A Child Is Shot To Death Every Other Day In The U.S.

Kids have faced tragic levels of gun violence in the three years since Sandy Hook...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gun-deaths-children_566f1e4ee4b0e292150ec036

El Nino threatens millions of children in Africa: UN

Water shortages, hunger, and disease could affect 11 million kids in southern Africa, warns UNICEF. Read more

TIL In Finland, nearly every newborn is sent home with a free, government-issued cardboard box.

It contains clothes, blankets, and other newborn necessities, and the Baby Box itself - which is lined with a mattress - can be used as the child's first bed.

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How Child Care Is Becoming A Crisis In America

The cost of child care is increasing squeezing middle class families and has become unaffordable for many low-income families. ... Read more

Americans Actually Like Michelle Obama’s Healthier School Lunches

"People in the U.S. overwhelmingly support strong nutrition standards and believe school meals are healthier and on the right ... Read more

Student Punished For Atheism

***Explicit Language***
Lawsuit alleges: 7-year-old quizzed on religion, ordered to sit alone at lunch for telling classmates he didn’t believe in God.
https://youtu.be/a4iBr6DxObU

US lawsuits filed over handcuffing of disabled children

Officer allegedly used "excessive force" when handcuffing two children for misbehaving in Kentucky school. Read more
https://youtu.be/9eWrBbYHJAA

Indiana School Teacher Persecutes 7-Year-Old Because He Doesn’t Believe In God

A second grade student was persecuted by his teacher because he told a classmate he didn't believe in God. Read more

Elderly couple provides 'safe school' in their home: a solution to bullying?

Fred and Vivian Morgan say they have successfully helped 20 troubled children recover from years of bullying in their Warwick, England home-turned-sch... Read more

The Kids Are Not All Right: College Mental Health Needs an Intervention

Big Think and the Mental Health Channel are proud to launch Big Thinkers on Mental Health, a new series dedicated to open discussion of anxiety, depression, and the many other psychological disorders that affect millions worldwide.
http://youtu.be/fHTt_-9Pvuc

Undercover Cop Tricks Autistic Student into Selling Him Weed (Full Length)

This is the story of Jesse Snodgrass, a kid with Aspergers Syndrome who was entrapped by an undercover cop posing as a student at Jesse's high school. This is the story of how the war on drugs preys on the most vulnerable.
https://youtu.be/8af0QPhJ22s

Laws to Protect LGBTQ Students Fail to Gain Traction on Federal or State Levels

“If a gay child is relentlessly harassed by his classmates, if a principal tells a girl that she can’t go to her senior prom because she wants to bring another girl as her date, or if a school just stands by as teachers, students, and other administrators refer to a transgender child as not he or she but ‘it’—there is no law that was written to protect those children,” Franken said. “Our laws fail those children. And that is just wrong. But we can change that.”
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/07/27/laws-protect-lgbtq-students-fail-gain-traction-federal-state-levels/

Secrets Teachers Don’t Want You To Know

http://youtu.be/WAT3CeWrCrU

A Parent's Day for Everyone

...Michigan's law and the proposed legislation in Florida and Texas would allow state-funded child placement agencies to use religion as a basis for discriminating against potential parents. While these bills implicitly target same-sex couples, the language is so broad that these agencies could also discriminate against interracial, interfaith, or non-religious couples...
https://www.secular.org/blogs/anonymous/parents-day-everyone#sthash.yNZ1VEyD.dpuf

The Criminalization of Mentally Ill Juveniles

A 15-year study shows juvenile incarceration has a profound impact on mental health. ... Read more

Foster Children, Disjointed Families (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

All too often the evening news carries some gut wrenching story of children mistreated by their parents. But abuse is actually not the reason most children go to foster care: they are there because of neglect. But what does that actually mean? And do parents get a chance to clean up their act? And does anybody help them? Those were the kinds of questions filmmaker Stephanie Wang Breal tried to answer in her new documentary, “Tough Love.” This hour On Point: an inside look at the child welfare system through the eyes of two parents trying to get their children back. / Michel Martin
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2015/07/06/tough-love-foster-care-pbs-documentary

Adolescent Alcohol Exposure leads to Brain Abnormalities in Adulthood

"Human adolescence is a crucial stage of neurological development during which ethanol (EtOH) consumption is often at its highest. Alcohol abuse during adolescence may render individuals at heightened risk for subsequent alcohol abuse disorders, cognitive dysfunction, or other neurological impairments by irreversibly altering long-term brain function. To test this possibility, we modeled adolescent alcohol abuse (i.e., intermittent EtOH exposure during adolescence [AIE]) in rats to determine whether adolescent exposure to alcohol leads to long-term structural and functional changes that are manifested in adult neuronal circuitry."

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Protect the Children (Freethought Radio, June 27, 2015)

After reporting FFRF victories in Arkansas and Wisconsin and complaining about a loose-cannon Florida sheriff who preaches in uniform, Annie Laurie analyzes what is wrong with the pope’s recent encyclical on climate change and what is right about South Carolina’s move to remove the confederate flag. Then we talk with Rita Swan, founder and director of C.H.I.L.D—Children’s Healthcare is a Legal Duty—about her decades-long effort to fight the religious medical neglect of children after she lost her own child due to Christian Science practices.
Interview:
http://ffrf.org/news/radio/show-items/item/23162-freethought-radio-june-27-2015

An International Embarrassment

Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke on the Senate floor about child poverty and youth unemployment in America.
http://youtu.be/wk0-eKo5rIk

Freedom, Not Fries? Texas Official Wants Deep Fryers Back In Schools

... Miller insists his proposal is not about treating kids to fried food. "We're all about what our country was founded on — we're about giving our school districts freedom, liberty and individual responsibility," says Miller, a Tea Party Republican and former state representative, who is rarely seen in public without his white cowboy hat...
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