Home & Family

Family Dinners Protect Against The Effects of Cyberbullying
- Home & Family
- September 15, 2014
No parent wants their child to be the victim of cyberbullying. But could something as simple as having regular family dinners together help reduce the potential negative effects on a child’s psyche? A new study reported in the journal JAMA Pediatrics found that this may very well be the case.
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Digital Devices Like Smartphones, TVs, And Tablets Are Destroying Children’s Face-To-Face Social Skills
- Health & Healing, Home & Family
- August 29, 2014
Are you concerned that your children are spending too much time using digital devices, like smartphones and tablets? Is it at the expense of quality time interacting with friends and family? You may be interested in the findings of a new UCLA Department of Psychology study about the affects of technology on children’s social skills.
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Teens Need Later Start to School Day, Doctors Group Says
- Home & Family
- August 29, 2014
Is your teenager sleep deprived during the school year, because classes start too early? The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is now weighing in on the issue of school start times for teens. The AAP believes 8:30 a.m. or later is best for middle and high school students.
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Life Lessons From Dad: Caring for an Elderly Parent
- Home & Family
- July 13, 2014
Taking care of an elderly parent in declining health can certainly be challenging. It can also be one of the most memorable and life enriching experiences you can have. Writer Dave Shiflett knows all too well how saddening and difficult it is. But the time he spent caring for his father, who struggled with dementia, helped him learn valuable lessons that shaped him into the person he is today.
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What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades
- Home & Family
- June 19, 2014
Teaching children handwriting has been an accepted and integral part of early childhood education. But the Common Core Standards that many schools have now adopted no longer require that cursive handwriting be taught past kindergarten and first grade. Is that a good idea? Do we take a practice that has proved tried and true for many generations of students and dismiss it for 2nd graders? Would children benefit more in the long run by continuing to learn cursive handwriting as they’re being introduced to typing at a keyboard?
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Voices: Talk to Dad on video for Father’s Day
- Home & Family
- June 15, 2014
USA Today columnist Jefferson Graham sat down with his dad one day and asked him to share details about his life, which he recorded on video. It was something that Graham says he had only attempted briefly one other time. But he is so grateful for what he learned that day.
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Little Children and Already Acting Mean
- Home & Family
- June 3, 2014
It may be hard to imagine young children in pre-school or kindergarten already forming cliques and making other children feel badly by excluding them. But as Laura Landro writes in The Wall Street Journal, educators and parents are becoming more aware that it’s going on, especially among girls.
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A Final Lesson on Character
- Home & Family
- May 23, 2014
Tom Minion’s son, Travis, chose a military career. This is what he wrote about his son in the NY Daily News: “A top student and athlete in high school, Travis could have gone to almost any college in the country, but he chose the Naval Academy to serve his country.” It was during his 2nd tour of duty in Iraq that Travis was killed by a sniper’s bullet.
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Tell Mom you love her
- Home & Family
- May 9, 2014
Every year at this time, New York Post columnist, Cindy Adams, writes a heartfelt column to honor her late Mother, who meant the world to her. And she reminds those of us who still have our Moms around to be sure to let them know just how much we love them.
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The Power of the Earliest Memories
- Health & Healing, Home & Family
- April 30, 2014
What is your earliest memory from childhood? Columnist Sue Shellenbarger discusses the latest research on why it’s important for parents to help kids develop early memories, instead of just focusing on sharing pictures of them on social media.
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What Every Parent Should Know Before Introducing Their Young Child To Technology
- Home & Family
- April 30, 2014
You might want to think twice before handing your toddler your smartphone. Check out our Good for You Conversation with Dr. Gail Saltz on what you need to know about children, technology and how it impacts their development.
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How to raise happy kids, according to science
- Health & Healing, Home & Family
- April 16, 2014
Your child’s happiness is, of course, of utmost importance to you. But what specifically can you do to ensure that you raise genuinely happy kids? Eric Barker, author of “Barking Up The Wrong Tree,” takes a look at what we can learn from scientific research. Since studies show that happier parents tend to have happier kids, he suggests doing what you can to make sure that you are happy. One way to do that is to include time in your weekly schedule for simply having fun with friends and family. Laughter is good for your well-being.
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Grandfather’s Brilliant Final Letter To his Grandkids Offers Life Lessons For The Rest of Us
- Home & Family
- March 31, 2014
Here’s some grandfatherly advice on getting the most out of life. With one heartfelt letter to his grandchildren shortly before he died, James K. Flanagan shared valuable life lessons that have touched far more people than he could have imagined. This Irish storyteller’s letter was 1st published in 2012 by The Huffington Post and re-posted on St. Patrick’s Day 2014.
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Dad’s letter to daughter: Forget makeup, your beauty is inside
- Home & Family
- February 17, 2014
A father’s words of wisdom can stick with a little girl for a lifetime, and this dad certainly knows a few things about making his daughter feel appreciated and beautiful, both inside and out. Dr. Kelly Flanagan, a licensed clinical psychologist, first shared this note to his little one on his blog, UnTangled. The message
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Kindergartner’s weight strong predictor of later childhood obesity
- Home & Family
- February 8, 2014
Is your 5-year-old overweight? Kids who are obese in kindergarten are four times more likely to be obese later on in childhood. “The biggest risk of developing new obesity from ages 5 to 14 is really driven by kids entering kindergarten overweight. Those children who were born large or are overweight at age 5, something is happening very early in life which sets the pathway to obesity,” explains Dr. Venkat Narayan, lead author of a new study by Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.
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