The Oklahoma Supreme Court disqualified a district judge as it believed that he misinterpreted grandparent visitation laws. Judge Charles Gray apparently used “an expansive interpretation of grandparent visitation laws to give the paternal grandparents of a 4-year-old boy physical custody of the child five days a week while limiting the mother to two days.”

A new report from the Census Bureau confirms a long standing cliché – that kids growing up in single parent families generally do not perform as well in school as kids who grow up in a traditional two-parent family environment. But the gap isn’t substantial, at least as far as divorced families are concerned. In fact, the challenge of keeping teenagers on track in school is by far greater.

Sometimes, it does not take much to drive you over the edge and let your anger overtake what you are really trying to do. We tend to feel terrible in such a situation, but perhaps it makes you feel better that scientists have released new findings on common origins of anger. And yes, having children in a household is said to be a contributor to angry behavior. Do you agree?

The results released by the University of Toronto is based on a survey of more than 1000 Americans aged 18 and older. Project lead Scott Schieman will be publishing basic social patterns of anger in a book entitled International Handbook of Anger, scheduled for a January 2010 launch, but offers a few notes on his findings now.

In our last episode, we had the charming and sexy single dad about to bring the kids over to the ex-in-laws for a Thanksgiving dinner. Part deux of Thanksgiving 2009 starts with the drive over to the other side of town. Now, I thought I was listening to Hannah Montana. As a side bar, that is all I EVER listen to in my car with my kids…oh ya and High School Musical. For those single parents who feel my pain…can I get an AMEN!

Anyway, so I think I am listening to Hannah Montana, when in reality I was listening to the theme song from “Friday the 13th” all the way over there. Like many things as a single parent, it is NEVER as bad as it seems. The ex-wife was very cordial and the ex-in-laws were excellent hosts. The food was great and they even gave me leftovers. I made this amazing soup, and even the ex-wife took some home with her, so I know I did something right. After a great dinner and dessert, I left my kids with their mother and drove to my friend’s house to hang out with him and his wife. It was his wife’s birthday and they were having some people over for a round 2 of Thanksgiving and to watch a movie.

A new study published today highlights an increasing concern that our children are watching too much TV. And if Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute is correct, children in home daycare may in fact be exposed to more than twice the TV time than those who visit daycare centers.

A few days left to Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Time to think about Christmas and checking your bank account how far it will go. It is also a time to reflect how your year was, what went well and what did not. For many single parents, the holiday season can be a rough time, balancing the fact that you will not see your children on days you used to and figuring out ways to cope with the pressure of buying Christmas presents. Here are nine tips to help you readjust and reduce stress.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued half a dozen critical safety recalls relating to children since the beginning of this month. Here is our current update which includes Adventure playsets, Century 21 sweatshirts, Three Sisters baby hammocks, Easton Sports bicycles, McLaren strollers and MacPherson’s art easels.

Just recently I was reminded how engaged my children are with all the news about space and especially all those rather amazing projects NASA does. In fact, there is a huge amount of material on NASA’s website that your children may find entertaining – and I am not just talking about videos that, for example, showed the most recent launch of the space shuttle Atlantis on Monday this week.

A new website just published enlists Earthlings to contribute to the mapping of Mars in a playful way. Of course, the site caters to the interests of children and there is a wealth of information your kids might enjoy.

There is a common perception in this country that divorcing dads will lose their children in custody battles simply by default. However, a report published by Working Mothers magazine published today states that the times may be changing. Dads apparently are increasingly taking over primary child care duties, which puts the in a much better position to get full custody of their children.

“The shifting custody landscape is alarming to working moms, many of whom say they work primarily to provide a better life for their children,” said Working Mother Editor-in-Chief Suzanne Riss. “Women are surprised to learn that time spent in the office is increasingly being viewed by the courts as evidence that they’re less involved in their child’s day-to-day care. It’s important that working mothers understand the changes in custody rulings.”

British law firm Mishcon de Reya recently polled 4000 parents about events during a divorce, which yielded some not so surprising, but surely one astonishing result: More than one third of divorced fathers disappear from their children’s lives after a divorce.

Mishcon de Reya published the poll result marking the 20th anniversary of the British Children Act, which the company says is “not working” despite its good intentions.

In a week you surely will not be able to avoid any Sarah Palin news on the Internet, newspapers and on the TV – the former vice presidential candidate is promoting her book Going Rogue across the nation – we are told we are hearing lots of honest words from her. And who would be surprised to hear that the Palins were not too excited to hear that daughter Bristol, then a high school senior, was pregnant during the campaign.

Sometimes, simple ideas are great ideas. We just heard about a product that we believe is worth passing on to our readers. There is a Just-out-of-Reach light switch extension for kids that may be a simple solution for some of the headaches you are facing with small kids in your household.