Excerpted from
Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children
This new authority figure, the child-rearing expert, did not present a single image of enlightened parenthood but, appropriately enough, two basic models—one sterner and more "masculine," the other empathetic and effusive, yet both impressively scientific. At the podium at the Congress of Mothers, Dr. Holt and Dr. Hall made an emblematic pair. Rough contemporaries, Hall at fifty-five and Holt at forty
By Margarita Nahapetyan
For the new generation of children social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are among the most common activities and, in fact, a way of life. About 30 percent of kids aged between 8 and 12 years have managed to create accounts on such websites despite regulations according to which the users must be at least 13 years of age.
Any website that allows social interaction is considered a soci
Excerpted from Splashing in Puddles: How to Be a Father to Your Daughter By David B. Van Heemst
The fire in your family's fireplace can be stoked to burn brightly, or it can be ignored so that it burns out. Your daughter is born with an inner beauty. She is a child of the King, made in His image. By encouraging her spirit, you can help stoke the flames of her inner beauty, helping her to radiate; but by damaging or ignoring her spirit, you can ensure it will smolder, go
By Margarita Nahapetyan
One of the most effective ways to relieve stress associated with being a new mom is to read or write blogs, claims a new family study by U.S. researchers.
According to the new findings, joining an online blogging community helps new mothers feel less alone as they begin to feel more connected to their "extended family and friends." It was also revealed that while blogging had a positive impact on women, social
By Margarita Nahapetyan
People who have children experience greater happiness and feel they derive more meaning from life than those without kids, claim psychologists from the University of California, Riverside, the University of British Columbia and Stanford University.
It was also revealed that in spite of all kinds of stress associated with parenthood, parents feel happier during the day hours when they are taking care of their ki
Excerpted from The Wounded Woman; Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship By Linda Schierse Leonard
The Father-Daughter Wound
Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air Hang fated o'er men's faults light on thy daughters! - Shakespeare
Every week wounded women come into my office suffering from a poor self-image, from the inability to form lasting relationships, or from a lack of confidence in their ability to work a
Excerpted from Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons By Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox
In 1955 Rudolph Flesch rocked the educational community with his book Why Johnny Can't Head. The theme of the book was that phonics methods are more effective than the look-say methods used in schools, but phonics methods are not used in schools. Twenty-five years later, Flesch's follow-up book came out - Why Johnny Still Can't Read. The title says it all. Although words a
Excerpted from The Really Useful Grandparents' Book By Eleo Gordon, Tony Lacey
If you're reading this book, you've perhaps already spent hours cutting and sticking bits of paper together: you've sat through desperate cartoons in dingy cine mas; you've persuaded yourself that it's fun being at the swimming pool on a Saturday morning. In short, you've spent a lot of time entertaining your grandchildren. And possibly the thought has crossed your mind that your grandparents
Excerpted from The Parenthood Decision: Discovering Whether You Are Ready and Willing To Become a Parent By Beverly Engel
Why You May Need Help Making the Parenthood Decision
IN SPITE of the fact that the idea of parenthood is becoming increasingly enticing to many people and more and more are contemplating taking the big step, parenthood also poses some serious concerns. Most people are smart enough to realize that just wanting a baby doesn't m
Excerpted from The Little Boy Book; A Guide to the First Eight Years By Sheila Moore
What Little Boys Are Made Of
In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain's novel of American boyhood, Huck and his friend Jim hide away on an island in the Mississippi River. Boredom sets in after several weeks and, in Huck's words, "I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a stirring up some way... I would slip over the river and find out what was going on.
Excerpted from Your Growing Child: From Babyhood Through Adolescence By Penelope Leach, Ph.D.
A baby or young child must have someone available to care for him at any moment in every twenty-four hours, and that is a commitment which no single person (no, not even his mother) should be expected to fulfill for long. If you happen to live within a large family or other group, you may be able to come and go more or less as you please, knowing that there will always be someb
Excerpted from Developing Talent in Young People By Dr. Benjamin Bloom
The Nature of the Study and Why It Was Done
Over the past four years a team of research workers under my direction at the University of Chicago has been engaged in a study of the development of talent in children. We have examined the processes by which individuals who have reached the highest levels of accomplishment in selected fields have been helped to develop their capab
Excerpted from How to Trace Your Family Tree By American Genealogy Institute
There is a moral and philosophical respect for our ancestors which elevates the character and improves the heart Next to the sense of religious duty and moral feeling, I hardly know what should bear with stronger obligation on a liberal and enlightened mind than a consciousness of an alliance with excellence which is departed, and a consciousness, too, that in its act and conduct, and even in t
Excerpted from Your Two-Year-Old: Terrible or Tender By Louise Bates Ames
Your Two-year-old! Different in many ways from any other living human being! And yet, because the individual boy or girl does develop to a large extent in a patterned, predictable way, there are many respects in which he or she will resemble every other Two-year-old.
Only you will fully and intimately know your own preschooler. But because he will resemble others of his sa
By Margarita Nahapetyan
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering to put stricter limits over tanning salons and wants to ban anyone younger than 18 years of age from using a tanning bed, an advisory panel announced last week.
The panel is calling for tighter controls on the industry such as requiring teenagers to get the approval from their parents before using tanning beds or limiting the use of artificial tanning t
By Margarita Nahapetyan
The amount of time school age children spend with electronic entertainment media, such as iPods, mobile phones, digital audio players, TVs and computer games, has risen dramatically in recent years, a new report concludes.
Research by US welfare institute the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, has found that youngsters with the ages between 8 and 18 years now spend almost every waking minute outside school usin
By Margarita Nahapetyan
According to a recent survey conducted by The Harrison Group and funded by video game publisher Activision Blizzard, the majority of parents in the United States know what their children are playing and also use video game content ratings from the Entertainment Software Rating Board.
The Harrison Group survey involved more than 1,200 people with the ages between 6 and 44 years. It was revealed that 82 per cent
By Margarita Nahapetyan
Having children can be stressful, but it is also good for your health. A new Brigham Young University study came to the conclusion that being a parent is associated with lower blood pressure, particularly so among women.
"Women with children had the lowest blood pressure, and women without had the highest," said a study's co-author Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a psychologist at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah
Excerpted from The Good Girl Revolution: Young Rebels with Self-Esteem and High Standards By Wendy Shalit
My Bratz Problem - and Ours
You've gotta look hotter than hot! Show what you've got!... Ready or not! -lead song from Bratz Babyz: The Movie, September 2006
On television, cartoon baby girls shimmy in their underpants as our wide-eyed toddler multitasks, sucking on her pink floral pacifier and learning to flirt at th
Excerpted from A Tribe Apart; A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence By Patricia Hersch
Alone
The figure of his mom in the doorway of their townhouse fades in the rearview mirror as seventeen-year-old Jonathan Tompkins pulls out of the parking lot in his Volkswagen Rabbit. He tries to erase from his mind the image of the worry in her eyes as she hugged him goodbye, still clutching one of the two loaves of his favorite raisin-walnut bre
Excerpted from The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections By Amanda Blake Soule
Living a creative life is all about using our imagination. Like so many other things, imagination is hardly something we need to "give" our children, for it is simply a part of who they are. However, we do need not only to support and encourage the growth, stretching, and development of their imaginations, but to model the use of our own. While building
Excerpted from You Were Always Mom's Favorite!: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives By Deborah Tannen
Surely there is a reward for being the one who always comes through. Well, yes. One reward is that you're expected to continue coming through without fail. Leanne always helped her younger sisters when they needed it. If they had a medical problem, she found the best doctor and got them an appointment. If they needed financial help, she wrote a check. So when
By Margarita Nahapetyan
Parents who want their children to develop language and speech skills, are advised not just to talk to them, but also to listen to what the kids have to say, UCLA researchers have found.
Dr. J Frederick Zimmerman, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Health Services in the UCLA School of Public Health, says that engaging children in conversation is up to 6 times more effective for the development of
By Margarita Nahapetyan
The findings of a new study by the University of Southern California indicate that whether it is around the dinner table or in front of the television, but members of U.S. families are spending less time with each other.
As family time eventually dicreases, there is a rise in the use of Internet and the number of social networking sites, although a new study did not say that those sites are to blame for. The An
By Margarita Nahapetyan
New findings from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center suggest that parents must carefully monitor their teenage daughters' lives on the Internet. According to the study published in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, the use of a provocative identity of themselves significantly increases the risk that the girls will be abused by someone they meet online.
"The ways in which adolescent females pr