Child

ABOUT one in 50 Americans is adopted, between 6 and 7 million people. We constitute a significant, if largely invisible, minority, and a lot of us are angry at what we see as a deprivation of a fundamental civil liberty: the right to see our original birth certificates.A little background:Adoption is a contract between a birth parent relinquishing her child, a set of prospective parent, and some intermediary, generally an adoption agency. While "the best interests of the child" are supposed to govern the transaction, the child, (or, more precisely, the adult the child will become)

Taking the witness stand to defend himself against charges of abuse and murder in the death of his young son, John J. Griffin said yesterday he had been too busy with work to notice the boy's worsening condition, and that he had not seen any wounds on the child before taking him to the hospital, where a doctor pronounced him dead. In the two months preceding the death of Andrew Griffin on Dec. 26, 2007, when he was almost 3 years old, his father said he was so consumed with his job as a computer systems engineer that he sometimes worked 18-hour stints and, leaving home early and returning late, would often not see Andrew for days at a time.

The Harford County woman convicted Wednesday of manslaughter in the death of a toddler who ingested methadone will serve five years in prison. Elaine Marie Butler, 54, of Darlington was sentenced yesterday to a 10-year sentence with five years suspended and will be placed on supervised probation upon release. Butler, who worked for years as a registered nurse, also was barred from practicing in that profession, either for hire or as a volunteer. Harford Circuit Judge Stephen M. Waldron imposed the sentence after hearing statements from relatives of Ashton Preston, the 16-month-old boy who died after Butler mistakenly gave him a children's cup that contained methadone in December 2004.

Late one night, a small boy sits alone on his bed and describes in a soft, shaky voice the Baltimore neighborhood in which he lives. "I'd like to not have to be worried all the time that somebody's murdering somebody else outside -- and that the murderer might come in the house and get me, too," he says. On TV My Life as a Child airs at 7 p.m. Mondays for the next six weeks on The Learning Channel (TLC).

These learning games use everyday household items and can be fun for you and your child to do together during the summer months.Vocabulary: Using dry lima beans, write a word to be reviewed on each with a fine-tipped marker. Place five to 10 beans into a small can. Let your child shake out the beans and read each word, then use it in a sentence.Comprehension: Write a sentence on a strip of paper. Then cut the sentence apart into individual words and place them in a lunch bag. Have your child empty the bag and put the sentence together.

A Florida man, who was arrested and charged with sexually abusing a teen-age girl last year while he lived in Sykesville, pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of child abuse.Ellwood Fulkroad, 47, of Naples will be sentenced Nov. 22 by Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr., court documents show.Under the plea agreement, Fulkroad will be incarcerated for no more than five years and assault and sexual offenses charges against him were dropped.Court documents said Fulkroad abused the girl, now 14, between April 1, 1998, and Sept.

Youth athletic program getting too big, greedyBefore night lights, youth baseball games in the Howard County Youth Program wound down on spring school nights a little past 8 o'clock. There was still time for a late dinner, time to get ready for the next school day, time to be in bed at a reasonable hour.The fields then were adequate but not perfect, the umpires were the unpaid coaches of the other teams, and parts of the uniforms were recycled year to year. Siblings vied to hang the score numbers on the scoreboard, and only the championship teams were awarded trophies at the end of the season.

" 'How old must a child be before you start reading to him?' That is the question I am most often asked by parents."In answer, I ask one of my own. 'When did you start talking to the child? Did you wait until he was six months old?'"Most people can't imagine reading to that same child. And that's sad. If a child is old enough to talk to, she's old enough to be read to. It's the same language."-- From Jim Trelease in his book, "The Read-Aloud Handbook"

NEW DELHI, India -- Prashant Vyas, a chemical plant manager, has spent most days over the past three months assembling puzzles, stringing beads and filling in coloring books with his 3-year-old son, Sumant. Sometimes they even recite poems together. It is not for the fun of it. It is a grind.Vyas saved vacation time to stay home so he could prepare his child to pass entrance tests for kindergarten. Before bedtime, he and his wife, Alpana, rehearse answers to questions that might crop up during interviews with admission committees.

Editor's note: Today, reading specialist Susan Rapp discusses the benefits of electronic toys and provides guidelines for selecting them. On Wednesday's Parent & Child page, she will review specific toys appropriate for emerging readers.Somewhere between the phonics workbooks and the high-tech CD-ROM games are new products that can motivate and entertain while providing serious learning of reading skills. These include electronic toys, which are more portable than personal computer games and more interesting than paper and pencil tasks.

Parents who fear getting separated from their children at amusement parks, beaches and other vacation spots are turning more often to new high- and low-tech safety devices. GPS tracking devices with wander alerts emit beeps or vibrations when a child strays too far. Digital watches and apparel have high-decibel alarms. And there's the SafetyTat, a waterproof tattoo created by a Baltimore-area mom who wanted to attach her phone number to her child; a half-million have been sold. But even as these products allow adults to breathe more easily, experts caution that they shouldn't replace parental monitoring - and common sense.

Taking the witness stand to defend himself against charges of abuse and murder in the death of his young son, John J. Griffin said yesterday he had been too busy with work to notice the boy's worsening condition, and that he had not seen any wounds on the child before taking him to the hospital, where a doctor pronounced him dead. In the two months preceding the death of Andrew Griffin on Dec. 26, 2007, when he was almost 3 years old, his father said he was so consumed with his job as a computer systems engineer that he sometimes worked 18-hour stints and, leaving home early and returning late, would often not see Andrew for days at a time.

When 2-year-old Bryanna Harris was found dead two years ago of a methadone overdose, the outcry was as much against the state child protective services division, which had left Bryanna in the care of an irresponsible parent, as against her drug-addicted mom. To its credit, the agency launched an investigation of what went wrong and made its report public. The head of Baltimore's Department of Social Services resigned, and two caseworkers were later fired; another supervisor was disciplined.

Ten a.m. A phone call from my daughter's school, and instantly the father's mind goes to Dark Foreboding, but no - this is her teacher calling to say that the child scored 96 on the spelling test. The child's instant reward is the phone call home and the words of praise. She sits at her desk pretending not to listen, basking in the acclaim. Well done. Having begotten a good speller is no small matter to a writer. Writing is an act of paying attention, and if you don't care about the difference between "their" and "there" or "needle" and "noodle," then I am sorry for you. The teacher's praise of my child is a large moment in the day. I live with fear, as any parent does.

The mother of a newborn child who was found dead in a trash bin behind a Charles Village church has been charged with first-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death, according to court records. Melanie Beth Blevins, 22, of Westminster had been staying at St. John's Methodist Church in the 2600 block of St. Paul St. as part of a training program with a Christian volunteer organization when she went to the hospital Oct. 4 complaining of abdominal pains. Doctors discovered during an examination that she had recently had a baby.

A local father who reads the Charm City Moms blog asked me: "How do we get our 3-year-old out of our bed?" Kim West, a Severna Park social worker who tackles children's sleep problems as "The Sleep Lady," says that many of her clients start out committed to "co-sleeping" with their young kids, but find it doesn't quite work out for them. "I also encounter lots of 'we didn't plan it this way' couples seeking help in finally breaking the pattern. These families end up missing their privacy, or they end up just not getting very much sleep."

CKisMom wanted advice on nighttime potty training for her 3 1/2 -year-old, who uses the bathroom by himself during the day but still needs a pull-up at night. He doesn't drink much before bed and uses the bathroom before lights out, but isn't staying dry. Dr. Katherine Hopkins, a pediatrician with Box Hill Pediatrics in Abingdon, says it's common for kids to wet the bed until they're as old as 7. "If there is a family history of bedwetting, then a later age for night-time control is common," she wrote.

On Monday, I wrote a column criticizing the McCain campaign for what I saw as a cynical attempt to gather in unhappy women voters by naming Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin his vice presidential candidate and for exploiting the poignant story of her youngest child to appease the Republican Party's pro-life base. And then the storm began. More than 8,200 comments were posted to the column on The Baltimore Sun's Web site. I received more than 700 personal e-mails and about 50 phone calls. The column was mentioned by Rush Limbaugh and Brit Hume.

Ricky Ratliff couldn't believe his eyes. Standing on a corner near his West Baltimore home was a little boy, maybe 2 years old, in pajamas and flip-flops. There was no one else in sight, and the child looked as though he was about to amble across the street. "It was really crazy," Ratliff recalled yesterday morning, a day after he saw the boy at West Lanvale Street and North Warwick Avenue. "Who let this kid out here? He looked like a little kid looking for his mom." Ratliff, a 53-year-old commercial artist, said he walked up to the boy, later identified as Nazaiah Johnson, and asked him, "Hey, little man, where's your mother at?"

The Harford County woman convicted Wednesday of manslaughter in the death of a toddler who ingested methadone will serve five years in prison. Elaine Marie Butler, 54, of Darlington was sentenced yesterday to a 10-year sentence with five years suspended and will be placed on supervised probation upon release. Butler, who worked for years as a registered nurse, also was barred from practicing in that profession, either for hire or as a volunteer. Harford Circuit Judge Stephen M. Waldron imposed the sentence after hearing statements from relatives of Ashton Preston, the 16-month-old boy who died after Butler mistakenly gave him a children's cup that contained methadone in December 2004.