Parenting

Details: Written by: Marcus Harrison Green, YES! Magazine

baby boxes 5 25

Five reasons baby boxes are more than cutesy cardboard containers, from offering a safe place to sleep to giving an equal start in life.

Details: Written by: Penny Bishop, University of Vermont

What Happens When Middle Schoolers Take To Twitter? Fully 92 percent of American teenagers go online daily. More than half of them do so several times a day and a quarter are online “almost constantly.”

Details: Written by: Joanne Orlando, Western Sydney University

Is Two Hours Of Screen Time Guideline For Kids Obsolete? Official guidelines say kids aged five to 18 years should spend no more than two hours a day using screens, and children under two years should not use a screen at all. But in a world dominated by tablets and mobile phones, these limits are proving to be virtually impossible to uphold.

Details: Written by: Jeff Sossamon, University of Missouri

Girls Still Avoid Math, Even If Mom Is A Scientist "Analysis revealed that girls' mathematics anxiety was not related to the level of their mothers' engagement in STEM careers, nor was it related to gender equality in the countries we studied," says David Geary.

Details: Written by: Jonathan Todres, Georgia State University

Why Bullying Needs More Efforts To Stop It The tragic consequences of bullying have become a regular part of the news cycle. In April, an eighth grade girl in Missouri and a sixth grade boy in Pennsylvania committed suicide. Bullying was an important factor, according to their families.

Details: Written by: Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, The Ohio State University

Worrying About Being A Perfect Mother Makes It Harder To Be A Good Parent Even armed with a Ph.D. in developmental psychology, I remember the frightening first moments after bringing my newborn daughter home from the hospital. I wasn’t sure what to do – and not at all confident that I was capable of being the parent she needed me to be.

Details: Written by: David Orenstein, Brown University

I disagree with the hand-waving that people get, being told, ‘Yep, you are the one who wanted to be a mom or a dad. Better get used to it,'” says Katherine Sharkey. (Credit: John Mayer/Flickr) "The biological clock can get thrown off in these women because they are up so much in the middle of the night," says Katherine Sharkey.

Details: Written by: Peggy Albers, Georgia State University

Mother reads with children. Diana Ramsey, CC BY If you are a parent or a teacher, you most probably read stories to young children. Together, you laugh and point at the pictures. You engage them with a few simple questions. And they respond.

Details: Written by: Ana Aznar, University of Surrey; Bart Carlo Rienties, The Open University, and Garron Hillaire, The Open University

child learnin emotions 5 10 Emotions play a critical role in everyday life. The ability to express, regulate, and understand one’s own and others’ emotions – known as emotional competence – is linked to good social skills and to doing better at school.

Details: Written by: Kevin Fryling, Indiana University

Babies Pay Attention When Parents Do "The ability of children to sustain attention is known as a strong indicator for later success in areas such as language acquisition, problem-solving, and other key cognitive development milestones," says Chen Yu.

Details: Written by: Molly McElroy, University of Washington

Musical Rhythm Helps Babies Find Patterns In Speech In both the music and control groups, we gave babies experiences that were social, required their active involvement, and included body movements—these are all characteristics that we know help people learn...

Details: Written by: Peter Parry, The University of Queensland

The Difficulties Doctors Face In Diagnosing Autism A recent survey of pediatricians found they often lacked enough information to accurately diagnose an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children. ASD is an important diagnosis not to miss. But it is equally important not to make the diagnosis when it is not truly present.

Details: Written by: Vanessa LoBue, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Rutgers University Newark

The biological sex of babies may not determine their gender later. Anthony J, CC BY Gender is generally thought of as a stable trait: we are born male or female and we stay that way as we grow from small children to adults. It turns out that for young children, initial concepts about gender are quite

Details: Written by: Michael Carroll, Senior Lecturer in Reproductive Science, Manchester Metropolitan University

How Can Twins Have Different Fathers? The recent report from northern Hòa Bình province in Vietnam of twins born to two different fathers has been making headlines around the world. The father of the twins took the infants for DNA tests where it was revealed he was the biological father to just one of them - the other twin was fathered by another man.

Details: Written by: Justin H G Williams, Senior Clinical Lecturer in Child Psychiatry, University of Aberdeen

How Do Children Learn Empathy? Empathy, the ability to understand others and feel compassion for them, is arguably the most defining human quality – setting us apart from smart machines and even other animals. Without it, we couldn’t function in social areas such as the schools, court rooms and office workplaces that are the cornerstones of our society.

Details: Written by: Marjorie Miller-Penn State

If You Give Kids Too Much Food, They’ll Overeat "There is a belief that young kids can self-regulate their food intake," says Barbara Rolls. "This study shows those signals are really easy to override."

Details: Written by: Craig Smith, Research Investigator, University of Michigan

children fairness 3 20 Should a teacher reward a whole class for the good deeds of one student? What about the other side of the discipline picture: should a whole class be punished for the misdeeds of just a few students?

Details: Written by: Rebecca Treiman, Burke and Elizabeth High Baker Professor of Child Developmental Psychology, Washington University in St Louis

Young children are writing even before they are reading. Steven Yeh, CC BY-NC-ND We typically think of writing as something that is out of reach for preschool children. After all, young children can’t write recognizable letters, and they can’t spell words.

Details: Written by: Susan Stiffelman, MFT

Helping Our Kids (and Ourselves) Cope with Stress In a study titled “Stress in America,” commissioned by the American Psychological Association, it was found that 30 percent of teens reported feeling overwhelmed, depressed, or sad as a result of stress. Almost 25 percent said they skipped meals because of stress. Almost one-third of teens say that stress often brings them to the verge of tears...

Details: Written by: Richard Bach

When School Kills (It Does)...Where’s Education? A stagnant nation, despairing over the death of education . . . by the Great Cat, why? Have we not learned that school kills? The nation ought to be raving joyful for the death of its failed system of diplomas and degrees, raving delighted at the greening of this grand new culture, the Passionate Self-Educated.

Details: Written by: Michelle Ma, University Of Washington

Early Intervention Lasts Even Years Later For Kids With Autism A new study is the first in more than 20 years to look at long-term outcomes after early intensive autism intervention. Therapy began when children were 18 to 30 months old and involved therapists and parents working with children at home for more than 15 hours each week for two years.