The suburb of Wayland, MA, was stripped of its quiet, small town image this week when an 18-year-old resident was found violently murdered in a local marsh. The suspected killer is another 18-year-old Wayland resident, and the victim’s former boyfriend.
“I did know [the victim] and the alleged assailant, and people are very, very sad and confused,” Wayland High Principal Pat Tutwiler told the Boston Herald. “I would say that there’s no such thing as a community where things like this don’t happen.”
Unfortunately, Principal Tutwiler’s quote is frighteningly accurate. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one out of every ten teenagers has experienced some form of dating violence.
With such high incidence of dating violence among young people, it’s very possible your child or someone they know is in an unhealthy relationship. To help keep teens safe, here are some important dating violence safety tips and facts for parents and teenagers from the Massachusetts Medical Society and Children’s Hospital Boston’s Center for Young Women’s Health. Full story »
Dr. Claire McCarthy is a primary care physician and the Medical Communications Editor at Children’s Hospital Boston. Along with her blogs here on Thriving, you can find her at the Huffington Post and Boston.com. Follow her on Twitter @drClaire.
My 10-year-old daughter wants a cell phone. She wants it bad. So bad that the other night I came home to the note pictured below.
Natasha's treatise, page 1
Her three older siblings got cell phones in middle school, when they began to routinely go places without us. But Natasha (who just finished 4th grade) wants one now. So she put together a treatise (you can’t tell from the picture, but it was on really big paper) about why she needs one.
The truth is, she doesn’t need one. Yes, she sometimes walks to and from school or bikes to friends’ houses. But since the school is about a seven-minute walk (we are always clear about whether someone is picking her up) and the bike ride is about five minutes, I think she can manage without a cell phone. While it might be nice to time pickup from swim practice, we’re actually reasonably good at figuring out how long it takes Tash to shower and get dressed (longer than is reasonable + 10 minutes). If we’re wrong, or there’s some sort of emergency, there are phones at the YMCA she can use. Full story »
Young moms are 18% more likely to have a smartphone
I’m at the age where many of my old friends are new parents. They’re a pretty diverse bunch, but one thing they all have in common is how often they use technology as a parenting tool. When we get together as a group, favorite apps and websites are traded like old family recipes; cute pictures of the kids are emailed and shared on Facebook, sometimes while sitting right next to each other. And almost all of this digital connectedness happens on their phones.
At first all this mobile mothering struck me as odd, but I’m now learning that this is fairly standard these days. According to a new report from BabyCenter, which polled over 5,000 American mothers, today’s moms are 18 percent more likely to have a smartphone than other people. In fact, over half of the women polled said they bought their smartphone as a direct result of becoming a mom.
So what is it about modern motherhood that clicks so well with smartphones? According to Lois Lee, MD, MPH, mother of a 4 and 8-year-old, and proud iPhone owner, the mobile mama phenomenon isn’t the result of changes in motherhood, but an indication that technology has finally caught up with the whirlwind pace of moms.
“Life can be pretty fast paced. To keep up, a mother needs to be good at multi-tasking,” says Lee. “Smartphones can be a great reference tool because they provide access to information in a quick and convenient medium. It’s easy to see why they’re so popular with parents.” Full story »
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a report Monday, saying teenagers who over use social media, like Facebook and twitter, could be engaging in risky behavior, with long-lasting, negative consequences. To prevent social media from becoming problematic, the AAP recommends parents monitor, and when necessary, limit their children’s use of social networking tools and websites.
But before you confiscate your kids’ cell phones and delete their Facebook accounts, it’s important to note that the AAP acknowledges that social media can be a healthy part of kids’ communication, assuming they have the proper guidelines.
“Engaging in social media is a routine activity that research has shown to benefit children and adolescents,” the report reads. “Social media allows teens to accomplish online many of the tasks that are important to them offline: staying connected with friends and family, making new friends, sharing pictures, and exchanging ideas.”
Translation: It’s not the technology that dangerous, but how it’s used that can be harmful. Constant access to information is a double-edged sword, and parents need to be mindful of that when examining their children’s online activities. For every website offering homework help, there is a site that helps kids cheat on tests. The same phone that lets them text you when they’re running late from soccer practice can easily be used to send wildly inappropriate pictures to her crush from biology class. Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on January 14, 2011
Michael Rich, MD, MPH
Michael Rich, MD, MPH, is Children’s Hospital Boston’s media expert and director of Children’s Center on Media and Child Health. Take a look at his blog archive or follow him on Twitter @CMCH_Boston
Throughout 2010 Thrive readers asked Children’s Hospital Boston’s media expert, Michael Rich, MD, MPH questions about the effect media has on kids. According to our records, these are the 10 most-viewed questions of the year, along with Rich’s responses.
If you were near a computer, TV or newspaper this past week, there’s a good chance you learned something about a researcher or doctor from Children’s Hospital Boston. Children’s researchers were recently featured in a wide variety of mainstream media outlets, here’s some highlights.
Leonard Zon, MD, director of the Stem Cell Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, was the subject of Nova’s ‘Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers,’ a popular series which profiles some of the world’s leading scientific innovators. The series not only gives viewers insight into the work and research done by these gifted minds, but also what inspires them personally. Zon maybe renowned for his stem cell research, but did you know he’s an accomplished musician as well? For more on Zon’s science and musical background, watch the full episode. Full story »
Dr. Claire McCarthy is a primary care physician and the Medical Communications Editor at Children’s Hospital Boston. Along with her blogs here on Thriving, you can find her at the Huffington Post and Boston.com. Follow her on Twitter @drClaire.
It keeps happening, despite my attempts to discourage it. I’ll be at work, seeing a patient or in a meeting, and I’ll get a text from one of my children: I feel sick.
Now, I’m the mom and a pediatrician to boot, so I do see that there’s some sense in contacting me. But I’m in Boston, nowhere near their school, and there is actually a clear protocol for these situations, as I text them when I can get free: Go to the nurse. I’m not even the one who would go get them—my husband or mother-in-law would. But Mark and Jude don’t do text messaging (they haven’t fully figured it out yet), so the kids text me. Full story »
CRUNCH!! The sickening sound and subsequent lurch forward were undeniable: the dreaded sound and feel of another car running directly into the back of mine. At first I was shaken, then utterly confused as to how it could have happened. Sure, the roads were a little slick from the rain, but that had lightened up a long time ago. Not only that, but traffic at the time was standing still! How, with dry roads and street congestion, did a driver manage to bump into my car? Full story »
Do you have a Children's Hospital Boston story you'd like heard? By sharing your Children's story you can be a great source of inspiration and encouragement to families who are going through similar situations. And it’s a great way to find support by connecting with others. Share your story today »
The suburb of Wayland, MA, was stripped of its quiet, small town image this week when an 18-year-old resident was found violently murdered in a local marsh. The suspected killer is another 18-year-old Wayland resident, and the victim’s former boyfriend.
