Back to school = back to the bank
Based on a July survey of 500 U.S. households with K-12 students, the majority said they'll spend more (39 percent) or the same (41 percent) this year outfitting their kids for class than in 2009.
Among the survey's details:
SBlt $550: Amount spent by the average family of four on school expenses
SBlt $240: Average spending on apparel
SBlt $100: Average spending on shoes
SBlt $90: Average spending on school supplies
SBlt 76 percent: Shopping for clearance/sale merchandise
SBlt 63 percent: Clipping coupons and/or watching for store promotions
SBlt One-third of parents are buying back-to-school electronics. Most popular: Computers (18 percent) and scientific calculators (16 percent)
SBlt 45 percent of parents said they'll dole out money for cosmetic services for their kids, including teeth whitening, waxing and even tattoos.
Study: Only children make good friends
Parents of one child may wonder if they have doomed the little one to a life of dysfunction.
Rest assured, only children seem to have social skills on par with peers who have siblings.
In a study presented last week at the American Sociological Association annual meeting, researchers followed up on a previous study examining how only children fared socially. The 2004 study found that children without siblings had poorer social skills in kindergarten compared with those who had at least one sibling.
The new study questioned students in grades 7 through 12 at more than 100 schools. This time, researchers found that only children were selected as friends by schoolmates just as often as peers with siblings.
SDLqAnyone who didn't have that peer interaction at home with siblings gets a lot of opportunities to develop social skills as they go through school," said a co-author of the study, Donna Bobbitt-Zeher.
-- Standard-Examiner wire services
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