Parenting can be so damn stressful. Kids push boundaries and buttons, and it’s a parent’s job to stay calm and steady in the face of it all. But most of us don’t perform this job with absolute perfection. We sometimes and say things to our kids we wish we could stuff back inside our mouths. I’m sure most of us have some cringeworthy moments to mull over and make up for.

But some verbal mistakes are worse than others. Parenting expert Chick Moorman, the author of  Parent Talk: How to Talk to Your Child in Language That Builds Self-Esteem and Encourages Responsibility,  thinks there are seven really big baddies. How many of them have you heard slip out of your mouth?  Continue reading »

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Does parenting matter? Not as much as you think

If you’re reading this article, odds are overwhelmingly good that you’re already a good enough parent. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back. You’re almost certainly doing everything you can to ensure a happy, successful future for your children.

It doesn’t matter if you co-sleep or Ferberize. It doesn’t matter if you let them free-range all over the neighborhood or helicopter them from one enrichment activity to the next. Breast vs. bottle, working moms vs those who stay home, all of it pales in comparison to the impact of two big factors: parents’ income, and parents’ (especially mother’s) education.

If you have a college education and a stable middle-class standard of living, odds are good you’re raising kids who will have those things too. Beyond that, what matters most to the outcome for your kids, researchers say, is the environment they’re raised in.

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If you’re having trouble soothing your child — or can’t figure out why your son is so much clingier than your daughter — one parenting expert thinks she has the answer: dominant senses.

Priscilla J. Dunstan, who made a name for herself in many parenting circles by “interpreting” babies’ cries, says in a new book that each child has a sense that dominates all the others.

The LA Times summarizes Dunstan’s theory like this: Continue reading »

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We’re in an era of what seems to be unprecedented information about parenting. Books, magazines, newspaper columns, and even websites like this one bubble over with advice and opinions about what you “should” be doing for your kids and more to the point, how they should be.

It’s enough to make us crazy. If you’re susceptible to the endless marketing barrage aimed at parents and the constant rush of advice books whose authors aren’t selling anything but themselves, you can really get into a lather. If you’re Continue reading »

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