Tabla de contenidos para May-13 en Parenting School Years

Even the low-sugar cereals can contain HFCS. Mix a sweet favorite in with a healthier variety to tone it down a bit. Red sauce on pasta is another perennial kid fave, so serve one that lists “tomatoes” as the first ingredient—and little else. Yup—some bread contains this sweetener (even the healthier wheat varieties), so check labels carefully. Pouches, boxes, bottles, and cans—sweet sips are easy to pack, but unless they're 100 percent juice, don't tote them along. Kids usually gobble applesauce, but it's not always made with just fruit and H2O. Check labels carefully before you buy. Ketchup is a kiddie staple alongside hot dogs, fries, and chicken nuggets—and a prime source of HFCS. Go organic if you can swing it.…

“There was a day where I was nursing a baby during a conference call and simultaneously searching for ramp installers online,” says Mona Shand of Brighton, MI. She and her husband help care for her 81-year-old father, who is wheelchair-bound and suffers from Parkinson's disease, and their three children, ages 5, 3, and 1, while balancing full-time jobs. The Shands are members of the sandwich generation, a colloquial term for those caring for kids and aging family members simultaneously. It's a demographic that's becoming increasingly crowded. In a recent poll from A Place for Mom, Inc. (APFM), the nation's largest senior-living referral information service, more than half of the respondents (95 percent of whom were parents) said an older family member is either already living in their home or expected…

1 Shortcake Sushi Place chopped strawberries, ricotta cheese, and baby spinach leaves in the center of a whole-wheat tortilla. Roll tightly and slice into rounds. 2 Fool for You Chop 1 package store-bought meringue cookies or ladyfingers and mix with chopped strawberries and whipped cream. 3 Lassi, Go! In a blender, combine 1 lb strawberries, 1/4 cup honey (for kids over 1), a pinch of salt, 2 cups plain low-fat Greek yogurt, and 1 cup ice. Blend until smooth. 4 Cheesecake Cups Cut the tops off a pint of strawberries and use a mini—melon baller to hollow them out. Fill berries with cream cheese and dip in graham-cracker crumbs. 5 Feta Flatbread Top a whole-wheat pita with chopped strawberries, crumbled feta cheese, chopped cooked chicken, and fresh basil. Broil until…

What would you do if the doctor said your child was obese? When Dara-Lynn Weiss heard that clinically weighty word, she put her 7-year-old on a yearlong, calorie-restrictive diet, then recounted the struggles—both her daughter's and her own—in the pages of Vogue. And she caught hell for it. Some considered her methods drastic. According to her own account, she ignored her daughter's hunger and pleas to be like any other kid at a pizza party. Backlash was venomous, with most critics dismissing the mother as a selfish socialite who projected her own warped body image onto her daughter. But the article also sparked a storm of controversy around a real concern you yourself may have: Should my child be on a diet? With the childhood-obesity rate a bona fide epidemic,…

WHAT'S CHANGED: A playdate almost always has a digital element, whether it's stomping around to Just Dance 4 or passing the iPad playing Face Swap. “We like playing on my dad's iPhone or on my mom's iPod touch,” says Brenna, 6, of Ambridge, PA. Fave games for Brenna's pals include Flow Free, Cut the Rope, and the ubiquitous Angry Birds. Such competitive game apps encourage kids to interact and be good sports, says Eitan Schwarz, M.D., Parenting advisory board member and author of Kids, Parents, and Technology. “They help kids get a sense of identity and zero in on interests they can use to bond with friends,” he adds. WHAT HASN'T: Shared interests (hamsters! soccer!) are the determining factors in kindergarten and first-grade friendships. The preschool mindset of “friends with…

Last year my son decided I needed three worms. He presented them in a shoe box. —SARAH O. My 1-year-old painted himself with poop on my first Mother's Day—in my favorite restaurant. —MARGUERITE F. Road kill! My son knew I loved birds, so he brought me the dead one in front of our house. —AMIEJAY I. At 38 weeks pregnant, I got exercise wear from my 5-year-old. She thought I was getting a bit chubby. —MELONEY G. I got a day without diaper duty! It was pretty great! —AMBER G. Editor's note: Amber, sweetie, please hold out for the whole weekend this year! My hubby had a coworker with a beach house. She was traveling, so he made arrangements for me to stay there alone for the weekend. Ahh. —KAT…

Buy organic produce as often as your budget allows, but even just choosing produce that's in season and grown in the U.S. will help. Make sure your child's school or daycare practices Integrated Pest Management (IPM). This approach includes sealing cracks, wrapping trash securely, and using traps and gels to minimize the need for spraying pesticides. Go all-natural outdoors, too, and avoid using lawn and garden products that combine fertilizers and pesticides or herbicides. At home, keep household bugs at bay with more natural insecticides like boric acid. Bathe pets regularly to help kill fleas—so you can keep more-toxic treatment use to a minimum.…

Place diced chicken breast, large pineapple chunks, and pieces of green pepper on soaked wooden skewers. Baste with BBQ sauce and broil 5 to 6 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a cast-iron skillet. Add roasted red peppers, diced onion, and a bag of thawed frozen hash browns. Sauté 3 to 4 minutes. Beat 6 eggs in a bowl and pour over the vegetables. Broil 5 to 6 minutes, or until eggs are set in the middle. Turn out onto a plate and slice into wedges. Cut chicken breasts into bite-size pieces and sauté for 4 minutes, stirring often. Add enough buffalo-wing (or BBQ) sauce to coat; stir until heated through. Serve with rolls and celery sticks. Prick a potato with a…

We are never, ever going to meet someone as awesome as you (unless maybe it's one of us). So in honor of Mother's Day, we asked you to dish about what you love, laugh, and cry about as a mom. Grab the tissues and enjoy a little attention for once. WHY I ROCK… “Even though I have two more hours of work still left after the kids go to bed, I will spend another hour after that making sure their Valentine's Day party favors for school are individually signed and freakin' perfectly packaged. I may be one spilled coffee away from a personal meltdown, but I'll be darned if I let it show!” I'M A GOOD MOM… MY MOMMY SUPERPOWER IS… 1 “They groan about dinner! Never knew how hard…

Jennifer Helmcamp, M.D., is the director of Jump Start Pediatric Weight Management Clinic in Round Rock, TX. She meets with the whole family over a six-month treatment period, encouraging a few small changes each time. But the mandate at the initial meeting is always the same: Ban all sugary drinks—soda, juice, lemonade, chocolate milk, or sports drinks—for everyone. “I've seen kids putting on four to seven pounds a month when they enter the program, and one of the main reasons is sucking down those drinks,” Dr. Helmcamp says. “Cutting them is the first step in stopping the gain.” The pounds seemed to just pile on between Tommy Cronin's third and fourth birthdays, when he weighed in at 73 pounds (the average weight of a 9-year-old). Mom Suzanne, a second-grade teacher…

WHAT'S CHANGED: You don't need to be with your friends to, well, be with your friends. Texting and Skyping are the millennial versions of passing notes and running for the phone, the difference being that now you can keep in touch with your buddies almost 24/7. Casey, 9, doesn't have a cell phone yet, but she uses the Kik messenger app on her Google Nexus 7 tablet. “I can talk to lots of friends at once,” says the Baltimore fourth-grader. “Writing out what I want to say makes it easier to explain things.” Crushes and flirty behavior (often in the form of teasing) start to emerge, although the crushee is often oblivious, notes Deborah Best, Ph.D., professor of developmental psychology at Wake Forest University. Boys and girls mingle a lot…

It was not my proudest parenting moment. My 7-year-old daughter, Chloe, was begging for Star Wars on a recent movie night in our house. She'd seen it before and seemed to take its gore-free violence in stride. The problem was my 3-year-old son, Julian, who was already familiar with a galaxy far, far away through the movie's massive licensing reach. He knew who Chewbacca was; would it really be so bad for him to see the movie? He started pew-pew-pew-ing the next day. Julian turned everything (Tinker Toys, tennis rackets, you name it) into a pretend gun and started running around the house like a pint-size Han Solo taking down Storm Troopers. With the events of the school shooting in Newtown, CT, still fresh in my mind, I was horrified.…

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE RECIPES that should get filed under “lifesavers”! Every week I buy a good-quality whole chicken and pop it into the slow cooker, and a few hours later I have the most juicy, succulent meat to eat on its own or add to a variety of other favorite recipes like mac, chicken, and cheese bites; chicken pesto pasta; or cheesy chicken taquitos, which are great for dunking in salsa or guacamole or whatever dip your kids like. Short on time? Just pick up a cooked rotisserie chicken instead! Cook 1 lb rotini, small shells, campanelle, or other short pasta according to package directions; drain and add back to the pot. Mix in 1/2 cup prepared pesto, 2 cups chopped cooked chicken, 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese,…

…EVERYWHERE FROM THE PLAYROOM (GENDER-NEUTRAL TOYS!) TO THE BOARDROOM (CEO? SURE!). THAT'S WHY THE RULES OF RAISING GIRLS HAVE CHANGED—AND WHY YOU HAVE TO GET HIP TO THEM, FAST. On baseball fields across the country, girls are taking their turns at bat—on the same teams as boys. Toy labs are creating girl versions of trucks and cars. In Washington, DC, women hold more congressional seats than ever. They're flooding into colleges and grad schools, and studying subjects, like medicine and law, that were almost entirely dominated by guys just a generation or two ago. Our kids are growing up in an increasingly gender-neutral environment very different from our own. So how do we prepare them for…well, who knows? Because these days, a little girl could grow up to be anything…

Pre-family reboot, all three Days ate like most of us: chocolate chip cookies, brownies, cheesy crackers for snacks. But mom Kerri made it her business to find several really healthy (and really yummy) alternatives. This one is Emma's favorite. She makes them herself—they're that easy. No chopping, no rolling, no baking! And we tried them. Trust us, the Days are on to something with these. 1 cup old-fashioned oats 2/3 cup toasted coconut flakes 1/2 cup peanut butter 1/2 cup wheat germ 1/2 cup chocolate chips 1/3 cup honey 1 tsp vanilla extract Mix everything together, then chill right in the bowl for 30 minutes in the fridge. Form into balls.…

WHAT'S CHANGED: The incredibly wide venue for them to share their thoughts. Ten-year-old Mina, who lives in Bel Air, MD, gets excited when she goes anywhere with free WiFi because she can talk to pals on iMessage and post photos to Instagram. “Instagram is the best because I can tell people how I feel or what I found at the mall. I take pictures of my crafts and my pets doing cute things—and my friends get to see how awesome they are in real time.” The universal language of tweendom is YouTube. “All my friends talk about the ‘Ain't Nobody Got Time for That’ remix and share funny videos,” says Brady, 11, from Abingdon, MD. “It's so hysterical.” WHAT HASN'T: It's all about fitting in. Tweens dress alike, listen to…