Long Island Parent Talk

Broadway actors from “Matilda The Musical” are set to visit Southdown Primary School in Huntington on Tuesday, performing songs such as “Telly” and “Naughty” and participating in a Q&A with students. The kindergarten through fourth grade students will also get a chance to sing a portion of the song “Loud” and learn some choreography.

Southdown was the grand prize winner of WSHU Public...

Bring the kids and check out the new Bricks 4 Kids Creativity Center in Syosset during the LEGO play center’s free grand opening open house from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at 49 Ira Rd.

The celebration includes free play building, LEGO car racing, LEGO spin art, face painting and refreshments at the WBLI Street Team from noon to 2.

The new center will offer after school programs, summer...

I can’t wait to go home and show this ad campaign to my 16-year-old. What will be his reaction when he sees boys his age – pregnant? Effective? Or silly? Will it make him think about teen pregnancy? Or just laugh?

A new ad in Chicago shows shirtless 15- and 16-year-old boys whose bellies have obviously been altered in the photos to make them appear to be expecting their own little bundles...

Bit’z Kids, a Japanese clothing store chain, has opened its first Long Island store at Roosevelt Field, 630 Old Country Rd., Garden City. The chain carries clothing for newborns to 8-year-olds.

This is the company’s third U.S. location – two others are in Manhattan. The clothing company has 187 stores in Japan and 40 in China. The store has big ambitions for the Long Island...

When parents hear that Trish Portnoy teaches a class at West Islip High School called “College Freshman Seminar,” they frequently say, “I wish my child’s school offered that class.” Portnoy helps high school seniors during the fall of their senior year narrow down college choices and tackle the application process.

So Portnoy asked herself, “How can I share this information? I’m only one person.”...

In the new book “Motherhood, Rescheduled: The New Frontier of Egg Freezing and The Women Who Tried It” (Simon & Schuster, $25), Manhattan journalist Sarah Elizabeth Richards tells how, once she hit age 36, she froze 70 of her eggs to possibly prolong her ability to have a biological child.

Richards was feeling increasing pressure to meet a man and have kids before her fertility plummeted....

More than 50 moms gathered for a “Social Media Butterfly Luncheon” in Albertson recently to learn what their kids might doing on the Internet – and social media maven Erika Katz was stunned when many moms weren’t sure how to download Twitter onto their iPhones.

“This is part of parenting. Like teaching them to brush their teeth,” Katz told the women, who were eager to learn about the tools...

Turn on the TV Friday night if you’re curious about what it would be like to be dating with a bun in the oven. WEtv’s new reality series, “Pregnant & Dating,” premieres at 10 p.m.

Five moms-to-be are still trying to find Mr. Right even as their clothes are becoming awfully tight.

The cast members are described this way by the cable network:

-Kiesha is an R&B producer from...

To help educate parents on saving money for college, the College Savings Plans Network has declared Wednesday a national “529 College Savings Day.”

Why Wednesday? Well, May 29 is 5/29 – and that’s the name of the popular tax-advantaged savings plans parents can use to help chip away at the high cost of higher education.

Americans have invested more than $190 billion in 529 College Savings...

I went to my first college fair recently at the Long Island Hilton in Melville. My son –  who will be going to college in the fall of 2014 – stayed home to study because it was a weeknight and he had an AP Physics exam the next day.

So I waded through the tables and tables of colleges – more than 200 of them in this trade-show-style event -- myself. The organizers of the "Spring...