Parents Give Up Youths Under Law Meant for Babies October 3, 2008 By ERIK ECKHOLM OMAHA — The abandonments began on Sept. 1, when a mother left her 14-year-old son in a police station here. By Sept. 23, two more boys and one girl, ages 11 to 14, had been abandoned in hospitals in Omaha and Lincoln. Then a 15-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl were left. The biggest shock to public officials came last week, when a single father walked into an Omaha hospital and surrendered nine of his 10 children, ages 1 to 17, saying that his wife had died and he could no longer cope with the burden of raising them. In total last month, 15 older children in Nebraska were dropped off by a beleaguered parent or custodial aunt or grandmother who said the children were unmanageable. Officials have called the abandonments a misuse of a new law that was mainly intended to prevent so-called Dumpster babies — the abandonment of newborns by young, terrified mothers — but instead has been u
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September 15, 2008 By RONI CARYN RABIN ONE of the first decisions working parents must make is whether to place their child in a day care center. Preschool programs and day care centers have been studied extensively by researchers, and the reports are usually a mixed bag of risks and benefits. Occasionally, however, a troubling finding may set off alarm bells. A 2006 study of a popular government-subsidized day care program in Quebec found, among other things, that children in the program showed more anxiety and aggressiveness and were slower to learn toilet training than other Canadian children. But Ellen Galinsky, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit research center in New York City, said she believed the controversy over day care seems to have subsided. “For so long, there were pendulum swings in public opinion every time a new study reported good or bad findings about day care, but things seem to be quieter now,” she said. “It’s not tha
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