I grew up without cable. “There are better things to do than watch TV,” said my mother. So I read books, did arts and crafts, and found a lot of ways to be constructive without 790 channels standing in my way. Sure, I watched movies and the occasional TV show (I have babysitters to thank for the latter), but television was never a priority, and I think it’s been pretty beneficial in my adult life.

However, more and more often one hears, “My son/daughter LOVES [insert TV show]” and less and less often I hear “My son/daughter LOVES [insert book]!” What the hell? Where’d all the books go? They turned into educational DVDs, that’s where.

However, I’ve uncovered yet aNOTHER study (click here to read the first one) that says that the less time kids spend being couch potatoes, the smarter they are.  Says LiveScience,

Even infants zone out in front of the television, and it turns out this translates into less time interacting with parents and possible lags in language development, a new study finds.

“We’ve known that television exposure during infancy is associated with language delays and attentional problems, but so far it has remained unclear why,” said lead researcher Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages television watching before the age of 2, a time when critical development, such as language acquisition, occurs. (Christakis said a baby’s brain triples in size during the first two years of life, so there’s a lot going on in that little noggin.)

Not popping in DVDs doesn’t mean you have to have a ton of time to spend with your kids, either. My mom was a single mom, and we got along just fine. Just let the kids do what you do! If you’re reading, read out loud and follow the words with your finger. Or let them read with you. If you’re cooking, let them stir. You’ll find that you have more time to spend with your kids than you thought, and eventually they might prefer a good book instead of another episode of Spongebob.

CHILD SAFETY: A Guide

[From Daily Mail]

It’s an age-old debate that divides the sexes –do women feel pain more profoundly than men?

And now – although experts are still divided – new evidence is emerging that women may indeed be more long-suffering.

A study presented recently to the International Association for the Study of Pain in Glasgow concludes that women generally experience more recurrent pain, more severe pain and longer lasting pain than men.

Not only this, but they feel pain in different ways to the opposite sex, offering different symptoms for the same conditions.

For example, a study in Sweden last year showed that women having heart attacks presented generalised pain in their shoulders and back, rather than shooting pain in the chest and left arm.

But headache expert Dr Andrew Dowson of East Kent Headache Services, says that gender can influence how readily you will admit to pain.

‘Figures show women are three times as likely to suffer from migraines – a serious, debilitating headache – than men are, which is partly due to their monthly hormonal cycle,’ he says.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

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[From YourTango]

Researchers used a version of the Love Attitude Scale, a quiz that asks people to describe how much they agree with various descriptions of love. Love Buzz found several versions of the quiz online. They include statements like “If you are going to love a person, you will ‘know’ after a short time” and “I could get over an affair with my partner pretty easily and quickly.”

The quiz shows how much you accept six types of love: Eros, Pragma, Banquet, Mania, Ludus and Storge. Yes, they sound like exotic birds or rivers in Greece, but they actually refer to various ways people think about the big l-o-v-e. Your values depend on your personality, and, to a large extent, on the culture you were brought up in.

Eros is passionate, physical, lustful love-the kind that gives you butterflies in your stomach and a tingling in certain other places.

Pragma is a practical love. People who conceive of love this way are pragmatic (you didn’t see that one coming, didja?) when looking for a partner. They choose their mate based on rational decisions about whom they fit best with.

Banquet is love that expresses itself through altruism, or making sacrifices for another person.

What are the other three types of love? Click here to find out, and tell us which one fits YOU the most!

What does your WALK say about you? Click here to find out.

Before you start thinking about love, you should probably define what relationship you’re in first.