Kids

The way Susan Reimer writes about spending the summer with kids, it's no wonder that many parents cringe at the thought of it. While reading her column ("Moms fight against summer of chaos," July 1), I was struck by how much my summertime experience with my children differs from the "summer of chaos" that Ms. Reimer depicts. It's all about attitude and if the prevailing attitude is that maintaining a functioning household is a foolhardy goal that will soon be run asunder by the daily rigors of "real" life, then it's no wonder that many parents regard spending two months with their children as a daunting and unpleasant task.

Summer may be bad for your child's health. Research compiled by the National Summer Learning Association and released Monday found that kids are at risk for gaining weight and not eating healthfully during the summer vacation. When kids are unhealthy it affects their ability to learn, said the non-profit that promotes learning during the summers months. The group encourages parents to take a proactive role to make sure their kids are getting enough exercise and not snacking too much while on vacation.

Here's a guest post from Gary Huggins and Richard E. Bavaria of the National Summer Learning Association: Summer vacation is a time when kids create memories for the future, memories that will last a lifetime. Unfortunately, it's also a time they forget important skills they have acquired from months of schooling. The result of this loss may stay with them for a lifetime. Research shows children usually score lower on standardized tests at the end of the summer than they do at the beginning.

Register your kids at KidsBowlFree and enjoy cheap bowling excursions until September. In Maryland, three Baltimore-area alleys ( Stoneleigh Lanes on York Road, Glen Burnie Bowl and Greenway Bowl in Odenton) are participating in the promotion, as well as lanes in Frederick and Easton. Sign up with your kids for the lanes nearest you and you'll receive coupons every week that you must print out to redeem for two free games per kid per day. You'll still have to pay for shoe rental at all three of the Baltimore-area lanes, but Stoneleigh also offers an unlimited shoe rental pass option.

This week my kids will be packing for summer camp with their Boy Scout troop. For my 15-year-old, it's a familiar routine. In fact, he complains he'll be bored because he's seen and done it all before. For the 11-year-old, it's a different story. This will be the first time he has spent an entire week away from home and he's nervous. He's always been rather ambivalent about outdoor camping. He doesn't like bugs, especially spiders. Now he knows he'll have to spend a week sleeping in a tent.

We expect every Republican to promulgate the Strong Father Model ("The father factor," Feb. 19). ColumnistRobert L. Ehrlich Jr.hints men are better than women because "boys need father-inspired discipline. " I have not set reasonable limits with my children as consistently as my wife, but I try to follow her example. Men are the ones who frequently injure and sometimes kill their children. Surely, Mr. Ehrlich should be in favor of readily-available contraception, and when that fails, abortion, to limit both fatal fatherhood and fatherlessness.

First Lady Michelle Obama comes to Baltimore's Camden Yards today to deliver a message to children that is a familiar mom mantra: Go outside and play. The First Lady's "Let's Move" program is, in many ways, a more sophisticated approach to the usual exchange between prodding mothers and inactive children. To combat childhood obesity, "Let's Move" wants healthier food served in schools, wants to eliminate so-called food deserts where nutritious food is hard to buy, wants to improve the stream of nutritional information to parents, and, finally, wants to increase physical education opportunities for kids.

When 11-year-old Benjamin Lausch competes in triathlons, his eye is on beating a boy from Pennsylvania named Daniel. Daniel competes in a lot of the same races as Benjamin and is "very, very fast. " Benjamin beat him once and hopes that with a little more time and practice he might one day catch Daniel again. Benjamin ran his first triathlon when he was 7 years old and has become fiercely competitive and hooked on the sport, which includes a run, swim and bike component. "I like the running mostly," said Benjamin, who lives in Mount Airy . Triathlons were once limited to adult competitors but are becoming popular among the younger set as well.

When it came time for me to cast my vote today, I knew I faced an important decision: to bring the kids or not? It was an easy choice: Since I had a little flexibility in my work schedule today, definitely yes. Isaac came with me as an infant to vote in the 2008 presidential election (though I was still on maternity leave, so work schedules didn't come into play at all). I brought him along in 2010, too, though I wasn't sure how he'd behave. I cast it as an adventure, and we lucked out and there weren't lines, so it all worked out. This was the first year that I thought Isaac -- at nearly 4-and-a-half -- might have an inkling of what the polling-place "adventure" was all about.

So the four of us are sitting in the ballpark the other night, with about 8,000 other Orioles fans and 8,000 Red Sox fans, when someone says, "All these empty seats, why don't they give them away to kids?" The reference is to the upper deck, massively empty on a Wednesday night, with the Bostons in town and, more importantly, the young Orioles showing late-summer promise in the franchise's 13th consecutive losing season. It's a school night, of course, but attendance was only marginally better on a recent Saturday afternoon, before the kids went back to class.