This year many mom-friends are skipping the camp-gymnastics-art-class-tutoring routine for a more relaxed (not to mention cheaper) summer. One the one hand, this sounds ultra-appealing, and gives many opportunities to be flexible, slow down, and have the occasional ice-cream breakfast (for instance).

At the same time, what's a kid (and a kid's mom) to do on these long days? And is it helpful for children to be around other kids in some kind of structured environment or is it totally fine, maybe even better, to skip the structure for the summer? To find out, I called Parental Advisor Robert Schachter, a New York City-based psychologist and faculty member of Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

"It's not so much about about scheduling as it is about how much a kid has to do," he says. "If kids are booked morning to night and can't catch their breath, it's not necessarily the best thing."

With little babies, it is sometimes hard to tell if the child is a boy or a girl. In the absence of gender-specific clothing or a peek inside the diaper, most babies could pass for either sex. But as a child gets older, it becomes easier to tell the boys from the girls. In addition to clothing, clues can be found in developing facial features, hair styles and even toy preferences.

But even if you can't tell the gender of someone's child just by looking, you can always come out and ask the parents, right? Usually, yes. But in the case of a two-and-a-half-year-old Swedish child, the answer would be "none of your business."

Aside from the parents and few other people, nobody knows if the child they call Pop is a boy or a girl. Pop's parents subscribe to a feminist philosophy in which the idea of gender is an unnecessary and potentially harmful social construction. They believe that by keeping Pop's gender a secret from the world, their child will be allowed to grow up without preconceived notions of how he or she should be treated based on his or her gender.

By all appearances, Brooke Greenberg is an average baby. She giggles and coos when she's happy and enjoys rocking in her swing. She can also be quite stubborn and is quick to voice loud disapproval when she's unhappy with something. At about sixteen pounds and 30 inches tall, the curly haired little girl appears to be a typical six-month-old. But Brooke Greenberg isn't an infant, she's sixteen years old and something of medical mystery.

Since her birth, Brooke's body and brain have not aged in the conventional sense. She remains the size of an infant and has the mental capacity of a toddler. Her bone age is estimated to be about 10 years old and she has a mouth full of baby teeth. She rides in a stroller and, because her esophagus is so small, must be fed through a tube.

"There've been very minimal changes in Brooke's brain," says Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine. "Various parts of her body, rather than all being at the same stage, seem to be disconnected."

In the past, studies have shown that infants exposed to television tend to have delayed vocalization and attentional problems. While various theories were offered up to explain this phenomenon, there had been no in-depth studies to back them up. Until now. A new study led by Dimitri A. Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute, finds that the answer lies not only in the child's experience with the television, but the impact of television on the adults around him as well.

The study looked at over 300 children aged two months to four years old. The children were fitted with business-card sized sound recorders that captured everything they said and heard during continuous 12 to 16 hour periods. These recordings took place on random days for up to two years and were interrupted only for naps, baths, nighttime sleep and car rides. Special software was used to process the recordings and analyze the sounds children were exposed to as well as the sounds they made.

The researchers found that for each hour of audible television, there was a significant drop in the amount and duration of child vocalizations as well as a drop in conversational interactions with an adult. By "significant" they mean that, on average, every hour of television exposure was associated with a decrease of 770 words the child heard from an adult. And it's not that the children were just tuning out -- the adults were speaking 500 to 1,000 fewer words per hour of audible television.

Almost from the moment they are born, little girls today are bombarded with princess paraphernalia. Crib sheets, bottles, bibs and blankets all come in pink girly-girl versions and often feature words like "her highness" and images of royal beauties. It only gets worse as they get older. What parent of a toddler girl doesn't have at least one princess dress-up outfit complete with sparkly plastic shoes and a tiara?

Most of us see the princess phenomenon as harmless fantasy play. But there are some who believe that parents who allow their daughters to enjoy this frilly pink pretend world are in danger of raising narcissistic little divas who expect the world to revolve around them.

One such person is Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State and co-author of "The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement." In researching the way parenting affects children, she determined that the the current princess obsession that so many little girls - and their parents - have bought into can lead to problems.

Hanging out with several other moms-of-boys, the conversation of course turned to the movie "Star Trek," and some moms were saying they weren't going to let their sons see it (most of our sons are 8).

As we were all nodding (we thought) wisely, a Dad chimed in. "Not letting your kid see the movie everyone is seeing is cruel," he said. "It's in the national conversation and you're making him feel left out on purpose."

Really? Because I thought we were protecting them, but maybe we were all relying too much on ratings and not enough on our own common mama-sense. How bad was it to keep our kids from seeing the movie that "everyone" was seeing?

To find out I called Linda Perlstein, author of the national bestseller about tweens Not Much Just Chillin. She said...

Summer months are ripe with opportunity to help your kids grow in important ways and make positive memories that will last a lifetime, but there's also plenty of potential for overspending and aggravation. You can make this your family's best summer ever -- and keep expenses and frustration to a minimum -- but you've got to do your homework.

Think of it like this: Before you begin a trip, you need to determine your destination and create a plan to get there. The same goes for your children's vacation. As the mother of three boys, I learned that three components were key to a successful summer and my own sanity: 1) setting goals for how I wanted each of my sons to develop over the summer; 2) having a plan that moved them toward those goals; and 3), keeping a ready list of boredom-busting (but not budget-busting) ideas on hand. Here are the strategies I used to make this happen.

Over at MomLogic, psychologist Dr. Cara Gardenswartz tells us about some of the lies that parents tell their kids. She suggests that these lies are not needed, and that the truth is a better path. It won't necessarily set you free. But it is better.

Some of Dr. Gardenswartz's examples are pretty straightforward. I would never say "The car doesn't work until your seat belts are buckled." I go with "Put your seatbelt on." While in a taxi with my son and one of his friends, the friend told me that his parents don't make him wear a seatbelt. I calmly informed him that he wasn't with his parents at the moment. After staring at me for a second with a look of shock on his face, he buckled up.

So in general, I agree. But I think there are times when it is acceptable to lie to children.

For example:

She was having a difficult morning and her eight-year-old son wasn't helping matters by refusing to get dressed for school. Unfortunately, the 42-year-old British mother, whose identity is being withheld by the courts, responded by smacking her son twice on the shoulder with a hairbrush. Sadly, she did so hard enough that the boy was still in pain when he arrived at school. Seeing this, one of the boy's teacher's contacted child protective services.

The boy was placed in foster care and the mother was charged with assault. After admitting that she had a "moment of madness," the mother ended up pleading guilty to the charges. She is now only allowed to see her son for two hours a week. Her lawyer noted that she was the boy's only caregiver despite being sick for the past two years. He explained that she "lost her temper, and struck the child twice, but immediately apologised afterwards."

In England, hitting a child hard enough to bruise is illegal, but lesser blows are permitted. The mother is going to take an anger management course voluntarily and will be sentenced later this month. A spokesman for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children applauded the actions of the local government, saying "Nobody could get away with hitting an adult with a hairbrush, so they should not be able to get away with hitting a child with one. There is a danger that the use of physical punishment by parents and carers can escalate, and may result in serious harm to a child."

Hey, all you little brothers and sisters! Looking for ammunition against your parents? It's your lucky day -- a new study out of Brigham Young University shows that first-born kids get as much as 30 minutes more quality face-time with mom and dad than do second children.

Most birth-order research focuses on how it can determine children's personality traits later in life, and studies bear out the common stereotypes: the oldest child is generally smart and ambitious, while later-born kids are often more liberal, rebellious, and flexible.

And lo, the guilt! Now I know for sure that the baby won't have all the advantages of our oldest. Scientific proof that second kids totally get the shaft, and it can only lead to a life of crime. Especially because second children are often winners in the discipline lottery: another study notes that parents are more relaxed -- and lax -- the second time around.

We had our second child eight months ago, nearly four years after the birth of our daughter. We dote on both the kids, but the big girl definitely got more one-on-one time with both of us, with every mewl and giggle getting our full attention. But the baby? What, he's eating paper? Eh, it's just fiber, won't hurt him.

My family of origin is a perfect example of birth-order politics. As the eldest, I'm a very traditional kind of gal with a stick-in-the-mud attitude, while my middle sister is the peacemaker. My brother, they baby of our family, is the outlaw. While I only have two, I can definitely see my kids playing out these classic roles. This study opened my eyes to the ways I short-change the baby, and I plan to carve out more time for one-on-one interaction with him.

Are you the responsible older sibling, or the carefree wild-child baby of the family? How does birth order influence your kids?

One study offered children a reward for delaying their gratification, and still, 47 percent of the 805 kids who participated were unable to wait. The second study asked kids to sit alone in a room with a toy for 150 seconds. If they were able to wait at least 75 seconds, they "passed the test." Both studies showed that kids who failed were more likely to be over-weight by the age of 11 or 12.

OK, first of all -- duh. It makes total sense that kids who can't keep their hands out of the cookie jar are more prone to obesity. But don't most kids grow out of that kind of behavior? JustAnswer psychiatry expert and Denver psychotherapist Nancy Brooks says that true impulsivity is a clinical condition that goes beyond not being able to wait for a treat. An impulsive child, she says, does not think their decisions through and also ignores the consequences.

My friend, R. called me this morning, upset, with a classic "how bad" question. Here's what happened: Out in the yard, her 3-year-old threw a stick. At her face. And it connected...with her nose. "Ow!" she said, tears coming to her eyes (nose pain, as you may well know, can be severe). "Damn it! That really hurt!" She could feel her nose swelling up and getting all red and hot. "Why did you do that!?" Her baby's answer: "I wanted you to get out my way faster." (Ow again!)

"Listen to me," she screamed, aware her volume was getting really high, "You're going to have to play with Daddy for the rest of the afternoon, because Mommy IS REALLY ANGRY NOW." And now, of course, she feels terrible about the screaming. And the swearing.

Who among us hasn't gotten so frustrated we're moved to a crazy screaming fit? Almost every mama I know has a similar story. Just how damaging is totally-bananas screaming and honestly, how can we make ourselves stop? I called my friend Rosanne Tobey, L.P.C., Director of Calm and Sense Therapy, to find out...

Had any bad-parent moments lately, where you end up looking around for your Worst Parent Award while wondering just how much you've damaged your child? If your answer is no, check out Links We Love for some amazing Mommy Blog links! If you're saying a big YES, then welcome! Read on...

On the phone with my friend R., she says she has to go, friends are over and she's going to switch on a show for her kids so the grown-ups can eat a peaceful dinner. "Oh, how bad is this?" she asks. "I've had friends here all afternoon and the kids have watched at least four straight hours of TV. They were just so mellow I didn't want to change their scene. Is that really awful?"

Who among us hasn't taken advantage of our friend the TV-babysitter? A fellow ParentDish blogger confessed that she refused to allow her child to give up the Wii for Lent, because it was the only time her house was quiet. I checked in with Mommy Advisor Rosanne Tobey, Director of Calm and Sense Therapy, to get some insight. The question is: TV all day -- how bad?

"A full day of TV, eh?" she asked. "Well..."

Ever have one of those bad-parent moments where you instantly regret your actions or words? And then you spend the next few days wondering: Did I just damage my child? If the answer is no, please click on the Daily Cutie photo above for some adorable images of the most attractive children on the planet! If the answer is yes, read on...

Recently I've been locking horns with my 4-year-old daughter. Last night, for example, she wouldn't go to bed. And wouldn't and wouldn't go to bed. Then she refused to go to bed. She tantrum'd. She screamed. She said: "I hate you." (O.U.C.H.) And finally, finally, she hunkered down to sleep and even said she was "sowwy." Okay fine. Except...instead of accepting her apology and moving on, I stayed mad.

Even the next morning, when she wanted to draw a picture together, I wasn't ready. (I actually considered saying: "No, thanks, I'm still mad at you.") I realize how petty this sounds: she's four for goodness' sake. But my feelings are what they are. And I'm worried. Surely holding a grudge against a child is bad for her. That must be why I feel so guilty about it, right?

To find out the answer to my question, I called up one of my Mommy Advisors (MA's) Rosanne Tobey, L.P.C., Director of Calm and Sense Therapy in Scotch Plains, NJ. "How bad?" Tobey said, "Well, it depends...."

Breast or bottle? Plastic or wooden toys? So many decisions. Now we can add a new one to the list: Forward- vs. toward-facing strollers.

New research suggests that children who use strollers that face the person pushing them interact and laugh with them more. According to the study's author, M. Suzanne Zeedyk, a developmental psychologist, that may have a lot to do with how quickly he'll be saying "Mama."

"Vocabulary development is governed almost entirely by the daily conversations parents have with them," writes Zeedyk in a recent article in the New York Times.

Her study of 2,700 families focused on caregiver interactions with their infants and toddlers while pushing them in both kinds of strollers, facing out and toward-facing (prediction: that term will never catch on). "Caregivers were less likely to speak to infants when the child was facing forward, compared with strollers where the baby faces the caregiver."

On the surface, this study is a bit like saying "the floor is down, the ceiling is up." Of course parents will interact more with their kids if they are facing them. That's true whether they are in a stroller or sitting in the living room watching television, which, we are now told, is neither good nor bad for their cognitive development.