Parenting
Why Parents Are a Child's Primary Role Model
A 3-year-old who slams a cabinet has almost always seen a cabinet slammed. The pull, when this happens, is to correct the child — "we don't slam thing...
7 min read
Articles on Baby Health and Development
Expert guides, tips, and insights to help you and your family live healthier lives. From preventative care to wellness strategies, find everything you need to make informed health decisions.
Parenting
Role Distribution in a Family With a Young Child
Six months in, most couples can tell you exactly who does the laundry. Almost none can tell you who is in charge of remembering the pediatrician's num...
6 min read
Parenting
Parent Rituals as a Source of Stability
A toddler who watches their mother make tea the same way every morning before anyone else is awake is absorbing more than the smell of bergamot. They...
6 min read
Parenting
Rituals That Belong to You: Why Parents Need Them Too
Children's rituals get a lot of airtime — bedtime routines, morning routines, transition rituals — because pediatricians have decades of evidence that...
6 min read
Parenting
The Psychology of Returning to Work After Parental Leave
The first morning back at work after parental leave is one of the strangest days of an adult life. You drop off a small person who fundamentally chang...
7 min read
Parenting
Restoring Energy When You Have 20 Minutes, Not Two Hours
The most useless advice given to parents of young children is "take time for yourself" — usually in two-hour blocks that don't exist. The good news is...
7 min read
Parenting
Repair After Conflict: The Single Most Useful Skill in Parenting
The bar isn't to avoid conflict with your kid — that's not possible and wouldn't be healthy if it were. The bar is to come back. Half a century of att...
6 min read
Parenting
Why Rest Is a Skill, Not a Reward
Most parents treat rest like a coupon: redeemable once everything is done, which is never. So they don't rest, or they try to rest and find their brai...
4 min read
Parenting
How to Respond to Unsolicited Parenting Advice
Your baby is fussing in line and a stranger informs you they're hungry/cold/overstimulated. Your toddler is melting down at the park and a grandparent...
5 min read
Parenting
How to Respond to Defiance Without Escalating
Your toddler plants their feet at the car door. Your 4-year-old looks you in the eye and says no. Your jaw tightens. The next ten seconds decide wheth...
6 min read
Parenting
What Resilience Actually Looks Like in Young Children
Resilience in a young child does not look like grit on a poster. It looks like a 2-year-old who falls, cries, finds you, gets a hug, and goes back to...
5 min read
Parenting
Why Parents Often Repeat the Parenting Style of Their Own Childhood
Most parents who swore they'd never sound like their mother eventually hear their mother coming out of their mouth. It is not a moral failing. It is t...
4 min read
Parenting
Remote Work With a Young Child: An Honest Reckoning
Remote work plus a toddler at home looks, on paper, like a clean solution to the work-childcare equation. In practice, it is two demanding jobs collid...
5 min read
Parenting
When to Reevaluate the Expectations You Set for Yourself
The expectations you carry for yourself as a parent did not arrive by accident. They were assembled — from your own childhood, from a decade of curate...
6 min read
Parenting
How to Reduce Working Parent Guilt
Working parent guilt operates on a closed loop. You feel bad at work for not being with your kid. You feel bad at pickup for not being more focused at...
5 min read
Parenting
Why Parenting Recommendations Change Over Time
Your mother put you to sleep on your stomach. Your pediatrician now insists on the back. Your grandmother held off peanut butter until kindergarten; c...
5 min read
Parenting
Reconnecting With Yourself After Childbirth
Six weeks postpartum your obstetrician clears you for "normal activity," and somewhere inside you a quiet voice asks: normal for whom? Your abdomen fe...
5 min read
Parenting
How to Recognize When Your Resources Are Running Low
Parental burnout doesn't arrive with an alarm. The 2018 Parental Burnout Assessment, validated across more than 40 countries, identified the same thre...
5 min read
Parenting
Teaching Children to Recognize Their Own Emotions
Your 4-year-old is on the floor screaming about a sock. You ask what they're feeling and they look at you like you've asked them to do calculus. They...
5 min read
Parenting
How to Read Scientific Research About Children
A headline tells you screens cause autism. The actual study had 28 participants, no control group, and was funded by a company selling a screen-free p...
5 min read