Lenore Skenazy is famous or infamous (depending on your point of view) for allowing her 9-year old son to travel New York City subways alone and advocating letting children play unsupervised at parks. In a recent column in The Wall Street Journal, she argued that parental fears about Halloween are overrated. There has never been a single incident of poisoned candy being handed out to trick-or-treaters, and no evidence that the day is less safe for children than any other day of the year:

But Elizabeth Letourneau, an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, studied crime statistics from 30 states and found, "There is zero evidence to support the idea that Halloween is a dangerous date for children in terms of child molestation."

In fact, she says, "We almost called this paper, 'Halloween: The Safest Day of the Year,' because it was just so incredibly rare to see anything happen on that day."

Why is it so safe? Because despite our mounting fears and apoplectic media, it is still the day that many of us, of all ages, go outside. We knock on doors. We meet each other. And all that giving and taking and trick-or-treating is building the very thing that keeps us safe: community.

Link via Hit & Run | Photo by Flickr user bmendz68 used under Creative Commons license

Graco has recalled 2 million strollers 2006-2007 after four child deaths. Follow the links to learn if a Graco stroller that you own is included.

Recall Information | News Story | Photo: Graco

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The Fine Bros. showed popular viral videos to kids and asked the children to explain what happened. Featured videos include Double Rainbow, 2 Cups 2 Bunnies, the frightening Snickers commercial, and Obama's podium falling apart.

via GearFuse

Chad Orzel's young son recently read the classic children's book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. He asked his father how long it took the rabbit to say goodnight to everything. Orzel ran some calculations based upon the movements of the moon (pictured above) over the course of the story:

So, how can we use this to measure the passage of time? Well, we know that the full moon in the sky covers an angle of about half a degree of arc. On our big copy of the book, the diameter of the moon in the final illustration is just about 7/8" (I only have an English-unit tape measure here), while the distance from the corner of the window to the outer edge of the moon is 2 and 5/8", exactly three times the diameter. So the moon has moved through about 1.5 degrees in the course of the story.

Now, the Earth rotates through 360 degrees in just about 24 hours, which is 15 degrees per hour (the Moon's motion is slightly slower, owing to its orbital motion, but it's not a significant difference for our purposes). This suggests that the bunny's goodnight ritual takes about 0.1 hour, or six minutes.

Link via Geekosystem

Previously on Neatorama:
Goodnight Keith Moon
Goodnight Forest Moon

Chelsea's team in the Premier League -- a professional soccer league in the UK -- has signed an 11-year old boy to play when he's of age. Michael Gyasi was first noticed a year ago and has been under observation by talent scouts since that time:

After a further appearance against them, Chelsea's recruitment staff asked whether Gyasi could come to train with them. He did so during the summer holidays and impressed to such a degree that the club set in motion moves to sign him.

Chelsea must pay compensation to Northampton for their development of the schoolboy, and it is believed that a down-payment of not more than £10,000 has been negotiated. The football authorities prefer clubs to resolve such issues between themselves rather than resort to arbitration. Further payments would be due to Northampton if Gyasi becomes a scholar or turns professional.

Link via Deadspin | Photo: ESPN

Barbara Soper of Rockport, Michigan, gave birth to her first child on August 8, 2008 -- that's 08.08.08. Her next one came on 09.09.09. And her third child was born a few days ago on 10.10.10.

Despite the neat pattern of their children's birthdays, the Sopers insist it was not planned.

The Rockford, Michigan, couple's first child arrived exactly on the couple's due date. But the second baby was born with induced labor ahead of the Sept. 20 due date.

The latest came early because Barbie Soper's doctor wanted to prevent potential health complications. The original due date was Nov. 4.

Link | Photo: AP

Autumn de Forest began painting at a notably talented level by the age of 4. Now, at the age of 8, she's auctioning paintings for tens of thousands of dollars a piece:

“Elephant,” it turned out, was not a fluke. Autumn’s parents bought her museum-quality paints and canvases “to see what would happen,” Doug said, “and in very short order a prolific kind of blossoming happened, and the canvases started getting bigger and bigger.”

In fact, Autumn’s canvases are now so large — typically 4 by 6 feet — that she has to paint them on the floor. Doug built her a sort of wooden bridge so she can sit on it and paint the middle of the canvas. (Autumn is slightly taller than 4-foot-2 and weighs slightly less than 50 pounds.)

Link via Pop Crunch

A 17-year old boy in Bridgeville, PA who had just passed his driving test immediately crashed his car into the DMV while still in the parking lot:

Township police Sgt. Brian Halbleib told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that the accident happened when the teen pulled into the parking lot of the driver license center to drop off the man who had administered the test.

Halbleib said the teen thought the car was in park but it wasn't.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ODD_NEW_DRIVER_ACCIDENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-10-13-20-04-06 via Jalopnik | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user gallicious used under Creative Commons license

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Mompetition is a blog that makes fun of the tendency of some mothers to see parenting as a competitive sport. If you meet a such a person, you'll know right away because she'll begin an immediate game of oneupsmanship. The above video is typical of such conversations.

Link via Jockeystreet

Jennifer, a college student in Hawaii, snapped this picture of her nephew. His hair has been shaved so that he looks like Aang, a character in the anime series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Link via Great White Snark | Image: Nickelodeon

The blogger responsible for Booturtle made a fairy princess costume for her daughter and added in a bit of the dark side:

Princess Fierce brought me a broken toy crown that I took apart, painted green, added purple glitter sparkles and mounted to the mask. I redesigned the straps to the mask to be purple and green ribbon from the sides and one piece with loops across the top. Allowing me to tie a bow through the loop and basically make a net that sat on her head. She was ecsatic. The mask wasn't too tight but yet did not slip. She wore it comfortably for most of 8 hours.

The tip of her wand is shaped like a Death Star.

Link via Geekologie

Would you like for your baby to look like a deformed, three-armed mutant? Of course you would! Instructables user canida made such a costume for its* baby. Canida writes:

While we wanted to be subtle, this was almost too subtle - she wore the costume all day, and hardly anyone noticed! But when they finally detected a problem, the responses were excellent.

Link via Bits & Pieces

*user profile lists canida's gender as "robot".

I've encountered parents that purchased the web domain name for their child's name when s/he was born. This way, no cybersquatter can show up and take it. But other parents go ahead and create full social networking profiles for their children:

According to a recent international survey of 2,200 mothers, 81% of children under the age of two currently have some form of online presence — ranging from photos uploaded and shared by their parents, to a full-fledged profile on a social networking site. A full 92% of children in the U.S. have an online presence by the time they are two, compared to 73% in western Europe.

Link via Buzzfeed | Photo by Flickr user Iragerich used under Creative Commons license

Fujitsu has developed robot teddy bears that respond to human behavior. Serkan Toto reports from a trade show that demonstrated them:

I was surprised how responsive the robots actually are. It takes just a split second to detect the presence of a human being (the bears have a sensor for that built into their nose) and after that, it’s possible for them to interact and “communicate” with humans through face recognition and constant tracking of the position of the human conversation partner.

Depending on how you behave, the bear reacts differently: it laughs, waves its paws, moves its feet etc. (the robot are hundreds of pre-programmed patterns of behavior). The bears are equipped with 12 joints, multiple touch sensors, microphones, speakers, and accelerometers.

Link

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The Rose Center at the American Museum of Natural History is holding a video contest that invites people to express how scientific discovery impacted their lives. The prize is a trip to the Rose Center in New York City. This video shows one young applicant demonstrating a remarkable knowledge of astronomy. Like Kyle VanHemert of Gizmodo says "It's like a supernova of cute."

http://www.amnh.org/rc10/ via Gizmodo