Day Care

Since its inception in 1991, the largest and longest-running study of American child-care has generated plenty of controversial — and to many working parents, infuriating — conclusions about the effects on kids of early care outside the family. The latest findings of the federally funded Early Child Care Research Network are certain to be no exception. At age 15, according to a study being published Friday in the journal Child Development, those who spent long hours in day care as preschoolers are more impulsive and more prone to take risks than are teens whose toddler years were spent largely at home.

Healthcare reform has made seniors, by and large, uneasy. Older Americans heard the words "cuts" and "Medicare" in the same sentence and were more likely to believe healthcare reform would hurt -- not help -- them. Lost in the maelstrom of misinformation, however, is the reality that the newly passed legislation lays the groundwork for greatly improving the full continuum of healthcare services for seniors, which includes renovating our nation's nonexistent long-term care system. With high numbers of adults over age 85 and the coming onslaught of aging boomers, creating a platform for meaningful long-term care reform could not have come at a better time.

Dear Amy: I'm a 23-year-old mother of two. My husband, "Mitchell," was laid off, so I went to work full-time. Mitchell feels that just being home with the kids is all he needs to do. I come home every day to a house that is a disaster. Day care is not an option because of one child's health needs. Please help. Distressed Dear Distressed: You and your husband should review responsibilities in your household and develop an organizational chart (the kids should also be given reasonable duties)

Two years ago, my husband and I pulled up stakes in L.A. and headed north so he could take a dream job with the California Conservation Corps. I, meanwhile, imagined myself penning a great oeuvre, ensconced in the pastoral splendor of a farmhouse and commuting to L.A. or San Francisco when other work called. Sure enough, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada we found wide-open land, scenic beauty and an opportunity to make a fresh start. Which, in retrospect, sounds a little like what brought the Donner Party up here too. And like those Western emigrants who didn't anticipate the mountains' heavy, early snow, neither one of us saw the avalanche of economic woe until it landed on our heads.

For years, Lia Grippo has taught outdoor activities to preschoolers, coaching them on the safest tree branches to climb and the sturdiest footholds on hills. So for Grippo, a steep slope at a Santa Barbara beach was a natural challenge for several young children in her care, including her two sons. But for state social services officials, the hill -- estimates of its height range from 85 to 125 feet -- was anything but child's play. Several weeks after alarmed spectators called police about three boys -- all barefoot and one naked -- climbing what they believed to be a dangerous slope, the state Department of Social Services suspended Grippo's home day-care license.

Cole hunkered in his car seat, refusing to get out of the car. Ry was strapped in his stroller next to me, waiting. I smelled a poopy. Maybe it was just bad gas. No, definitely a poopy. I fished around in my large purse for a stray diaper, my hand passing my journal, hoping it wasn't one of Ry's explosive squirt-up-the-back-of-his-diaper-onto-his-clothes-poops. "Why don't you like church?" I asked Cole. His face was doing the crumble thing. "I won't be gone that long," I said, already estimating how much time I could have.

Authorities on Wednesday raided a dogfighting operation that was being run out of a suburban Chicago day-care facility, arresting three people and seizing nine dogs that required surgery, authorities said. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said children "were playing on a swing set just 10 feet away from a vicious fighting dog and blood-stained floors. . . . To be engaged in this sort of activity is disturbing enough, but to take a chance with anybody's children is reprehensible." Dart said one dog was missing an eye and another had had its genitals nearly severed.

A home day-care provider was sentenced to 25 years in prison for letting her ex-boyfriend sexually abuse and film children, some of them infants, in her care. Concetta Jackson, 47, of Collingdale is the third and final person sentenced in what a federal judge called a "sociopathic" child pornography case. John Jackey Worman, 42, of Colwyn sexually abused victims from infants to teenagers and captured more than 1 million images and 11,000 videos of child pornography, prosecutors said.

State regulators want to revoke the child-care license of an Anaheim YMCA day-care center after two toddlers wandered off during an outing last month and were found on nearby railroad tracks. In a complaint filed this week, the Department of Social Services said the YMCA Children's Station violated California health and safety laws by failing to adequately supervise and protect the 2-year-old boys, who were discovered missing during a routine head count. They were returned unharmed.

State regulators are investigating a YMCA day-care center in Anaheim after two toddlers went missing during outdoor playtime and were found on nearby railroad tracks. Police received two calls about 4 p.m. Thursday from neighbors who reported two young boys on the tracks near the YMCA Children's Station at 100 S. Atchison St., Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez said . One of the callers took the 2-year-olds away from the tracks to safety, staying with them until officers arrived.