Parenting

When other toddlers fall into blissfully silent slumber, does your wee one begin a noisy night of grunting, gasping and sawing? If so, brace yourself, because the terrible twos may just be the beginning of your child's trying behavior, says a new study. The research found that children who snore persistently at 2 and 3 years of age were rated by their caregivers as more difficult, with behavior that tended toward hyperactive, inattentive, irritable and depressed. Other studies have found that as persistent snorers get older, those behavioral difficulties persist.

Under California's "parent trigger" law, parents at underperforming public schools can force dramatic changes in management if half or more sign a petition. It's a well-intentioned law that school reformers have applauded, but it is desperately in need of certain fixes. The most recent example involves a rule that was intended to bring more openness to the process - but which in practice appears to disenfranchise some parents. The issue came up in last month's successful campaign to transform 24th Street Elementary in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Why do some children of mean, neglectful or downright toxic parents become rotten human beings themselves, while their siblings thrive cheerfully? And why do certain offspring of loving, attentive parents grow into well-adjusted adulthood while their siblings become sour misanthropes?  In short, why does good parenting only sometimes produce good kids, and bad parenting only sometimes produce bad kids? The answer may lie in the genes. Specifically, the almost-famous 5-HTTLPR serotonin transporter-promoter gene, which governs the activity of the mood chemical serotonin in the brain and essentially comes in three varieties.

School district officials have reversed a decision that cost a top-performing Los Angeles campus about $300,000 in funding after parents uncovered evidence that a bureaucratic error led to the loss of funds. Five other schools also are likely to get more dollars as well. L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy acknowledged Friday that internal confusion resulted in several schools failing to qualify for federal Title 1 money. "Services that they had counted on will not be lost," Deasy told The Times.

The New York middle school students caught on video taunting and mocking a 68-year-old school bus monitor don't deserve to be punished, says parenting expert Jane Nelson. Everyone else in America might be calling for harsh, swift justice to be meted out by both the Greece Central School District and the parents of the kids involved. But not Nelson. Co-author of two dozen parenting books including the "Positive Discipline" series, Nelson says the traditional means of punishment -- yelling, shaming, hitting, grounding, etc. -- are counterproductive.

Compared with other ethnic groups, Hispanic adults spend very little time engaging in leisure time activity. And their lack of playtime may be contributing to their kids' sedentary habits--and excess weight, says new research . The authors of the study, published this week in the journal Pediatrics , note that compared with non-Hispanic white kids, Hispanic kids between age 6 and 17 are much more likely to be physically inactive ...

It wasn't surprising that the federal trial on Proposition 8 in January confirmed that the same-sex marriage ban is destructive to family life and discriminatory toward a group that has historically been subject to abuse. What did surprise us: Some of the strongest arguments in favor of same-sex marriage were made by those opposing it. Closing arguments in the case will be heard Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, more than four months after testimony ended. Even so, it's easy to recall some of the startling moments of the trial.

On school reform: No attempts to reform our nation's public school system (or any other attempts at societal reform) will prove to be wholly effective until we come to the realization that full-time parenting entails far more than staying home and giving teas and baking cookies! KATHY BROWN San Juan Capistrano

The Times Poll was highly discriminatory toward working women, as evidenced by the timing and structure of the survey questions (June 13). For example, although respondents were asked their views about working women's parenting capability and emotional connection to their children, noticeably absent were questions along those same lines about working men. This survey only serves to perpetuate the notion that women should stay at home and are largely held...

It was an especially good week to be 8 years old. First, the little guy got a barrage of presents. Like waves of Union forces over the rural fences of Georgia and Arkansas, the gifts kept coming. Just when you thought, "That's it, right?" there would be another three or four under the tree. Baseball bats and sweatshirts and electronics that only an MIT professor could understand. The little guy got this one game, I swear, that was so impossible to assemble that I finally gave up. I am not the quitting sort, but I do value the next 12 to 15 years of my life.

DineEquity Inc. isn't a name that would be familiar to most people, but they've probably eaten at one of the Glendale company's well-known restaurant chains: Applebee's and IHOP. The first International House of Pancakes opened in 1958 in Toluca Lake, a family-friendly place that inspired the IHOP Corp. chain and introduced children to colored syrups and gooey, whipped-cream-covered chocolate-chip pancakes. That company acquired the larger Applebee's chain in 2007 and became DineEquity the following year.

A group of parents and students have filed a federal lawsuit against the Compton school district alleging a pattern of abuse and racial profiling of Latinos by school police. One family alleged that school police targeted a student's father for arrest and deliberately got him deported to Mexico after he filed a complaint against an officer. In another incident, school officers allegedly beat, pepper sprayed and used a chokehold on a bystander who was taking video of an arrest on his iPod, and erased cellphone videos taken by students.

The 131-character dispatch arrived mournfully within two hours of sunrise May 4, at 7:58 a.m. to be exact. "When u give Give GIVE and they take Take TAKE at wat point do u draw a line in the sand?" Kobe Bryant wrote on his Twitter feed, adding the hashtags "hurt beyond measure," "gave me no warning," and finally, "love?" Bryant's career with the Lakers has often been pushed aside by internal family matters, the recent court battle over his memorabilia the latest in a string of cheerless events.

A 16-year-old girl was found guilty Friday of murdering her mother and stepfather, capping a two-week trial in which the teen admitted driving to buy party supplies while her mother's decomposing body was in the back of her vehicle. Jurors quickly rejected defense arguments that Cynthia Alvarez was an innocent victim of horrific abuse who had been helpless as her violent teenage boyfriend killed her parents in her Compton mobile home in October 2011. After deliberating about three hours, the jurors found her guilty of first-degree murder in both killings, with some members of the panel saying outside court in Compton that they believed Alvarez plotted and actively participated in the slayings.

Hoping to reduce the number of infant deaths, Los Angeles County officials unveiled a campaign Wednesday to educate parents about how to safely put their babies to bed. Over the last four years, 278 babies in the county have died from suffocating while they were sleeping - more than all other accidental deaths of children under age 14, officials said. The deaths are more common among Latino and black babies, officials said. "Accidental suffocation poses the greatest risk for babies from 1 day to the age of 1," said Deanne Tilton Durfee, executive director of the county Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect.

It's a new front in the long-running battle over reproductive rights, playing out this time as a clash between politics and science. Doctors say there's no medical reason to keep girls of any age from having easy access to the morning-after contraceptive known as Plan B. A judge's ruling last month would do away with current age restrictions. But the Justice Department appealed that ruling last week. The Obama administration wants to make the over-the-counter pill off-limits to girls younger than 15, unless they have a prescription.

Thank you, Daniel Akst, for the playful, provocative rebuttal to the contemporary, foolish experiment with part-time parenting, (Editorial Pages, Dec. 17), "From Instant Child to Instant Childhood--It's a Miracle!" But don't tell me there's no way to raise children on the quick. There are infinite variations on the techniques of neglect which have long passed as acceptable parenting. Mr. Akst describes one (common) way in which one notices the kid when he is 5 years old, again when he is 10 and finally again when he is 15 (probably only because he has resorted to spiky, pink hair in order to get the attention.

Scottish playwright Sharman MacDonald's 1984 play "When I Was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout . . .," at the Odyssey, explores the fractious nature of the mother-daughter dynamic with humor and savage insight. MacDonald's recent feature film, "The Winter Guest," co-written with Alan Rickman and starring the real-life mother-daughter team of Phyllida Law and Emma Thompson, ventures into much the same territory--but with a much chillier, more bleak sensibility.

OAKLAND - Grief and disbelief reverberated from the Bay Area to the Central Valley on Monday as questions multiplied about a limousine fire that killed five women and injured four on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge. Although officials said they had yet to review the limousine's maintenance record or examine its burned-out shell, California Highway Patrol Capt. Mike Maskarich said the 1999 Lincoln Town Car was licensed to carry only eight passengers, though nine were inside. The Saturday night inferno trapped the women as they headed for what was to be a celebratory bridal party at a hotel.

SACRAMENTO - Social network sites such as Facebook would be required to remove personal information about minors when asked to do so by their parents under a measure approved by state senators Thursday. Separately, the lawmakers voted to allow misdemeanor rather than felony charges in cases of simple possession of heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs. The two bills were among several sent to the Assembly for consideration. The Internet measure was approved despite opposition from firms including Google, Facebook, Zynga and Tumblr, which called the proposed rules unnecessary, unworkable and in violation of teenagers' free-speech rights.