You’re only minutes into your son’s soccer game, and the mom to your right has begun screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Go, Timmy go! Get up. Be aggressive!”

You can deal with some yelling close to your right ear, but as the game wears on, so do parents’ nerves. The team is losing. The shouting intensifies as more parents join in – to your surprise, you’re one of them. Panic fills the air. Egos are at stake. Some parents are questioning referee calls and pacing the sidelines. You’re getting angry.

If this scene seems familiar, you’re not alone. In a recent study of 340 parents attending their children’s soccer games, about half of them reported getting angry during the games. Of these angry parents, about 40 percent reacted in ways ranging from muttering to yelling comments to walking toward the field.

The much ballyhooed revised SAT has proven to be no better predictor of college success than its predecessor. The SAT was updated three years ago to include a writing section with the promise of improving the test's effectiveness as an admissions tool. The College Board added the writing test, including the 25-minute essay, to help colleges make more finely tuned decisions about students' skills.

The College Board also claimed the test would elevate the place of writing in high school classrooms, though critics argued the exam encouraged formulaic writing and was susceptible to coaching.

The recent findings are the most comprehensive study yet of the new exam, covering over 150,000 students. The analysis measured the connection between SAT performance for the high school class of 2006 and college grades. A correlation of 1.0 represents a perfect connection between scores and grades.

The study found high school GPA had a 0.54 correlation with college

Although North Carolina's vaccine compliance rate is higher than all other states except Massachusetts, nearly one in five North Carolina toddlers fail to get properly vaccinated against childhood diseases. A recent study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study measures compliance according to strict guidelines for vaccines and booster shots among N.C. children.

The study reveals that the increased schedule of shots and confusing requirements may cause parents to skip them. Pediatricians also say many parents decide not to have their children vaccinated because
they fear potential harm from vaccines. In particular, the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella has come under suspicion for its link to autism.

I have written twice earlier about the controversy surrounding childhood vaccinations and autism. Most pediatricians contend that a link between the MMR vaccine and autism

Parents looking to avoid an emergency room visit with an injured infant need to pay close attention to their child’s latest development strides during that amazing first year of life to prevent a fall.

According to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, half of the estimated 328,500 infants age 1 or younger who were treated for injuries in hospital emergency departments each year from 2001 to 2004 were hurt because of falling.

Falls were the main reason infants were injured for every month during the first year of life, with each month posing a different injury risk as baby learned roll over, sit, stand, crawl, walk and run.

I once found myself in a hospital emergency room with my 1-year-old for this very reason. An early walker, he seemed to pride himself on being an escape artist. One day, for no apparent reason, he took off running up the

Bob Herbert is an Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times. I like the way he thinks on most issues, and I found a recent piece of his not only interesting but sadly true. Herbert believes that the most serious challenge facing America today is education. It's also the hardest to fix, with the exception of health care, but at least the presidential candidates are attempting to tackle the national health problem. We don't hear many specifics on the campaign trail about fixing the public school system in America.

Herbert cites statistics showing that an American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds--that's over a million a year who will struggle to keep up in an era where college education is a necessity for maintaining a middle class lifestyle. Just as alarming is the number of teenagers who graduate, but are not prepared for the next stage of life--either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.

A recent survey of teenagers by