Family Life
How Children Perceive the Emotional Climate at Home
Infants and toddlers can't understand words, but they read emotional atmosphere with extraordinary precision. A baby whose parent is chronically anxio...
7 min read
Family Life
Creating a nurturing family environment and daily routines.
Family Life
How Changes Within the Family Affect a Child
Family changes are inevitable: a new baby arrives, parents separate, the family moves house, a parent's working hours shift, a grandparent dies, a bel...
6 min read
Family Life
Family Celebrations With Young Children
The gap between how adults plan family celebrations and how young children actually experience them is wider than most parents expect until they've li...
6 min read
Family Life
How to Celebrate Birthdays Without Overstimulation
Birthday parties for young children often become more elaborate as children get younger — which is to say, the most elaborate parties tend to be throw...
5 min read
Family Life
Balancing Family Life and Work
The phrase "work-life balance" implies that a state of equilibrium is achievable — equal time and energy for work and family, reliably maintained. It...
6 min read
Family Life
Family Activities at Home
The best family activities often happen at home without special equipment or significant cost. Cooking together, building something, making music, cre...
6 min read
Family Life
Age-Appropriate Participation in Chores
One of the more common frustrations in early parenting is asking a three-year-old to "tidy your room" and getting chaos or tears in return. The proble...
5 min read
Family Life
How Families Can Support a Child's Physical Activity
Physical activity in early childhood does something important that adults sometimes underestimate: it builds the neural infrastructure for learning. A...
5 min read
Family Life
How to Explain a Sibling's Illness or Disability to Young Children
When one child in a family has a serious illness, disability, or complex needs, siblings notice. They notice the extra appointments, the altered routi...
6 min read
Family Life
Evening Routines That Support Better Sleep
A consistent bedtime routine is among the best-supported interventions for children's sleep, with evidence going back decades. A 2009 study by Mindell...
6 min read
Family Life
How to Discuss Health and Illness With Young Children
A 3-year-old facing a vaccination, a hospital visit, or a relative's serious illness builds their understanding of what's happening from whatever frag...
7 min read
Family Life
Digital Life in the Family: Finding a Balance
Phones, tablets, and televisions are part of family life now in a way they weren't a generation ago. Most parents feel pulled in two directions — vagu...
6 min read
Family Life
Setting Up a Home That Supports Curiosity and Growth
You don't need a Pinterest playroom or hundreds of pounds of wooden Montessori equipment to raise a curious child. The home environments that consiste...
9 min read
Family Life
Cooking With Children: What's Realistic at Each Age
There's a reason children eat the cake they helped make even when they've turned their nose up at every other dessert that week. Helping prepare food...
8 min read
Family Life
Community Resources for Families With Young Children: A UK Guide
A surprising amount of free and low-cost support exists for families with young children in the UK. The problem isn't the support; it's that no one ha...
9 min read
Family Life
Co-Viewing Media With Young Children: Making Screen Time Worth Something
Most under-fives spend some time in front of a screen. The interesting question isn't whether they watch — that ship has often sailed by the time they...
8 min read
Family Life
How to Support a Child Through Neighborhood Changes
A two-year-old can tell you, with conviction, that the duck pond is "this way" and the green slide is "the right one". When the duck pond is drained f...
6 min read
Family Life
Caring for a Child With a Chronic Condition in a Family Setting
Roughly one in five children grows up with a chronic health condition — asthma, eczema, type 1 diabetes, food allergies, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, con...
7 min read
Family Life
Helping Children Adjust to a New Home
After moving day, the work of actually settling in begins -- and for young children, that work takes weeks rather than days. Some children adapt quick...
7 min read
Family Life
How to Celebrate Milestones in Meaningful Ways
First smiles, first steps, first sentences, first day at nursery -- early childhood is dense with milestones. How you mark them shapes your child's se...
5 min read