As I mentioned in this space earlier, I recently launched Evidence Based Parenting to discuss applying research to parenting decisions. So far it's been pretty slow, not really surprisingly -- it's always hard to start something new and have anyone notice it. I haven't done much promoting of it before I had some content so that people could see what it's all about. But there's some now.

So go take a look. I'm interested in feedback on two things: content and design. What do you think about the level of the content? Interesting, accessible, remotely useful? Also, I'm thinking the design might be too plain, though I'd like to hear comments about that as well. For instance, one common thing that many blogs do is to always include an image with every post. It's pretty easy to find something on flickr that would at least be related.

Here's a handy list of the things I've posted so far for ease of reference:

• why we're here, the intro to the blog
  
• kids, tv, and hypertension, a study on the correlation between couch-potatoness and hypertension (summary: TV but not computer use is linked to high blood pressure)
  
• getting it wrong: science in the press, an example of how media reports distort science
  
• too restrictive, or too much, about training your kids not to crave sweets by providing an unlimited amount of them
  
• duct tape, the perfect material, on duct tape as a cure for warts (it works!)
  
• see the future in a marshmallow, a discussion of the famous marshmallow study that measures kids' willpower at age 4 and can predict SATs better than an IQ test
  
• guilt, the new willpower, looking at how emotions can supplement or replace conscious willpower for behavior control

I'm starting another blog! One focused on a specific topic area: Evidence Based Parenting.

The idea is that most parenting advice I see is experience based rather than evidence based, and there isn't really a place for the general public to talk about studies and scientific evidence as they relate to raising kids.

It's an interesting area, to me, in part because it's so hard. If you read some story in the paper about how tv causes obesity or whatever, it's hard to know how seriously to take it, and how or if you should change your behavior based on what you read.

Even talking to your doctor is fraught with problems: their knowledge may be years out of date for whatever particular question you have, they may have opinions that are stronger than the evidence supports, or they could misremember the evidence. Even organizations like the AAP gets things wrong (which we'll talk about on the blog). For instance, their long standing advice on restricting peanuts for the under two set turns out to be not only unnecessary but wrong. (They just updated their recommendation to restrict only the first year, but that's probably wrong too.)

I'm still playing a bit with the layout and design of the site. Feedback appreciated.

I expect to update daily about news articles or studies or what have you, with a periodic (weekly?) longer research piece on topic areas of interest, like patrissimo's recent request about how much TV is safe for a 4 year old.