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Teen pregnancies and births in Minnesota dropped sharply in 2014, according to a state report released Wednesday, extending a long trend and defying a common misconception that today’s youths are hypersexual. Minnesota’s teen birthrate dropped by 8 percent in 2014 — and has fallen 58 percent since 1990 — reaching 15.5 births per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19, the report showed. “It flies in the face of what many people tend to think is going on with teenagers — that things are as bad as ever,”...

When I hear the word "resilience" in the context of helping children or students to manage their toxic stress, I object, respectfully, to the individual making the statement. In this article in the Atlantic Monthly -- "How Kids Learn Resilience" -- I came across an interesting admission. “For all our talk about noncognitive skills, nobody has yet found a reliable way to teach kids to be grittier or more resilient. And it has become clear, at the same time, that the educators who are best...

This spring, communities across the nation have been celebrating Safe Kids Day. As the season began, a tweet arrived. “Every minute of every day, there’s a call to poison control because a kid gets into medicine,” it said. “Learn more.” I was overwhelmed. I had just wrapped my brain around the water situation in Flint, Michigan. While the politicians were casting blame and flexing their sanctimonious muscles, #WhatAboutThe Babies?” had become a hashtag. “Help bring water and wipes to the...

Teens should sleep eight to 10 hours per night while younger children need even more sleep, according to new recommendations from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM). The group lays out optimal amounts of sleep for children of different ages in the June 13 statement Recommended Amount of Sleep for Pediatric Populations , which has been endorsed by the AAP. “Regularly sleeping fewer than the number of recommended hours is associated with attention, behavior, and learning problems,”...

Older adults are commonly subjected to a variety of negative stereotypes – bumbling, helpless, cranky, unapproachable, child-like, to name a few. Ageism has real mental and physical health consequences, including a decreased will to live, less desire to live a healthy lifestyle, an impaired recovery from illness, increased stress and a shortened life span. “Ageism remains one of the most institutionalized forms of prejudice today,” according to Todd Nelson, Ph.D., professor of psychology at...

This article originally appeared in the Mexican edition of VICE Magazine, June/July. "Hi my name is David," said a small boy sarcastically, causing his friends to laugh at his use of English. "Motherfucker." David is nine years old, has a buzzcut, a cut off t-shirt, and is growing up in Ciudad Juárez — the Mexican border city which claimed the dubious title of the world's most violent metropolis in the world three years running from 2008 to 2010. When the topic turned to his barrio, the...

In light of the tragic mass shooting at an Orlando gay club, the political debate is back on over whether U.S. gun laws are too lenient. Addressing the situation June 12, President Obama said that “we need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals.” It’s fair to say that guns like the AR-15-style rifle that helped kill 49 people and injure at least 53 more in Orlando should be kept out of the hands of anyone—not just those who commit...

At a time when Democrats and Republicans in Congress can’t agree on just about anything, there is one issue that unites them: the urgent need for criminal justice reform. A Senate bill on the issue has attracted an impressive 37 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act has gained support from figures as politically diverse as the Koch brothers and President Barack Obama for its goals of reforming mandatory minimum sentences, reducing prison...

My wife and I recently packed our 2-year-old twins into their car seats and moved them halfway across the country to a new home in Minnesota. During the five or so days we spent on the road with them, we had ample opportunity to reflect on what sorts of terrible harms we were inflicting on their fragile little toddler brains. Did they understand what was going on? Would they like the new place when they got there? Were we destroying their chances of ever getting into Harvard by letting them...

A new study finds that strategy-based reasoning training can improve the cognitive performance for those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Mild cognitive impairment is an acknowledged preclinical stage for those at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers from the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas discovered training can mitigate loss of cognitive abilities that commonly accompany aging. [For more of this story, written by Rick Nauert, go to ...

One percentage point. That's all that remains of the gap between graduation rates for African-American students and all students in San Diego Unified. In April the district announced it was on track to hit a record graduation rate among large California districts: 92 percent overall. Data released Friday shows San Diego's African-American students will graduate at about that same rate — 91 percent — essentially closing the achievement gap when it comes to graduation. The rate for Latinos has...

The image of black and white children hand-in-hand is possibly the most well-known and most often quoted line from Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech. Over the years, black and white youngsters playing together has evolved from a civil-rights leader’s vision of racial equality to a clothing retailer’s marketing campaign , and in the process spawned a cultural meme—signaling everything from innocence and hope to a world free of interpersonal racism. Yet black and white childhood...