Younger Children

Ethel Adams of Calvert County, a foster parent for 27 years to more than 100 children, was among 24 of Maryland' Most Beautiful Parents honored yesterday at the state's first Kids' Convention.Held at at Towson State University's Towson Center, the convention featured arts and crafts, science and music, as well as information on a range of serious topics. It continues from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today.At a picnic reception outside the convention, Mrs. Adams recalled rearing two of her foster children from infancy to adulthood after they were abandoned by their parents, in addition to caring for nine of her own children in the large seven-bedroom home she and her husband built in 1951 in Owings, about four miles from the Chesapeake Bay.She has remained in close touch with almost all of her children, she said, except for two boys who went to Germany for adoption.

In the row house-lined streets of the East Baltimore community of Oliver, seven children between the ages of 10 and 14 have been arrested by police in the past month on charges ranging from armed robbery to selling cocaine.The arrests have provoked soul-searching among residents looking for reasons why so many young children are getting ensnared in the drug trade and street crime."It's sad to see young children involved," said Officer Ed Bochniak, a narcotics investigator assigned to the Eastern District's "Zone 4" -- the Oliver community and parts of three adjoining neighborhoods.

When asked what teen-agers are reading these days, the manager of the recently opened Gordon's Children's Bookstore at the Rotunda comes back with a quick -- and glum -- response."

"WITH YOUNGER CHILDREN, FIND out what they know and what they want to know. Ask about their questions and vTC concerns, and answer those questions," advises Ernest Fleishman, Ph.D., director of education at Scholastics Inc., publisher of classroom magazines.Young children don't have a good grasp of geography, he says. If they're worried about an attack on America, it's better to tell them that the Gulf is "a very far-off place" and that it takes a long time to get here from there, rather than to try to show them on a map."

What started several months ago as a Columbia child's interest in preserving equatorial rain forests ended Saturday in the planting of about 350 seedlings along a stream bed behind an Ellicott City neighborhood.Sixteen carloads of children from Stevens Forest Elementary School in Columbia braved raw temperatures and about a half-mile of wet, prickly terrain to get to the banks of the Little Patuxent River near Pebble Beach Drive and David W. Force Park.In the distance, bulldozers were clearing land for a new development.

MOUNT AIRY - A bail hearing is expected to be conducted this week for Edwin F. Downs Jr., a 30-year-old Wind Ridge Road resident charged with shooting and killing his wife as she lay sleeping early Wednesday morning.Downs, a deliveryman for the Washington Post in Montgomery County, is charged with first-degree murder, second-degree manslaughter, using a handgun in the commission of a felony and battery. He is being held without bail at the Carroll County Detention Center pending the hearing.

Q.I am the mother of three girls, ages 5, 4 and 2. The older two tend to be very shy and timid. They do fine in groups of two to four other children but get overwhelmed in larger groups.They both attend preschool, and their teachers say they do not answer in groups. They're extremely shy around adults and do not even talk to those they know well, including grandparents.When an adult speaks to them, they just look down and try to hide behind me.I have read that shyness relates to self-esteem and that children can overcome it. What are your thoughts?

Finding too much in foster care study The Sun's editorial "Family ties" (July 16) derives a range of implications for foster care and group care policy based on a large study of children in Illinois. However, one very important point missed in the discussion of this large study is that the children in the study were ages 5 to 15 at the time of the family's investigation for child abuse and neglect and the child's admission into the study. If children were younger than 5, they were not included in the study - and kids in this young age group represent a substantial proportion of children who enter foster care in Baltimore.

With parents pushing computers at their kids today as soon as they're old enough to click a mouse button, it's not surprising that some of the best educational software on the market is aimed at younger children.Because this "edutainment" software, as it's known, leans heavily on animation and sound, it requires a bit of an investment in hardware, usually an 80386 computer with a big hard disk, a sound card and speakers. But here are three recent titles that can make the investment worthwhile:* It's hard to find a preschooler who hasn't enjoyed Richard Scarry's delightfully busy books, and Busytown, from Paramount Interactive Software, is faithful to Scarry's spirit of energy and exploration.

Fred Brown didn't think twice about taking his 16-year-old out of school for a week. Mr. Brown was going to Malaysia to a conference: The opportunity to introduce his son to another part of the world was too good to pass up."Travel is an education," says Mr. Brown firmly, acknowledging nonetheless that catching up afterward was difficult for the teen."The older the child, the harder it is," Mr. Brown says.He understands better than most the difficulties when youngsters miss school for family trips.