I suppose that before I had kids of my own I used to secretly roll my eyes at parents who strapped a teddy-bear backpack to their child, and trailed behind him with a leash. “Control your kids!” I probably thought, feeling bad for the shackled youth who must have felt like a little helpless puppy. But then I had children and

Consider the following example: Rachel, a mother with four children under the age of 9, is always running around trying to take care of their needs. While she is boiling a pot of noodles, she is upstairs trying to run a bath for her son. While she is trying to balance these activities, she hears yelling and screaming downstairs. Rachel is

Research fellow for Security, Department of Psychology at Lancaster University

Lying is often seen as bad behavior in children. Fairy tales and folk stories, from Aesop’s Peter who cried wolf to Washington’s cherry tree tell children to be honest and never lie. But what can we do to encourage

There was a time when my kids tried to convince me that they had no friends at camp because I wasn’t sending them Gatorade in their lunchboxes. Forget bullying, social skills, athletic ranking. It was plain and simple. Nobody would like them if they didn’t have the “poison drink” (it is lovingly termed this in our home because it

“I see your daughter is wearing a coat!” many people have stopped me to report after having read my previous article on my jacketless children. I feel this demands an explanation for the sudden turn of events, to demonstrate that I did not pretendmy kids don’t wear coats so that I could just avoid buying new ones until Black

Postdoctoral researcher at University of Amsterdam

It is natural for parents to value their child–and feeling valued is key to children’s well-being; but some parents “overvalue” their child, believing their child is more special and more entitled than others.

One Friday night in early August two strangers showed up at my door and dropped off a baby. It was almost anticlimactic.

My partner and I had gone through the foster-care certification process months before, and had been patiently waiting for a call, but there was no morning sickness, no

The term ‘peer pressure’ refers to children or teenagers engaging in behavior that they might not necessarily do on their own, due to the pressure of another individuals or peers. When discussing children and teenagers, pressure may refer to the self, the presence of others, or the social dynamic of the particular situation.

My kids have strange clothing preferences: One daughter won’t wear tights, ever. One wears tights, all the time, even in the humidity of summer. One only wears pencil skirts; the other finds them to be restrictive to her cartwheeling-in-public habit. A third child (boy) only wears short sleeves, and sweaters, vests, ties, and

Dr. Rona Novick knows how eager parents are to better understand the issues that surround bullying. “There is nothing more important to parents than their children’s safety and happiness. Any parent who has witnessed the impact of their child being the victim of teasing or social exclusion or has seen their own child act in less than

I was recently asked the following question by a parent: “How do I handle a situation where a certain boy always is hanging around my son? My son really doesn’t mind hanging out with him, but feels that their friendship hurts his friendship with other kids who do not like this particular kid. He doesn’t want to hurt his feelings by

I have a child who sucks her thumb. She began at 4 months old and did it constantly, for three years straight, and it was wonderful because it kept her quiet, eliminated the need for toys or food, and she always put herself to bed. But the thing is with these habits, sometimes they come along with other, less adorable quirks, which