Parents

The Howard County Office of Children's Services is offering a workshop for parents, Parenting in the Digital Age, Thursday, Oct. 25, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at The Bain Center, 5470 Ruth Keeton Way, in Columbia. The workshop covers parents concerns about online activity, including bullying, inappropriate use of photos, setting limits at home and at school, use of social media, and texting and driving. Panel discussion follows, with representatives from the school system, police, local community programs and student speakers.

Once again, our community mourns the senseless death of a young person due to the mixture of alcohol and driving ("Ex-River Hill player charged in fatal DUI," Nov. 30). Even though we continually try to educate and warn teens about the dangers of drinking and driving, it still remains the leading cause of death for the 15-to-25-year-olds. Every weekend there are parties held where underage drinking occurs and teens begin to play Russian roulette with their lives. Being teenagers, most of them feel invincible and think these tragedies only happen to someone else.

Updated Dec. 7, 2012, 5:41 p.m.: Alonso released the following statement “I have been gathering the facts. This is an important and sensitive issue and I do not want to react without understanding exactly what happened, both at the school and district level, since obviously balls were dropped. I plan to meet with central office staff on Monday if I am back and with principals on Thursday and Friday of next week. " He said he was out Thursday, the day of the parent meeting, for a family emergency.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh said his parents are doing well despite just being two days away from watching their sons play for conference championships. Harbaugh and the Ravens travel to Foxborough, Mass., to meet the New England Patriots on Sunday at 3 p.m. Less than four hours later, Jim Harbaugh and the San Francisco 49ers are scheduled to play host to the New York Giants. John Harbaugh was asked after Friday's practice about the emotional state of his parents, Jack and Jackie Harbaugh.

It was pure coincidence that Maurice Sendak died on the same day that North Carolina voters approved an amendment to their state constitution banning gay marriage. And the same day that Joe Biden was in the hot seat for his comment over the weekend that he is "comfortable" with marriage equality. One wouldn't know from reading The Sun's appreciation that Mr. Sendak was gay. He lived with his partner, psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn, for 50 years until Glynn's death in 2007, according to a 2009 article in the New York Times.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Barely six months after a judge allowed a Florida teen-ager to remain with the man who had reared her after she had been switched at birth, the girl has suddenly moved in with her biological parents, with whom she had severed all ties.After a meeting Tuesday attended by both sets of parents, their lawyers and state-appointed guardians, 15-year-old Kimberly Mays left the YMCA shelter in Sarasota where she had been living for the past week and joined the family of Ernest and Regina Twigg in Sebring, about 70 miles from here.

As a pediatrician-in-training, I encounter too many teens who have fallen victim to school-based and cyber bullying. A particularly memorable encounter was with a young man in high school who was admitted to the hospital for severe pain. Several days later, when all of our tests and imaging couldn't find the cause, he finally admitted that he was the victim of severe and constant bullying at school and just couldn't bear to go back. The measures being taken by states across the country to limit bullying and the Safe Schools Improvement Act are necessary and a great first step in addressing this pervasive issue ("Schools, parents try to keep pace with cyber-bullying tactics," April 22)

Carroll County school officials told a grandmother to stop coming to her grandchild's class after she spent two weeks studying the teacher. A Baltimore County teacher recalls being threatened physically by a parent who happened to be a boxer. And in Howard County, overbearing parents are becoming such a concern that more than half the teachers surveyed say they have experienced "harassing behavior." For the past two years, 60 percent of the teachers responding to a job satisfaction survey conducted by the Howard County Education Association reported that they have been subjected to harassment.

A new strain of hand-foot-and-mouth disease has been sickening local children and sending many scared parents to the pediatrician and emergency room, according to Johns Hopkins pediatric dermatologists . But the doctors say most cases are benign and clear up in a little over a week without treatment. Hopkins doctors have seen almost 50 cases in recent months and fielded many more phone calls from parents and doctors, according to Dr. Bernard Cohen, director of pediatric dermatology at Hopkins Children's Center . And he said most cases are probably seen in primary care pediatricians' offices.

A prominent Idaho businessman has lost his job after allegedly slapping a toddler on a plane when the child wouldn't stop crying. While many parents and fliers can agree that "Toddlers on a Plane" would be a terrifying premise for a film, most of us can figure out that hitting a stranger's child is not OK. But what steps can parents take to lessen their children's impact on other passengers? Some people swear by slipping kids a little Benadryl , but I've never gone this route.