Blog Posts by Parenting.com

By: Kimberly at Parenting.com

Unable to physically go to school because of severe allergies, 7-year-old Devon Carrow "attends" Winchester Elementary School remotely using a robot with a wireless video connection, reports the Associated Press. With the help of his 4-foot-tall VGo bot, Carrow can take part in classroom discussions and even walk the halls-driving the four-wheeled robot through a mouse and keystrokes.

"With this he really gets a feel, a sensation, of being there," said Principal Kathleen Brachmann.

Plus: How to Help Your Kids Love School

Carrow suffers from an allergic inflammatory condition called eosinophilic esophagitis and anaphylactic shock syndrome, which can cause life-threatening allergic reactions. With the VGo robot, introduced in 2011, Carrow is able to attend school for the first time.

"It's so cool because it's like playing a game on the computer," Carrow said of the VGo. "It's like your objective is to just survive."

Plus: Handling

Veer

By Laura At Parenting

Your little boy idolizes Peyton Manning, tosses a football for hours and wears his Broncos jersey almost every day. But when it comes time to sign up for tackle football, will you let him?

Lawmaker Michael Benedetto, an assemblyman from the Bronx, thinks you shouldn't - and he's proposed a bill that would prohibit kids 10 and under from playing organized tackle football in New York state. His is one of the strictest proposed legislations on kids and football in the country.

"Football demands physical contact on every single play," Benedetto says. "My intent is to protect our youngest from injuries they might sustain that may have a long-lasting effect on their development."

Plus: Why I'm Not a Football Fan

More and more research - including major studies released last year by Boston University and Harvard Medical School- has linked head trauma with long-term degenerative brain disease resulting in memory loss, depression and dementia.

Courtesy of Erin Zammett RuddyBy Erin Zammett Ruddy

Before Nick and I decided to have Nora, he said, out of the blue one day, "I think we should have another baby. It will ruin our relationship, but I think we should do it." I laughed, of course, but then I started thinking. Would having two kids ruin our relationship? Was it really a foregone conclusion? And why is it such a cliché that kids kill marriages? Is it because…it's true? A while back, while researching a story on the subject, I spoke with John Jacobs, M.D., a New York City couples therapist and author of All You Need is Love and Other Lies About Marriage. He said, "Couples often think that children solidify a marriage but the truth is they are a serious threat. The transition from couplehood to parenthood marks one of the greatest stressors on the life of a marriage." While that stress may dwindle over the years, it never completely goes away. And, says Jacobs, the wear and tear kids inflict on marriages is at an all-time high, thanks, in part, to

VeerBy Leonora Desar at Parenting.com

A Florida judge has approved a private adoption that will list a married lesbian couple and the biological father on the birth certificate of a 23-month-old baby girl, reports the The Miami Herald.

"We're creating entirely new concepts of families," Karyn J. Begin, the dad's attorney, told The Miami Herald. "If you have two women seeking to be listed as Parent One and Parent Two, that does not exclude listing a man as father."

The married lesbian couple, Maria Italiano and Cher Filippazzo, had tried using fertility treatments to become parents without success. They then approached their friend Massimiliano "Massimo" Gerina, a single gay hair stylist, about donating sperm. "I was flattered by it," Gerina told The Miami Herald. "I thought, what a great opportunity for me to have a baby."

Plus: Family Ties: An Adoption Story

The three made a verbal agreement before Italiano conceived using the donated sperm. Filippazzo planned to

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If you're trying to conceive, you might want to tell your guy to put down the remote. A new study from Harvard University shows that guys who love the boob tube could have lower sperm counts than those who limit their TV watching to less than 20 hours per week, NBC News reports.

According to the study, men who go over this recommended amount of viewing have a 44 percent lower sperm count than those who watched almost no TV. While 20-plus hours of tube time might seem like a lot, one of the authors of the study, Jose Chavarro, says many of us do in fact find that kind of time to veg out in front of the screen - it comes out to about three hours per day, which in those terms, may seem like a normal Tuesday night.

Plus: Why Low Sperm Count Is A Big Deal

TV might not be the only issue, either, since studies done on this subject during the past decade haven't taken into account lifestyle changes that may also affect sperm count, like what we're eating, all the

VeerBy Kimberly at Parenting.com

On a typical Friday evening in Frankfort, IL, Jennifer Sheridan and her daughter Aleksandra were on their way to McDonald's for dinner. Sheridan, who has type II diabetes, suddenly experienced a severe drop in her blood sugar and went into a diabetic shock, reports ABC News. She did not know what was happening and drove through a red light. The next thing she remembers is sitting in an ambulance.

Plus: Boy Gives Prize Money to Sick Neighbor

Aleksandra became aware that something was wrong when she noticed her mother driving erratically. Eventually the car veered off the road into a ditch-and that's when Aleksandra leapt into action. The girl turned off the ignition to prevent the car from hitting a tree, and then fed her mother a chocolate bar that she found in the car's cup holder, giving her tiny pieces so she wouldn't choke.

A passerby noticed the car go off the road and called 911. Once the police and fire department arrived on the

GettyBy Sasha At Parenting.com

Kids, back away from the snack packs. The World Health Organization is recommending that parents of children between the ages of two and 15 keep an eye on their child's sodium intake each day. These new guidelines, the first ever issued by the organization for children, are a response to the growing epidemic of high blood pressure in the United States. High blood pressure increases the risk of heart disease and stroke, the top cause of death worldwide.

Plus: Nutrition Labels Decoded

Although the official report didn't mention specific sodium level for children, the recommended maximum level of less than 2,000 mg daily for adults, also new, "should be adjusted downward based on the energy requirements of children relative to those of adults," according to the report. The average American child consumes 3,400 mg of sodium each day, according to 2012 study in Pediatrics.

Plus: How to Decrease Sodium in Your Diet

"Diet-related NCDs