Shop Online. Only.
Avoid the holiday mayhem entirely. Schedule time with each child to cybershop – most stores will save the contents of your shopping cart for a few days, so you can revise according to your budget when all the kids are done. Kids will love the special time and the fact that they get to control the clicks, but you’ll have control over what ends up in the cart.

Pare Down Your Search
If you have some idea of what you want to buy but aren’t totally sure, Pronto is a great place to start. The shopping search engine is accurate and user-friendly, and with photos and price ranges for all the results. Start in their toys and games or baby sections, and keep refining till you have a few choices in your preferred criteria.

Subscribe, Don’t Buy
If your little ones tend to have fickle toy tastes, try giving a toy rental subscription to RentAToy or BabyPlays. They’re like Netflix for toys, and the same logic applies: They reduce the clutter that comes with an enormous toy collection, and keep things interesting with new toys when your tot tires of the current one.

Get Cash Back
A no-brainer for saving during a big shopping season: shop through a cash-back service like Bank of America’s Add It Up program, which gives Bank of America customers up to 20% cash back on purchases from participating retailers. The Bank of America program has over 300 retailers, like Land of Nod, so it might make sense to check the list before deciding where you’ll buy a given toy. You can even take advantage of double cash back offers from retailers like Apple Online Store and BestBuy.com.

Set Yourself Up For Deals
Know where you’ll do some of your shopping already? Sign up for that retailer’s e-mail newsletter list, and you’ll be the first to know about sales, spend-and-save offers, and free shipping – sometimes they’ll even throw in a coupon code. Toys R Us, Babies R Us and Target are particularly good for big brands like Fisher Price and Mattel; Giggle and FAO Schwarz have great selections of European and Eco toys.

Should I be? According to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), probably not, but it's not a bad idea to get my 11-year-old daughter vaccinated anyway. And if you do get the flu, be concerned if the symptoms seem to improve, and then worsen again--it could be a sign that the flu has set off pneumonia or another bacterial disease.

There have been almost 4,000 deaths from H1N1 (the virus that causes swine flu) nationwide since the epidemic started last April. That's nowhere close to the 36,000 people who die each year from standard issue seasonal flu, but the difference is that 90% of those flu victims are elderly. Swine flu appears to be far less deadly for the aged, possibly because a similar strain of virus was circulating when they were young and they built up immunity. That means that deaths in young people are disproportionately higher, but overall deaths are much, much lower.

To figure out just who gets sickest, researchers sponsored by the Calif. Department of Public Health studied statewide data on California residents who were hospitalized with H1N1 flu between April 23 and August 11, 2009. They found 1088 cases of hospitalization, and 11% of those died. Just like with standard flu, the most fatalities, 18%, were in persons aged 50 years or older. Eight children, 7% of the total, died.

Overall, 32% of the hospitalized were children younger than 18, with infants having the highest rate of hospitalization. The median age (midpoint) of the victims was 27 years, slightly younger than typically found during a flu epidemic. Here's a key point: two-thirds of those hospitalized had underlying medical conditions that put them at greater risk from the flu, such as asthma or cerebral palsy. If you are healthy, you have less to worry about.

But here's another key point--over half of those hospitalized were obese. The researchers warned that "obesity may be a newly identified risk factor for fatal pandemic 2009 influenza A(H1N1) infection and merits further study." Given that one-third of the population is obese, including 10% of children, that's a worry.

In another study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) of 36 children who died from H1N1 from April to August, researchers found that six had no chronic health conditions. But all of the children had a bacterial infection, the most common being staphylococcus aureus, the most frequent cause of staph infections. A third of the population carries this staph bacteria, usually in their nose or on their skin. There is a particularly worrisome strain of staph called MRSA that is resistant to the most common antibiotics, and can be deadly. Because the flu causes upper respiratory damage, it can allow the staph bug to make its way into the lungs. So again, if you or your child improves, but then gets sicker, it could be a sign that a bacterial infection has taken hold and you should seek medical attention immediately.

From the latest CDC briefing, where it was announced that the virus is active throughout the nation:

We wouldn't expect this many states to have this widespread of a disease. Flu can last until May. We don't know what we will see with this virus in general. Most of the illness is in younger people. More than half the hospitalizations are in people under 25. 90% of the deaths are in people under 65. A flip-flop from what we see with seasonal flu. The pediatric deaths are high...Two-thirds of the children who died from the H1N1 virus have underlying condition that is increase their risk of this problem. The leading underlying conditions in children who have died are severe neurologic problems like cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy and asthma in terms of contributing to the severe outcomes.

Nationwide, the CDC reports that there were almost 5,000 H1N1-related hospitalizations between Aug 30 and Oct 10. Of those, 19% were children 4 and under; 25% were 5 years to 18 years; 9% were people 19 years to 24 years; 24% were 25 to 49 years; 15% were 50 to 64 years; and 7% were people 65 years and older.

There were 292 H1N1 deaths reported to the CDC over the 40 day period. The breakdown: children 4 and under, 3%; 5 to 18 years, 14%; people 19 to 24 years, 7%; people 25 to 49 years, 33%; 50-64 years, 32%; and people 65 years and older, 12%.

If you want to stay on top of H1N1 developments, the CDC maintains the most comprehensive and up-to-date web site, found here.

To learn how one family dealt with swine flu, read Working Parents co-writer Anne Newman's account here. And I wrote about the safety of flu vaccines here.

As a parent, how do you determine if an event is age-appropriate to discuss, such as the death of a major figure?
It really depends on the child. Is the child aware of this event? In some instances these events pass right over children and they have no interest in knowing. It's important to determine if the child really wants or needs this information. It is certainly less complicated to deal as a parent on a one-to-one basis with children about a tragic event such as death. Children are most affected by these events if they had a relationship with the deceased. Some children find it comforting to know that the person or people involved not in pain anymore. I have found that with my own kids the primary concern is the "pain factor," and "can it happen to us?"

I like to draw on what Kathie Scobee Fulgham, daughter of an astronaut who died on the Space Shuttle Challenger, shared with other children whose parents had died in terrorist attacks or space disasters. Kathie describes seeing the shuttle explode over and over again on the TV screen and virtually seeing her dad dying over and over again. She said that each time brought more confusion and pain.

Today Katie shares with children of disaster victims that "the same way your brain doesn't register immediately when you break your arm," the victims don't feel the pain and don't know what is happening. I talk to my children about this concept and find it very helpful.

However, covering bad news, such as fire or terrorist attack, tends to dominate the headlines. Should we shield our children from those discussions?
We can't - in most instances, that is. I would certainly not draw attention or describe the details of events that can be frightening to children. Children pick up on what's happening around them and sense tense situations. It is best to talk to them about the situation so that they feel secure that they are getting the information from a safe, age-appropriate resource and that they don't have to look for answers on their own, or try to make sense of events on their own, which often leads to misunderstanding and unnecessary fears and anxiety.

The point is to give them the information that they need and not extraneous information that can be harmful. I often focus on what is being done to prevent a given situation from happening in the future, and what steps we are taking as a family and a nation to prevent this from reoccurring. For example, pointing out the volunteerism that took place after 9/11 gives children a sense of "we're not alone" and helps them shift their focus to positive, and in some instances courageous, actions taken by fellow Americans.

What kinds of news events spark the best conversations with your own family? Sports? Local? National?
I think it is my passion for imparting knowledge that drives these discussions in our home. It's my tone, my attitude such as: "I came across an amazing news item today...it was about such-and such," and my children are all ears! Then come the follow-up questions which lead us to explore the topic on a deeper level.

How can schools do a better job of incorporating current events into the curriculum?
In the Information Age, where we are today, current events are a crucial part of education. Textbooks are typically a few years behind and in many instances the information is outdated. If educators make an effort to tie in the news across the curriculum, learning comes alive and becomes relevant.

I can't think of a better way to spark students' interest in government than to present the headlines of what's happening in our government now. The same applies to all content areas. For example: "What is currently happening in the region being discussed in your history class?" "Are there any scientific studies being conducted in the field your science class is exploring now?" By incorporating current events in classrooms we provide our students with a foundation for lifelong learning that they can apply to their everyday lives.

What's the best way to get kids engaged in the world around them?
Tune into their natural curiosity. What are their interests? Build on them!

For more tips on talking to children about bad news, check out this article from the Portland Examiner.

This is my family's first Halloween in suburban USA (we moved here after four years living in Europe and Asia, prior to which we were in New York) and the one question everyone has for us is: "Did you celebrate Halloween in the other countries you lived in?"

"Yes," I say, "we did," because Halloween has been a big deal every place we have lived in or been to, including the small Spanish town of Salobrena, where we happened to be at this time last year, and where during the sacred siesta hour, the only store open was the one selling Halloween costumes.

I first celebrated Halloween 35 years ago as a second grader at the International School of Geneva, Switzerland. I remember quite clearly a class party organized by an enterprising American mother, and a rather itchy black skirt and turtleneck top my mother put on me for a witch’s costume. We bobbed for apples and I tasted candy corn for the very first time.

Not everyone is happy about this. A French friend believes the internationalization of Halloween is just another example of how "Americanized" the world is becoming. A Spanish lady at the last school my kids attended was upset that the Fiesta de los Reyes Magos was not given even a nod, whereas everyone went nuts over Halloween.

Even here in the United States, I read, some people do not partake in Halloween (see this link as well as this one about Muslims from BeliefNet). But in our family’s experience across the world, Halloween is one of those universal celebrations that really can bring together people from all different parts of the globe and all walks of life, and nothing brought that more home to me than the Halloween we spent a few years ago in the small Southern Indian city of Mysore, a place even farther removed from Halloween than the South of Spain.

One American mother living there at the time did not want her daughter to miss out on Halloween, so she decided to throw a party for the neighborhood expat kids. She had brought some treats along with her from the U.S., and orange and black craft paper to make spiders and pumpkins out of, and she enlisted a local tailor to make a beautiful Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz) costume for her daughter. The same man fashioned an Alice in Wonderland dress for my daughter and a Power Ranger outfit for my son.

A bunch of people from different parts of the world – the UK, Australia, Spain, Mexico, Italy – readily agreed to be on the trick-or-treating route, and as our small group of children walked through the narrow, potholed lanes of that Mysore neighborhood, some of them threw down sweets from their balconies. The kids rushed in all directions to pick them up and there was great laughter and excitement.

Then suddenly, a small girl in a tattered pink frock, a frayed ribbon hanging from her braid, darted forward and quick as a flash, grabbed a chocolate bar before anyone in our group could get their hand on it. She was part of a group, too, a group of dirt-poor kids from the neighboring slums that had been following us on our walk. In a matter of minutes, the children from both groups began to playfully fight over the candy. But only for a minute – because then the children in our group let the others have it all, and like us, just seemed to want to enjoy the looks of joy on the others’ faces as they scooped up handfuls of treats they had never tasted in their life and might never taste again, and fingered the beautiful costumes.

My children and others will always have Halloween. But for those others, it was only a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. To be able to share it with them was what it was all about and what made it a Halloween I’ll never forget.

Nevertheless, these fears about swine flu, or even garden-variety seasonal flu, have not kept many parents from refusing to subject themselves or their child to any vaccine containing the preservative thimerosal. This despite zero evidence that there is any danger at all from the additive. Instead, there is extensive safety data that shows that the vaccine is far safer than the flu itself, and thimerosal makes it even safer:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says the only danger is "a myth that has been propagated." Fauci says the real danger is not using the preservative. Thimerosal actually protects the vial that is stuck several times with a needle.

Thimerosal fear is clearly widespread. A recent CBS News poll found that 51% of Americans say they are not very likely to get the swine flu vaccine, and more than a third of parents are not likely to vaccinate their children--even though three out of four respondents viewed the H1N1 virus as a serious problem. New York State recently dropped a requirement that all health workers get the H1N1 vaccine after outcries from some who feared it might be unsafe--and these are supposedly educated health care consumers.

These unfounded fears could make a bad situation much worse. The U.S. is already suffering from a refusal to use adjuvants that could double the potency of the H1N1 vaccine, thus stretching available supplies. Adjuvants are chemical compounds, usually oil and water emulsions, that boost the human body's immune response to the vaccine's active ingredient so more doses can be made. There is 12 years of safety data behind them, and they are widely used in Europe, where there is no vaccine shortage as a result. But the fear in the U.S. of vaccine additives, and even vaccines themselves, has kept the FDA from approving any adjuvant-laced flu vaccine, because it might make the populace even more reluctant to get the shots.

Before refusing a vaccine containing thimerosal, parents should keep in mind that 36,000 people die in the U.S. every year from seasonal flu. Since April, about 1,000 people have died from swine flu, including 96 children. Deaths from the swine flu vaccine: 0. If you're worried about the vaccine, or H1N1, take the time to educate yourself about the flu, the vaccine, and the risk factors for both.
Here's some links, and excerpts:

From the surgeon general's official www.flu.gov site, dispelling myths about thimerosal:

Thimerosal is a very effective preservative that has been used since the 1930s to prevent contamination in some multi-dose vials of vaccines. There is no convincing evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site. The 2009-H1N1 influenza vaccines that FDA has licensed will be manufactured in several formulations, including pre-filled, single-dose syringes and nasal sprayers along with multi-dose vials. Only multi-dose vials of seasonal influenza vaccine will contain thimerosal to prevent potential contamination after the vial is opened.

From the CDC's H1N1 information site:

Thimerosal is an important preservative that protects vaccines against potential microbial contamination, which may occur in opened multi-dose vials of vaccine. Such contamination could cause serious illness or death. Since seasonal influenza vaccine is produced in large quantities for annual immunization campaigns, some of the vaccine is produced in multi-dose vials, and contains thimerosal to safeguard against possible contamination of the vial once it is opened. Three leading federal agencies (CDC, FDA, and NIH) have reviewed the published research on thimerosal and found it to be a safe product to use in vaccines. Three independent organizations [The National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)] reviewed the published research and also found thimerosal to be a safe product to use in vaccines. The scientific community supports the use of thimerosal in influenza vaccines.

I admit to being on a bit of a crusade against the anti-vaccine forces. Here's a link to an earlier post (some might say rant) of mine on the issue.For a well-researched article dissecting the anti-vaccine hysteria, read Wired's lastest cover story, "An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All" (better, yet, buy the magazine, the whole package is very good).If you want some really detailed insight into the safety and effectiveness of flu vaccines from someone with the credentials to know, head over to the excellent blog Science-Based Medicine and read Flu Vaccine Efficacy by Dr. Mark Crislip, an infectious disease specialist in Portland, Oregon.

Children spend more than an entire day in front of the television each week. According to research from media tracking firm Nielsen, television viewing among children is now at an eight-year high.

Kids aged 2-5 now spend more than 32 hours a week on average in front of a TV screen. The older segment of that group (ages 6-11) spend a little less time, about 28 hours per week watching TV, due in part that they are more likely to be attending school for longer hours.

Mea culpa. As a working parent, I can attest that I have used the television as a babysitter when I need to get work done. In fact, right before I read about this study, I actually made mental note to tape (a.k.a. Tivo) a show my son has been bugging me to watch because I have an evening conference call next week. Incidentally, Nielsen says kids are watching taped shows more often.

I know I'm not alone. Many of my friends and coworkers admit that they use TV to keep their kids entertained—and, most important—quiet while they try to answer emails, talk to their customers and colleagues, write reports, and whatever else needs to be done when they are out of the office.

But I do worry about my son's consumption of television, especially when he starts humming the theme song from Jeopardy, or suggesting vacation locations. "Call your travel agent," he has told me several times. (Thankfully, he hasn't recommended Viagra yet.)

Do you use the television as a babysitter to help you get the work done? Do you feel guilty about it? Also, if anyone has good ideas to keep kids engaged and quiet that do not involve a DVD when work calls, please let me know.

I can already hear the groans from many readers, who likely think this is just a bunch of angry women getting their knickers in a twist over some minor male/female difference. I might have thought the same, except for an image that stopped me short while reading a front page story in the New York Times about the controversy, headlined "Man's World At White House? No Harm, No Foul, Aides Say."

First of all, that headline is a tad misleading. It is the president's male aides who see "no harm, no foul." Five women who work in the White House, all of whom asked for anonymity because of concerns of appearing "publicly critical" (i.e., not good girls?) responded with eye rolls and complaints when asked about the sports-heavy atmosphere in the White House. But what I found most disturbing was the mention of an off-the-record meeting that White House communications director Anita Dunn recently hosted for women reporters--over chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies!!!

Well isn't that sweet? The gals got together over cookies--homemade, I hope, by one of the attendees--while the guys solved the world's problems on the playing field.

I'm particularly sensitive to this issue because I have no interest in professional sports. This failure on my part has often left me looking on with a weak smile while the editors I've worked for throughout my career (virtually all men) talked about last night's game. I despise football (the remnants of growing up in a football-mad small town), I couldn't care less about March Madness, and though I do pay slight attention to the Red Sox, I am not all that interested in the World Series when they aren't in it. Nor do I know the first thing about tennis or golf. Has that hurt my career? Who knows? I'm guessing that there are plenty of work environments where it would.

I realize that women have come a long, long way over the last 50 years, as well-documented in the excellent new book When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 To the Present, by New York Times columnist Gail Collins. From her publisher:

The interviews with women who have lived through these transformative years include an advertising executive in the 60s who was not allowed to attend board meetings that took place in the all-male dining room; and an airline stewardess who remembered being required to bend over to light her passengers' cigars on the men-only 'Executive Flight' from New York to Chicago. We, too, may have forgotten the enormous strides made by women since 1960--and the rare setbacks. "Hell yes, we have a quota [7%]" said a medical school dean in 1961. "We do keep women out, when we can." At a pre-graduation party at Barnard College, "they handed corsages to the girls who were engaged and lemons to those who weren't." In 1960, two-thirds of women 18-60 surveyed by Gallup didn't approve of the idea of a female president. Until 1972, no woman ran in the Boston Marathon, the year when Title IX passed, requiring parity for boys and girls in school athletic programs (and also the year after Nixon vetoed the childcare legislation passed by congress).

All of that sounds like ancient history now. It's hard to believe that just a few decades ago women weren't allowed to have a credit card or mortgage in their own name, much less hold an executive position or run for president. But it's not all that ancient. Women still earn 78 cents for every dollar earned by men in similar jobs, with similar levels of education and experience. In business, politics, journalism and law women occupy only 20% of leadership positions (and much lower in Fortune 500 firms), despite making up 48% of the workforce. I don't know if playing basketball with the residents of the executive suite would change any of that. But it might be nice to be invited. Or have the men join us for cookies.

I'd love to hear from women, and men, out there in the working world: Is facility with a ball, or knowledge of last night's scores, an important career booster in your office?

You say that the U.S. has failed working families because public and corporate policies do not mirror their needs. What countries do a good job of promoting work and family issues?
This is a complicated question. Doing a “good job” with work and family policies is a function of the demographics, culture, traditions and forms of government in a particular country. That being said, there is some consensus around the Scandinavian countries as role models for good working family practices. Scandinavian countries encourage both men and women to pursue careers by providing programs and policies (family leave, dependent care support, and some financial support) that help families balance both jobs and parenting.

Also, some European countries have progressive programs. France, Germany, Belgium have “father friendly” programs and policies that encourage and support men to engage in careers while maintaining full engagement with their roles and responsibilities as fathers.

Unfortunately, the Untied States is far, far behind these nations.

Which companies in Corporate America today set the "gold” standard for programs to promote work and families?
Indeed, there are many U.S. corporations that are progressive in their support of working families. Many of the Corporate Voices for Working Families partner companies are among this elite group. Companies like Accenture (ACN), PNC (PNC), Merck (MRK), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Baxter (BAX), JPMorgan (JPM), Ernst & Young and Allstate (ALL) are among the best of them.

Working Mother magazine annually highlights the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers. And now to level the playing field between professional employee support and hourly employee support, Working Mother, in partnership with Corporate Voices, is shining the light on those companies who employ predominately hourly workers, with the same opportunity to brand their workforce supports for hourly working families.

The first edition of Best Companies for Hourly Workers will be published in Working Mother magazine in the spring 2010. The strategy is to use the competitive mentality of corporations to brand and encourage advancement of these supports for hourly workers who have been somewhat overlooked in the past.

Can you talk about any innovative/unusual/successful programs?
There are many examples of these “best-practice” programs occurring in the field of work and family balance. Flexibility continues to lead the way. Available for many years for professional employees only, flexible work opportunities are now being offered by many progressive companies to their hourly employees.

Companies like Marriott (MAR) and PNC are experimenting with flexibility for hourly employees and realizing returns on investment equal to those evidenced by flexibility offerings to their professional staffs.

Companies are even piloting workplace lactation support for hourly employees. Female labor now represents 50% of the American workforce and that represents permanent and fundamental change. We are dependent on female labor in the 21st century workplace and that will drive even greater innovation in coming years.

Corporate Voices, by the way, would be most interested in feedback from companies about their innovative, unusual and successful programs. We know from experience that these best-practice models are drivers of change involving public and corporate policy. And we would welcome the opportunity to engage those companies in concert with our current corporate partners that really are leaders in designing and implementing programs aimed at work and family balance and improving the lives of working families.

Why is the conversation about workplace flexibility focused on professional workers?
Flexibility has been focused primarily on professional/management employees to date, because of two primary reasons. First, U.S. labor law (FLSA) does not apply to professional employees, so tracking hours worked is not required. Employers can ask professionals to work as few or as many hours as they deem necessary, as well as whatever work schedule they feel appropriate.

Secondly, the cost of professional turnover, which resulted from rigid, inflexible scheduling of hours, began to increase dramatically as productivity gains began to be associated with longer hours rather than more efficient processes. Companies who demanded long hours with no flexibility began to lose their best talent.

The cost of that turnover, including recruiting, training, and on-boarding new hires, was time consuming, which means costly. In many industries, the cost of replacing a fully functioning employee was estimated to be as much as 2-6 times that employee’s annual salary. Keeping talent became a key management objective. Offering flexibility, a fairly cost neutral solution, kept professionals loyal, on the job and actually increased engagement scores.

By contrast, why aren’t there more flexible work options for hourly workers?
As I mentioned previously, labor laws require tracking and recording hours worked. A company had to employ some mechanized system to do that, like clock cards, or they verified hours worked by observation. And unfortunately, to many managers, seeing is believing. It has been perceived to be too difficult to implement flexibility for hourly employees.

Additionally, in an economy that had an overabundance of qualified workers, the replacement of an hourly worker was perceived to be easy. Hourly workers were perceived to be pretty much undifferentiated – the old industrial model.

But in today’s world, with the skills gap widening and employers in all industries agreeing that there is a shortage of qualified workers, both hourly and professional, I think we are poised to see the rapid decline of those antiquated management beliefs. Business is now more knowledgeable about what constitutes a productive employee.

Do you think the Motherhood Penalty exists in Corporate America? Why or why not?
Unfortunately, I do think the motherhood penalty exists. One popular Sunday night drama recently and dramatically brought the discussion into the forefront when one of the “desperate housewives” denied her pregnancy to retain a promotion she had been granted. But we don’t need to see evidence in the popular media to know it exists.

Many aspects of career track jobs penalize motherhood – not intentionally but because of traditional thinking about what it takes to succeed (based on the prevalence of male models in the past). Today, in the best of cases if you are lucky enough to have paid maternity leave, it is still only a few companies that will hold “your” job open until you return.

FMLA requires that “a” job be available when you return. The time it takes to develop credentials in a new position inadvertently delays the advancement of women. And there are many less obvious reasons why mothers are penalized. Perceptions of loyalty, ability to travel, reliability on the job, while not policy driven, remain unspoken and many times unrecognized barriers.

The recession is having a huge impact on the physical, mental and fiscal health of American workers. How are employers helping workers weather the storm? Can you share some best practices?
The economy has indeed taken a toll. Employees who have retained their jobs are extremely insecure and job stress is becoming unmanageable. Many times that stress is a function of work overload accompanied by guilt at being retained when close co-workers have been dismissed. Companies that recognize and solve for this aftereffect are indeed among the best places to work.

But as recently reported by the Families and Work Institute, we can point to 80% retention of flexible work practices by those firms that have them, and a 18% increase in the companies that are offering them. Additionally we are seeing more workforce support for those retained, and outplacement services for those being dismissed including career counseling, retaining in job search skills and of course EAP services which are being proactively offered to workers and their family members.

This economy is throwing new challenges and new surprises at us almost daily. Our companies will have a better change at weathering this storm if we minimize unnecessary inter-office bickering, maintain a tone of control and reduce stress-causing behavior.

Here are three tips for being a better manager, plucked straight from the pages of a parenting handbook.

1. Create a sense of family:

Have you ever noticed how a parent scolds a child when they are fighting with their siblings?

“Don’t hit your sister!” or “Don’t tease your brother.”

Parents use family position instead of given names when barking these commands. Why? I think the stronger message is, “We are a family and that is not how you treat your family.”

Throughout the ages, healthy families that stick together have a better chance of survival for the individuals in the family. Good parents understand this, if even on an instinctual level, and shape their words to instill the message, “Be good to your family.”

As a manager, it’s tempting to create empires. Nothing bonds a team quicker than an “us against them” mentality. Whether it’s back office against frontline, marketing against finance, or employees against management, it’s easy to build small tribes within a bigger organization. It’s easy, but it’s not always best for your credit union.

Just like fighting with your siblings is bad for the family, interdepartmental bickering is bad for your company. It is particularly dangerous for us right now. Squabbling is time consuming, resource draining and morale dampening. If we are going to survive this economy we have to do a lot of things well and one of them, simple as it may sound, is get along.

2. Keep Up Your Game Face:

Parents understand how strongly their emotions set the tone for their children. One mother I interviewed for my book described the emotional ups and downs of her teenage daughter. “I just tell myself that it is my responsibility to stay off the emotional rollercoaster. I need to keep my feet firmly on the ground for her sake.”

So many people I have talked to on my book tour lament how crazy their jobs have gotten. One man said to me, “My boss is under so much stress and she is taking it out on all of us. It makes everything that much harder.”

One of the women I interviewed for my book, Jill Vicente of Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union in Seattle, had this to say, “I look to my boss to be the emotional constant and I try to do the same with my employees. I need to stay grounded and show them how a leader acts in stressful situations.”

It’s more important than ever before to avoid the emotional rollercoaster. As managers, we need to be direct and clear with our employees on our expectations, however, we also need to steer clear of interpersonal meltdowns. They only harm moral and create chaos.

3. Hold the Line on Tantrums:

Bosses aren’t the only ones losing their cool under pressure – so are employees. As salaries are frozen or reduced, perks diminished and teams grow leaner, employees are prone to showing their frustrations through disruptive and counterproductive behavior.

If you have an employee who is throwing an adult size tantrum, deal with it immediately.

Suzie Kellett, who has worked for People and Time Magazine as well as running film offices in Chicago and Washington, sums it up nicely, “When my quadruplets were growing up, I never let them make a fuss in public places. In the film business, I held production teams to the same expectations. If someone was acting up, I would take them aside and tell them, ‘Settle down. This behavior is not acceptable.’ “

Never underestimate what a quick ‘can I see you in the hall?’ can do when an employee is being sarcastic and acting improperly in a meeting. The combination of a change of scenery plus stern words can act as quickly on an employee as it does on your kids.

There are always going to be office politics, stressful outbursts and uncooperative employees, however, it is your duty as a manager to expertly guide your staff through these landmines, particularly when times are tough.

Shari Storm is a VP and CMO for Verity Credit Union in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Motherhood is the New MBA: Using Your Parenting Skills to be a Better Boss. To find out more about Shari Storm, visit her website.

But last week a post in The New York Times’ Well blog gave me pause. It reported on two recent experiments that measured how different exercise levels affected mice’s resistance to the flu virus. The blog said “the bulk of the new research, including the mouse studies mentioned, reinforce a theory that physiologists advanced some years ago, about what they call ‘a J-shaped curve’ involving exercise and immunity.” It quoted Mary P. Miles, an associate professor of exercise sciences at Montana State University, as saying that in this model, the risk both of catching a cold or the flu and of having a particularly severe form of the infection “drop if you exercise moderately.” But the risk both of catching an illness and of becoming especially sick when you do “jumps right back up,” she says, if you exercise intensely or for a prolonged period, surpassing the risks even among the sedentary.

And what constitutes intense exercise? Inquiring moms and dads with kids in school sports want to know, especially in this season of swine flu. Most researchers “define it as a workout or race of an hour or more during which your heart rate and respiration soar and you feel as though you’re working hard,” the post said.

That seems to cover a broad range of activities and levels of exertion—from preparing for a marathon to sweating 1 ½ hours in a room heated to 105 F doing a regimen of 26 postures (in other words, a Bikram yoga class). As I forwarded the blog to a friend who plans to run the New York Marathon in two weeks, I wondered whether my daughter—who runs more than an hour after school most days—and I are also in danger of sabotaging our immune systems with too much exercise.

When I posed the question to Professor Miles, she said most studies have focused on adults. Not much research has been done on adolescent athletes—or on Bikram yoga practitioners, for that matter—and she’s not comfortable extrapolating. “The one thing that I would say is that if a person seems to be getting sick frequently, then exercise volume might be a factor to consider,” she said. That’s one way to tell whether just doing it can be doing too much.

The theory is related by an imaginary investor that Trillin meets in a bar, a guy who was in college in the 1960s, and watched everything change in the 1980s:

Two things happened. One is that the amount of money that could be made on Wall Street with hedge fund and private equity operations became just mind-blowing. At the same time, college was getting so expensive that people from reasonably prosperous families were graduating with huge debts. So even the smart guys went to Wall Street, maybe telling themselves that in a few years they’d have so much money they could then become professors or legal-services lawyers or whatever they’d wanted to be in the first place. That’s when you started reading stories about the percentage of the graduating class of Harvard College who planned to go into the financial industry or go to business school so they could then go into the financial industry. That’s when you started reading about these geniuses from M.I.T. and Caltech who instead of going to graduate school in physics went to Wall Street to calculate arbitrage odds.

As a result, says the guy in the bar, the smart kids started inventing things like "derivatives" and "credit default swaps" that those of average intelligence could never have come up with. Everyone got filthy rich as a result, and no one bothered to figure out how to police these instruments of easy money.

Sounds as reasonable as any other explanation out there, perhaps more so. And it makes me wonder--will the smart kids continue to enter finance, now that its reputation has been besmirched? Judging by the size of the recent Goldman Sachs bonuses ($6.7 billion, more than half a million per employee), Wall Street is still the best place to get really really rich. The nation's manufacturing base, meanwhile, just keeps withering away. As BusinessWeek Writer Pete Engardio recently wrote in Can The Future Be Built In America?:

The good news is that the U.S. is at or near the cutting edge in most of the emerging product areas. Indeed, the new wave of high-tech devices hitting the market is the payoff from billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded research at federal and university science labs stretching back to the 1960s, when the applications were but glimmers in the eyes of futurists. Now the bad news: Unless the U.S. can magically resurrect its manufacturing base, the good-paying jobs from these breakthroughs will be offshore.

So if your kid is one of the smartest in the class, what career would you like him or her to choose? Should they follow their dreams, or follow the money? And what if their dream is to make Goldman Sachs-style bonuses? Can they land on Wall Street and still maintain some of those old-fashioned values that used to keep greed at bay? Or can they be lured back to the sciences, despite the (relatively) paltry pay, in order to make the U.S. a world leader in producing goods, not services, again? In 20 years, how will their choices shape the nation and the economy?

The cramped quarters don't seem to harm the quality of education, or the enthusiasm of the students for their school. Which makes me wonder--why do so many of us believe small schools and small classrooms are better? Does size not matter? I know many parents struggle financially in order to send their children to small, selective private schools, in part because they fear the overcrowding and large class sizes their children might encounter in public schools. The New York City Board of Education also seems to believe smaller schools are preferable. It's been setting up small charter schools throughout the five boroughs for several years in an effort to move kids out of gigantic schools, many of them failing.

Yet one of the top elementary schools in the city, PS 321 in Brooklyn, routinely has 30 children in many of its classes. Although I wanted a small middle school for my daughter, she ended up in MS 51, also in Brooklyn, which regularly wins top rankings despite encompassing 1300 students in grades 6-8, and so far is doing fine. Then there's Stuyvesant High School, one of the best and most selective schools in the nation. It has 3200 students (though they are housed in a spacious 10-story building that looks more like a college than a high school).

In the Newsweek blog NurtureShock, Po Bronson writes about a Maine study by Dr. Julie Newman Kingery that looked at whether elementary school students did better staying with their same classmates through middle school (a so-called linear model) or moving to a much larger school with students from many different elementary schools (the multifeeder model). She sampled several hundred kids from both models and the results surprised her:

Kingery fully expected the kids in the linear, single-school feeder system to be better adjusted socially and as a result to also be doing slightly better academically. Surprisingly, she found the opposite result: kids in the multifeeder middle school had adjusted better; they had improved academically and had more best friends.

I wonder why so many of us are convinced that smaller is better when it comes to schools? I'm beginning to realize, as my own daughter moves from her small elementary school to a large middle school, that it is a magical mix of great teachers, innovative administrators, involved parents and enthusiastic students that makes a school work. Getting the mix of each right is tricky, of course, and it’s probably easier to manage all the parts if the building isn’t filled to bursting.

I'd like to hear from readers: What's been your experience with school size?

Women with children are feeling the impact of the economic downturn most profoundly, according to a new survey. “Women with children are tightening their purse strings and protecting their lairs,” says Lisa Caputo, chairman and CEO of Citi’s (C) Women & Co., a financial resource for women.

Caputo, pictured here, says the financial pullback by women with kids is particularly worrisome because women—who control 80% of household finances—are a critical barometer for the U.S. economy. “How women are feeling is going to help lead our country out of a recession,” Caputo says.

Three-quarters of women with children say their spending and savings habits been permanently altered by the recession compared with 61% of women without children as well as 60% of all men who had the same response, according to the survey. And while we all know that memories are short, Caputo says the economic downturn should have a long-lasting impact on the psyche of American women. “My own perspective is that nothing is forever, but right here, right now, that’s how women are feeling,” she says.

Other noteworthy stats about women with kids from the survey:

• 63% say they have delayed the purchase of a big-ticket item such as a car. By comparison, just 50% of women without kids in the home and 52% of men have postponed major purchases.

• 52% of women with children have taken money out of savings or investments to help cover expenses. By contrast, 42% of women without children and 39% of men have dipped into those savings.

• 31% of women with kids are pursuing additional education. Just 16% of women without children and 21% of men are returning to school.

It’s also interesting to note that wealthy women with assets exceeding $250,000 are feeling the pinch, too. According to the survey, 66% of these women are cutting back on everyday expenses.

“Every working mom I know feels like they are working longer hours—or not working,” Caputo says. “There is a reset going on in the minds of women today.”

Have you permanently changed your spending and saving habits in response to the recession? Why or why not?

The title of your new book is “This Is Not How I Thought It Would Be...” which begs the question: How did you envision motherhood?
The title is literally what I found myself saying or thinking to myself over and over after we had our daughter! This is NOT how I thought it would be.

Like many mothers I found there was a big disconnect between the way I thought motherhood in the 21st century would be and the way it turned out to be. My modern egalitarian marriage turned into something out of "Ozzie and Harriet" or "Leave it to Beaver."

My previously successful career literally came to an abrupt and unexpected halt, which meant I lost colleagues, a paycheck, a big part of my identity. While I kept my name when I got married, when we had our daughter I suddenly lost it and became "Kate's mom."

Frankly nothing was how I thought it would be and no one seemed to be able to tell me why or what to do about it. So I wrote This is Not How I Thought It Would Be to explain what I learned about why that happens and to provide mothers with the simple tools they need to remodel motherhood to get the lives they want today.

Who is the “happiest” working mom you know? Why? And who is the “happiest” working dad?
What makes any employed mother or employed father happy is being able to find an employment situation that fits his or her own needs and the needs of their family, and that can be reasonably adapted as things change. Unfortunately, that's harder than it should be.

Jobs and workplace culture still reflect an old assumption that a worker is a man with a wife at home, leaving both mothers and fathers today feeling like square pegs trying to fit into a round hole.

How can our employers help us be better parents?
I think employers can help us be better parents, lead better lives AND be more productive by confronting the reality that one-size-fits-all jobs just don't work anymore for mothers or fathers.

Given the convergence of several trends - colleges graduating more women than men, the retirement of the Baby Boomers, and an increasing high school drop-out rate - employers and our economy will eventually face a labor shortage again. Those companies that figure out how to customize jobs, for example like Deloitte does , will be better positioned to attract and keep good employees.

What was your most eye-opening “remodeling” experience as a parent?
My most eye-opening moment, and a turning point in my remodeling project, was realizing that perhaps the biggest barrier to having the life I wanted was that my husband couldn't figure out how to get the life he wanted either. Remodeling is a project mothers and fathers have to tackle together.

While many of the dilemmas mothers face combining employment and family haven’t changed much in the last twenty-five years, research tells us that the experience of fathers – and mothers’ expectations of fathers – has changed dramatically in that same time. Fathers are doing more family work than ever and feeling more conflict between family and employment than ever. We really are more in the same boat that we often realize.

The Families & Work Institute just published a study that shows the recession is taking a terrible toll on workers—1 in 3 is showing signs of depression, 1 in 4 smoke, and most don’t exercise or take enough vacation time. Any tips for these stressed-out Working Parents on “remodeling” their mental and physical state while staying employed?
It is important to remember that managing your energy is more important than managing your time. A great tip from some friends of mine. Have each spouse make a list of three things he or she needs each week to stay sane and energized. Trade lists and work together to figure out how to make at least one or more of those happen for each other.

For the couple who gave me this tip, she wanted to sleep in one weekend morning, and he wanted one chance each week to workout for as long as he wanted. Mothers and fathers need to look at time as a shared family resource and plan together for investing that time to keep everyone healthy mentally and physically.

For more about Kristin, check out her blog.

Several surveys back him up. A 2003 study that found that "controllable lifestyle" decisions explained 55% of the shift in medical students' specialty choices from 1996 to 2002. During that time, the percentage of students who chose dermatology rose from 0.2% to 2.3%, while those who selected general surgery fell from 10.4% to 7.6%.

The medical blog EGMN: Notes From The Road had an interesting reaction to the speech:

This idea of “controllable lifestyle”... got me wondering how much of a role lifestyle plays in anyone’s decision about a career. I had always assumed that people ended up in their career path in one of four ways. (a) “I always wanted to be a ——.” (b) “I followed my interests and hoped it would work out.” (c)”I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I picked business.” (d) “I just sort of ended up doing this.”

When I came of age, longer ago than I will admit here, I don't know of anyone who sought a "controllable lifestyle," except for those who wanted to lead a lifestyle where they suffered under as little control as possible (ski bum, beach bum, waiter writing a great novel on the side, etc). The rest of us fell into EGMN's four categories. I was definitely an A. I decided to become a reporter at age 11, after reading a biography of Nellie Bly, gal reporter, in sixth grade. I grew up in a small, farming community where the women who worked were teachers, nurses, shop clerks or factory workers. Bly, who lived from 1864 to 1922, lead a life of adventure that sounded far more exciting, and that was it for me. I too would travel the globe and write daring stories that would change the world. For the most part, I haven't regretted that choice, even though it certainly hasn't given me a controllable lifestyle.

Now my 11-year-old daughter wants to be a ballet dancer, a choice that, I admit, I'm not keen on (I see a lot of waitressing in her future if she sticks to it). I assume she will likely change her mind in a few years, even though I never changed my 11-year-old goal. I suppose we hope that our children do end up with controllable lifestyles or at least lifestyles where they can support themselves in a fashion that won't make us shudder when we walk into their first apartment.

So readers, Let me ask you: What made you choose your career? Any regrets? And what reasons would you like your children to use when choosing theirs? Should they follow their dreams, no matter how impractical? Put lifestyle first? Think about the long haul--family responsibilities, retirement, financial security? Play it as it comes?
Looking forward to hearing your responses.

Read my earlier post Off the Treadmill, Into Telluride for some insight into one college grad's choices. Another controversy simmering in the medical world is whether or not the rising number of women doctors is contributing to a medical shortage because they want to work shorter hours; Women Doctors: Waste of Money? delves into that issue.