DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama’s face brightened as he looked up and saw his 8-year-old daughter Sasha on the White House’s Truman Balcony. He gave an exaggerated wave, she waved back and photographers captured a rare, unscripted moment.

It seemed innocent enough, yet White House officials asked news organizations not to distribute the image.

Weeks later, when Obama took his daughters for ice cream the Saturday before Father’s Day, photographers were permitted to provide family friendly pictures to cable news networks and newspaper front pages. The popular Parade magazine put a candid shot of the First Family on its cover the same weekend, illustrating an article about fatherhood that the White House had suggested.

The two events reflect both the First Family’s insistence on raising their young daughters away from the spotlight of the White House and their penchant for carefully using them to bolster the president’s political image.

“He’s going to try to have it both ways until and unless people start to question his value system and his sincerity in playing that role,” said Gerald Shuster, a political communications expert at the University of Pittsburgh.

There haven’t been children this young in the White House since the Kennedys nearly 50 years ago. Pictures of Caroline and John went hand-in-hand with the image of youthful vibrancy that administration was trying to project. There’s a reason why politicians from the local dogcatcher to potential presidents like pictures of kids — the young, non-misbehaving kind. They’re political gold.

Yet even during the Kennedy administration, first lady Jacqueline didn’t like the children being photographed, and a picture taken outside the White House of Caroline and her pet pony infuriated the first couple, said Dennis Brack, former chief of the White House News Photographers Association.

Images are great when they can be controlled. And when it comes to the Obama kids, the White House can be very controlling.

Sasha and her 10-year-old sister Malia have been shielded carefully from the public, but they are by no means invisible.

“If the children are participating in official events with the president and first lady, then they’re part of the first family,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. “But when the children are alone, or when the president and first lady are in their roles strictly as mother and father, there should be a wide berth of privacy extended to the family.”

Protecting the children in their new fishbowl life was a learning process for the Obamas. The girls answered questions, with their parents, during a soft interview for the TV show “Access Hollywood” last summer. Obama later said he regretted setting that precedent, and they haven’t been interviewed since. But the interview came just as Obama was kicking off his general election campaign and the girls no doubt helped cement in the public mind an image of Obama that campaign officials relished.

During NBC’s recent “Inside the Obama White House,” the family turned down the network’s request to film the girls. NBC showed tape of Obama cheering on the sidelines at Sasha’s soccer game; photographers complied with a request not to shoot her playing.

The administration asks that no pictures be taken at the White House of the girls unless they’re at a public event; the residence and the outside grounds are off limits. Those were the boundaries they were trying to protect with the lawn and balcony photos.

The White House has made available a handful of images of the children online through its own photo service on the FlickR Web site, showing them playing on the new swing set, walking their dog Bo or giggling with dad. It’s primarily an attempt to control paparazzi by eliminating their market, Gibbs said.

Gibbs adds an extra layer of control by posting only low-resolution pictures. So if a magazine or other publication wants to use a family photo, they’d have to specifically ask the White House for a better-quality version. Gibbs has refused some of those requests, in effect becoming an editor. The Parade magazine photos, for instance, were all provided by a White House photographer.

It illustrates the fine line politicians dance upon with families, said John Matviko, editor of “The American President in Popular Culture.”

Matviko noted last summer how Republicans admonished reporters for prying into Bristol Palin’s pregnancy while the family of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was prominently on display at the Republican convention. “Either the children are out of bounds, and you don’t put them in the photo ops, or you don’t complain when somebody wants to talk about them,” he said.

There is some discontent among White House photographers about the administration’s aggressiveness in putting out their own images while trying to restrict the work of professionals. In the case of the White House lawn photo, some organizations — including The Associated Press — refused the request not to use the picture of Obama’s waving daughter.

News photographers may not be happy, but there’s likely to be public sympathy for the Obamas’ position. It seems the family is giving a lot of attention to how the kids are being raised, said Joe Kelly, co-founder of Dads and Daughters, an organization that promotes father-daughter relationships.

“There is a big demand,” Kelly said. “People want to see pictures of the kids. Better to try to sate that demand in some measured way than to allow a horde of photographers to follow them wherever they go.”

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

By John Rosemond, McClatchy Newspapers

As my regular readers already know, I am not a fan of rewards given for behaving properly. First, any improvement in behavior that comes about as a result of reward is almost always short-lived. Second, rewards teach children how to be manipulative, to withhold proper behavior until an adult makes a sufficiently attractive offer, as in “If you will stop that and behave yourself the rest of this shopping trip, I’ll buy you that toy you want.” In effect, rewards are bribes, but one must be careful to distinguish between giving a reward and giving positive feedback. The latter is essential to helping a child “fine tune” his or her behavior.

A mother writes that things had gone from bad to worse in her attempts to toilet train her 30-month-old. The primary problem was that he wet his pants incessantly. Gating him in the bathroom with his potty — something I often recommend when toilet training has “stalled” — only made matters worse. Mom was at wits’ end.

Then, in the midst of her toileting torment, she came up with a brilliant idea: “I used a marker to divide a note card into four sections. Then, again following your advice, I began using a potty bell (a simple kitchen timer, available in most discount stores for around $7) that I set for 30 minutes. I explained to him that every time the timer said ‘beep-beep’ I would come and check his underwear. If it was dry, I would put a happy face sticker on his card — I called it his ‘ticket’ — which I put up on the bathroom door. When he filled his ticket with four stickers, he could come out of the bathroom. Meanwhile, I filled him up with liquid.

“Sha-zam! His attitude did a complete 180. Suddenly, his underwear was staying dry and his potty was filling up. I should add that I did my best not to overdo the praise I gave him for his success. I simply told him he was doing a good job and gave the happy face.

“Like you, I am not a fan of reward charts and the like, but I think the ‘bathroom ticket’ was a helpful visual aid to help my toddler understand what I was expecting of him. Furthermore, earning four happy faces only resulted in a normal state of affairs — being released from the bathroom — as opposed to a tangible reward like a new toy.”

Mom closes by saying, “I hope this idea will help someone else who is at their wits’ end with potty training.” I do too, which is why I’m sharing her letter with my readers.

This toileting success story illustrates the distinction between a reward and positive feedback. Feedback is corrective, rewards are not. When children misbehave, they need negative feedback (which, more often than not, should come in the form of a tangible punishment, delivered without any display of great emotion). Likewise, when they behave properly, and especially when proper behavior has not been the norm, they need positive feedback (again, delivered in a fairly low-key manner).

This mother simply used a concrete means of communicating positive feedback to her soggy bottom boy. With toddlers especially, the more concrete the feedback, the more effective the feedback.

But the magic ingredient in this coup de’ toilet was that in the face of frustration, this mother used her head instead of caving into emotion. For that, she receives a Great Big Happy Face along with a relatively low-key “Good job!”

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(Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions on his Web site at www.rosemond.com.)

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(c) 2009, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

By Rafer Guzman, Newsday

In New York State, the minimum age to obtain a driver’s license is 16, but “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” makes an argument for lowering that age to 5. That way, parents wouldn’t have to chaperone their children to this treacly and barely amusing animated 3-D movie.

The third installment in 20th Century Fox’s popular franchise reassembles the familiar crew: husband-and-wife mammoths Manny and Ellie (Ray Romano and Queen Latifah), the sibilant sloth Sid (John Leguizamo), a sabre-tooth tiger oddly named Diego (Denis Leary) and the antic possums Crash and Eddie (Seann William Scott and Josh Peck). It also introduces some much-needed new blood, but more on that later.

The skimpy plot centers on Sid, who falls through a patch of ice and discovers three dinosaur eggs. Jealous that Manny and Ellie are expecting, Sid becomes foster parent to three cloyingly adorable dino-babies. But soon momzilla comes to claim them and takes Sid with her, revealing an underground world populated by creatures that even the endangered “Ice Age” gang thought were extinct.

The filmmakers play to their young demographic mercilessly, with simple sight gags and cutesy baby moments. The occasional nods to adults — a Lou Rawls classic that plays during love scenes, and a riff on the Gilbert O’Sullivan nugget “Alone Again (Naturally)” — feel halfhearted.

Thank goodness, then, for Buck (Simon Pegg), a crazed weasel whose monomaniacal hunt for a massive T. rex recalls Melville’s Ahab. With his eye patch and slightly salty one-liners, Buck gets nearly every laugh here.

The Pixar folks, not to mention the makers of “Sesame Street,” have been entertaining kids and adults for years. It’s not easy, but it shouldn’t be too much to ask.

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ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS

2 stars

Cast: Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah

Length: 1:27

Rated: PG for some mild rude humor and peril

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(c) 2009, Newsday.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO (AP) — A surprising number of U.S. teenagers — nearly 15 percent — think they’re going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.

The study, based on a survey of more than 20,000 kids, challenges conventional wisdom that says teens engage in risky behavior because they think they’re invulnerable to harm. Instead, a sizable number of teens may take chances “because they feel hopeless and figure that not much is at stake,” said study author Dr. Iris Borowsky, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.

That behavior threatens to turn their fatalism into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over seven years, kids who thought they would die early were seven time more likely than optimistic kids to be subsequently diagnosed with AIDS. They also were more likely to attempt suicide and get in fights resulting in serious injuries.

Borowsky said the magnitude of kids with a negative outlook was eye-opening.

Adolescence is “a time of great opportunity and for such a large minority of youth to feel like they don’t have a long life ahead of them was surprising,” she said.

The study suggests a new way doctors could detect kids likely to engage in unsafe behavior and potentially help prevent it, said Dr. Jonathan Klein, a University of Rochester adolescent health expert who was not involved in the research.

“Asking about this sense of fatalism is probably a pretty important component of one of the ways we can figure out who those kids at greater risk are,” he said.

The study appears in the July issue of Pediatrics, released Monday.

Scientists once widely believed that teenagers take risks because they underestimate bad consequences and figure “it can’t happen to me,” the study authors say. The new research bolsters evidence refuting that thinking.

Cornell University professor Valerie Reyna said the new study presents “an even stronger case against the invulnerability idea.”

“It’s extremely important to talk about how perception of risk influences risk-taking behavior,” said Reyna, who has done similar research.

Fatalistic kids weren’t more likely than others to die during the seven-year study; there were relatively few deaths, 94 out of more than 20,000 teens.

The researchers analyzed data from a nationally representative survey of kids in grades 7 to 12 who were interviewed three times between 1995 and 2002. Of 20,594 teens interviewed in the first round, 14.7 percent said they thought they had a good chance of dying before age 35. Subsequent interviews found these fatalistic kids engaged in more risky behavior than more optimistic kids.

The study suggests some kids overestimate their risks for harm; however, it also provides evidence that some kids may have good reason for being fatalistic.

Native Americans, blacks and low-income teens — kids who are disproportionately exposed to violence and hardship — were much more likely than whites to believe they’d die young.

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On the Net:

American Academy of Pediatrics: http://www.aap.org

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

By Steve Rosen, McClatchy Newspapers

Jacob Golding is doing what he does best.

For the 18-year-old recent high school graduate, the recipe for success has revolved around one thing: Technical-school training for a career in electronics engineering.

“I have this built-up passion,” Golding said. “It’s what I want to do.”

The Independence, Mo., resident is multitasking this summer between handyman work and a restaurant job as he prepares to start classes in August in the business and technology program at Metropolitan Community College. After completing the two-year program, Golding hopes to land a job as a power-plant engineer or perhaps even work at NASA.

Golding joins many other students nationwide who are opting to pursue career paths in well-paying skilled trades and technical jobs, such as welding, plumbing, electrical or construction management work, rather than turning to traditional four-year college degree programs.

Despite the recession and high unemployment, several recent surveys indicate strong demand for skilled labor.

For example, a “talent shortage” survey by Manpower Inc. found the jobs that were hardest to fill included skilled and manual trades, technicians, drivers, laborers, machine operators and engineers.

Manpower said the results suggest a “mismatch between the type of individuals available for work and the specific skills that employers are looking for.”

That’s why Golding is confident he’ll be able to turn his passion into a job. And with relatively low tuition at a community college, he expects to enter the work force “with no huge debt in my wallet.”

Other than heavy labor, Golding said, he basically had “no clue” what he wanted to do with his life until he enrolled in high school vocational education classes two years ago.

His father, an experienced contractor, suggested his son focus on electronics. “I was going to take automotive classes,” Golding said, “but in electronics there are always advances in technology. There’s always the next step to learn.”

As part of his classroom commitments, Golding became active in SkillsUSA, a nonprofit organization that promotes vocational training and leadership for high school and post-secondary education students nationwide. The organization wrapped up its annual vocational competition June 26 in Kansas City.

Golding credits SkillsUSA with helping him develop his communications and leadership skills — and whet his appetite for learning new things.

Golding’s experience illustrates another key point — that parents need to allow their children to pursue a career they love, even if it’s not tied to a bachelor’s degree. Otherwise, I think we’re doing our children a disservice.

Indeed, Golding credits his parents for being advocates for his training.

“I’m the first Golding that gets to go to college,” he said proudly.

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(c) 2009, The Kansas City Star.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

By Judi Light Hopson, Emma H. Hopson, R.N., and Ted Hagen, Ph.D., McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Do you have trouble getting along with your brother or sister?

Do you feel tension in the pit of your stomach just thinking about it?

While clashing is normal until teenage years, it’s a different ballgame when those years are over. Sibling rivalry is a hurtful situation as time goes on.

“I’m an expert when it comes to negotiating business deals,” says a man we’ll call Evan. “But, I can’t seem to work out a decent relationship with my brother. That hurts. Every time we’re together, it’s like mixing gasoline and fire.”

Evan, like millions of people, can’t figure out how the tension started. And, he can’t imagine how to fix it.

Psychologists say that sibling rivalry begins as competition for our parents’ attention. As kids, we each act out behaviors, however crazy or obnoxious, to get adult family members to notice us. It becomes a script that we continue to act out.

Children born close in years often have the worst sibling rivalry. Vying for Mom’s or Dad’s attention becomes an ongoing battle.

Jealousy among siblings can also result from one parent actually favoring a certain child. Or, if one child makes better grades or has a better personality, this can cause sibling conflict. Self-esteem issues start to enter the picture.

If you would like to cool the rivalry between yourself and a sibling, try these tactics:

–Downplay all differences. If you’re a doctor, and your brother is a carpenter, let him know that you respect him. Ask for his advice. Brag on him when you can.

–Create equality when you’re together. If you live in a mansion and your sister doesn’t, ask her and her family to come stay at an affordable beach house with your family. At the beach house, your sister will feel more financially equal to you.

–Build common interests. All of your conversation should revolve around what you have in common, so look for ways to enjoy jazz music together or share cookbooks you both enjoy.

To cool tension between yourself and another person, use body language and a voice tone that says, “I care about you.”

Discussing past hurts is probably useless, since you cannot change the past. If you lower the tension naturally by building common ground, you can eventually talk about past pain.

“I really had a lot of apologizing to do concerning my brother,” says a woman we’ll call Denise. “I was pretty mean to him growing up. When we started mending fences, I told him how sorry I was. Thankfully, he forgave me.”

Remember, too, that all sibling relationships are flawed. There are no “perfect:” relationships or perfect families. Don’t demand perfection of your siblings, and don’t look for underlying criticisms in their conversations.

“I’d been so mean to my brother,” says Denise, “that I looked for him to give me some cruel digs — which he did! But, when we started ironing things out, I knew he’d have to relearn how to talk around me. I let remarks go, and I stopped reacting to him. His meanness toward me mellowed into great love.”

Cutting off totally from siblings in adulthood is very common. Plenty of people will not communicate in any way with a sibling.

Total cutoff might work for a while, but having zero communication is really very stressful. Someone you have no relationship with will stay on your mind a lot.

Try to have a “small” relationship with a sibling, regardless of feelings. Sending a Christmas card or talking by phone once a year is better than total cutoff.

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(Judi Hopson and Emma Hopson are authors of a stress management book for paramedics, firefighters and police, “Burnout To Balance: EMS Stress.” Ted Hagen is a family psychologist. Write to them in care of McClatchy-Tribune News Service, 700 12th Street NW, Suite 1000, Washington DC 20005; please enclose a copy of the column and the name of the newspaper you saw it in. You can also contact the authors through the Web site www.hopsonglobal.com.)

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(c) 2009, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

By Barbara Quinn, The Monterey County Herald

How much weight should a woman gain during pregnancy? Depends how much she weighs before she gets pregnant. And oh baby has that ever changed over the past 20 years.

According to a committee established by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine (NASIOM), “Women today are heavier; a greater percentage of them are entering pregnancy overweight or obese, and many are gaining too much weight during pregnancy.”

Excess weight and weight gain during pregnancy isn’t just the inconvenience of bigger maternity clothes. Starting a pregnancy too heavy can set up mom and baby for serious health consequences including diabetes and heart disease.

Besides being heavier, pregnant women in America now tend to be older than women who had babies a few decades ago. And they are having more twins and triplets.

So, for the first time since 1990, the “Committee to Reexamine the Institute of Medicine Pregnancy Weight Guidelines” has established new recommendations for pregnant women which fall in line with those developed by the World Health Organization (WHO). Here are the important points:

Pre-pregnancy weight — what a woman weighs BEFORE she gets pregnant — is the best determinant of how much she should gain during pregnancy. And the best way to assess pre-pregnancy weight is to calculate Body Mass Index (BMI): Weight in pounds x 703 divided by height in inches divided by height in inches again. (Or do it the easy way and go to http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ for a tool that calculates BMI.

These are the new BMI categories (with recommended weight gain ranges for pregnancy): BMI less than 18.5, underweight (28-40 pounds); BMI 18.5-24.9, normal weight (25-35 pounds); BMI 25.0-29.9, overweight (15-25 pounds); BMI 30 or greater, obese (11-20 pounds).

What about twins? Again, the guidelines vary according to mom’s weight (BMI) prior to her pregnancy. But since there is less data on twin pregnancies, the committee has set these “provisional” guidelines based on the best available data thus far: BMI 18.5-24.9, Normal weight: 37-54 pounds; BMI 25.0-29.9, overweight (31-50 pounds); BMI 30 or more, obese (25-42 pounds). What about underweight women with twins? Unfortunately, not enough information is yet available to make a firm recommendation, say these experts.

What’s the goal of these guidelines? To produce an infant who is not too small and not too large at birth. And it is “remarkably clear, say the IOM experts” that women who enter pregnancy at a normal BMI (normal weight) have a better chance for producing a baby who is “just right.”

Oh, the joy of pregnancy — when this brand new person is being knit together in the womb. To accomplish the best outcome possible, some women may need to become thinner before they become pregnant, say these experts. It’s that important…

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(Barbara Quinn is a registered dietitian and diabetes educator at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. E-mail her at bquinn@chomp.org.)

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(c) 2009, The Monterey County Herald (Monterey, Calif.).

Visit the Monterey County Herald’s World Wide Web site at http://www.montereyherald.com/

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

BETH RUCKER, Associated Press Writer

PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. (AP) — Dolly Parton created the charity Imagination Library 13 years ago to provide books to children and encourage literacy.

Now the entertainer will have her own children’s book, “I Am a Rainbow,” featured in the philanthropy.

“It gives me a chance to play and be a child too. What a wonderful way for me to go into my second childhood,” Parton, 63, said recently after reading the book to children gathered for a show at her Dollywood themepark.

The book, which Parton said is for children of all ages, describes how colors can be used to explain emotions children might have, be they blue or green with envy or tickled pink. It tells children, “It’s not always up to you, the way that you feel. But how you act is a different deal.”

Parton wrote it with plans for the sale proceeds to benefit Imagination Library, the program which through the work of the nonprofit Dollywood Foundation and local communities sends a book a month to children from birth to age 5.

Parton created the program in 1996 for her native Sevier County. It’s since grown to supply books to 1,000 communities in 47 states, the United Kingdom and Canada.

What she didn’t expect was for “I Am a Rainbow” to be included among the library’s offerings. She has no say in the books that are offered. That’s left up to a committee of teachers, child development experts and parents who review each book thoroughly.

“When you look at the entire age range, from birth to 5, the more difficult selections are that first year or two. There are fewer books available. For ‘I Am a Rainbow,’ obviously that’s one of the strengths of the book,” said David Dotson, president of the Dollywood Foundation.

“And obviously everyone’s heard of the author,” he said.

Parton has often said her father, who instead of attending school had to work as a child to support his family, was most proud of her efforts to promote literacy and thought it was cute that the children in Sevier County knew his daughter as “The Book Lady.”

“My dad had trouble reading and writing, but I think he could have read that little book,” she said of her book. “I’d have read it to him, if nothing else.”

“I Am a Rainbow” is the first authored by Parton for children, though her song “Coat of Many Colors” was adapted for a children’s book. She also doesn’t expect it to be her last.

Many of the projects Parton plans for the near future involve children: she wants to develop characters and stories for a children’s theater show, DVDs, music and more books.

Parton acknowledges her child-like spirit that kids respond to well. “I don’t have children of my own, and I always think that’s what God planned so everybody’s kids could be mine,” she said. “If I’d had a bunch of my own, I probably couldn’t have had a chance to do all these other things for other people’s children.”

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

A new assistant principal was hired for Simle Middle School. Mari Fridgen will replace outgoing assistant principal Sherry Heaton.

“Mari has been actively involved in our professional development programs, Balanced Scorecard goal-setting and Professional Learning Communities,” assistant superintendent John Salwei said.

Fridgen started working in Bismarck Public Schools 10 years ago as a substitute teacher. She then worked at Will-Moore Elementary School and Horizon Middle School. At Horizon, she taught history and math.

She participated in an administrative internship at Simle and Moses Elementary School. She graduated from Concordia College with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. She received a middle school endorsement from North Dakota State University and earned a master’s degree in school administration from University of Mary in 2007.

Fridgen will start her new job Aug. 1. Heaton will be principal at Horizon Middle School, replacing Rudy Steidl, who retired.

By Roger Moore, The Orlando Sentinel

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material.

What it’s about: The Decepticons, led by The Fallen, seek their revenge on Earth, General Motors and Shia LaBeouf.

The kid attractor factor: Cars that turn into empathetic, brawling robots and Megan Fox.

Good lessons/bad lessons: Loyalty counts. But a couple of robots are built on racist stereotypes.

Violence: Constant, though there’s little blood despite a staggering body count.

Language: Some profanity.

Sex: Megan Fox meets an amorous robot.

Drugs: Pot-stuffed brownies are served.

Parents’ advisory: More tailored to teenage boys than the first “Transformers,” if that is possible, with a sniggering attitude toward sex, pot, etc.

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MY SISTER’S KEEPER

Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic content, some disturbing images, sensuality, language and brief teen drinking.

What it’s about: A little girl sues to get out of having to donate a kidney to her dying sister.

The kid attractor factor: Teens and tweens struggle with moral decisions, sex, life and death.

Good lessons/bad lessons: Letting go in a losing battle is sometimes the noblest act of all.

Violence: Leukemia is as violent as illnesses come.

Language: Some profanity.

Sex: A very sick teen makes out with her boyfriend.

Drugs: A very sick teen gets drunk.

Parents’ advisory: A decent teen date movie, a good family film for those with kids 12 and up.

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(c) 2009, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

Visit the Sentinel on the World Wide Web at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.