2013

This Halloween, throw a wickedly wonderful fete for family and friends. With help from the Wilton entertaining experts, you’ll have all the tricks to treat your guests to a spooky celebration that will leave them howling with delight.

Coin lithium batteries can be found around most homes in everyday items like remote controls, key fobs, flameless candles and children’s books with sound. If ingested, these coin-sized lithium batteries can cause chemical burns to a child’s esophagus in as little as two hours. Yet in a recent survey, 62 percent of parents reported being unaware of the risk associated with coin lithium batteries.

What do you know about your child’s physical education program? Is physical education part of the school day for your child? Is daily physical education part of the school curriculum? Does a certified physical education teacher teach your child?

When it comes to back-to-school safety, you cover the basics vigilantly, such as teaching kids to avoid strangers, buckling them in the car and providing appropriate safety gear when they play sports. But have you considered taking as much care when it comes to packing lunch boxes? An improperly packed school lunch can lead to spoiled food and a missed meal at best or food-borne illness at worst.

Children who overestimate their popularity are less likely to be bullies than those who underestimate or hold more accurate assessments of their social standing, finds new research to be presented at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

PFSA offers some guidelines that can help parents with making the decision to say yes or no to leaving their child at home alone.

All children are naturally musical—just as they are born with the potential to learn to speak and understand language, they have the ability from birth to learn music. And nurturing this innate talent early provides the foundation for later success with traditional music or dance lessons.

The first five years lay the foundation of a child’s learning and success for life. The choices that families make during these early years can have a lifelong impact. The questions themselves can be overwhelming.

More than 23 million children and teenagers (31.8 percent) ages two to 19 are obese or overweight, a statistic that health and medical experts consider an epidemic. There are multiple physical, emotional and social risks associated with obesity, including: elevated blood pressure, Type 2 Diabetes, liver disease, sleep problems, joint pain, depression, low self-esteem and teasing.

A new initiative is sweeping the country in an attempt to decrease the number of children who become victims of drowning and non-fatal submersion injuries. It is called Water SMART (Safety Methods and Rescue Techniques) Babies, and it is a program that is spreading amongst pediatricians who are now writing prescriptions for infant swim lessons.