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Children brought up by parents practising "tough love" are likely to become more rounded personalities with well-developed characters than those who face either a more authoritarian or laissez-faire approach, research reveals today.

The study, by the think tank Demos, tracked the lives of 9,000 families and found that 13% used a "tough love" approach, which combines warmth and discipline. It did not matter whether the parents were rich or poor – those that adopted the approach brought up children who were more likely to be empathetic, more able to control their emotions and bounce back from disappointment, and more capable of sticking with things, concentrating and completing tasks. The research found that it was the style of parenting, rather than income or social background, that developed the strength of character.

When I tell nonmedical friends that our clinic is vaccinating children against the H1N1 flu virus, here is what they say.

With about half, it is something like: “Oh, my God, our doctor doesn’t have it! Can you get me a dose?” And with the other half, it is something like, “Oh, my God, that brand-new vaccine — do you really think it’s safe?”

via nytimes.com

"We're incredibly lucky that we have it" - my thoughts exactly. Whatever my worries about the untested H1N1 vaccine, there are no side effects worse than the worst side effects from complications of swine flu.

Children, especially as they get older, don’t necessarily want you there more. But they do want you to be less grumpy when you are around. They don’t mind if you work, but they do mind if your work makes you a sourpuss. They don’t like the rush and chaos of busy modern motherhood. They just, as the children in the original survey said, want you to do something quite simple: enjoy spending time with them. Now, was that so hard?

LeapFish, an upcoming search and social media innovator, today unveiled the new multi-media and real-time search, communication, and sharing platform that gives consumers the most convenient, fun, and personalized way to experience and share the traditional and real-time Web - the new "Living Web." The LeapFish search experience empowers consumers with the ability to manage the two things they do most often online: "search" and "share." "Real-time and social are major movements and it's time consumers are empowered with an ability to share to the real-time and social Web when they are most engaged - while searching the Web," said Ben Behrouzi, Founder and CEO of LeapFish.

EWG's ingredient guide for children's products highlights 20 common ingredients of concern.

As EWG writes, "with no required safety testing, companies that make personal care products can use almost any chemical they want, regardless of risks."

Millions of children in the United States between the ages of 1 and 11 may suffer from suboptimal levels of vitamin D, according to a large nationally representative study published in the November issue of Pediatrics, accompanied by an editorial. The study, led by Jonathan Mansbach, MD, at Children's Hospital Boston, is the most up-to-date analysis of vitamin D levels in U.S. children. It builds on the growing evidence that levels have fallen below what's considered healthy, and that black and Hispanic children are at particularly high risk.

My children take Vitamin D supplements for this reason. What about yours?

A blogger who reviews a product - --- but leaves out whether he or she got a payment, high-value gift or free vacation to write the review -- could run afoul of new federal regulations on advertising.

The blogger rules, announced last week by the Federal Trade Commission, are part of revisions to the agency's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Is Google Wave trying to assimilate the internet?

The boffins at Google sat down and asked "what would email look like if it was invented today?" Their answer is Google Wave, a new service that's been available to developers for a few months and has just expanded to include around 100,000 early adopters.

When consumers shell out premiums of 50% or more to buy organic, they are voting for the Butterworks ethic. They believe humans should be prudent custodians not only of their own health but also of the land and animals that share it. They prefer food produced through fair wages and family farms, not poor workers and agribusiness. They are responding to tales of caged chickens and confined cows that never touch a blade of grass; talk of men losing fertility and girls becoming women at age nine because of extra hormones in food. They read about pesticides seeping into the food supply and genetically modified crops creeping across the landscape.

We eat organic for all these reasons, choosing to spend less money on other household items so we can afford to do so, so it concerns me that not all organic produce meets the high standards we may, as consumers, expect:

As food companies scramble to find enough organically grown ingredients, they are inevitably forsaking the pastoral ethos that has defined the organic lifestyle. For some companies, it means keeping thousands of organic cows on industrial-scale feedlots. For others, the scarcity of organic ingredients means looking as far afield as China, Sierra Leone, and Brazil -- places where standards may be hard to enforce, workers' wages and living conditions are a worry, and, say critics, increased farmland sometimes comes at a cost to the environment.