and whether parents are free to make their own choices about raising their children. “We wouldn’t have let them do it if we didn’t think they...

For Christmas was, is, and always will be, a clear cold, night. Some say that Christmas is too secular, that the glitter, music, gifts and family dinners are really not what the holy day is about. They hold that the Baby Jesus has been forgotten in the cacophony and confusion of commercial Christmas. They say that it is only about the birth of Christ. Everything else, they say, is a distraction or, even worse, sacrilege. Others say Christmas is not a holy day, but a day for family, friends, and presents—that Jesus was an historical figure, whose life should not...

Two cops rush to the scene. “This sounds like a gun battle — over there!” one calls to his partner. They see the suspects: two little boys, wielding rifles. The police officers do not shoot. Rather, they examine the boys’ weapons and break into big smiles: “Hey, is it real?” one officer asks. “Looks like real,” his partner marvels. “And it sounds like real,” the first officer confirms. “Right — every shot!” says the announcer, because this is on television. It’s an ad, from 1967, for the Sound-O-Power M-16 military rifle, a big hit for Marx Toys at Christmas that...

Lena Dunham is now threatening to sue the right-wing website which last week published an article claiming she sexually abused her little sister when they were children. The claim is based on an excerpt from the Girls star and creator's new book, Not That Kind of Girl, and details how she once looked at her sister Grace's vagina when her sibling was a year old and she was seven. Lena defended the action as innocent childhood exploration based on curiosity, but the website Truth Revolt called the memory 'unsettling' and disturbing'. Since then, she has been in a war of...

A whopping 68 percent of Americans think there should be a law that prohibits kids 9 and under from playing at the park unsupervised, despite the fact that most of them no doubt grew up doing just that. What's more: 43 percent feel the same way about 12-year-olds. They would like to criminalize all pre-teenagers playing outside on their own (and, I guess, arrest their no-good parents). Those are the results of a Reason/Rupe poll confirming that we have not only lost all confidence in our kids and our communities—we have lost all touch with reality. "I doubt there has...

America's kids have been suspended for pretending that pencils were guns, but an Ohio school may have topped that. A 10-year-old student at a Columbus elementary school was handed a three-day suspension for making a finger gun and pretending to shoot a classmate. The suspension letter more formally referred to his weapon as a "level 2 lookalike firearm," reports the Columbus Dispatch. Devonshire Alternative Elementary School's principal says students have been frequently told not to play pretend gun games, with a district rep saying kids were warned consequences would follow. Those consequences hit hard last week for fifth-grader Nathan Entingh,...

With the Christmas shopping orgy well under way, never forget that the ultimate gifts that keep on giving throughout life for young and old are guns. For the young boys and girls, cap guns and holsters, nerf guns, toy bows and arrows with the suction cup arrows and other assorted toy guns and associated accessories are the obvious choice. Whatever you do, don’t forget to teach your rootin’ tootin’ boys and girls how to quick draw their cap guns and how to twirl them on one finger Roy Rogers style.

For Eddie Mason, the decision wasn’t difficult. The NFL veteran’s 10-year-old son, Tyler, won’t play tackle football until high school. Mr. Mason’s decision wasn’t a result of the burgeoning national discussion about football’s role in brain injuries. Instead, he believes children should learn the game’s fundamentals without tackling. Mr. Mason, who played three seasons at linebacker for the Redskins before retiring in 2003, sees a problematic culture infecting football’s lowest levels that’s inextricably connected to the safety concerns. “This brash kind of mindset, the underdog mindset,” Mr. Mason said, “this hard-core attitude kind of deal about who hits the hardest...

Today's young parents are confronted with a dilemma; should they obey the clear, strict instructions of the neighborhood school and make sure their child is vaccinated before school starts, or should they 'just say no'. Some folks on side of receiving immunization shots are quick to point out the worrying resurgence of various diseases most Americans thought were almost wiped out. Diseases such as measles, mumps and whooping cough have largely been held in check because of available immunization injections. In 2011 there were 167 cases of Whooping Cough reported. In 2013 there have been 352 so far. These almost...

For many American children, the floor has become their closet. This drives me crazy. I walk into a room where an urchin resides, and there are clothes scattered everywhere. Believe me, I know the passive-aggressive tactics that kids use to torture their parents, but something else is going on here. More than a few times, I've heard parents describe their offspring as "amazing." If you look up that word, you will see this meaning: "To cause great wonder or astonishment." That's what "amazing" means. So occasionally, I will ask the parent of an "amazing" child to tell me exactly...

All the employees of school districts on a witch hunt to expel and otherwise permanently punish young boys for shooting toy guns or forming their fists into the shape of a gun need to read Back to Normal. The purpose of psychologist Enrico Gnaulati’s 2013 book is to argue how ordinary childhood behavior is often misdiagnosed as ADD, ADHD, depression and autism — frequently with life-long, disturbing consequences. But along the way he raises the taboo question of whether we “label boys as mentally unstable, behaviorally unmanageable, academically underachieving, in need of special-education services, or displaying behavior warranting school suspension...

Character actor and puppeteer Gus "Cosmo" Allegretti, who voiced such "Captain Kangaroo" characters as Bunny Rabbit, Mr. Moose, Grandfather Clock, and Dancing Bear, has died, the Los Angeles Times reports. Allegretti died of emphysema on July 26, though his death wasn't publicized until Wednesday. Allegretti played numerous characters on the long-running Emmy-winning children's show, which featured the late Bob Keeshan as Captain Kangaroo. Allegretti himself created Bunny Rabbit, a bespectacled bunny who tricked the Captain into giving up his carrots, and Mr. Moose, whose corny jokes resulted in a shower of ping-pong balls falling on the Captain's head. He also...

You can drive through residential neighborhoods and never see a single child out playing. We should worry about what this means for the future. There are still kids in those neighborhoods to be sure; you can see them at the schools getting dropped off by their moms. Few kids seem to walk to school anymore. My old elementary school got rid of the bike racks and turned the enclosure into a garden. Maybe it’s the phenomena of helicopter parenting. It’s not the cool helicoptering of Wagner and “Ride of the Valkyries” but the lame kind of Barney and songs about...

I thought this picture was a great reminder of the great opportunity Obama has squandered to unite our great country. I am so very tired of his divisive identity politics and contempt for America. It's hard to keep a positive attitude these days and I thought this picture provided a little inspiration for why we need to keep Obama from tearing our country apart.

<p>If a Martian were to observe the human condition, he would have to conclude that the left has an agenda to deprive children of their innocence.</p> <p>The Martian would have no other explanation for the premature sexualizing of children that the left has engaged in for decades, and which seems to increases almost weekly.</p>

Here's a bit of advice real "safety experts" are giving kids — and parents. It's poisonous. But first, the back story: The other day, a blogger named Lisa Flam wrote on a popular parenting website that her seventh-grader came home one day and announced he "didn't do it." Didn't do what? He and his friend were walking home from school (points for that!), when a white-haired lady stood in her doorway and requested the boys' help. "She asked them to move a medium-size package from her front step into her house," Flam wrote. "On the sidewalk, the boys wondered what...