Remember your first trip to the top of a really tall playground slide? Remember the kid who got to the top of ladder, but couldn't get up the nerve to slide—or climb back down? Modern safety concerns have made this particular rite of passage rare, and raise the question, does a safe playground have to be boring? By Rob Capriccioso.

Wakanheza is a word for child in the Dakota language. Literally, it means "sacred being." It's also the name of a public awareness and training program in Minnesota that aims to reduce child abuse by building support for parents struggling with kids behaving badly in public. Andrea Grazzini Walstrom reports.

Youth who engage in delinquent behaviors early are more likely to become serious, chronic and violent offenders in adolescence -- but interventions are more likely to succeed with younger youth, according to this Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention report, Child Delinquency: Early Intervention and Prevention.

According to the April issue of Journal of the American Medical Association, U.S. researchers find that while it's common, bullying is not normal -- and is associated with other forms of violent behaviors, including weapon carrying, frequent fighting, and fighting-related injury.

Are there guns in houses where your children will play this summer? The American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to use Asking Saves Kids (ASK) Day -- Saturday, June 21 -- to find out. Brochures and safety advisories are available to help keep kids safe when the answer--in your home or another's--is yes.

Looking at youth violence in small town and rural America, this Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention bulletin finds that high rates of violence were not correlated with high rates of poverty per se, but with higher community rates of single-parent households, population turnover, and ethnic diversity. The report suggests these factors could make it harder for parents to have the time or mutual relationships to work together in the joint supervision of children.

Babies born suffering the effects of their mothers' use of illegal drugs often suffer further from poor parenting. In Dallas, Texas, an intensive program helps mothers be better parents to their drug-affected children, with benefits to both. Esther Bauer reports on New Connections.

The risk of a terrorist attack in this country causing large numbers of children to be hurt remains quite small. Most of us don't even want to think about such worst-case scenarios. But children's hospitals, emergency medical technicians, and pediatricians have a responsibility to prepare as best they can for whatever might happen. Lisa Rhodes takes a look at their efforts.

The majority of the guns used in school-related firearm deaths in the 1990s were obtained from perpetrators' homes or from friends or relatives, according to this March 2003 CDC report, 'Source of Firearms Used By Students in School.'

Project Safe Place provides access to immediate help and supportive resources for all young people in crisis through a network of sites sustained by qualified agencies, trained volunteers and businesses.