When children are being clingy, they’re communicating their feelings. This is normal and healthy. Parents can help by acknowledging the feelings that come with their child’s behaviour.
When gaming interferes with a person’s daily life, it might become a disorder.
Alex Haney
The World Health Organisation has classified gaming disorder as an addiction. But it involves more than just playing videogames for hours on end. Here’s how to spot it and what you can do about it.
Summing up a student in numbers.
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US schools now collect detailed data on their students. But teachers and parents need to think carefully about how that data is used – and what it shows, or doesn’t show, about a student.
The breastfeeding relationship is not always a dream. It can be challenging, physically painful and cause guilt and postnatal depression for many mothers.
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Nearly half of teens say the effect of social media is neither positive nor negative on them; it is just life as they know it. So let’s support them through the highs and lows.
Are tracking technologies changing parenting?
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The number of births in the US is down 2% – to what the CDC calls ‘the lowest number of births in 32 years.’ This drop brings the US more in line with its peers.
Children are living at home for longer, so parents have more time to be overly protective of them.
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Parents are more willing to let children do their own thing in parks. It’s a chance for children to make their own decisions, explore their abilities and imaginations, and weigh up risks.
Take care to ensure fibre intakes aren’t excessive during pregnancy and infancy.
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Usually we set out to get plenty of fibre and little fat, but nutritional advice for pregnant women and parents of toddlers who are vegan is different.
Research with Canadian families found that modelling of healthy food intake by fathers, but not by mothers, was associated with a healthier diet among their children.
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Most Canadian children spend too much time on screens and don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables. Fathers can help by modelling healthy behaviours and getting involved in research.
Many American mothers say part-time work would be ideal.
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For many working women, motherhood is a major interruption to their career. Some eventually work their way back up to full-time work, but there are many other paths that women might follow.
We need a community conversation about balancing the trade-offs.
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Australia’s college of obstetricians has warned pregnant women against kissing their toddlers on the mouth or sharing food because of the risk of cytomegalovirus (CMV). But is this advice useful?
Considerable parental favouritism is associated with lower mental and physical well-being for all children in the family.
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Children are constantly hearing about threats to their safety. Sometimes they find it hard to know if a danger is real, and they need help processing their fears. Here’s what they need you to know.
Bubble-wrapping children doesn’t work. They need to experience mild adversity, to know how to overcome it when they inevitably face it in life.
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Paying to get your kids into prestigious universities is an example of a ‘bulldozer parenting’ trend, which reduces exposure to failure and can lead to mental health difficulties.
Significant changes in your child’s behaviour could signal they are being sexually abused.
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Professor, Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development, Owerko Centre at the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary
Assistant professor, School of Psychology, Scientist, Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa