Kids, Parenting | featured news

A Delaware doctor and his wife were arrested this week after their daughter told authorities that she was punished by "waterboarding," police said. The 11-year-old girl told police that her father, pediatrician Melvin Morse, would hold her face under a running faucet causing the water to shoot up her nose, the Delaware State Police said. The punishments happened at least four times over a two-year period and the girl's mother, Pauline Morse, witnessed some of them and did nothing, police said.

Changing the type of DVDs, videos and TV shows that preschoolers watch during the day may help them sleep better at night. A program that encouraged parents of kids ages 3 to 5 to replace age-inappropriate media content with more suitable programming found "long-lasting, significant reductions in sleep problems," says Michelle Garrison of Seattle Children's Research Institute, lead author of the study in Monday's Pediatrics.

Los Angeles Times review of Boy Scout documents shows that a blacklist meant to protect boys from sexual predators too often failed in its mission. For nearly a century, the Boy Scouts of America has relied on a confidential blacklist known as the "perversion files" as a crucial line of defense against sexual predators.

Special seats and other devices designed to help prevent parents from accidentally leaving babies and toddlers behind in cars don’t work, a team of experts said on Monday. They said parents shouldn’t rely on them to keep children safe.

The news that two parents in separate central Indiana incidents left their young child in a sweltering vehicle during a record heat wave has stirred outrage, but national child car-safety advocates say that, in reality, it happens more often than people realize and it happens to all kinds of parents.

Babies who spend their first year in homes with dogs have fewer colds and ear infections and need fewer antibiotics than babies in pet-free homes, a new study from Finland shows. Babies who live with cats also seem to have a health advantage, but it's not as big.

Doreen Flynn is the mother of three young girls with an incurable blood disorder called Fanconi anemia. Jordan, 13, and twins Jorja and Julia, 7, will all need bone transplants to survive. Their mother fears there won’t be a match for her girls when the time comes. Or worse, that if a match is found that the donor won’t follow through and donate. She has reason to worry - some experts say that nearly half of donors don’t follow through with donation. So she has become the lead plaintiff in a case that she hopes will change medical history and make it legal to pay bone marrow donors. In doing so, she’s also taking aim at a long held position by the medical establishment that people who provide bone marrow should be altruistic – and not in it for the money.

Balancing career and home has long been a hot topic for women. But many young dads taking a bigger role in the household are finding they are less prepped for the juggling act.

It's every parent's nightmare: To get home from an event and realize that a child is missing. But it can turn out to be a political minefield as well if you happen to be the prime minister....

Teresa Woodard of WFAA-TV hit the mark with this story about a new gun range in Lewisville that plans to host kids’ birthday parties. David Prince, the owner of Eagle Gun Range, says the parties will be safe, and educational.