Family Potluck - Operation Family

Autism Speaks - Go Ali!!!

This badge was created by Ali Edwards...please help her with this cause. 

   "Autism Speaks' multi-year Ad Council public service advertising campaign stresses the importance of recognizing the early signs of autism and seeking early intervention services. Research now suggests that children as young as 1 year old can show signs of autism. The most important thing you can do as a parent or caregiver is to learn the early signs of autism and understand the typical developmental milestones your child should be reaching at different ages.

Please look over the following list. If you have any concerns about your child's development, don't wait. Speak to your doctor about screening your child for autism. While validated screening for autism starts only as young as 16 months, the best bet for younger children is to have their development screened at every well visit with a highly validated developmental screening tool. If your child does have autism, early intervention may be his or her best hope."

Study Links Child Care to Problem Behavior

The more time that children spent in child care, the more likely their sixth grade teachers were to report problem behavior.

Also, children who got quality child care before entering kindergarten had better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than did youngsters who received lower quality care.

The findings come from the largest study of child care and development conducted in the United States. The 1,364 children in the analysis had been tracked since birth as part of a study by the National Institutes of Health.

read entire article

Autism Speaks - It's Time to Listen

This badge was created by Ali Edwards...please help her with this cause. 

   "Autism Speaks' multi-year Ad Council public service advertising campaign stresses the importance of recognizing the early signs of autism and seeking early intervention services. Research now suggests that children as young as 1 year old can show signs of autism. The most important thing you can do as a parent or caregiver is to learn the early signs of autism and understand the typical developmental milestones your child should be reaching at different ages.

Please look over the following list. If you have any concerns about your child's development, don't wait. Speak to your doctor about screening your child for autism. While validated screening for autism starts only as young as 16 months, the best bet for younger children is to have their development screened at every well visit with a highly validated developmental screening tool. If your child does have autism, early intervention may be his or her best hope."

Buy (Less) Crap

I guess the (Red) campaign isn't doing all that well...Ad Age has reported that the campaign has cost $100M+ but has only raised $18M to date, but those figures are being disputed.  I have a hunch this has less to do with our willingness to give and more to do with people being tired of feeling "guilted" into buying products in order to "make a difference".  I rarely make these types of purchases.  I generally give directly to my charity of choice.

Check this out...a nice rebuttal from a group of San Francisco non-profits.  It's a parody of the Gap's (RED) campaign called Buy(LESS)Crap.

It's up to us as parents to teach our children that "shopping is not a reasonable response to human suffering".

Pizza Hut's Reading Program under Scrutiny

"You've read the book, now eat the pizza. Since 1985, that's been the gist of Pizza Hut's Book It, an incentive program used by 50,000 schools nationwide to reward young readers with free pizzas. The program is now under attack by child-development experts who say it promotes bad eating habits and turns teachers into corporate promoters..." read entire article
Source: Associated Press

Related Links:
Pizza Hut's Book It Reading Program
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
Commericalism in Education Research Unit
Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn - some good points made in the book reviews section