Special Issues

  The winter was rotten for weather (and school attendance) here in central Illinois, and the gloom was compounded by some not-so-sweet news published in the Journal of the American Medical Association: Sugar, that seductive temptress, is more dangerous to our health than previously recognized. Research published online in JAMA suggests that “consuming too much […]

 Abraham Lincoln is on bookstore new release racks again, this time in Brad Meltzer’s fresh new look at history and heroism “Ordinary People Change the World,” illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos. First in the children’s picture book series, I Am Abraham Lincoln, is both quirky, for the cartoon illustrations and anachronistic references, and earnest, as young […]

  The United States is the only country in the world that performs routine circumcision on its infants. In a state like Illinois, where nearly three-quarters of infants are circumcised, it may come as a surprise to learn that, globally, only approximately 30 percent of men are.  In the United States circumcisions have become culturally […]

Girls on the Run gives girls in grades 3-8 the tools to break out of the girl box. Adolescents enter the girl box when they begin to morph into what they think they should be instead of who they really are. The 10-week program is open to all girls and is designed to educate and […]

I am a working mom. Though that means lots of different things, it mostly means that I constantly feel pressed for time. Putting in a full day at the office leaves me with few precious hours at night to connect with my family and tend to the list of household tasks. The routine that my […]

Just before kids turn 18 and prepare to leave home, credit card companies swoop in. It’s not fair, particularly for those who don’t have a good grasp on money and budget, who haven’t been carefully putting quarters into jars, dollars into envelopes and checks into the bank since they were young children, and who haven’t […]

  Susan Clause remembers using a strange chant to awaken her young son from his slumber: erg-A-doo, erg-A-doo, erg-A-doo. These memorable words resonated with Clause and her husband, Stephen Briggs, 15 years ago when they were searching for a name for their new educational resource store. The name stuck. ErgAdoo, just off South Grand Avenue […]

Until recently, families that routinely sat down together for meals were the norm. But for several decades family meals have become increasingly rare as life’s pace and pressures have become increasingly frenetic. Two-career households, kids with a bewildering array of activities and distractions, plus the ease and availability of fast food, seemed poised to plunge […]

A while back, a friend’s 14-year-old daughter sent inappropriate images and texts of herself to her boyfriend. The images were not the worst one might imagine – she was clothed – but her mother was horrified nonetheless. As a parent myself, I was shocked with what she had done, not just because I felt she […]