Story Archives of 'Family'

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc broke ground when her award-winning book Random Family: Love, Drugs,Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx was published in 2003. She spent more than a decade closely observing three generations of a Puerto Rican family to create an intimate portrait of street life that was anything but pretty.

Random Family was a New York Times bestseller and was recently named one of The 50 Books for Our Times by Newsweek magazine. Tomorrow afternoon, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and two of the subjects of Random Family will travel to ConVal High School in Peterborough, NH for a day-long workshop with New Hampshire students. It’s part of the MacDowell Colony’s Community Outreach Program in the schools, and we’re catching up with Adrian Nicole LeBlanc before the workshop. We also spoke with Jill Lawler, an English teacher at ConVal, about what her students are learning from random family.

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc Q&A: Journalism for the long haul

Kids are notorious for getting into trouble. Whether it’s skipping class, picking fights, or slipping away in the family wagon for a midnight joy ride, mischievous behavior is a headache for most parents. What if breaking some of the rules was actually a sign of a child’s future success?

A new study suggests that children who push boundaries on occasion - like hosting parties while the ‘rents are out of town - are actually more likely to become leaders as adults. That finding flies in the face of the belief that those who follow the rules will make it to the top of the corporate heap someday.

With us to talk about why a little mischief might be a good predictor of a child’s future is Maria Rotundo. She’s an associate professor of human resource management and organizational behavior at the University of Toronto and one of the study’s authors.

Leadership Quarterly: Early Life Experiences as Determinantes of Leadership Role Occupancy (PDF)

Miller-McCune: Destined For Greatness, You Little Scamp

(Photo courtesy foamcow via Flickr/CreativeCommons)

When Mike Sproul was a teenager, he needed some positive adult role models. He found them at the Kingswood Youth Center.

Writer and columnist Rebecca Lavoie is suffering from what she calls an Oprah-induced injury. Try as she might to engage her eight year-old son in bedtime reading, he’s just not that interested.

Oprah and all the experts say that a love of reading is a predictor of success, happiness, an attractive mate, the meaning of life…ok, we exaggerate.

Rebecca’s son loves math and is great at it, so she wonders, isn’t that enough?

(Photo by ehousley via Flickr/Creative Commons)

A dramatic surge in swine flu cases in 46 states prompted President Obama to declare the pandemic a national emergency over the weekend. The first batch of H1N1 vaccine arrived in New Hampshire earlier this month, but dosages fell short of covering the priority populations of young children, pregnant women, and professionals who work with high-risk patients.

A national shortage of vaccines, combined with the media frenzy surrounding H1N1, has prompted some less than reputable companies to release counterfeit flu cures.

Think swine flu shampoos, fake doses of Tamiflu, even machines that claim to shoot flu-stopping protons through the body. The Food and Drug Administration is teaming up with the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on sketchy swine flu products. Alyson Saben is Deputy Director of the FDA’s Office of Enforcement and leader of the agency’s H1N1 Consumer Protection Team.

The Los Angeles Times: FDA cracks down on Internet sales of swine flu 'cures'

H1N1 Fraudulent Products