Children, left alone with adults who are not their parents, run the risk of sexual abuse. How do we protect them?

As with medical professionals dealing with infectious diseases, standard precautions are the best option by treating everyone as though they are at risk. It protects the child and the adult working with them.

Let's first define what a child is.

Under State and Federal laws a child is anyone under the age of 18. That includes infants, babies, small children, pre-pubescent children, post-pubescent children and teenagers. That's quite a range of development when you think about it. Every single age-group is at risk for sexual abuse from those who view them as sexual objects.

History has amply demonstrated that allowing a child to be alone with an unsupervised adult is the single greatest risk. Clergy, sports coaches, therapists, teachers, doctors, dentists, babysitters, adolescents; you name the occupation, and you will find it has been used as a gateway to

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Smooch!BabyCenter just released a list of the most popular boy and girl names for 2012. What do these names show us as trends and expectations for our society? Based on Neimology® Science, which indicates personality traits based on names, our expectations for our girls has barely changed in the last two years. However, we continue to have higher and higher expectations for our boys.

More from YourTango: 7 Ways To Teach Your Kids The Importance Of Gratitude

To recap the names this year for girls, we expect our girls to be highly likeable as indicated by the 70% of the names in the top ten ending with the letter "A" or "Y." Notice that six out of those seven names ended in "A," indicating that not only did we want our girls knowing how to get along with others, but we also wanted them to be unwilling to change who they are to gain approval.

We don't want our women too smart as the letters that insist on continual growth and new knowledge are not present except in our number one name, Sophia.

Read More »from What This Year's Top Baby Names Say About Our Kids' Future Love Lives

Meet Kim Flores, the lovely photographer of Whimsy Baby Photo. Kim is a well-known newborn photographer who specializes in capturing those Anne Geddes-type photo sessions. But she doesn't just specialize in newborns - Kim spends tons of time behind the lens snapping babies, siblings, and whole families. She certainly has lots of practice with 5 little kids of her own. Here are 7 tips from Kim on capturing the perfect family photo. - By Casi Densmore Koon

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Read More »from 7 Professional Tips for Capturing the Perfect Family Photo

The real cause of most toddler meltdowns.

By Christina for TheBump.com

Thinkstock / The Bump











Picking up my three-year-old daughter, Lovie, from school at 3:30 p.m., like I do every day, I peeked into the window of her room and saw her sitting right in front of her teacher, who read from a book. One of her classmates saw me and feverishly started pointing in my direction while nudging Lovie. She followed the classmate's pointed finger, saw me standing there like a goofy madwoman waving and smiling, and frowned. I should've known then that the drive home would be hell-like.

The biggest toddler problems -- solved!

After we pulled out of the school's parking lot, Lovie asked for some water, so I gave her a bottle of water that had been sitting in my cup holder. "It's broke, Mama," she said.

"Well, we'll have to get a new one," I stupidly said.

So that's what she wanted: a new bottle of water. Right at that moment.

She proceeded to scream and cry while kicking the back of the passenger seat during the

Read More »from The Hangry Monster

The new dilemmas of child care during the digital age.

By Cynthia Ramnarace for TheBump.com













You've hired someone to take care of your baby. You've given them unfettered access to your home and your life. They know more about your daily habits than even your own mother does. But do you know how much of that information they're keeping to themselves and how much they're sharing with their online friends and followers? Here's a sampling of real tweets posted by nannies on Twitter:

"Being a nanny sucks the life out of me… Twin babies and 3-year-old boy for 6:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m."

And now the world knows exactly when that mom leaves for work and when she comes home.

"The little boy I babysit is having laser quest set up at his house for his 10th birthday."

And anyone who cares to look now knows how old the boy is and that his family has the coin to throw a pretty elaborate celebration.

Are you sharing too much about baby online?

Or what about the "Cutest kids ever!" tweet that linked

Read More »from How is Your Nanny Using Social Media?

Yes, working mama, you can streamline your a.m. routine.

By: Sarah @ When Regarding Ruffles for TheBump.com

I'm still pretty new at this whole mom thing, but one thing that I've learned so far is that mornings will forever be a bit more chaotic. If I thought that getting to work on time was challenging before our baby was born, then this is a whole new hurdle to jump over. I have a natural obsession to anally organize everything and anything down to the littlest detail, so you can only imagine how I approached our "new" morning routine with baby. Here are some of the new "rules" that our morning routine now includes to help us keep our sanity (which is super important to have, don't you agree?).

Limit time-consuming tasks.

As crazy as it sounds, I've tried to eliminate anything that takes time in the morning. If I'm going to shower, it needs to happen the night before. My outfit and lunch for the next day need to be ready to go before I hit

Read More »from 4 Ways to Get Out the Door Faster in the Morning

Still need inspiration for this year's photo card? Check out these creative baby and family cards for awesome ideas.

By The Editors for TheBump.com

© 2012 The Bump. All rights reserved.

More from The Bump:
Worst parenting advice ever heard
Fun ways to lose the baby weight!
Baby sleep myths -- busted
Top 10 fears of new moms

Read More »from Cute Baby Holiday Card Ideas

© iStockphoto

By: Sasha Emmons
A new online tool let parents calculate their child's chance of being overweight, reports MSNBC. Researchers at Imperial College London came up with a formula to predict which babies are at high risk for childhood obesity in the hopes that they can head off problems before they start.

Plus: Childhood Obesity Health Guide

Researchers came up with the formula based on risk factors like birth weight, parental BMI, number of people in the household, mother's type of employment and whether she smoked during pregnancy. It was developed using data from a 1986 study that followed 4,000 children in Finland. A study of the test, which gauged its accuracy using actual weights of kids in three counties, was published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Try the calculator here.

According to a recent Kaiser Permanente report, 7.3% of boys and 5.5% of girls can be classified as extremely obese. Rates of childhood obesity or excess weight have exploded over the past

Read More »from Will Your Child Become Obese?