Caregivers Articles

Listed by most recent articles first.

• Fathering in America: What’s a Dad Supposed to Do?
  Americans seem more confused than ever about the role of fathers in children's lives. On the one hand, more and more fathers are absent for all or significant periods of time. According to the ...
• Breast-Feeding vs. Bottle-Feeding
  Now here's a topic that's guaranteed to raise the ire of those who are committed to either position. I've enjoyed the impassioned debate, largely because I'm thrilled to see people on both sides who are ...
• Recovering from Childhood Neglect
  The longterm effects of childhood neglect are many and serious. Have you fallen in and out of love with people who can’t love you back? Do you believe that you are essentially unlovable? If you ...
• Neglect: The Quieter Child Abuse
  It's a silent problem. While newspapers and TV news shows regularly highlight stories of child physical and sexual abuse, the companion problem, child neglect, hardly gets a mention. Neglect, unless accompanied by pictures of squalor ...
• Humor As a Key to Child Development
  The things that children find funny tell us a great deal about their level of development and what is on their minds. There is a connection between the 2-year-old who bursts into a fit of ...
• Evaluating a Childcare or Daycare Program
  One of the challenges faced by parents who’ve decided to use a childcare program for their infant or toddler is separating the good programs from the bad or even unsafe ones. Sometimes it’s obvious. For ...
• Should Your Teen Move with You?
  By comparison, little kids are easy. They go where we go and generally do what we tell them to do. If we are excited about a new adventure and approach a move with a positive ...
• Discipline for Infants
  When I speak to groups of parents, I sometimes get questions about the best way to discipline infants. I begin my answer by saying that discipline is teaching. (In fact, the words "discipline" and "disciple" ...
• Fostering Relationships Between Disabled Children and Their Grandparents
  There’s a sense of magic that occurs when a grandmother snuggles next to her grandchild and reads a book or a grandfather tells his grandchildren the stories of his own youth. While the relationship ...
• Moving Mid-Year with Teens
  The conventional wisdom about moving mid-year, or moving at all, when kids are in high school is "don't." But it isn't that simple. Job opportunities don't always happen conveniently in the summer. Elderly parents who ...
• Moving with Kids
  It’s been decided. Yours will be among the 1 in 5 American families to move this year. It’s easy to get caught up in the ton of details. It’s inviting to skip right over whatever ...
• The Dos and Don’ts of Intervention
  In his best selling book, I’ll Quit Tomorrow, the late Dr. Vernon Johnson wrote that the hallmark of alcoholism and drug dependence is denial. Accordingly, most substance abusers believe that their problems are caused by ...
• Helping a Family Member Get Help
  Despite the prevalence and our increased understanding and acceptance of mental illness in society today, many family members still harbor fears and uncertainty surrounding how to help someone close to them who has a mental ...
• The Truth about Developmental Milestones
  Unfortunate or not, there is something inherently competitive about being a parent. One of the ways this comes to light is when parents compare how old their children were when they finished a whole bottle, ...
• Special Occasions and Special Needs Kids
  Here come the holidays. For many parents with special needs kids, here comes more stress. No matter how many times you have tried to explain the special needs of your special child, the extended family, ...
• Future Planning for Your Intellectually Disabled Adult Child
  If you are in your mid to late 50s or older and have an intellectually disabled adult child living at home, you are part of the first generation whose disabled kids may well outlive them. ...
• When A Sibling Is Disabled
  The college-age daughter of a friend of mine once told me how, when she was growing up, she was jealous of the extra attention that her twin brother got from their parents. She was angry ...
• Aggressive Children
  There are times when even the most docile children appear to have the aggressive tendencies of a professional wrestler. While a certain amount of pushing and shoving is to be expected from all children, especially ...
• Teaching Your Child To Fall Asleep
  Although it appears so deceptively simple that we take it for granted, learning to go to sleep is often as much of a challenge to children as learning to walk. Bedtime is a cue for ...
• Encouraging the Special Interests of Kids with Special Needs
  It’s hard to know with any child when to say no, when to say yes, how much to push or set limits, or when to let him or her try to take flight, knowing he ...
• Finding a Reliable, Caring Babysitter
  A few years ago my office manager showed up late for work because her seventeen-month-old son's baby-sitter had canceled at the last minute. (She usually brought her infant daughter to work with her.) It was ...
• Toddlers and Preschoolers Who Bite
  For hours after the incident, I could still see the impressions of the other preschooler’s front teeth on the bridge of my four-year-old son’s nose. Apparently my son’s classmate had become very frustrated by something ...
• The Scheduled Child
  Each fall when our kids were young, my husband and I would make an elaborate grid with each kid’s name (there are four of them) going down the left side and the days of the ...
• When a Child is a Picky Eater
  When it comes to food, young children are notoriously finicky. Many parents find that their preschooler's idea of a gastronomic delight is peanut butter and grape jelly on cheap, packaged white bread that has the ...
• When Parents Disagree on Discipline
  Any child who has spilled a glass of milk or tried to negotiate a later bedtime is aware of the subtle differences in her parents' styles of discipline. One parent is often a bit quicker ...