Happy Labor Day weekend! Although school already started, with temperatures in the upper 80s and the sun breaking through after a week of rain, it will still feel like summer, or the end of it. If you're like many Americans, you're probably enjoying the holiday weekend cooking out with friends and family. This weekend is the third most popular for barbecue, second only to the Fourth and Memorial Day.

While you're enjoying your hamburgers and maybe a beer or a glass of wine, open up the debate to one of the newest topics flying around the Internet that has some interest to parents, especially those of use whose preteen will soon be teens: the debate over lowering the drinking age. A group of college professors have banded together to bring up the issue, claiming that lowering the drinking age back to 18 will help alleviate some of the problems colleges face with binge drinking and all that it brings with it. But there are arguments against it as well.

It turns out, those of us who have a beer with our pizza while the kids drink pink lemonade at Amalfi's might be better role models than we thought. A UNC study found that kids who drink with their parents were about half as likely to say they had drunk alcohol in the past month and one-third as likely to say they had had five or more consecutive drinks in the previous two weeks.

As with all potentially harmful substances, the important thing is to model your values appropriately to your children and keep the lines of communication open. For help on how to talk with your kids about alcohol abuse visit KidsHealth.org.

What's Going on Around the Triad

We all know you can't cookout all weekend! Check out our highlights page for information on the Labor Day Pops Concert and the Cinema Under the Stars for some outdoor family events, and visit our calendar for more opportunities this weekend.

Whether you think it's a good test or not, it's a fact of life that many colleges still use SAT scores in some form or fashion, and for high schools, the overall results of their students are just as important as the EOGs. This year, it looks like good news overall for the state with 2008 scores, as we inch closer to the national average, and Guilford County scores were also up from last year, with High Point Central standing out from the crowd. WS/Forsyth county schools saw a slight drop.

If your kids are getting ready for the big test, there are plenty of ways to help, including free online test preparation on College Foundation of North Carolina's site, or paid courses such as this one at Guilford College, on Saturdays starting Sept. 6.

Send in Your Photos!

You know you took them Monday and Tuesday, those first day of school pictures of the kids with their brand new, bright white shoes and super-shiny backpacks. Visit our photo gallery today to add your photos to the group from other PiedmontParent.com visitors. You can even rate them and make comments on our new photo gallery format.

For tips on taking great photos of kids, one of the trickier subjects, visit DigiCamhelp.com.

Students in Guilford County start school today, probably some of the last in the area to arrive at the big day. For students in Forsyth County, particularly Reynolds High School, the first day of school started with a cloud over it, literally and figuratively, as kids mourned the death of popular high school student Matt Gfeller. He died this weekend from injuries suffered during the first football game. Mary Beth Cross tells us in an interview with WXII 12 that the family is doing as well as could be expected. But it's more than just the family that is dealing with this tragedy.

For friends and fellow students at Reynolds dealing with the tragedy is particularly tough. But parents of kids who didn't even know Matt are facing questions as well. For information on how to help your teens deal with grief and the death of a friend visit this Hospice page, as well as this answer from panelists on The Morning Call.

The tragic accident also has plenty of parents worried as their sons don the pads for this week's football game. Sports injuries do occur, but fatalities are rare. Check out the statistics from the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research.

For many of our kids around the area, including Forsyth County, today is the first day of school. It's an exciting time for everyone as the don those new shoes and backpacks, climb on the bus or out of the car line and head to a new classroom stocked with new crayons and pencils.

It can also be an entry into a germ-filled classroom, and we all know the sniffles and coughs are just around the corner. But do we now have to worry about measles and mumps as well? For years, what used to be common and sometimes dangerous childhood illnesses have been warded off by vaccines, to the point where many of use in Gen X and younger don't even know of anyone who had the measles. But news reports are now showing that cases of measles are at their highest in a decade, and could be on the rise, in part to more parents opting out of vaccines.

It's a debate that's raging across the country, fueled in part by the scare that vaccines might be linked to the rise in autism. But officials, including the CDC, are constantly reassuring parents that vaccines are safe. And now it looks like it's starting to become a national health concern.

What are your feelings on kids and vaccines? Did you opt out? Do you feel it's your right as a parent to have a choice? Or should we mandate vaccines for the health and safety of our children?

When does the transition happen, that we go from being kids and sad to see the end of summer to being adults who are secretly glad school's starting? I guess when we become parents of school-aged children. So for all of us out there facing the start of school early next week, you can forget those dreams of sleeping in one last weekend, if that's even a possibility at your house (it's not at mine). It's time to start getting those kids back to bed at a decent hour and working on starting a morning routine.

It's not fun to think about, but it's one of those necessary evils of school. Waking up before the sun, dragging tired kids to the kitchen to breakfast and the struggle to get clothes on, shoes tied, hair brushed and backpacks together.

Make those mornings a little less chaotic this year by starting a morning routine, and it's not a bad idea to work on it this weekend. It all starts with a non-negotiable bedtime, a little pre-planning the night before as far as clothes and lunches and keeping things organized. For more tips, check out Morning Madness. And then visit our Back to School Center for more great resources, including setting sleep schedules, ordering a wake up call from Miley Cyrus and ideas from Triad parents on what to pack for lunch.