Family Life
How Visits to Extended Family Affect Young Children
Extended family visits offer children valuable relationships and exposure to family history and connection. However, these visits also disrupt routine...
5 min read
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Showing articles tagged with: #child-development
20 articles found
Safety
When Screen Content Becomes a Real Problem — Beyond Screen Time
Most parents worry about *how much* screen time their child gets. The bigger and less-discussed problem is *what's on the screen*. A four-year-old can...
8 min read
Safety
How Children Fall — and What Changes Each Age
The fall a 3-month-old takes is fundamentally different from the fall a 2-year-old takes. The mechanism, the height, what they hit, and what's likely...
8 min read
Play
Why Play Is the Primary Way Young Children Learn
The idea that play and learning are separate — that children play when they are not learning, and learn when they are not playing — is one of the most...
2 min read
Play
Unstructured Play: Why It Is Essential
In 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics published a clinical report titled "The Power of Play" (Yogman et al.) asking pediatricians to formally pr...
8 min read
Play
Different Types of Play and What They Develop
"What kind of play is this?" turns out to be a more useful question than parents realize. The 18-month-old who watches another toddler without joining...
9 min read
Play
The Difference Between Educational and Simply Fun Toys
The educational toy aisle is one of the most successful marketing inventions of the last 30 years. A $79 plastic learning station and a $9 set of wood...
7 min read
Play
Solitary Play: Is It a Problem?
Many parents worry when their child prefers to play alone. Is this a sign of a problem? Will it affect social development? The truth is that solitary...
4 min read
Play
Singing and Dancing as Active Play
A parent who can hold a tune is no advantage over a parent who can't, when the audience is a 14-month-old. The thing that holds babies' attention isn'...
7 min read
Play
How to Organize a Play Environment at Home
You almost certainly do not need a dedicated playroom, more storage furniture, or another wave of birthday gifts. Most homes already have everything r...
5 min read
Play
Age-Appropriate Games: Why Not to Rush Development
The market for "advanced" toddler products is enormous, and most of it sells one promise: your child can be ahead. They can read at three, do basic ar...
5 min read
Play
The Lifelong Value of a Play-Rich Childhood
The case for early-childhood play used to rest on tradition and intuition. Over the past 20 years, the evidence has caught up — long-running cohort st...
8 min read
Play
Play for Children Aged 24–36 Months: Imagination and Role Play
The two-to-three-year-old at play is often absorbed in another world entirely. The doll is sick and needs medicine; the small animals are going on a j...
4 min read
Play
Digital Games and Apps for Young Children: What to Look For
Not all apps and digital games are created equal. Some genuinely support learning and creativity; others use addictive mechanics designed to maximize...
4 min read
Play
Play and Learning in the Early Years: The Complete Parent's Guide
Adults treat play as the soft category — the thing you do after the real work. For young children it is the real work. The fastest brain growth happen...
8 min read
Play
When a Child Does Not Know How to Play Alone
"My child can't play alone for two minutes" is one of the most common things parents tell me, and it's almost never about the child being defective at...
8 min read
Play
How to Build Independent Play Habits
A child who can play on their own for thirty minutes is not lucky — she's been practicing. Independent play is a skill that compounds: the more often...
5 min read
Play
The Value of Boredom in Child Development
"I'm bored" is not a request for an activity. It's a transition state, and what happens in the next ten minutes depends almost entirely on whether som...
5 min read
Family Life
How Parents' Phone Use Affects Young Children
Smartphones are integral to modern life, yet research shows that parental phone use during interaction time significantly affects child development. W...
5 min read
Parenting
Why Children Test Boundaries and What It Means
The toddler walks toward the plug socket, pauses, glances at you, and reaches for it again. The four-year-old asks for ice cream four minutes after yo...
7 min read