Special Issues

 There are many factors that must be taken into consideration when helping one’s aging parents find an appropriate place to live. A growing number of retirement communities and assisted living apartment complexes have sprouted up in the Springfield area, offering a variety of non-nursing home options with a variety of services, atmospheres and price ranges.  […]

Teen bodies are always changing, especially as they are going through puberty. All of these changes along with wanting to be accepted can cause young girls to have a poor body image. Body image has to do with how one feels about their body and physical appearance. Girls become very body-conscious at a young age. […]

  Growing up in northern Indiana in the 1960s, from my perspective as a young child, life was pretty simple. Our family had one car, a rotary dial telephone, and a color television that could pick up several stations (a luxury!) because of our proximity to Chicago. If you missed a phone call you had […]

  Parenting is a lifelong venture with many rewards. But we may find ourselves parenting our parents if health issues require continued care. “There were 33.9 million family caregivers of elders in 2004, and it is projected that there will be 81 million by 2050,” states The Caregiver’s Handbook, a supplement to the PBS documentary […]

  Attachment Parenting is the hotly debated parenting philosophy that emphasizes close physical proximity between caregivers and children (co-sleeping, babywearing, and breastfeeding) as well as parental responsiveness to a child’s signals of distress. Critics say that it is too demanding of parents and leads to clingy, spoiled children. Proponents argue that children are better able […]

 It’s the stuff of nightmares for every child of an elderly parent – the phone call in the middle of the night or the middle of your work day: “Your father fell. Your mother’s just not quite right. We think there’s something wrong.” And suddenly, there you are, with a parent who needs a new […]

My 19-year-old niece informed me of my responsibility for her belief for several years since she was six years old that people got pregnant by eating pickles. Why, I asked? Because when she was six years old and I was seven months pregnant, I ate a pickle in front of her. Kids remember the darnedest […]

Recently 12-year-old Alexia Blakeman made headlines with Courageous Kaydie, a paper doll she created to honor a friend of her grandmother’s who was stricken with breast cancer. Over the last year she has raised more than $800 for breast cancer research by encouraging people to pay $1 to have their picture taken with her paper […]

  As the weather turns colder, we begin to realize that the holidays are soon approaching. Christmas items are already on display and a few people have even started their holiday shopping. Many people are asking, “Where did the year go? I can’t believe the holidays are here again already.”  Often, the holidays become hectic, […]

  We’ve all heard that “breast is best.” Yet despite vast amounts of data on the benefits of breastmilk to infants, only 47 percent of babies are still breastfed at age six months, and only 25 percent are breastfed at one year. Why are these numbers so low, especially in light of the fact that […]