#parenting

#parenting

When my oldest daughter turned 9, her pediatrician said she could get her period within the year. I was blindsided: When I was growing up, girls expected to get their periods around the age of 13. I rushed out to buy a pack of menstrual pads to keep in her backpack, in case she gets her first period in school, and ordered The Care and Keeping of You, the iconic puberty book series that has sold 8 million copies since it debuted in 1998.

In my previous post, I explained why your Halloween candy rules keep backfiring. Control-based approaches create sneaking, obsession, and battles that leave nobody's needs met. Kids want autonomy and inclusion while parents want competence and ease - and traditional rules don't address either set of needs. So what works instead? A collaborative approach where you and your child create agreements together. This isn't about being permissive or letting kids eat unlimited candy. It's about involving them in finding solutions that work for your whole family.

"First of all, I just want to say, I just had a baby and I have a lot of brain fog," she said. "So, I haven't slept in seven months, so if I repeat myself, I'm sorry. Like, interrupt me and tell me I'm off track."

The amount of often conflicting advice for parents and caregivers available on social media can feel overwhelming. How does one even begin to sort through this overabundance of advice, much less figure out what is best practice for building healthy relationships? The Spirited Child Approach has been developed over decades of working with families of spirited children who are typical and yet more intense, persistent, perceptive, sensitive, and energetic. It interweaves findings from the fields of temperament, secure attachment, sleep, development, resiliency, neurobiology, and self-regulation.

I remember as a kid I was obsessed with Halloween candy. It was the one day of the year where I could get as much candy, eat as much candy as I could. I had a one-track mind. I didn't find joy with Halloween because of the costumes or hanging out with friends. I'd just get a pillowcase and fill it up with as much candy as I wanted.

An analysis of numerous studies shows that grade-centric approaches are not always beneficial for young people's mental health and do not yield the expected benefits. Understanding, encouragement, and support, rather than asserting too much pressure, become the cornerstone of healthy youth development. A child with their parents' support is more likely to grow into a resilient, confident, motivated, and secure adult. On the contrary, emotionally unsupported children are likely to remain mentally fragile and underachieving.

She froze on the edge of yelling, then stopped herself. If it had been one of her child's friends, she realized, she wouldn't have been angry at all. "So instead of overreacting, I just said, 'It's OK. Let's clean it up together,' Canineu tells TODAY.com. 'That moment honestly changed everything for me and for her.' But, Canineu, adds, she still sets limits when it matters, enforcing chores, rules and respect.

Parenting is hard, period. And sometimes, parenting self-help books or forums can offer solutions that are just way too time-consuming or drastic to even entertain. When you are incredibly tired, burned out, stressed about the world, and worried about money, it can be hard to try a whole new parenting philosophy or lifestyle. Hell, it can be hard to get through the day.

Earlier this year, I realized that dinnertime had gotten out of hand at my house. It seemed like each of my five family members spent half of our mealtime together complaining about each other's poor manners. My teens often didn't love that their younger siblings would interrupt during conversations or chew with their mouths open. Everyone made their feelings known.

Being a parent is hard. No one wants to be that person with a screaming baby at dinner, and the last thing anyone wants to think about while their kid is crying is the death stares they're receiving from a crowd. But there are just some situations where you have no choice but to pack up the stroller. Hopefully, people will understand, but if you do end up bringing your baby to a restaurant, there are things you can do to help the staff out.

Growing adolescent differences are abrasive, wearing down dependence between parent and child. The parent must maintain caring communication and contact so they can feel connected as they grow apart. Change complaints in the parent-adolescent relationship are not a problem to stop but a reality to accept. The more parents know about what adolescent changes to expect, the less they are likely to become upset.

Between us, we have three children, ages 8, 6, and 2. We've done a lot of math with an accountant and determined that it would be best for the household finances if Kevin divorced me and married Monica (with a bunch of other paperwork filed to make sure we stick as a group when it comes to parental authority, medical proxies, power of attorney, etc.).

When our child was born, we went from fairly evenly split chores to me doing most of them. I had FMLA and my husband "Josh" didn't, daycare always called me instead of him, and then it became a habit. It left me miserable and cranky, at home and at work. This past summer, we sat down and talked it out. It wasn't fun, but we agreed to try to rebalance the work.

Of course, it's never acceptable to lie...unless you have children, in which case it is one thousand percent necessary to have a few "fibs" in your arsenal. These are just harmless parenting tricks that are necessary for survival. So redditor u/TopRun8728 asked, "What's the most unethical parenting hack you know?" Here's what people said (including a white lie my dad used often when I was a kid that I still remember to this day).

When children visit someone's house, it's a really good time to instill that they need to be polite and respect the rules of others. When you're at home it's totally different and you can expect to be much more relaxed, but when going to Grandma's, or a restaurant, or the grocery store, it's a great time to reel it in and practice our social skills.

It's our job to ensure that those around us, including immediate and extended family and friends, understand ADHD because it will impact our entire circle in some way, shape, or form. It may feel odd, or even stressful at times, to take on the burden of driving awareness and educating loved ones about our child's neurodivergent diagnosis; however, it's a must-do activity because your child and you need and deserve support.

"I feel like every birthday party invitation I'm receiving now has a registry/gift list," she continued. "It kind of makes the whole thing feel shallow. Registries were for bridal and baby showers to give couples and parents the things they needed for a huge life change, and now I'm getting invitations with registries filled with toys, some being $50+, for a 1 year old's birthday party."

Forcing kids to hug and kiss relatives and family friends teaches them their physical boundaries don't matter and that they don't have autonomy over their bodies.

No father or mother prays to have a rebellious child who talks back, disobeys instructions, or lives carelessly. Yet, many good children gradually become rebels, not because they were born bad, but because of avoidable mistakes made in parenting. Raising children is like building a house. If the foundation is faulty, no matter how beautiful the walls look, cracks will eventually appear. The truth is this: rebellion in children is not sudden, it is often a silent cry from wounds caused in the home.

I get both of your perspectives here. Your wife is likely frustrated by having to now deal with your younger son's fears from something he didn't have to be exposed to in the first place. And you, knowing your brother, understand that he was just in fun uncle mode: taking his nephews to do something he thought was entertaining-maybe even something he loved when he was a kid himself. The key here, and what was missing, is communication.

After returning home from a full day of working as a project manager at an event management company, I cooked dinner, got the kids bathed, folded laundry, and prepared for the next day. The night was punctuated with raised voices and tears from the kids and from me. Mine were shed after I escaped to the bathroom for two minutes of alone time.

I rented out a local neighborhood restaurant for her first birthday. We had an open bar, matching outfits for the whole family, a photographer, a face painter, a balloon artist, and even glitter tattoos. Her birthday cake was two layers tall. We had a ton of desserts, pizza, pasta, and quesadillas. We even had a Build-a-Bear instead of traditional goodie bags for each child to take home.

Joy and enthusiasm provide essential components to build the motivation and perseverance needed to understand and succeed in math. Neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience research show correlations demonstrating children's math negativity adversely impacts their dedication and successful learning. Here, we'll suggest interventions to promote children's positive attitudes about math. Reduce Math Mistake Fear For most children, the biggest school fear is making a mistake in front of classmates. Help reduce mistake fear and increase your children's participation with activities where errors are part of the process.

"I am a big Blue Jays fan and turning my kids into them, too, is my mission," said Jangda, who was anticipating another late school night for Thursday's game, and a more manageable Friday night game as the series continued from Seattle's T-Mobile Park.

With more than a decade of experience working as a design and tech analyst, Andrew Hogan is all in on the efficiency and ease that tech brings to our lives. But lately at home with his daughters (ages 4 and 18 months), Hogan is grappling with something unwieldy and undefined: how parents, kids, and technology interact, from smartphones to screen time to AI.