Former boxing heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield hasn't fought a match in a while, but he is still making the newspapers. Unfortunately, he's in the legal notices section and the news isn't good. Holyfield's $10 million estate in Atlanta, Georgia is facing foreclosure and is about to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

If that wasn't enough to make the champ want to punch someone, he is also facing deadbeat dad charges from one of the mothers of his children. Holyfield has been married just twice, but admits to at least nine children fathered out of wedlock. One of those children is a 10-year-old son with Toi Jenese Irvin. Irvin has gone to court claiming Holyfield is behind on his child support payments and now owes her $9000. She also says that Holyfield hasn't maintained a health insurance policy on their child despite a judge's order to do so.

It sounds like Holyfield is having some serious financial issues and the foreclosure and the child support issue may just be the beginning of things. Irvin's lawyer is aware of this and wants to make sure his client is at the top of the list when what's left of Holyfield's money is disbursed. "My concern is there may be a lot of other mothers not be getting paid, and I would like my client to be at front of the line," says her lawyer, Randy Kessler. And Kessler means business. If Holyfield doesn't pay up, the lawyer wants him tossed in jail. "This is such a small amount given the scope of what he has," Kessler said. "If Evander Holyfield can get away with it, anybody can. There are guys making $15,000 a year who go to jail for missing a $100 payment." Yeah, he's got a point there. I don't know what happened to the reported $200 million Holyfield has earned over the years, but perhaps he should have set a little of it aside to take care of all his kids.

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As an elementary teacher, I get lots of the same kinds of questions from parents every year, and all of them fall into ghe general category of "How can I help my child to do his or her best in school." With Smart Start I'll be adressing a frequently asked issue realting to education. Feel free to respond in the comments with other questions you may have. My goal is to provide you with answers, tips, and insights to help you support your child as a learner at every stage.

Where I live, the air is fragrant with flowers and newly cut hay right now. It is July, and officially summer. Summer in a child's mind is a time of adventure and family, of lazy mornings and lazier afternoons.

But summer also marks the beginning of an important time in your child's academic career: a time of maintaining skills and progress. Children who do not spend time reading over the summer often show significant losses in their reading skills at the start of the new school year, and boys, specifically find it challenging to sink into a good book over the summer months.

Young boys who have just started reading chapter books often struggle with finding books that engage them. Many tend to prefer nonfiction texts or comics: stuff with a wow-factor and humor rather than character development and plot. Boys are often inclined to put the book down mid-way through and zip off to something more engaging if the book hasn't fully drawn them in, and nonfiction reading or comics caters to this style of reading.

But strong comprehension strategies are built and sustained by reading fictional chapter books that require readers to keep track of characters, monitor plot changes, make predictions, and build on prior knowledge. And it's a worthy summer cause to try and find at least one or two chapter books that belong to a series that your son likes, so that he can practice and build on some of these important reaching comprehension skills.

Lesley Porcelli over at Gourmet isn't a mom yet, but she's well on her way and pondering what kind of eater her kid will be. Like a lot of non-parents, she readily admits that she has strong opinions about successful parenting, particularly when it comes to feeding the child. And when it comes to picky eaters, Porcelli is pretty sure that parents are to blame.

Her theory goes something like this: If the whole family sits down to eat together and nobody makes a big deal out of what is on the plate, the kid will happily chow down without complaint. If a parent assumes the kid wouldn't touch a lasagna with a ten foot pole and therefore doesn't bother to offer it, chances are good that the kid will subsist on nuggets and fries until maturity.

I think Porcelli has it only partly right. Kids aren't blank slates waiting to be molded into actual people. Even as they try their first bites of solid food, they are individuals with their own likes and dislikes. From her first bite of pureed chicken as a baby, my Ellie disliked meat. She gobbled up the fruits and veggies, but spat out anything that tasted of animal. I don't know if her aversion was about texture or taste, but to this day she would sooner eat a plate of green beans than a bite of chicken. For Ellie, it isn't about not wanting to try new foods (she loves crab cakes and calamari), she just doesn't like meat.

That said, I do think parents can - and should - influence what foods their child will consume. The old "just take one bite" routine works well for us and is the reason we can all enjoy a plate of calamari together. But in the end, I don't worry too much about my picky eater. After all, I lived off bologna and mustard sandwiches as a kid and I survived just fine.

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Arctic Cat Inc. and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission have announced the recall of about 6,000 ATV's due to a faulty speed controller. The controller can fail to return to the idle position when the throttle is released, or can sometimes fail to be at idle on start up. This could result in some major loss of vehicle control and in turn, serious injury or even death to the driver (not to mention those in the path of the out-of-control ATV).

The recall involves eighteen different models of the 2008 Arctic Cat 50cc and 90cc All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs). A complete list of the recalled models as well as additional pictures can be found here.

The ATV's were made in Taiwan and sold by Arctic Cat dealers nationwide from July 2007 through June 2008 for between $1,800 and $2,400.

If you have one, you should immediately stop using it and contact your local dealer to schedule a free repair. If you are a registered owner, you should have already been contacted by mail about the recall. For more information, contact Arctic Cat at (800) 279-6851 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. CT, Monday through Friday or visit their Web site.

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It's not uncommon to be on a plane with a crying child. However, having the plane actually TURN AROUND and return to the terminal because of a kid's tantrum isn't typical, but that is what happened to a North Carolina mother and her two-and-a-half- year old son with autism.

According to his mother, little Jared Farrell started getting anxious as the plane was taxiing down the runway, and the flight attendant didn't help matters.

"She kept coming over and tugging his seat belt to make it tighter, 'This has to stay tight'. And then he was wiggling around and trying to get out of his seat belt. And she kept coming over and reprimanding him and yelling at him," Janice Farrell, the boy's mother said.

Eventually, one of the pilots left the cockpit to see what the ruckus was about, and tensions between the adults rose, which caused Jared's behavior to get even worse and he started rolling around on the floor. As soon as the pilot returned to his seat, the plane turned back to the terminal.

"The pilot made an announcement that there was a woman and her child on the plane and the child is uncontrollable. And at that point I just broke down," Farrell said.

While it is true that "rules are rules" and Jared was not following the seat belt rule if he was having a fit on the floor, a disorder affecting 1 out of 150 kids just might warrant some training on how best to handle those with autism and making flying the friendly skies...........well, just a little friendlier.

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What was supposed to be a fun day of golf for a group of young kids turned in to what one might charitably call a 'teaching opportunity" for parents. Due to a scheduling snafu, the Gold Crown Junior Golf Association tournament at Eagle Trace Golf Course in Broomfield, Colorado overlapped with Shotgun Willie's Charity Golf Tournament. Competing in the Gold Crown tournament: kids ages 7 to 12. Participants in Shotgun Willie's tournament: 70 strip club dancers and their patrons.

Eagle Trace instructor Dustin Moser admits that the girls may have gotten a little frisky out on the course, but insists that nothing untoward happened in the presence of the children. "There was nothing inappropriate going on around the clubhouse when the kids were around," he said.

At least one parent begs to differ. "When I walked into the clubhouse to look for my girls, I saw a woman straddling a male at a dining table," said a mother who picked up her two kids at the club. She says the questions on the way home went something like this: "Mom, why is she only wearing underwear?' 'Mom, why are the girls wearing white and why do the men have water guns?'

The manager of the golf club says Gold Crown officials were aware that Shotgun Willie's tournament was scheduled immediately after theirs. Gold Crown coordinator Jim Hunt insists that he was not informed of the half-naked, exotic nature of the participants. Either way, I think this is a golf tournament these kids won't soon forget.

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Yesterday, my seven year old and I had a conversation about high gas prices. This talk was prompted by my refusal to buy her a new pair of summer shoes and my insistence that we see the cheaper matinee showing of Kung Fu Panda rather than wait for the evening show. I don't know how much of this economic lesson she really understood, but suffice it so say that she has now joined the ranks of those bummed about high gas prices.

I know mine isn't the only family cutting back in response to the rising prices of everything. The Vance family in Salt Lake City decided that cable television was luxury they could no longer afford and had it disconnected. This did not sit well with their kids, 9-year-old Sadie and 7-year-old Pyper. Cut off from their favorite television shows, the girls decided to take it to the streets. Carrying a sign that read "All of my mom's monny goes to the gas tank!" and another asking drivers to honk to lower gas prices, the girls paraded through downtown.

"Gas prices are too high," Sadie said. "I just decided to come and protest so they'd go down."

Ah, if only it were that simple we would all grab up a sign and march. Come to think of it, maybe we should all get together and protest en mass. It might not make a bit of difference, but at least we will have something to do while we are missing our favorite television shows.

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Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been used for years to track inventory; now, one school district in Rhode Island is planning to use the technology to track students. RFID chips will be put into the kids' schoolbags and read by devices installed in the district's two school buses. The buses will also have GPS units to track their position.

Parents and school administrators would be able to track the location of the buses online and check whether or not particular kids had gotten on the bus. The ACLU, however, is concerned about the plan. Stephen Brown, executive director of the ACLU's Rhode Island chapter, says that "there's absolutely no need to be tagging children." He says the school district ought to know where its students are without tagging them.

I'm not sure I like the idea; there is, of course, the potential for misuse of the system. More importantly, however, I think I'd rather see the kids tracked by humans, however infallible they might be, than have them turned into a number so early in their lives.

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Today, my seven year old and I spent the afternoon in the bookstore. While I was heartened to see many little kids enjoying books, I couldn't help but notice that there weren't many older kids browsing the aisles. After reading about this study, I think I know where those kids were: at home in front of some sort of digital entertainment.

The Tween & Teen Lifestyle Report is a bi-yearly look at what kids ages 8 to 17 are doing with their free time. No surprise, the trend away from reading and toward surfing the Internet, watching television and playing video games continues. The study, conducted by Youth Trends, a research and marketing firm, shows that only 65% of teens (ages 14 to 17) read a magazine for fun last month compared to 65% a year ago. Magazine reading among tweens (ages 8 to 13) showed a similar decline with 48% reporting reading a magazine in the last month compared to 52% percent a year ago.

Skipping magazine reading might not seem like such a bad thing (aren't they all beauty tips and celebrities anyway?), but the report shows that kids are using that time to watch more television and play around online. The report doesn't reveal just what the kids are watching on the tube, but you can be pretty sure it isn't educational. Online, they are spending the majority of their time sending and receiving emails, instant messaging and playing games.

I love to read and rarely does a day go by that I don't indulge that love. It's a habit I developed as a child (way before the Internet and cable television) and one that I still enjoy immensely. My seven year old, if left to her own devices, would rather watch an episode of Hannah Montana for the fourth time than read a book. But when I turn the television off and put a book in her hand, she quickly remembers that she loves to read. I give her books not just to get her away from the screen, but because I hope to make reading a habit that she will enjoy for the rest of her life, too.

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"She went straight from Disney princess to High School Musical," complains one mom in an article titled "Parents fret as as tots love 'High School Musical."

As Disney shows such as Hannah Montana and High School Musical (HSM) predictably make their way down the marketing food chain, there is growing concern among parents that adolescent themes like boyfriends and break-ups are now being digested by two and three-year olds. Today, it's not unusual for a four year-old to have a High School Musical birthday party or to proclaim Sharpay, HSM's superficial, Jimmy Choo wearing mean girl to be her "favorite character." So long Cinderella.

I have sounded off on this disturbing trend often in my blogs and I stand by my position that the sexualization of childhood via entertainment, toys, and clothes is one of the most insidious forces facing young kids -- especially young girls.

It's not easy to safeguard childhood given the corporate marketing onslaught and the fact that so many kids are steeped in what now passes for "kid culture."

So what's a mom to do? My strategy is to stick to my guns. If I can postpone a premature adolescence by even a couple of years, it will be worth it. I set age-appropriate boundaries and explain them in a way that my children can understand and explain to their peers if questioned about it.

Of course, they want to know why their friends can watch these shows when they can't. I simply tell them that all families have different rules. This won't be the first time where ours differs from those of other families. In our home, I explain, kids watch and play with kid stuff because being a kid is FUN and there is no need to rush it. I assure them that there will be plenty of time for tween and teen things in the future. So far, this explanation has been satisfactory. I used a similar tact with the Bratz Dolls: "I want you to play with a doll that looks like you. This doll looks kind of mean and wears so much make-up. She doesn't look very fun."

This year our 8 year-old daughter attended a party where High School Musical was shown. She informed the girls that she isn't allowed to watch "teenager movies" and an animated G-rated film was played instead. She also left the room when the conversation turned to things she recognized that we would not like her to be part of. I didn't expect that to happen, but it did and I was proud of her. It happened to be the day before Mother's Day and I told her it was the best present she could have ever given me.

This weekend, she attended Girl Scout camp by herself for the first time. Initially, I had flashbacks of all those "camp" movies where the bad girls talk the other girls into compromising dares and rites of initiation involving boys. Luckily, camp came on the heels of her very commendable (and courageous) conduct at the birthday party. I let her go.

As the bus drove off, I thought to myself, "First Girl Scouts, then college." It goes so fast. That's precisely why she should be a little girl as long as she can.

Names can be a tricky thing; expecting parents agonize over choosing just the right name for their new bundle of joy. But the name dilemma isn't over once you bring the baby home -- sure, you've named the BABY, but now the renaming of the parents begins. I don't mean the choice between being Mommy or Mama or Mamacita -- I mean the much more sensitive issue of what your children's friends, and your friends' children, will call call you.

The basic name dilemma is first name versus last -- are you Jane or Mrs. Smith to the tots in your playgroup? And then there's the more complicated last name issue -- what if your last name and your child's last name aren't the same? Are you Mrs. Child's Last Name or Mrs. Your Last Name?

And why does it matter?

New York Times etiquette expert Philip Galanes thinks it shouldn't; in response to a query about a friend who insists that children call adults Mrs. Child's Last Name, rather than using the mother's actual last name, because that's the "proper" thing to do, he says, "Next time you meet one of your friend's children - preferably with his Stepford mother in tow - insist he call you Jules, J-Bird or another nickname that's as inappropriate for a 9-year-old to use as you can bear to suggest. It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes just one sensible adult to bring down a regime that calls people by the wrong names for the sake of 'proper manners.'"

I disagree with Galanes. I think any parent who is encouraging her child to address adults in a respectful manner is doing them a favor. We constantly hear about parents who are NOT teaching good manners -- why attack the parent who is? And why encourage inappropriate behavior as a response?

What do your kids call the other grown ups? Do you ask other parents how they want to be addressed, or just go with the Mr. and Mrs. Child's Last Name shorthand?

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Depending on who you talk to, Summer officially started yesterday evening. In short order, the street fairs and other summer festivals are set to make their debuts, if they haven't already. Amidst all the fun, thrills and excitement, the lights and sounds--and smells--of the fairs, there's another main reason people of all ages travel to such things: The food. It's deep-fried, a lot of it, it's greasy, and it sure is tasty. It also presents some precariousness for a parent of a child with a serious food allergy. After all, who knows what exactly is in that stuff? Most of the time, we'd rather enjoy it and not know.

Dr. Amal H. Assa'ad, a member of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology warns parents to inspect every molecule of food their children may come in contact with, and recommends children with severe allergies such as peanuts and tree nuts carry an Epi-pen with then at all times. I would add to that, from personal experience (I have one of these life-threatening allergies) that you SHOULD ALWAYS WEAR YOUR MEDICAL EMERGENCY ID BRACELET. As my CPR instructor noted, if my throat is closed up and I can't speak, and I'm not wearing my bracelet, no one is going to know I have a nut allergy and to give me the Epi-pen shot.

I hate to say this too, but parents should consider packing and bringing snacks they know are safe to any event, whether it be a potluck or a street fair. Sure, the food is tempting, but most of the people selling it didn't make it, don't know what's in it--oils, for example, are known to be terrible allergens but most servers don't know if what they're serving was made with peanut oil or soy oil--and don't understand how severe the consequences can be when the provide misinformation. Bringing your own food is sure to be healthier, too. Dr. Assa'ad also recommends that parents who suspect a child may have any sort of allergy get it checked out immediately. Honestly, as a kid, I never did. I just had the reaction and we thought, ok, we'll avoid that FOREVER. It's not a great way to navigate through the endless purveyors of things that smell delicious, but could be deadly.

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Education has become decidedly less stuffy since schools and administrators have realized there are others ways for students to demonstrate mastery of a topic besides just writing a report on it. Kids now do things like writing a play about Benjamin Franklin, making a diorama of marsh creatures, and recreating a famous landmark out of Popsicle sticks. (ASK ME HOW I KNOW!)

So it makes sense that it might be time to give physical education class an overhaul as well. A new curriculum adopted by hundreds of elementary schools in more than a dozen states recognizes that not all kids are natural athletes or will be interested in playing team sports. (Did YOU ever play dodge ball outside gym class?)

Instead, individual, no traditional physical activities like rock climbing, skateboarding, unicycle riding, yoga, and even Dance Dance Revolution get kids up and moving without demoralizing by making them the last one picked for a team sport. My sons gym teacher introduced the kids to cup stacking, which required quick reflexes and incredible eye-hand co-ordination and the kids were crazy about it and it allowed kids who weren't the fastest or strongest a chance to shine.

"Most of my class doesn't want PE to end," said Ashleigh Parish a fifth grader who is learning to skateboard at school. I can't think of a more ringing endorsement than having kids actually ENJOYING gym class and wanting to do the activities in their free time.

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If your child is between the ages of five and fourteen, this summer he or she can help change the world by helping to rid it of malaria. According to this, Malaria kills over 3,000 children a day. Malaria is transmitted through the bite of a mosquito. A simple solution? A $10 mosquito net.

Brooke White, of American Idol fame, along with American Idol Gives Back and Malaria No More, are championing efforts to rid the world of Malaria. This summer, they're urging children to use their summer vacations to do the same. White says she is inspired to be a part of the campaign and is amazed by the youth these days--according to her, they're "the most globally-conscious and actively engaged the world has ever seen."

Ideas to help this summer include turning summer-time activities like carwashes and lemonade stands into fundraisers, putting that time in front of the computers to use by social networking to spread info on and awareness of the cause, and designing T-shirts with witty slogans to help spread the word. For more information on how to fight malaria, as well as three other cool ideas to help fight the battle, click here.

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One day a bully told 13-year-old Patrick Kohlmann, "I'm going to kill you tomorrow." Though Patrick's parents warned the school about the threat, the next day Patrick was hit in the head with a rock and received a concussion.

It isn't the first time Patrick's been bullied. In fact, his mother has noted at least 12 serious incidences in the last year. And now Patrick's and his parents are fighting back. They're taking legal action against the school for not doing enough to protect Patrick while he's in their care, despite being repeatedly told where and when the bullying was taking place.

Earlier this month, Patrick tried to showed an emotional video (see it below) he created about bullying to parents and teachers, but was told that it was too graphic and that the meeting he was attending was over. (School officials now say that faculty will see it in the fall). So Patrick put the video on YouTube where it's received over 5,000 hits. He's also passing out blue bracelets that say "STAND UP to bullying" and says that his efforts are making him new friends.

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