Risk Factors for Postpartum Depression Postpartum, or postnatal, depression affects a significant proportion of women after they have had a baby. It usually develops in the first four to ...
Meeting the Needs of Special Needs Kids “I wish the system didn’t force me to be mean.” Jyl, the mom of a child with special needs, is in anguish. Not only is she managing her challenged – and challenging ...
Challenges for Caregivers of Bipolar Disorder Individuals with bipolar disorder have severe mood swings, which can last several weeks or months. These can include feelings of intense depression and despair, manic feelings of extreme happiness, and mixed moods such as depression ...
Self-Care for Depression Caregivers Depression is a common disorder, affecting almost one in five people of all age groups and both genders at any time. This means that even if you are lucky enough never to suffer from it ...
Knitting Sweaters and a Family One of my good teachers used to say that children need attention like a plant needs sun and water. They need the adults around them to notice them, to encourage them, and to interact with ...
Involuntary Emotional Expression Disorder Involuntary Emotional Expression Disorder, or IEED, is a condition in which a person experiences uncontrollable episodes of emotional expression. That is, they have episodes of crying, laughter, or anger that are not in line ...
My Adversity, My Son I watched "Hawthorne" on TNT tonight. One of the story lines was about a woman who came into the ER with a broken arm and during the examination she was discovered to have many bruises ...
Hiding Behind the Pulpit with Bipolar Disorder I have an illness that affects nearly 1 out of every 17 Americans, and affects 1 out of every 5 families. This disease is chronic in nature, and can only be controlled, not cured. It ...
Specialized Geriatric Hospital Units Aid Elderly Older people cared for in specialized geriatric hospital units tend to decline at a slower pace than those given conventional hospital care, recent research suggests.
Aging brings a certain amount of natural deterioration in cognitive performance, ...
Managing Worry: Action and Distraction Everyone worries about things from time to time: the economy, an ill parent, safety concerns. For parents, it seems to come along even more naturally. There are endless things that a mom or dad could ...
That Went Well Terrell Harris Dougan had a perfectly normal life. And then her sister Irene was born.
That Went Well details Dougan's true-life adventures and mishaps in living with a mentally disabled sibling. Her sharp wit and humorous ...
Challenges and Benefits for Grandparent Caregivers When my grandfather's mother died in 1900 in rural Maine, it was his aunt who stepped in to raise him and his baby sister. When my friend Jill lost her mother in the 1950s, her ...
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" ...
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 ...
