Team USA Olympian Jenny Potter is a real-life hockey mom, and Olympian Dustin Brown a real-life hockey dad. But unlike former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, these parents aren't shuttling their kids to and from hockey practice. They're the athletes themselves, juggling training and family life as they prepare for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Potter, a mother of two and USA women's ice hockey team forward, says her 20 teammates are like sisters to her 9-year-old daughter. And Brown, a father of two and a forward for the USA men's ice hockey team, says it's "awesome" to see his kids attending his games. (For more on their stories, check out the videos below.)

While demanding athletic careers can make parenthood a struggle, children of Olympians can look to their parents for a source of inspiration and pride. What passions do you have that your children admire?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Ken Tork’s son Kevin died from injuries he suffered while attempting a sexually charged choking game. Ken tells TODAY's Meredith Vieira what every parent should know about this dangerous activity common among teens.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Learn more about the hazards of the choking game and other youth risk behaviors by visiting these sites: Ed4ed4all.blogspot.com and G.A.S.P. (Games Adolescents Shouldn’t Play).

TODAY consumer correspondent Janice Lieberman shares tips for buying and caring for cookware with TODAY’s Matt Lauer.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Have tips of your own? Share them with other TODAY Moms below.

EDITOR'S NOTE: At TODAYMoms, we like to hear your opinions. After a segment last week that featured a live birth we heard from a few of you who wanted to share your perspectives, including Amy Gates. Amy is a Colorado mother of two, who blogs about green living, attachment parenting, activism and life with an anxiety disorder at Crunchy Domestic Goddess. Below is Amy's guest post, it is important to note that the following represents her opinion and not of this blog.

As I watched TODAY's live cesarean section birth on Tuesday, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. For a show that was supposed to take us "Inside the OR" and presumably educate, other than doctors and nurses in scrubs and TODAY's Dr. Nancy Snyderman's play by play, there wasn't much footage that indicated a medical procedure was taking place. It was also difficult to watch the way mom was seemingly left out of most of the birth experience. Birth is an amazing thing no matter how it happens, but the way this piece was done seemed irreverent.

After the baby was born, Meredith Vieira asked Dr. Snyderman what percentage of deliveries these days are by c-section. Dr. Snyderman deferred to the doctor who was in the process of sewing up the mother's uterus, Dr. Goldberg, who responded, "It depends a little bit across the country, but it can range anywhere between 25% and about 30%." Actually, according to the most recent data available (from 2006), the United States' c-section rate was 31.1%, ranging from 21.5% in Utah all the way up to 37.4% in New Jersey. The World Health Organization actually recommends that the cesarean section rate should not be higher than 10% to 15%. When the rate is higher than 15% there is some research which shows it results in more harm than good.

At one point in the segment, Dr. Goldberg added that one reason for having a c-section is if the mom has had a c-section before. Then when asked if this mom gets pregnant again and has a “normal size” baby if she can have a vaginal delivery, Dr. Goldberg responded that she could "absolutely" have a vaginal delivery with a future pregnancy. So in theory the mother featured could have a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC), but according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center the VBAC rate is only 9.8%. I was unable to find out what the hospital's official policy is regarding VBACs (they didn't return my call), but many hospitals across the country are banning VBACs or doctors are refusing to perform them due to fears of lawsuits, which of course continues to drive up the c-section rate.

Later in the segment Dr. Snyderman said the Johnsons elected to have a c-section because babies “run big” in the parents’ families and Carrie was “past her due date.” Dr. Snyderman adds, “those are two indications that a cesarean section is a lot safer than having a vaginal delivery.” I couldn't find any information from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that a family history of large babies or being past the due date indicates that a c-section is "a lot safer" than a vaginal birth. I did not hear any mention of the many risks involved with c-sections for both the mothers and babies.

Actress Jennie Garth serves as spokeswoman for the American Heart Association's "Go Red for Women" campaign. She speaks with TODAY’s Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb about the No. 1 killer among women.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We've all been there. You're at a desperate moment where you need your child to be quiet, behave or just cooperate in a pinch and the only way you can pull it off is to bribe them. What's your best bribery tool?

When it comes to the biggest gridiron matchup of the year, there are definitely two camps of viewers: Those who love the game and those who love the ads. Which part of the Super Bowl is your favorite?

Congrats to NBC's Jeff Rossen, whose wife gave birth to a baby girl this morning!

TODAY’s Natalie Morales shares the story of freestyle skier Emily Cook and her father Don, who has helped Emily through extraordinary challenges on the road to Vancouver.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Related stories:
Olympian Jennifer Rodriguez: New motivation is my late mom

U.S. speed skater Jennifer Rodriguez's No. 1 fan was always her mom. Whether Jennifer was winning two gold medals in Salt Lake City, retiring and coming back, getting married and divorced, her mom, Barbara Rodriguez, was there to support her.

So when Barbara lost her 16-year battle with cancer this past June, Jennifer didn't know if she could continue pursuing her Vancouver dream.

We caught up with Jennifer in September when she talked about her mom and her decision to compete in her honor....

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

You can read more about Jennifer's story here.

Related
Olympic aerialist Emily Cook credits father-daughter bond for success

First lady enjoys her ‘boring’ life, stay-at-home dates — and help from mom

You would think that the pressures of the presidency and the intense public scrutiny that comes with living in the White House would be tough on a marriage. Not so, says first lady Michelle Obama.

“We haven't found this to be stressful on our family,” Mrs. Obama told TODAY’s Matt Lauer in the second half of an extensive White House interview that aired Thursday.

The first lady credited a number of factors for keeping the tension level down, starting with the fact that her mother is living with the family in the White House to help out. Then there’s all the staff she has, from housekeepers to chefs, to make daily life easier... Read the full story.

Related stories:

• Michelle Obama: What you see is the real me
• Discuss: Do you think Michelle Obama's initiative to combat childhood obesity will make a difference?
  

From Katherine Cohen, PhD., CEO and founder of IvyWise and ApplyWise

Campus visits are an important part of the college application process, as they allow your college-bound teen to visualize attending the schools on their wish list. A visit also shows the college admissions committee that your child is seriously interested in attending their school. However, college visits can become costly. Here are my cost-saving tips for families looking to visit colleges on a budget:

Only visit colleges that are a “good fit” for your child academically, socially and financially. With the help of a high school guidance counselor, your child should research colleges and come up with a preliminary list of “good-fit” schools that are reach, target and safety schools. Don’t waste time and money visiting schools willy-nilly or visiting schools that are too far out of your child’s reach. If you have the opportunity, you’ll want to visit their top three or four schools.

Cut back on the number of visits to the same college. Many students visit college campuses twice during the college admissions process—before applying and after acceptance. Cut out one visit. Go before your child applies and be sure to attend both the official information session and campus tour, as the college will make a note that your child attended.

Make the campus dining hall the "restaurant" of choice. When visiting college campuses, your child should eat in one of the campus dining halls. Not only is this a much less expensive dining option than eating at a local restaurant, but it also gives your child a chance to connect with current students and get a better feel for the school.

Bunk with current college students. Have your child make arrangements to stay in one of the dorms with a current student for a night instead of paying for a hotel room nearby. Call the college to set this up or work with your child’s high school guidance counselor to find a graduate from their high school who is currently attending the college. This helps save money and also lets your child experience campus life first-hand.

Take advantage of information available online. Many colleges offer virtual tours of their campuses and participate in online college fairs where your child can chat with a representative of the school. Another way of checking out the school is its virtual community: Read their online newspapers, or follow them on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

A 9-year-old New York boy faced the prospect of suspension after the principal at his school saw him playing with a LEGO policeman carrying a toy machine gun. Do you think the principal's actions were reasonable?

The desperate situations of Haitian orphans — and the travails of U.S. parents trying to adopt them — have been covered extensively on msnbc.com and TODAYshow.com in the wake of Haiti’s devastating earthquake. Here are updates on two Haitian children we’ve profiled: Charly Schumacher, 11, and Lovely Benedict, 2.

Charly’s story
Charly is now safe in his new home in Wilmington, Ohio, with his adoptive parents, Jan and Paul Schumacher. The Schumachers had been trying to adopt Charly since 2005, when he was 6. Charly had lived with them for a year when he came to the United States at age 5 for treatment after being burned in a kerosene-lamp fire. He returned to Haiti when his medical visa expired.

“That was a nightmare sending him back,” Jan Schumacher recalled. “He was screaming and clinging and didn’t want to leave with the Haitian stewardess.”

Since that time, Jan Schumacher has visited Charly at his orphanage in Haiti and has struggled with red tape and obstacles to his adoption. When the earthquake hit, she panicked; she had no idea whether he was alive or dead. It turns out that Charly survived but was injured in the earthquake, so he was cleared to travel to the U.S. for necessary medical treatment.

Jan Schumacher traveled to Miami to pick Charly up. After yet more delays, she sent this update via e-mail:

“I was finally able to clear the FBI and get Charly out of ... Florida on Thursday a.m., Jan. 28. What a prickly time it was down there, I got to see Charly for about an hour a day and beg for them to keep checking on my status. I had to give them copies of all of our adoption papers, financial disclosure info, get several notarized and get fingerprinted, which is what we waited on all week.

“But we're home now!!!!! Charly is standing here bugging me as I write this ... it is so nice! ;)”

Lovely’s story
As of this writing, the story of little Lovely has no such happy ending. Her adoptive parents, Janelle and Bryan Benedict of Torrance, Calif., had completed the entire adoption process before the earthquake struck. They had just been waiting on the Haitian government to issue a passport for Lovely, who is developmentally delayed because of the effects of malnutrition and parasites.

“I’ve gone and spent a week with her (in Haiti) three times,” Janelle Benedict said. “She is just the sweetest little thing. She’s beautiful. She cuddles. And when you play music she likes to dance, which is so cute. ...

“She’s 2, but she’s just recently started crawling and barely started standing and taking a few steps. ... She only weighs 15 pounds because of malnutrition. But I think she will grow quickly once she gets home and gets proper food and medical attention.”

Since the earthquake, the Benedicts have been struggling frantically to bring Lovely home. They came close late last week, when officials almost put Lovely on a flight to Salt Lake City with other orphans. Janelle Benedict sent this update:

“We went to Salt Lake City to meet Lovely coming home on a plane that had taken humanitarian aid to Haiti. After the pilot refused to leave with the children and a big stand-off at the airport and negotiations directly with (Haiti’s) Prime Minister, 50 or so children were able to leave to Miami, but not to Utah. However, because USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) or the Port-au-Prince Embassy made a mistake with our updated fingerprints, Lovely and 13 other children were not allowed to board.

“Now, the process nearly starts over for her. She still is waiting for humanitarian parole, and then (we) hope the Prime Minister will sign her file. All the while, things are becoming very political and our team fears that they may close the door to children leaving to join the families at any moment. It’s all unbearable. We continue to wait.”

The Benedicts’ efforts to bring Lovely to the United States are chronicled in a BBC video. To watch the video, click here.

Related links:

Painful limbo for parents adopting Haitian kids

Reunited: Desperate dad goes to Haiti to rescue kids

Americans rush to adopt orphaned Haitian children

Home at last: 7 Haitian orphans arrive in U.S.

Haiti judge questions jailed Americans

In an exclusive interview with TODAY’s Matt Lauer, First Lady Michelle Obama addresses her commitment to helping American families achieve healthy lifestyles and combat childhood obesity. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Related stories:

• Discuss: Do you think Michelle Obama's initiative to combat childhood obesity will make a difference?
• Michelle Obama: What you see is the real me

In an interview with Matt Lauer on TODAY, first lady Michelle Obama discussed her commitment to helping American families achieve healthy lifestyles and combat childhood obesity. Do you think her efforts will make a difference?

From author and parenting expert Dr. Charles Sophy,

If someone were to ask you, “How would you describe your relationship with your daughter?” How would you answer? Or how would your daughter answer? And how would you describe your relationship with your mother? Responses can range from “We’re like best friends!” to “We can’t stand being in the same room with one another!”

The mother-daughter dynamic is one that is both beautiful and challenging beyond words. As a mother, you can decide to follow a path leading to a more open and engaging relationship by the way you communicate with your daughter. It is never easy, but making the initial effort will ultimately lead to a better relationship. Understand that this will not happen overnight. It is going to take time to build a strong foundation, especially if it there has been a history of poor communication between you and your daughter. But it's never too late to try to start again and repair the damage of the past. The power is with you, mom.

Try these five tips to create conflict-free communication with your daughter:

Choose your battles
It is natural to have an initial emotional response in a situation, but it is essential to “unhook” from those emotions, take a step back and re-evaluate how to handle it appropriately. It is not always necessary to immediately have a conversation about the issue. Put the outcome into a broader perspective, and choose your battles carefully, otherwise there will be far too many.

Keep an open mind
Try to always have collaborative discussions. Everyone’s opinions, emotions and ideas are equally important. If you want to be heard, you also have to be able to listen. Think before you speak, and remember that once words are said aloud, you can't take them back. Respecting one another can never be stressed enough. In order to get respect, you have to give it.

From Kitty Schindler, TODAYshow.com "Ask Kitty" columnist,

By the time you reach age 86, you begin to think you've seen it all ... but you haven’t. Some things still boggle my mind.

One of them is the explosion in the rate of C-sections being performed around the world. According to a recent survey by the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly half of the women having babies in China are choosing to have elective Caesarean sections.

Compare this to 1945 -- the year I graduated from nursing school -- when C-sections accounted for 1.9 percent of all births. Cesareans were the prerogative of the obstetrician, not the mother, and were performed only when the physician thought that it was a matter of safety for both mother and child.

In the last decade, the number of C-sections worldwide has doubled to more than 30 percent of all births – even though WHO recommends that no more than 2.5 percent of all births should be by Cesarean.

I had a large family (nine siblings!); so did my husband. Yet among all our close relatives, only one person in three generations has had a C-section. I estimate that's probably one in more than a hundred births, and it was for health reasons: a non-progressing labor.

The mother in question went on to have a second C-section because of the prior one; it was once felt that once you had a C-section, you were destined to have all your births that way. But she is now hoping that a third pregnancy will end with a normal vaginal delivery.

Despite recent medical advances, C-sections are no walk in the park: They are major surgeries with serious implications for both mother and infant. For one thing, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact date of conception, and therefore the recommended 39-weeks delivery date. C-sections performed too early are risky for the baby. Lungs, brain and eyes are developed late in the pregnancy.

There also is a limit to the number of C-sections one women can have. As a nurse who once worked in obstetrics, I would never have a Cesarean unless it were necessary for health reasons.

Related stories:

• Discuss: Would you opt for an elective C-section
• C-section rates around globe at 'epidemic levels'
• More from "Ask Kitty"

According to a recent study by the World Health organization (WHO), nearly half of women giving birth in China are opting for elective C-section and in the U.S. the C-section rate is at an all-time high of 31 percent. If it were an option, would you choose to have a C-section?

NBC’s chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman takes you inside the maternity ward, where a woman experiences the miracle of giving birth.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

According to a recent New York Times story, Massachusetts is the first state to add toothbrush time as a daily requirement for preschool children. Do you think it's a good idea or a little over the top? Cast your vote and share your thoughts.

The countdown to Vancouver is on and athletes around the world are preparing to compete in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. For most it's taken years of hard work and hardship to get here. Would you encourage your child to shoot for this elite level of competition?

The key: having fun, and a lot of support

It's cold, dark and the snow is dumping, but that doesn't stop thousands of locals and their kids from turning out at Park City Mountain Resort to cheer on snowboarding superstars Shaun White and Hannah Teter, as well as other world-class athletes as they strut their stuff under the lights in their final competition before the 2010 Olympic U.S. snowboarding team was announced.

"It's great for kids to see the best athletes in the world," said Chris Daggett, a US Airways pilot whose daughters are budding ski racers on the local Park City team. "They really think it's cool to watch."... Read the full story.

Related stories:
Discuss: Would you encourage your child to be an Olympic athlete
Countdown to Vancouver

Even if your scale reveals a healthy weight, you could be obese. TODAY nutritionist Joy Bauer reveals myths about weight and BMI and discusses the phenomenon dubbed “skinny fat.”

Through the I-Skate program, figure skating champion Dorothy Hamill is helping young children with cerebral palsy, brain damage or paralysis receive therapy through sports.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy