Motherhood begins as a tempestuously physical experience but quickly becomes a political one. Once a woman’s pregnancy goes public, the storm moves outside. Don’t pile on the pounds! Your child will be obese. Don’t eat t..

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Let's say you learned to drive in America and spent the formative years of your driving experience on American roads. If someone dropped you in the heart of London behind the wheel of a car, odds of a collision are high. You would need to relearn ha..

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Now parents can tell their children an added benefit to being a good kid – growing up to have a healthier body weight. Children who exhibit self-control at an early age have a lower body mass index (BMI) 30 years later, according to a study in t..

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While many parents who are overprotective believe that coddling their child is in the best interest of the child, research demonstrates too much coddling during the early stages of life can increase the child's chance of developing anxiety later in l..

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I’ve spent a good bit of time away from my kids this summer. My 9-year-old went on a month-long trip to Alaska with his grandparents, while my 7-year-old had her first taste of sleepaway camp in a four-night introductory session. I wasn’..

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There’s always one kid in the neighborhood everybody loves to torment; in Windsor Heights it was me. My short list of therapy-inducing childhood memories includes being stuffed into a sleeping bag and tied to a tree branch, being locked in a ga..

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Making it a priority to teach these kids to do something on their own. As usual, I was patting myself on the back about how much better of a parent I was than my friend who wouldn’t let her 1½-year-old jump off a tiny wall that my childre..

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“CRASH!  Oh nooo,” cooed my toddler happily.   It took my son, who was one and a half at the time, less than five seconds to break my mother’s clock.  He grabbed and threw it down with as much force as his chubby..

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Picture a child of 8 or so. He wakes up and carefully makes his bed before going downstairs and emptying the dishwasher. He fixes himself a bowl of cereal and calmly eats it at the table, then clears his place, rinses the bowl and spoon, and places t..

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When friends learn that my nearly six-year-old has been playing violin for three years, their voices shift a bit, especially if they also have a child learning an instrument. Two questions come in quick succession: "Does she like it?" and &..

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A father's love contributes as much — and sometimes more — to a child's development as does a mother's love. That is one of many findings in a new large-scale analysis of research about the power of parental rejection and acceptance in sh..

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Though parents have been teaching their children not to argue with adults for generations, new research from the University of Virginia shows that young teenagers who are taught to argue effectively are more likely to resist peer pressure to use drug..

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(CBS News) Letting your child hang out with his or her friends may provide more than emotional benefits: It could also boost your kid's health. A new study in the May 28 issue of  Pediatrics shows that kids who interact with active children are ..

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Children need reality-based parenting and teaching. We’ve drowned kids in medals for just showing up, praised them for everything they got close to right, compliments for doing what is expected. We have excelled as a nation in providing praise..

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Figures released by the National Trust earlier this month paint a picture of a generation of children disengaged with nature and outdoor play, largely ignorant of the joy of unbridled exploration. According to the charity, fewer than one in ten chil..

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Your 10-year-old lies. A lot. Is this normal? Parenthood: Figure out why child is lying, get input, then impose consequences Parent advice It's not unheard of, and in my experience it has to do with two things: fear of getting in trouble or a need for a..

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One size does not fit all when it comes to consequences and time-outs are no exception. I worry when I hear: • a kindergarten class has a time-out behavior management system for all kids. • a third-grade teacher always sends chatty kids to the..

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I walk around my house naked. My partner often does, too. Not gratuitously, just often. We don’t bother covering up when walking from bathroom to bedroom. We leave the door open when we get dressed. So far, my 8- and 12-year-old sons remain un..

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We all want to protect our children from bullying. Most parents, I imagine, would be horrified to hear that their children are being picked on at school, and equally horrified to hear that their child is doing the bullying. (Right now my clairvoyance..

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Each April, as we see the new life and growth of spring, we observe a month dedicated to children: Child Abuse Prevention Month. The huge importance of nurturing children has been validated as research into brain development has expanded. What many peo..

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A Field Guide to the Middle-Class U.S. Family: Why Do American Children Depend on their Parents to Do Things for Them That They Are Capable of Doing for Themselves? Anthropologist Elinor Ochs and her colleagues at the University of California, Los A..

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How to Be the Captain of the Ship Through Calm and Stormy Seas A frightened Captain makes a frightened crew. —Lister Sinclair If you’re a passenger on a cruise ship, it’s kind of cool if the Captain joins you for dinner. But his t..

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Kids perform better in school if they know failure, and trying again, is part of the learning process, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association. The research included several experiments intended to see whether pa..

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Dear Susan, I have battles every morning with my strong-willed eight-year-old twins. I have to deal with one argument after another, fighting to get them dressed and fed with teeth brushed so we can get out the door on time. When we finally leave ..

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I knew it was playdate suicide immediately after offering a cookie to a new friend’s organic-only, no-TV son. I was trying to bribe the boys to clean up, but by the look on her face I felt as though I was pushing drugs. “You let him eat ..

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Depressed kids may become targets for bullies, a new study finds. Children who are ostracized by their peers and bullied often become depressed, but new research suggests that the relationship may work the other way around as well: children’s d..

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Authoritarian parents whose child-rearing style can be summed up as "it's my way or the highway" are more likely to raise disrespectful, delinquent children who do not see them as legitimate authority figures than authoritative parents who ..

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On questions of how to live, the French never disappoint: They're all for liberté, so long as it's stylishly tasteful. How to eat, how to dress, how to love—we all know, because they've told us, that the French have a distinct, and bett..

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School-age children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress.  The new research, by child psychiatrists and neuroscientists at Washing..

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  Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of England, once said, “One of the great problems of our age is that we’re governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.” Quite so, and it is eq..

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(CNN) -- FaceTime, the Apple video-chat application, is not a replacement for real human interaction, especially for children, according to a new study. Tween girls who spend much of their waking hours switching frantically between YouTube, Facebook,..

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  I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a young teen who uses social networks as the primary way of connecting to peers. It used to be that the vast majority of interactions and friendship forming took place in the real world –..

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Sometimes moms do things without realizing they are doing them. I don’t mean the audible conversations with ourselves or hiding in the bathroom for a few minutes of peace and quiet. I mean things like tying our kids’ shoes for them. I&rs..

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In addition to understanding the many real concerns that today’s parents have with video games, it’s also worth considering the benefits and positive aspects that contemporary interactive entertainment choices provide. Certainly, many ..

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Letting babies "cry it out" is an idea that has been around since at least the 1880s when the field of medicine was in a hullaballoo about germs and transmitting infection and so took to the notion that babies should rarely be touc..

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As a parent, one thing you expect will be a part of your life for the next decade or two, are toys, lots and lots of toys.  But what isn’t always as apparent is what toys to buy for your child. Which ones are just all hype, and which on..

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Social media has become an extension of the school hallway for the vast majority of American students, with all the flirting, drama, occasional cruelty and flashes of maturity, according to a survey released today by Pew Research Center’s Inte..

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Forget everything you may have read about coping with children's temper tantrums. Time-outs, sticker charts, television denial—for many, none of these measures will actually result in long-term behavior change, according to researchers at two ..

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Both boys and girls who play video games tend to be more creative - even if the games they're playing are violent. A study by Michigan State University of nearly 500 12-year-olds found that the more kids played video games, the more creative they we..

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Preschool children with relatively poor language skills improve more if they are placed in classrooms with high-achieving students, a new study found. Researchers found that children with relatively poor language skills either didn't improve ove..

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What’s the most important 18 minutes of the day for families? “I hate mealtimes with my kids,” confessed one mom at a parenting workshop. “I prefer some time at dinner with my husband rather than being a disciplinarian with ..

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Families who spend more time together while their children are young tend to have a stronger family bond for decades, experts say. But it takes a lot of effort to plan and then live the "slow family" lifestyle, which suggests that kids don..

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Of all jobs out there, Parenting is one that presents the most challenges. Difficult challenges to say the least. The Investment My experiences with my own children and other children whose parents put energy and time trying to be the best parents pos..

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"Less is best" is a favorite mantra of all those organizing experts on cable TV. Considering the towering pile of stuff and information monopolizing kids' attention today, it may be a good mantra for parents to adopt to some degree as we..

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Previous generations took better care of their stuff than most of us do now. They sprayed sofas with Scotchgard, threw plastic slipcovers on chairs, and stayed out of their dining rooms except on Thanksgiving. Or if the boss was coming to dinner. Not..

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I grew up in an odd era, in which when you wanted someone to play with, you walked down the block (or biked if it was a couple blocks) over to a friend’s house and knocked on their door to ask some scary adult person if Johnny could come out a..

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There's no substitute for staying home with your children. Pre-k programs make me think of getting a puppy and taking it to the kennel during the work week. Nobody does that, yet thousands of small children are dropped off at pre-k programs as soon as t..

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The world can be a frightening place. As a parent, I am constantly aware of choices that I make to minimize my perception of fear and uncertainty. Death, illness, divorce, crime, war, child abductions, tsunamis, and terrorism — both here and ..

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Men's reluctance to discuss their problems can be infuriating for their chattier wives and girlfriends. And the habit, it seems, starts in childhood. A study claims that most men, rather than being too inhibited to share their feelings, simply do not..

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Every mom has a secret. “I cry myself to sleep sometimes because I am Overwhelmed and I don't feel like I can talk to anyone about it.” “I honest to goodness do not like my son most of the time and knowing that KILLS me.” &ldq..

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As I talk with adults about playing in nature, I invariably hear about special places they remember from their childhood. Their eyes light up and their voices rise as they describe the times they spent outside as a child. Experiences in nature are..

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Teary-eyed kindergarteners who thought their school buses would carry them away forever have grown up and adjusted to teachers and homework by the time they finish elementary school.   But then they start middle school and are no longer with th..

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Parents with squabbling children should let them row to their hearts' content -- it could be the secret to their future success. New research suggests that strong sibling rivalry, while hardly contributing to a quiet family home, can boost mental ..

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You probably haven't been worrying much lately about the seating policies of McDain's restaurant in Monroeville, Pa. You probably don't even know that McDain's exists. Or Monroeville, for that matter. But when the casual-dining eatery announced earl..

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Classes are done for area schoolchildren, but that doesn't mean the learning should stop. (Wait just a second, you kids are thinking. Learning? But it's summer vacation! We know. Just hear us out.) "Every time we come back (to school) in the fall,..

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A new analysis of data from a cognitive science laboratory at Virginia Tech adds more fuel to the idea that children’s ability to listen and follow directions in school is connected to the way caregivers responded to them as infants. Using data..

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If you're raising one or more of these amazing humans, you might want to adopt the five-word rule for communicating with them and take in a few other simple strategies, outlined by Walnut Creek therapist and author Don Elium. In the beginning, al..

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While a host of research into the effects of violent games on children have focused on whether or not the exposure makes the kids more aggressive themselves, a new study published in the Journal of Children and Media took a different tack. In a surv..

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In 2002, Elizabeth Gershoff published the first-ever meta-analysis of research (PDF) on the effects of corporal punishment on children. Now an associate professor in the School of Human Ecology, Gershoff continues to delve into the impact of spanking ..

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I was at the dog park recently and watched as a middle-aged man played with his young son and their dog. They were throwing around a ball and running back and forth. The dog and the kid returned back to dad, each with the same expression, awaiting th..

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Perhaps you've heard the term "helicopter parenting" as a way to describe the way today's 20-somethings (Gen Y) were hovered over in childhood by their parents. As a life coach to 20-somethings and consultant to corporations with Gen Y empl..

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Preschoolers whose parents are depressed get stressed out more easily than kids with healthy parents, but only if their mothers have a negative parenting style, according to a new study. The research, set to be published in an upcoming issue of the jou..

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New fathers aren't immune to postpartum depression, and sad dads are nearly four times more likely to spank their children than are their happier counterparts. About 40 percent of depressed fathers say they've spanked their 1 year olds, compared wit..

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  The research is clear: it's not just about class sizes, the state of the school buildings or whether you're born on the right side of the tracks. The biggest factor in whether students succeed in school is the attitude of their parents. So ..

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 Children with the most self-control at three years old become the healthiest, wealthiest and most successful adults, new research finds. And those with the least self-control at age three are more likely to drop out of school, break t..

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Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- "You know you're an extreme parent if your child, who does not have a documented learning disability, has more than three tutors." "You know you're an extreme parent if you imagine that your child is going to..

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Tantrums, whining, not listening, bedtime battles, power struggles. It’s enough to drive parents crazy. So why do kids really misbehave? To answer that question, we must first understand the root cause of those annoying, frustrating, maddening..

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Many mothers are under so much pressure to appear like perfect parents that they cover up how much television their children watch or what they cook their families, according to a survey. Such "white lies" also extend to how much "qual..

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Why cavemen were better parents than we are today Being a parent is an ancient art. And it seems we could learn a thing or two about child rearing by going back to the days of the hunter-gatherers. Today's practice of leaving babies to cry, keeping the..

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The father-son relationship may affect how sons, when they've grown into adults, deal with day-to-day stress in their lives, a new study suggests. Men who characterized their childhood relationship with their fathers as “good” were more l..

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Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back? A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what t..

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Helping your young child succeed Here’s a shocker, and something for parents of preschoolers to look out for in the New Year, if it hasn’t happened already: According to a band of researchers at Oregon State University, “A record n..

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Do your teens text and drive? (For that matter, do YOU?) Watch this PSA and you'll be scared straight. (Warning: Graphic images!)   Don't forget to pass this onto to everyone you know!

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Question asked by Suzie Our 8-year-old daughter was diagnosed with ADHD at age 6. We have tried several medications, stimulants and nonstimulants, and have not gotten good results. We are now looking at homeopathic treatment for our daughter, but..

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   A plethora of books, articles, videos, and advice about how to prevent or to handle sibling rivalry is available for parents with two or more children. But to what degree is all this information useful? How valuable is it really? In fa..

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    (CNN) -- The government's air defense system tracks Santa's progress on Christmas Eve. The United States Postal Service even accepts letters to the North Pole. With that kind of evidence..

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Drugs, unprotected sex, drinking, bullying, smoking -- the list of parental worries often seems endless. And just when you think you have all the potential problem areas covered, your child or teen suddenly seems "addicted" to Facebook and..

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