Should you be keeping an eye on your kids while they game? (Yes!) How can you do that without seeming heavy-handed? (Stay tuned.) Are MMOs appropriate for young kids? (Sure!) Which ones? (Coming soon …) What MMOs might your family enjoy playing all together? Should you be using parental control devices and tools? What are the best ways to quickly gauge the age-appropriateness of a game?

There’s a lot to cover when it comes to leveling a family of gamers—which is why I’m excited about my new column at Massively.com, MMO Family. In my experience as a parent, a gamer and a player, I’ve observed that parents tend to cover the extremes when it comes to their involvement in their kids’ gaming habits. They either helicoptor about, setting unrealistic rules, disrupting kids’ game play and generally making everyone miserable, or they shrug it off completely and go on their own oblivious ways while their kids are getting pounded by inappropriate content and social interactions.

There are safe alternatives, and there are concrete strategies that make gaming fun and safe for kids and parents alike. We’ll be covering exactly that at MMO Family—so stop by every Friday and see how fun today’s gaming can be for your family.

It’s always a pleasure to learn that your writing has made an impression on a reader—even moreso when they tell you they’re planning to use your work as a tool for teaching other teachers! I was contacted this week by a rabbi who wished to use an article on multiple intelligences that I wrote to guide instructors at her synagogue school.

Is a child with a knack for math really any smarter than a child with a talent for drawing? How about the girl who dances like a summer dream or the boy who springs to life in the company of friends? Which child is the most “intelligent?” The idea of multiple intelligences, first proposed in the ’80s by Harvard Professor Howard Gardner, identifies seven+  “intelligences” or paths to approach and process information. The descriptions can help parents pinpoint familiar territory in their own children—I know they have for me.

Read more about multiple intelligences in this article for DallasChild magazine—an oldie, but evidently still a goodie!

There really isn’t a better way to spend a workday than marrying your own passions in an article about someone else who’s blending those very same passions. Forget the Brothers Karamazov. If you’re looking for artistic expression, passion and the bonds of brotherhood — plus a healthy dash of World of Warcraft — it’s all about the Brothers Kasprzak. Evan Kasprzak, a Top 6 finalist in the reality show So You Think You Can Dance, has gamed his entire life with brothers Ryan (also a top finisher in this year’s SYTYCD show) and Ian.

There’s no denying how tight this trio is. One viewing of Evan and Ryan’s journey through the beginning of this season’s SYTYCD competition as a team (see video, above) or a glance at photos of the threesome with their matching wrist tattoos (“brother” in Greek) show the obvious depth of their bond.

And so while Evan is socked in right now beneath the insane pace of the competition’s home stretch, we snuck in a visit with Ian to find out how the family finds a foothold to fit all the pieces together. Read more about the gaming, dancing, tight-knit Brothers Kasprzak  at WoW.com.

Fun assignments make me grumpy. On the surface, it’s all good—anything an editor could possibly characterize as “fun” generally ends up being a quick, simple wrap. Easy money, right? If I get too many of these assignments at once, though, I wind up in a sulky, obstinate huddle on the couch. It’s not that I can’t relax and get my groove on—it’s that I hate not being relevant.

Every now and then when I’m out and about on Google (sleuthing the intertubes to see where my work and links have been landing—surprise!), I run across this paper: “Child Protection in Texas: Caseworkers Attitudes and Perceptions Towards CPS Services.” This thesis paper written by a master’s degree candidate at Texas State University quotes an investigative piece I wrote some years ago for DallasChild magazine, “Overhauling Child Protective Services: Part I: Will New Laws Make a Difference? Who is Really Protecting Our Kids.”

It was a big piece, in many ways. The two-part series took a big chunk of my year to research, write and edit. It took a big toll on the emotional tenor of our household, as abuse, malfeasance and neglect became part of my daily vocabulary. But it reaped big rewards, touching readers and child welfare professionals all over the state, being linked and re-linked on sites all over the world and winning several prestigious awards and honors (the Dallas Bar Association’s Stephen Philbin Award for Excellence in Legal Reporting, a Katie Award for Best Investigative News Story, and a Gold Award for a special series from Parenting Publications of America).

That story wore me out. I came back the next year to write a followup story on foster care (which garnered similar interest and honors), but the work did not blend well with my family-oriented lifestyle. It’s hard to put a game of Monopoly with your own kids first when someone’s on the line who wants to talk about other children who are being beaten, starved, neglected or taken away from their families. That’s when I knew I had to find a different balance for this particular phase of my writing life.

Still, you don’t work on pieces like those without being changed. I can’t say I developed an abiding taste for investigative work—but I did develop a raging addiction to being relevant. Sure, a lot of my work these days is based on video games, and I’m quite capable of coming up with silly frippery when writing about green trends and eco style … But at the end of the day, it’s pieces like these that I most enjoy writing. Enjoy.

• New ways of thinking about green news
• Dislocated but not disconnected
• City living: do be dense about it
• The two shall be as one

I was more than a little wistful when my WoW.com column Well Fed Buff came to an end last fall. But a little patience goes a long way. To my delight, Well Fed Buff has wiggled its way back onto my plate with a bowl full of  Black Jelly.

World of WarCrafts, a broader version of the old Well Fed Buff feature, allows me to indulge in that guilty (or in my case, not so guilty at all; I’m open and honest about it!) pleasure of writers everywhere: voyeurism. It’s hard not to get swept up in the enthusiasm of players who are combining their passion for art, crafts, music, writing and cooking with their gaming hobby—after all, I’ve managed to combine gaming and writing myself, for a reason.

Connecting with passion is simply the best part of being a freelance writer.  Sharing a conspiratorial moment with The Unhealthy Truth author Robyn O’Brien at a local book signing … Chatting up the team behind ShrinkGeek.com, a fitness site for geeks and gamers striving to uncover their inner Hugh Jackman … Connecting with other green writers and professionals over our mutual interest in the environment … How could you not be utterly captivated and inspired?

It doesn’t matter to me whether the matter at hand is as sweeping as caring for the future of our planet or as insignificant as stirring up a bowl of Black Jelly. I’m sweet on people with a passion. I do hope that it shows.

I’m a big fan of cheat sheets. People seem to think of writers as people who become experts in their fields of specialty, soaked in all those interviews and explanations and facts and figures. While it’s true that we do soak up a lot when we’re immersed in one field or topic for any length of time, I tend to think of us more as librarians. It’s our job to put our fingers on the facts our readers need. For me, if I move on write about similar material, it’s all good—but if I shift to a different topic altogether, it may not be long before I can no longer rattle off those top 10 lists from memory.

If you’re like me, you need something fairly global for the grocery store, something that steers you around the vicious labeling tricks. Here’s some ammunition I loaded up recently for Super Eco: a list of the Top 20 food additives to avoid.

What’s a “good enough” life for you? Is it good enough that we slow down carbon emissions (or must we stop global warming cold)? Is it good enough that we eat whole foods and organic foods when it’s convenient (or should we expect manufacturers to stop producing so much toxic junk in the first place)? Is it good enough that we ceaselessly chauffeur the kids from one extracurricular activity to the next, as long as Dad takes the train (or must we stop excusing our gas-guzzling indulgences as “all for the sake of our children”)?

It’s time to set some firm limits when it comes to our personal and collective well-being. Let’s call a trade-off a trade-off and stop pretending that we’re somehow balancing a moral balance sheet when we make unhealthy choices.

Case in point: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is trying to pawn off mercury-laden seafood as an acceptable choice because the Omega-3s found in fish are good for you. Yes, Omega-3 fats and other nutrients in fish appear to offset some of the adverse impacts of mercury in pregnant women and their unborn babies, and they reduce the risks for people with heart disease. But hello—what about the known risks of mercury? Let’s call a spade a spade. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can cause loss of physical coordination, speech difficulties, hearing impairment, blindness and death.

Read why it’s time to stop making do and start making good at Super Eco.

The peanut butter scare, the pistachio scare, the ground beef scare … People seem awfully scared of food these days. Yet a potentially even more alarming food scare has been building for years, rarely reported and often dismissed as too “radical” to be true: Is there a link between the dramatic rise in childhood allergies and our increasingly “engineered” approach to food production?

I first met O’Brien last year when I was researching an article on the effects of chemical exposures on children. Many might describe her as “savvy, “whip-smart” or a “firecracker”; I think those terms just might be a polite understatement. O’Brien began investigating the truth about what’s in America’s food supply after her youngest daughter nearly died from an allergic reaction to eggs.

I found it telling that while O’Brien has been hailed in the media as “the Erin Brokovich of food,” the real Erin Brokovich has actually weighed in: “You don’t have to be a doctor or a scientist to look into whether our food supply is safe, and Robyn O’Brien’s courageous pursuit of The Unhealthy Truth is an example of how we can all do our parts to protect the health of our families.”

Read more about The Unhealthy Truth at Super Eco.

Savvy parents get familiar with and show interest in their kids’ hobby of choice — whether that’s ballet, soccer or video games. My lastest article at AOL’s PlaySavvy shows you how to forge a communication connection with your young gamer to make gaming something to be appreciated from both sides of the fence.

Take care of business up front. Don’t set yourself up as the bad guy by making anything that passes your lips about video games a complaint, demand or directive. Set time limits, gaming hours and other rules right from the start, including clear consequences if the rules are broken. Some kids seem to prioritize playing video games right up there with eating, breathing and sleeping. Let children know that playing video games is a privilege, not a right.

At the same time, equip kids to handle cyberbullying, abusive language or harassment in an online video or computer game before any problems occur. You shouldn’t have to worry about their safety while they’re logged in — and neither should they. Help them learn what could go wrong and how to handle themselves if it does.

If you set clear expectations at the outset, your child’s video gaming becomes something fun to talk about instead of a battlefield of rules and recriminations. Now, all you need to do is connect. Learn how to do exactly that at Play Savvy.

Kids gaming online? Everyone says “be careful” — so this article I wrote for parents over at AOL’s PlaySavvy shows you how. If your kids play online computer games (such as Runescape or World of Warcraft) or PlayStation, Nintendo or Xbox games that are networked with other players (like Halo 3 for Xbox 360 ), here’s what you need to know to keep them (and your family’s computer and personal information) safe and sound.

Read more at Play Savvy.