Your teen may spend all afternoon chatting with friends on the Internet. But that may not be so bad, according to a new study by the MacArthur Foundation.

On the surface, it often looks like kids are wasting precious hours just hanging out on Facebook, sending instant messages or teaming up with their friends on multiplayer video games. But according to the study, kids’ participation gives them crucial technological and literary skills. “They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page,” said the study’s lead researcher.

What’s more, fears about Internet predators are often overblown, the researchers found. Most teens are socializing with their friends from school, camp and sports, rather than strangers. And kids often are more motivated to learn by their online peers than their teachers or parents, delving deeply into topics of interest.

Most teenagers faced numerous parental restrictions on their Internet usage, the study found. But parents take note: Many kids found ways to get around those obstacles and still hang out with their friends electronically during the day.

A caveat: The study only describes how kids use the Internet and other new media, and does not systematically measure the effects of online usage. Researchers observed youngsters online for more than 5,000 hours and interviewed some 800 youngsters and their parents to learn about their online activities.

In another new look on the topic, Don Tapscott, author of the 1999 bestseller “Growing Up Digital,” also refutes the argument that using the Internet makes young people stupid, lazy, violent or narcissistic. In his latest book, “GrownUp Digital,” based on thousands of interviews, he says people ages 12 to 30 have actually gained new, and in many ways better, visual, information-processing and communications skills as a result of having been reared on digital media.

What’s your take on your kids’ online activities? Do you set rules and restrictions around their Internet usage? Do you think Internet use provides your kids with important skills, and thereby encourage their activity? Or would you rather them put down the keyboard and, say, go outside?

Wall Street Journal Art Director Kurt Novak writes:

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Recently I flew to Michigan to check on my 81-year-old aunt who has Alzheimer’s. Diagnosed with early stages of the disease a couple of years ago, she had gotten to the point where she had to be moved from her condo in Florida to an assisted living facility close to the family in Michigan.

In recent years, I had been impressed by her industriousness and good humor as she fought to counter the effects of her memory loss. She started keeping a detailed calendar and had no problem consulting it when she realized she couldn’t remember something. “I have that disease whose name I forget,” she once said, which, to me, epitomized her courage and self awareness.

But when I called her to see how preparations were going for her move, I was shocked by the obvious signs of deterioration. She was repeating herself much of the time and forgetting more words than ever before. And after the move, she seemed to not understand that she was no longer in Florida. She got that her family was now close to her, but didn’t seem able to process that it was because she had moved, not them.

This reaction was to some extent understandable, as her new apartment was purposefully decorated with as much of her furniture, paintings and knick-knacks as could fit into the new smaller place. While intended to smooth her transition, I am sure it was confusing to her foggy mind. I can just imagine myself waking up after a three-day bender, only to find that my apartment looked the same, but somehow, mysteriously, felt completely different.

Some 5.2 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, which can even hit people as young as their 30s and 40s. But the disease also affects a far wider swath of family members and caregivers who must cope with the devastating effects of a loved one’s memory loss. Recent cuts in state and local services for elderly and disabled individuals are also placing heavier burdens on family caregivers.

Readers, have you had to care for a family member with Alzheimer’s or another disability? Have you had to move a loved one to an assisted living center or nursing home? How have you and your relatives coped with the changes?

Thanksgiving is a time when family members come together to eat good food, be grateful for life’s blessings and…compare juggles.

I am very close with my relatives, but several of us lead starkly different lifestyles, in terms of our professions, earnings and spending. The differences seem to magnify when my extended family gets together on neutral ground for holidays. Tensions and judgments invariably ensue.

One relative is a well-off, stay-at-home mom who is lucky to have lots of help: dedicated nannies, a full-time housekeeper and a baby nurse. She is a great mom and is busy with her family, friends and home responsibilities, but when she remarked one day how she felt like she never had enough time to get everything done that she wanted to, I rolled my eyes. “You don’t know the half of it,” I snippily thought, as a time-crunched working mom. (She also had a valid point: No matter how much time it seems one has, it’s never enough.)

Another family member, meanwhile, is enjoying the single life. She’s devoted to the family, but it’s tough for her to spend extended periods of time with all the married folks and their kids. All we seem to talk about are strollers and schools, and some relative is always trying to fix her up on a random blind date.

By the end of our Thanksgiving weekends together, I usually end up feeling overstuffed, exhausted and ready to escape to my home in another state. While we all respect each other’s choices, it’s hard not to feel judgmental or, at times, envious or annoyed with how we each handle our relationships, time and money.

Readers, do you have different juggles than your family members? Do tensions or judgments ever arise? What’s your strategy to defuse family tensions this Thanksgiving?

Many parents believe they get better at balancing work and family as they grow older.

A number of National Football League kickers would agree. As NFL kickers post their best season ever, the oldest among them have been best of all, reports the New York Times. Kickers age 35 and above have made 90% of their kicks, while those under 35 have a mere 84% success rate and make shorter kicks than the old guys.

The older kickers say maturity and experience have helped them fine-tune and improve their skills. They train and warm up more systematically, and conserve their kicking ability by practicing only as needed to correct mistakes. Also, older kickers are less stressed and more balanced because they know life is more than football; they tend to enjoy stable family and financial lives. Older players “stick to a plan that works for them and they don’t deviate from it,” says Morten Andersen, who retired from the Atlanta Falcons at age 47 as the league’s leading kicker.

Is this relevant for parents? Sticking to priorities, staying calm under pressure, drawing boundaries against overwork – all these things can become easier with age. Like a growing number of women, I gave birth to my kids at a relatively older age, in my late thirties. Arguably, I’ve become a better juggler with age. I guard against stress better and I’m more patient. But I’m worse at other things — seizing opportunities for spontaneous fun, keeping up with my kids on the ski slopes or soccer field, or finding the energy for quick weekend trips away.

Readers, have you become a better juggler with age? In what ways? Or have you found as a parent that there’s no substitute for the energy and vigor of youth?

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Scheduling parent-teacher conferences at a child’s school can be a battle. Do we need an Act of Congress to make it easier?

President-elect Obama has said he supports expanding federal family-leave legislation to allow unpaid leave for a broader range of family matters, including children’s school needs. The law now allows parents to take unpaid time off only to care for newborn or newly adopted children or seriously ill family members, as well as one’s own illness. With Democrats tightening their grip on Congress, expanding family leave will likely draw broader support, as I write in today’s Work and Family column.

Many employees, particularly salaried managers and professionals, already have enough flexibility and control over their hours to leave work. For my part, it would have taken an Act of Congress to keep me away from my kids’ school activities; fortunately, I had flexibility on the job. Among those who don’t, strict workplace attendance policies can require missing not only parent-teacher conferences, but school plays and other events that loom large in kids’ lives. Several states and the District of Columbia have already enacted time-off mandates for school events, typically four to 40 hours a year.

But I can understand the viewpoint of employers, too, who say such laws create an administrative nightmare for managers charged with tracking absences and determining whether time-off requests are legitimate. Opponents say they also foster resentment among co-workers left behind at the office.

Readers, what do you think? Do school events and teacher conferences warrant federal protection? Or are such mandates too burdensome for employers and co-workers? Have you had to miss a child’s school event because of work? If so, how did you handle your child’s reaction?

I got high when I was on maternity leave. Wait, don’t flame me! My drug of choice was legal. My baby wasn’t yet a month old when I rediscovered caffeine.

I used to down at least two cups of coffee a day, but during pregnancy I cut back. As my due date approached I lost my taste for it.

A few weeks after my son was born we were out on an aimless walk when I noticed a new café in my neighborhood. The barrista made me a latte with a little heart carved into the foam. Having abstained for so long, that first cup sent me soaring.

It was the perfect remedy for a sleep-deprived new mother. The café became part of our daily routine. Then, I started brewing my own at home. Caffeinated sodas returned to my diet. Pretty soon, I could drink a cup and then nod off for a nap. By the time I returned to work, just when I needed it the most, coffee let me down.

These days, I still have a cup before I leave the house in the morning—but I don’t get that high feeling anymore. The brew just returns me to a functioning level of alertness. I also have an afternoon cup and a Diet Coke or two, to keep my energy up during the day. Even the boost from my recently reinstated exercise routine hasn’t been enough to turn me away from coffee–I love the taste, the ritual of brewing and drinking it in the morning, and the camaraderie of grabbing a cup with a colleague.

Readers, tell me about your relationship to coffee or other caffeinated drinks. Do they fuel your juggle? Have any of you given up caffeine entirely?
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Associated Press

Many of us struggle to keep bad BlackBerry habits from intruding too much – checking email at dinner, for example, or toting handheld email devices into the bedroom. Soon, the nation’s president is likely to be fighting the same battle.

Barack Obama may have to wean himself off his habit of avidly checking his BlackBerry. Presidents face special barriers, of course; their email can be subpoenaed by Congress and the courts as public records. Presidents Bush and Clinton both refrained from using email.

But there’s evidence that President-elect Obama’s BlackBerry habit has crossed some private work-family boundaries too. Last summer, news cameras recorded the candidate pulling out his BlackBerry at his daughter’s soccer game, only to have Michelle Obama slap his hand. He promptly returned the gadget to its holster.

When does your BlackBerry become your CrackBerry, damaging family life? The WSJ documented the trend of “BlackBerry orphans” a couple of years ago. One parent’s incessant e-mailing so exasperated her four-year-old that the child tried to flush Mom’s BlackBerry down the toilet.

Another Wall Street Journal reporter tells the Juggle he tried with his wife to set a no-BlackBerry rule in their bedroom. But the plan crumbled this summer, when the financial crisis plunged him into nonstop reporting deadlines.

I know couples who actually say they love working side-by-side on email in bed; one New Jersey pair toils online together until the wife falls asleep on her husband’s shoulder. But another wife told me she regards her husband’s bedtime email habit as a “ménage a trois” and angrily banned all tech gear from their bedroom.

Readers, do you set BlackBerry boundaries? How do you do it, and how well do these boundaries work?

Associated Press

My sixth-grade daughter is dealing with her own juggle – not that she could actually juggle her school binder. I weighed it recently, and it clocked in at 10 pounds.

Sixth grade is the first year that kids in our district start switching classes during the day. So instead of one class and one teacher who coordinates everything, my daughter now cycles among Homeroom, Math, Spanish, Social Studies, Science, Technology, Language Arts (that’s what they’re calling English now), Art, Orchestra, Band and P.E. (that’s gym).

What’s more, our district is now on a six-day rotation. No more “on Monday we have this” and “on Wednesday we have that.” The days are lettered A – F, and each week the rotation pushes one of the six schedules to the next week. Follow?

It’s up to her to keep track of assignments, test dates, permission slips and memos home. In the letter about what to buy for the coming year, the school “strongly encourages” kids to develop a binder system and use an agenda book to stay organized. Most kids get elaborate zippered three-ring binders; some get two. My daughter’s comes with its own shoulder strap. Maybe it should have its own ZIP Code.

Now that we’ve settled into the school year, the sixth-grade juggle is working pretty well. No missed assignments or forgotten tests. But when she heads out the door with her binder over one shoulder, and her violin in one hand and flute in the other because she can’t remember if it’s orchestra or band that day (is it D-Day?), I think to myself that it just didn’t seem this complicated when I was 11.

Readers, do you find that school schedules are getting too Byzantine, and how do you keep your kids organized? Do you leave it up to them to be responsible, or do you find you have to keep on top of things or it all falls apart?

Associated Press

A hefty review in last week’s New Yorker magazine takes on several books about “overparenting,” the toxic combination of treating kids with excessive permissiveness and outsize expectations (some of which I touched on in this post last week).

The reviewer, Joan Acocella, starts off with Hara Estroff Marano’s “A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting,” which touches on a familiar litany of overparenting’s milestones: developmental videos for babies; academic pressure as early as nursery school and steadily increasing; schedules crammed with extracurriculars; obsessive focus on getting into the right college; a continuation of smothering parenting into adulthood, such that many young graduates “boomerang” home instead of striking out into the world on their own.

Ms. Marano blames the increasing ranks of working mothers in part for the overparenting trend. Not so much the mothers who continue to work, though they do their share of remote hovering via nannycams and so on, but mothers who left high-powered jobs to turn to full-time parenting: “Such a woman faces a huge loss of income—one source says a million dollars, on average, over the course of her career,” according to the review. “It is no surprise that she might want child-rearing to be a project worthy of that sacrifice.”

The review goes on to discuss Carl Honoré’s “Under Pressure: The New Movement Inspiring Us to Slow Down, Trust Our Instincts, and Enjoy Our Kids,” which decries both test-driven schooling (leading to an epidemic of cheating) and germ-averse coddling (leading to more allergies among kids who lack enough exposure to develop resistances).

Yet the review also raises questions about what these books are aiming to impart. “Is it really wrong for us to push our children to excel in areas where they are talented?” asks Ms. Acocella. She also notes that the books may extrapolate too broadly from what’s really a minority of children and parents. Many of these issues are particular to upper-middle-class parents, so these books serve as socioeconomic critiques as well.

Readers, what’s your take on overparenting? Is it something you’ve observed around you and try to guard against, or is it more of a trumped-up myth?

Crazy markets, massive job cuts and a Presidential transition weren’t the only things making headlines. Here’s the latest in work-and-family news:

• NEW FAMILY LEAVE RULES The Labor Department finalized new family-leave rules. The new rules govern when employees can miss work to care for sick family members or recover from their own illnesses. Among the new changes: those with chronic conditions are required for the first time to certify that they visited a doctor at least twice a year for that condition.

• INFANT MYLICON RECALL About 12,000 bottles of Mylicon dye-free infant anti-gas drops (1-oz size) have been recalled because they may contain metal fragments. The recall does not affect any Original Infants’ Mylicon Gas Relief products (1/2-ounce or 1-ounce size) or Infants’ Mylicon Gas Relief Dye Free drops non-staining (1/2-ounce size).

• NEW RESEARCH ON ALCOHOL AND CAFFEINE WHILE PREGNANT Two new studies on drinking and pregnancy, the largest and most rigorous to date, found that very limited alcohol consumption may be OK, but regular caffeine intake may affect a baby’s birth weight.

• COST OF MEAL PLANS RISE Another victim of the poor economy: the college meal plan. With rising food costs, many colleges are hiking the costs of meal plans and trying to cut expenses, like forgoing trays. Make sure to feed your kids well when they come home for Thanksgiving. More broadly, the economic downturn is making some parents think twice about sending their kids to pricey colleges and are instead seeking more affordable choices, such as state schools and community colleges. (This report shows how much a college degree is really worth.)

• INFANT PLAY MAY SIGNAL AUTISM Babies who were eventually diagnosed with autism played with toys in unusual ways, spinning or rotating them more than other babies, according to new research published in the medical journal Autism.

• DIVORCE RATES INCREASE WHEN CHILD HAS ADHD Parents of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, may be more likely than other parents to divorce before their child’s 8th birthday, according to new research.

• MORE SCHOOLS ARE ALLOWING TWINS TO LEARN TOGETHER A growing number of schools are overturning rules that forbid multiples to be in the same classes. Schools typically separate multiples to allow them to form their own identities, but parents of multiples say that can lead to separation anxiety and other problems.

• ANGRY MOMS STOP MOTRIN AD Miffed moms stopped an ad campaign for pain-reliever Motrin which featured the aches and pains resulting from toting children in slings and carriers.