Viewpoints Radio
Award-winning reporting on current issues featuring America's leading experts.
Everyone remembers little Gertie from the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the actress who played the part – Drew Barrymore. Now, as a 40-year-old mother of two, Barrymore talks about her growing up, the problems she had with her family, fending for herself at age 14, and what she’s learned on the way to becoming an accomplished actress and a mature and …
How do young people deal with race in their lives? We aren’t born racist, so how do some of them become that way? We talk to two young readers authors about their new book that addresses the issue.
Every parent wants their child to excel in school, and a big part of succeeding is learning to read well. Some parents try to teach their children to read when they’re toddlers, but is that too early? When should children be taught to read and how? Our two guests, one a professor specializing in early childhood, the other an author of children’s books, share …
When a child is placed in foster care, she’s already been through the traumatic experience of being removed from her family’s care, and now faces an uncertain future in a new home – sometimes worse than the one she left. We discuss the successes and failures of the system and hear about what can be done to strengthen it so that children receive the best care …
Separations and divorces are common in the U.S., and out of those split-ups come children living in two households. These kids often experience situations and conflicts that their friends living in an intact household don’t .We talk to a co-parenting specialist about how the parents’ behavior, ability to compromise, and desire to put the child’s needs above …
Millions of young people will soon head out on their own for the first time to attend college or start their first job. It will also be the first time that many of them are in charge of their own finances. How literate are they about banking, spending, saving, and credit? We talk to two financial specialists about what kids need to know about money and …
Jazz is the quintessential American music genre, and nobody sings it better than Sheila Jordan. We talk to Jordan and her biographer about Jordan’s rise from poverty to her career singing with some of the most famous jazz musicians of the 20th century, the racism that jazz musicians – both black and white – experienced, and the need to preserve this music …
Kids are little bundles of imagination and they can amuse themselves with the simplest of household goods: a pot and a spoon, becomes a drum; a cardboard box turns into a fort, and a towel can transform them into a caped crusader! However, some parents tend to micromanage their kids’ time with structured activities and there’s little left for the child to …
When the last child leaves home for college, marriage or that first job, parents are often sad and at loose ends about how the rest of their lives will progress. We talk to a therapist and author who’s experienced her own children leaving home, about the emotions of “the empty nest” and what parents can do to reframe their lives when the children go out on …
As a kid, did you ever dream of becoming an astronaut and flying a rocket ship into space, but figured you weren’t good enough in science and math to do it? Our guest, a former U.S. astronaut admits he wasn’t the best young student in school in those subjects, but later on he grew fascinated by them and turned his new-found interest into becoming a Navy …
With emails, spam, texts and instant messaging it’s a wonder we ever have time anymore to just sit and relax with family and friends. At the office, we spend so much time online, how do we get anything done…or done well? That’s what worried our guest who took a 31-day vacation from the Internet to reconnect with her loved-ones and learn about how online life …
Kids are always on their phones, tablets or computers – even when they’re sitting across from one another at the lunch table! Does communicating via screens hurt kids? We talk to two researchers who found that too much screen time at the cost of face-to-face communication could decrease our ability to recognize emotions, and possibly even shorten our lives.
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