humanitarian
Pesticides Are Shown to be Linked to ADHD
As a concerned mother and a children’s author who cares very much for families and children, I found the following article to be both appalling and at the same time refreshing to know that such a critical issue is being exposed. While it has been known that pesticides used for our food and vegetable supply pose a variety of health risks, the fact that these same pesticides are linked to so-called ADHD in children is a truth that every parent needs to know about. Click here to read the full article. Afterwards, browse through this section of my website for MANY helpful tips, resources and information to improve …
Danny the Dragon Supports “The Cure”
A lovely response to a donation of my Danny the Dragon materials to a cause that I support dearly. Tina I came across a review for Tina Turbin‘s book Danny The Dragon “Meets Jimmy” on my friend’s blog. Because I have a child her son’s age and a child a bit younger, and because I trust her opinion on books that we will enjoy, I did not hesitate to order a copy of the book and audio CD for my own children. I have two kids, ages 4 and 2, who are bookophiles and I know they …
Mom’s Talking About 6-Year-Old Handcuffed and Committed in School
Times have been slowly but surely changing and it is stories like this that really can hit home as to the NEED for teachers and school officials to have some of their control taken into account. As a mother of three, and American citizen and a humanitarian I can not believe acts like this can not only occur but that they are. This is a story for every parent to read and every family to understand. When a simple call to a police official can get your pre-school or elementary school child handcuffed and placed in a mental institution, you …
Children Need Good Literature
The fact that kids need good literature is not a new one. Just look at the number of awards available in the United States alone to reward authors for superb children’s literature. The long list of such awards includes the Newbery Medal, Caldecott Medal, Coretta Scott King Award, and Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal. With such an extraordinary effort made to celebrate good children’s literature, there must be something important about it. I know how short the attention span of a child can be yet how thrilling it is to watch a child’s imagination partake in an exciting adventure …
Getting Involved in Your Child’s Education
First, make sure your child is well-rested and well-fed. A well-balanced diet, with nutritious meals at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and healthy snacks after school, has been shown to improve academic performance in children. Kids also need to be well-rested in order to focus during the day. Next, take advantage of every opportunity to meet your child’s teachers, such as parent-teacher or open-school nights. Not only will you make sure you’re not missing vital information, such as what the teacher expects of your child’s homework assignments, but you’ll show your child and his teachers that you care about …
Proceeds from Danny the Dragon CD Support Good Cause
If you’re like most Americans, you probably haven’t even heard of celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder which causes an immune reaction that can affect the entire body, causing both physical and mental problems. The cause? An allergy to gluten, a component of wheat, barley, and rye. The problem with celiac disease is that doctors don’t know much about it either. They don’t know that it affects an estimated 300 million Americans and that with a simple test, a diagnosis can be made and the easy treatment can begin—a gluten-free diet. An estimated 300 million Americans have celiac disease …
Literacy Statistics Need To Be Confronted by Parents
First, the most important thing you can do to ensure the literacy of your own child is being involved. Research on the effects of parental involvement shows a consistent, positive relationship between parents’ participation in their children’s education and their children’s academic performance. Reading to children and also homeschooling are a couple of ways for parents to increase their involvement and improve their children’s ability to read. Reading to children should be done as early as six months of age, as soon as babies develop an interest in the pictures and illustrations in books. Keep in mind that …
Speaking Out about Parental Involvement
Parents often ask me how to make their own family more like Jimmy’s in Danny Meets Jimmy. One answer is being actively involved in their children’s education and lives. Research on the effects of parental involvement shows a consistent, positive relationship between parents’ participation in their children’s education and their children’s academic performance. Studies show also that parental involvement is associated with lower dropout and truancy rates. There is no question anymore that parental involvement positively impacts the education of children. Parents often ask my how they can increase their involvement. If their children attend school outside the …
Danny the Dragon Supports Education for the Deaf
As an active literacy advocate, I do as much as I can to get kids reading to revert the literacy statistic of this country. However, it wasn’t until recently that I became aware of another alarming statistic—the literacy rate among deaf children. The average deaf child is diagnosed at two or three years of age for hearing loss. This means that there is a good chance that his language development has been severely affected, as the child may have been missing large portions of spoken language, if not all auditory experience, that hearing children get from birth. What’s worse, …




