Ten-year-old Zack Rozek has joined his parents’ mission in using today’s technology in order to make a better tomorrow. For the last two years, Rich and Kim Rozek have discussed their experience with Parkinson’s disease by way of their Internet radio show PD Talk Live.

Rich, 49, was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s nearly a decade ago. In 2008 the Winfield couple kicked off what Rich calls a “part talk show, part cyber-support group” on Blog Talk Radio. “We thought it was unique, because there were no cyber-support groups out there for this,” Rich says.

It’s hard to believe, but soon the holidays will be here, and we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of a recession, some of us living on a shoestring. For many people, there won’t be the usual big splashy holidays, but rather, we pray for good weather and hope the economy will bounce back.

For families with children, this recession is particularly taxing. Children are the forgotten victims. And yet, they endure perhaps not enough food, no new clothes or shoes, frequent moving to lower rent places which means constant changing of schools. Changing schools is traumatic for children and can contribute to them earning poor grades. A certain apathy about school descends on them.

Recession, and its subsequent consequences, is a difficult concept for children to grasp. Not only can it affect their education, but their health, psychological development, and medical care.

Indiana Youth Ballet presents The Nutcracker

The colorful and comical Mother Ginger scene from Indiana Youth Ballet’s 2008 production of The Nutcracker features some of the youngest cast members from Northwest Indiana and Chicagoland. (Photograph provided by the Indiana Youth Ballet.)

Featuring dancers from Crown Point, Merrillville, Munster, Griffith and other communities throughout Northwest Indiana and suburban Chicago, Indiana Youth Ballet will present its 14th annual production of “The Nutcracker” this week at East Chicago Central High School’s auditorium, 100 W. Columbia Drive.

This is a holiday classic that has become a tradition for families across the globe. Also a tradition for IYB, it offers the story of a young girl named Clara and her very special gift, a beautiful nutcracker.

According to a mother who asked me to write this column, the use of chewing tobacco and other forms of smoke-free tobacco has become the rage in her son’s high school. Many assume that if the tobacco does not make smoke, it must be safe. How wrong they are!!

Nothing about the use of any form of tobacco is safe. Another myth to dispel is that smokeless tobacco helps a person quit cigarette smoking. This simply is not the case.

Because most tobacco users start before they are 18 years old, the FDA has declared tobacco use a pediatric disease.

I grew up during the 1950s and ’60s in Madison, Wis., in a family that lived and breathed sports—and I don’t mean watching sports. We played sports, outdoors: hockey, cycling, tennis, hiking, golf. My grandparents lived on a lake so we were always outside swimming and skating. We even had our own personal physician in the off chance any injuries occurred—my dad, Dr. Jack Heiden, an orthopedic surgeon.

I remember when I was 12, I broke my wrist speed skating the same day I’d gotten the cast off from breaking my wrist cycling. And that was the second time I’d broken my wrist speed skating!

Did Dad rush in and advise me to take it easy or give up the sport? No way. My family never pressured us, but they really made activity a priority. My sister, Beth, and I didn’t begin training seriously as speed skaters until 1972, but because we’d always been so active, only eight years later we both medaled at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.

St. John family reaches out to others at hospital

Members of the Splant family, from left, Nathan, Kimberly and Phillip, present Community Hospital neonatal intensive care unit nurse Lora Brands, RN, center, with DVD players and a basket full of educational viewing materials regarding preterm infants that can be shared with other parents of premature babies while at the hospital. (Photograph courtesy of Community Hospital.)

They say good things come in small packages.

When Nathan C. Splant, son of Phillip and Kimberly Splant, of St. John, was born 15 weeks prematurely Jan. 10, 2004, he weighed less than 2 lbs. and was only 12 inches long. He spent 108 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of Community Hospital in before being discharged in April with an oxygen tank and heart monitor.

Good things have continued to happen ever since. Today, Nathan is a healthy, happy 5-year-old. The Splant family recently made a return trip to Community Hospital to make a special delivery on behalf of the Nathan C. Splant Foundation, an organization the family founded to honor their son and give back to others.

Educators say students in elementary school at ideal age for exposure

Once a week, a dozen first-graders gather at Valparaiso University to learn some German in a race against time.

The kids learn basics of the language—such as animal names, colors and greetings—in the afterschool Kinder lernen Deutsch program taught by VU German majors.

Another dozen second- and third-graders continue their language studies in the program’s upper level.

Across the region, Crown Point High School foreign language teachers head off to two nearby elementary schools after school each Tuesday to introduce fourth- and fifth-graders to their subjects.

Despite parents’ interest for more, the two supplementary programs are just about the only game in town for language instruction at the age that is best suited for learning a foreign language.

The part of the brain that allows language acquisition is at its height from infancy to 10 years of age, said Crown Point High School language department chairman David Rosenbaum, who helped create the new Crown Point program.

Length of exposure to violence not age is key factor

Students prepare to start another day at the Louis Nettelhorst Elementary School in Lakeview. (Photograph by Alison Fox/MEDILL.)

Experts say many children who witness domestic violence at home lack coping mechanisms leading to violence in schools.

October was Domestic Violence Month, highlighting an issue that often results in children with violent streaks and an inability to resolve conflicts, experts say.

“With teenagers, you’re going to have more aggressive behaviors,” said Catherine Malatt, the manager of coordinated school health/crisis intervention with Chicago Public Schools.

Barb Kearns, 75, has been raising her grandson in their Arlington Heights neighborhood for the past eight and a half years. She became his primary caregiver after the sudden death of her daughter.

Raising her 16-year-old grandson, Brian, has presented the retiree with a unique set of challenges but she feels a great sense of accomplishment in watching him grow into a young musician, she said.

“He has special needs, ADHD and sensory problems, [so] it’s been hard,” she said.

Freddy Ortega, a Clark High School junior, wears the T-shirt he designed to support breast cancer awareness. (Photograph courtesy of Michelle Kominsky.)

The National Football League’s decision to designate October’s games as American Breast Cancer Awareness games scored big with Freddy Ortega, 16.

Ortega has two aunts who are breast cancer survivors and always wears a pink wristband to show his support for them. He liked how the NFL and its teams promoted breast cancer awareness messages with pre-game and in-stadium initiatives and by having coaches and staff personnel and players wear pink ribbons and pink uniform gear.

So after the game, the George Rogers Clark High School student headed to town. He went into The Junk Yard to see if there was something there in line with the cause. Within a few moments, he decided to customize a shirt. He chose a royal blue T-shirt—Clark’s color—and had the initials of his school, ‘GRS’, printed on the upper right collar. Below the letters he added ‘class of 2011.’ In the center, he had the word ‘Supports’ printed next to a pink ribbon twisted in the shape of a heart.