The new house rule: No work at home

Only recently did Parrish and Tom Chilcoat realize just how bad the habit had become. As soon as they would get home in the evening and reconnect with the kids, they also would go back to monitoring work. “I'd be trying to check work emails while making spaghetti in between,” Parrish said. “Tom would be in the living room ‘playing' with the kids, but I knew he was checking emails, work projects, not to mention Facebook! It all felt wrong.”

The result, Tom said, was that “after long days at work we'd come home to this chaotic and unorganized time at home.” So a few months ago the couple agreed to ban all electronics in their Los Angeles home between 5 and 8 p.m. Now that time is devoted to board games, reading and making dinner with their kids, ages 3 and 6.

“No more checking email or Facebooking during that time,” Parrish said. “It's a work in progress, but I'd say we are more focused, unified and happy as a family.”

Families who declare laptop-free zones or phone-free periods have company. House rules may vary — no iPad at the breakfast table, no laptops during prime time in the living room, no BlackBerries in bed — but the goal is the same. Stop work life from seeping into family life and be fully present for one another.

Coming soon to baby's bottom: 100% compostable diapers

When Linda Naerheim gave birth to her first daughter, she wanted a high-performance diaper that was convenient to use and made from sustainable materials, but finding that combination was a challenge.

"Not everybody can do cloth," said Naerheim, who, like more than 90% of U.S. parents, preferred disposable diapers because they are so easy to use, even though she cringed at the environmental implications.

Now, five years later, the 38-year-old mother of two is hoping she can help other new parents who want to do right for their children as well as the environment. This week, Naerheim's company, Elements Naturals, is introducing a 100% compostable diaper at Expo West, the annual natural products extravaganza in Anaheim.

The plant-based diaper is hypoallergenic and chlorine- and fragrance-free, Naerheim said. Its absorbent core is made from wood pulp encased in a waterproof outer layer made from a plant-derived starch known as Ingeo. The stretchy leg cuffs are also made from Ingeo. The repositionable tabs that secure the diaper in place are paper.

Naerheim said the diaper can break down completely in 90 days. Composting is recommended only for diapers with urine.

Recognizing that many parents won't compost the diapers but put them in the trash, the diapers' packaging -- also made from compostable, plant-based starch -- recommends flushing solid waste down the toilet to reduce the amount going to landfills. But even if the diapers are tossed, rather than composted, Naerheim said they "won't take forever to break down."

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a disposable diaper will take more than 500 years to disintegrate in a landfill. Estimates vary, but as many as 27 billion disposable diapers are used in the United States each year.

Elements Naturals' compostable diapers are the second sustainable, disposable hygiene product from the Bend, Ore., company. In 2009, Elements Naturals introduced compostable, plant-based baby wipes.

The compostable diapers will launch in two sizes -- Midi (for newborns up to 18 pounds) and Maxi (for infants and toddlers 6 months to 2 years old). Midi packs hold 28 diapers, Maxis 26. They will retail for $16.99 to $17.99 depending on the location.

The diapers aren't yet available, but they can be pre-ordered online beginning in May through the Elements Naturals website and will be available in many natural supermarket chains, including Whole Foods, in late June.

Elements Naturals compostable diapers are manufactured in Italy and are already available in Europe. Naerheim said she wants to set up a manufacturing facility in the U.S. within two years.

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New baby monitors stream video, connect via Wi-Fi

The cry has been heard: After 30 years with little change to baby monitoring devices, new designs premiered this month at the Consumer Electronics Show promising Wi-Fi connectivity and high-definition video that streams live to a smartphone.

Some new monitors will have two-way audio, allowing parents to whisper comforting words in their baby’s ear without stepping foot in the room. Other monitors will text messages when a baby starts to cry, and still others will allow parents to shift the camera's view up, down and around the room remotely, using an iPad.

The next generation of technology represents a leap from most of today's monitors, which consist of a radio transmitter equipped with a microphone in the baby’s room, and a receiver in another room, often no more than 1,000 feet away. When the baby stirs, or coos, or cries, mom and dad can hear and decide whether or not to intervene.

The teenage baby-sitter, replaced by older pros

Meet Maile Yoshida, the baby-sitter of the modern parent's dreams. She's a cute and chirpy 28-year-old with a degree in communication from USC and more than a decade of child-care experience, including baby-sitting infants as well as children with special needs and behavior issues. She has 18 five-star reviews on SitterCity.com, and when meeting prospective families she comes armed with a packet of references, proof of her recent flu and Tdap shots, and her driver's license number.

Of course, you'll have to pay: Yoshida charges $20 to $30 an hour based on the number of kids, their ages and how much driving is involved, among other factors. She said her price is non-negotiable.

Yoshida calls herself a "career nanny" and explains that baby-sitting isn't just a way to make money on the side while she figures out what to do with her life. Baby-sitting is what she is doing with her life.

"This is my means of income," she said. "This is what I do for my career."

Despite the cost, some parents are turning to career nannies such as Yoshida, who come with references and experience, rather than the 15-year-old down the street, even if the need is for just a few hours on a weekend night.

The reasons for this shift away from teenage baby-sitters are varied. Some parents worry that high school students are too focused on their mobile phones -- texting and checking Facebook -- to be responsible for watching a child. Other parents said the supply of teenage baby-sitters has dwindled as college admission has become more competitive and students have gotten busier with extracurricular activities. Still others said teenagers get money from their parents, don't need a job and would rather attend to the demands of their social lives.

At the same time, the poor economy has flooded the baby-sitting market with well-educated people who might be employed elsewhere in better times. Add to that the swirl of anxiety permeating parenting these days, and moms and dads of a certain means facing the question: If something bad were to happen, would you rather have a teenager in your home or a responsible, driving adult?

Parentology: Halloween costumes swapped or sold used

At Halloween City on Sunset Boulevard, you can turn your daughter into an Asian princess for $22.99, your infant into Yoda for $19.99 and your son into Iron Man for $29.99.

And if your kids have spent the past three months talking about dressing as Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland or a zombie ghost rocker, well, there are bags of those costumes too.

To some parents, the proliferation of the store-bought costume is a time-saving godsend, giving overscheduled moms and dads an easy and relatively cheap way to fulfill a child's dream of being Dorothy or a Power Ranger or a puppy — no sewing machine required. Others, however, look at the rows of flimsy princess costumes and fuzzy baby outfits (a sweet pea!), made in China out of polyester and nylon, and can't help but see tomorrow's landfill waste.

"Halloween is like the poster child of unsustainable everything," said Corey Colwell-Lipson, mother of two and founder of Green Halloween, a program of the EcoMom Alliance. "There's a lot of waste and a lot of toxins."

But now a movement against the wear-it-and-toss-it Halloween costume is gaining steam. It seems more parents are turning to costume swaps and used-clothing stores as part of an effort to reclaim Halloween and define it as something other than another holiday centered on buying new stuff. Still, the quest to wrest Halloween from the clutches of consumerism will be hard.

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans are expected to spend $1 billion on new children's costumes this year, up from $840 million last year. An estimated $1.2 billion will be spent on adult costumes — many of which will be worn just once.

"It's kind of heartbreaking that people don't know what to do with their kid's costumes after Halloween is over," said Brooke Le Clear, a mother of a 2-year-old daughter and an instructor at Golden Bridge Yoga in L.A. "It's so wasteful."

Vinci, the tablet computer for babies

Vinci is believed to be the first tablet computer designed for babies as young as 1 week, and before you roll your eyes, consider this: A recent study by Parenting magazine and BlogHer found that 29% of Gen X moms say their children had played with a laptop by age 2. (OK, now roll your eyes.) In her latest installment of Parentology, Times staff writer Deborah Netburn looks at the Vinci tablet, the latest high-tech "learning system" targeted at the under-4 set.

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'Don't Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money': the college kid cry

For parents of college-bound kids, the summer before summer before freshman year can be one of the toughest times, said one of the authors of the newly released edition of “Don't Tell Me What to Do, Just Send Money: The Essential Parenting Guide to the College Years.”

Though this generation has been tagged as more heavily reliant on its parents, the kids “want to be autonomous," said co-author Christine Schelhas-Miller, who teaches about adolescence and emerging adulthood at Cornell. "They're anticipating the separation.... Kids start pushing their parents away before they go.”

Writer Mary MacVean talks with Schelhas-Miller and co-author Helen E. Johnson, then asks herself: Does this mean I should skip parents' weekend?

Article: Parenting in the college years

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The great homework debate

Homework overload? Readers sound off

It's Day 1 of the Los Angeles Unified School District's new policy that homework can account for no more than 10% of a student's grade. Though the policy doesn't limit how much can be assigned, some parents -- particularly those of overachieving children in highly competitive schools -- are cheering the hint of change. For them, the sheer volume of homework is having too many negative effects on family life: the missed meals, the weekends not spent together. What is the point of vacation, they ask, if kids are assigned 25 hours of reading?

Not everyone, of course, feels the same way. We asked for reader feedback during the reporting of the story, and the opinions and anecdotes that you shared became the basis for Deborah Netburn's article on homework overload.

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Homework horror stories? We want to hear them

 
The Los Angeles Unified School District recently announced a new homework policy that says starting July 1, homework can account for only 10% of a student's grade. Anyone out there feeling relieved?

As Times writer Howard Blume reports in an article about the new homework policy, the philosophy behind the move is twofold: It is intended to account for the myriad urban problems facing the district's mostly low-income population who may have trouble fitting in homework between jobs, or long bus rides to school, or noisy households. It's also aimed at supporting L.A. Unified's increased focus on boosting measurable academic achievement.

In light of this news, we wanted to hear crazy homework stories from parents and students. Parents, have you ever jumped in and just did your son or daughter’s homework because it was late, or you wanted to boost a grade, or your kid was crying in frustration, or the teacher was asking for something far beyond his or her ability? Were you the one who ended up staying up all night to build that replica of a California mission? Do you think kids get too much homework, even over the summer? How much of it do you do, and why?

We're casting a wide net, so share your stories. You can leave comments or send an email to deborah.netburn@latimes.com.

We look forward to hearing your tales.

-- Deborah Netburn

Photo: Jenna Latt helps daughter Alejandra Larriva-Latt, 12, with her sixth-grade math assignment. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times.

In touch too much? Kids head off to college -- with mom and dad just a text away

For plenty of parents -- and I am likely to be among them -- the temptation will be great to write a quick email or just shoot a sentence in a text message to a child who's gone off to college. After nearly two decades, letting go won't be so easy.

In fact, many parents and students are not breaking their ties the way they did a couple of generations ago. " 'Good' parents believe that they must always be involved in their children's lives and available to them," Barbara K. Hofer and Abigail Sullivan Moore write in the book "The iConnected Parent." But, they say, it's not the same to be the parent of a child or adolescent as to be the parent of a young adult.

The college students, too, play a role in how much contact -- and what kind of contact occurs between home and campus. The Home section takes a closer look at the relationship this week.

Hofer and Moore suggest setting some goals and ground rules together over the summer. I, for one, will try to keep my hands off my BlackBerry -- at least some of the time.

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-- Mary MacVean

Illustration credit: Stephen Sedam