Capital City Parent

 Many families’ back-to-school shopping list will include a new backpack this fall. Don’t buy the cheapest one you can find, advises Dr. Paul Venturini, a Springfield chiropractic physician. Correct backpack design, size and usage help keep children’s backs, shoulders and necks properly aligned and pain free.  In fact, “A 2016 study on back pain published […]

Glow Run/Walk 5KMay 11, 7-9:30pm Fri. Hosted by the Ronald McDonald House Teen Council. $30 for adults 18 and up; $20 for students 12-18; free to kids 12 and under. rmhc-centralillinois.org. 528-3314. Hope Pavilion, Southwind Park, 4965 S. Second St., 788-2310. Community Car Seat Check May 11, 9am-12pm Fri. Learn about child passenger safety and […]

Whenever we take a family outing to St. Louis, I always yearn to visit the St. Louis Art Museum, but it never ends up happening. The reason? Precisely because it’s a family outing. I’m afraid that looking at art will make the kids bored and whiny, and nothing torpedoes a family outing like bored and […]

It had been a while since I’d drunk a hot cup of coffee. Every morning I’d brew a cup, and there it would sit, usually forgotten under the coffeemaker while I bustled around making my five-and-a-half-year-old’s breakfast and packing her lunch. Punctuated by chores like unloading the dishwasher and letting the dog out for the […]

It takes a village to raise a child. We all have a village. Some are big and traditional (large extended family who live nearby, helpful neighbors who know and love and look out for your kids) and small (one parent and a babysitter or teacher). Most of us have something in between – and can […]

Deanna Blackwell, director of the TRIO program at Lincoln Land Community College, got word that a student had a serious medical issue so she got in her car and went to the hospital. As Deanna says, “We provide refuge and support to our students.” Going to see the student just seemed to be the right […]

Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”  –Hippocrates “Pill for ill” medicine is how pediatrician Dr. Michelle Perro describes most of the training that occurs in medical school. After 15 years in pediatric emergency medicine, she concluded that the medical system is devised to treat acute rather than chronic problems and is […]

A hate crime is committed every hour in the United States, according to Tolerance.org, a web project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Of particular concern to parents is the fact that young men under 20 are the perpetrators of half of these violent acts. Biases are learned during early childhood, explains the Leadership Conference […]

If you’re the parent of a grade-schooler, you’ve probably introduced your child to the tooth fairy. But what about allowances and understanding wants and needs while at the toy store? Likewise, if you have a teenager, what about conversation starters on debit cards, compound interest and Facebook’s stock price? Feeling unprepared? Not sure where to […]

The last time I cleaned out our basement, I was horrified by the number of plastic kids’ toys we weeded out. In fact, it brought on something of an existential crisis. Those toys were bought with hard-earned money, only to be relegated to the basement after the dismayingly short time it took my son to […]

Ameilya walks in, goes straight to the sink and then takes her place at one of two tables. While waiting for her cohorts, she indulges me to answer my questions. She talks excitedly about making noodles. “It gets messy. It’s so cool!” She goes on about folding and making hills and whisking egg yolks. I […]

Introducing solid foods to your baby is a delightful milestone, but it can also be one of the most stressful. In addition to messy highchairs and little faces covered in spaghetti, new parents are guaranteed to receive troves of advice from well-meaning family and friends regarding what and when to feed baby, adding layers of […]