New research from the Child Development Laboratory at the University of Maryland shows that shyness in kids could relate to the manner in which a stress-related gene in children interacts with being raised by stressed-out parents.

New research at the University of Maryland looks at why kids decide to include - and exclude - other kids from their group of friends. It turns out the decision making process is much more complex than previously believed, and could even provide insights into how to intervene when children are rejected by their peers.

Do adolescents get enough exercise and eat the right foods? Is there too much fat in their diets? In a study published in the February 2007 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers analyzed the behavior of almost 900 11-to-15 year-olds and found that nearly 80% had multiple physical activity and dietary risk behaviors, almost half had at least three risk behaviors, and only 2% met all four of the health guidelines in the study.

Whether a child has an older father or lives with a single father are among important factors affecting how kids spend weekend time, according to a new study conducted by transportation engineers at The University of Texas at Austin.

If playing video games makes kids less active -- and contributes to obesity -- why not create more video games that require activity? That's the question prompted by a Mayo Clinic research study published in the current issue of the medical journal Pediatrics.

A new report urges parents and children's doctors to change their thinking about homesickness among children, to see it as a nearly universal but highly preventable and treatable phenomenon -- rather than an unavoidable part of childhood.

Rare but potentially fatal condition called pediatric renovascular hypertension can be cured or eased by surgery to re-route blood vessels near the kidneys