#parenting

#parenting

When my son was just a year old, our family of three packed up our lives and moved nearly 2,000 miles from our home state of Colorado to Massachusetts. In doing so, we left behind family, life-long friends, and everything familiar to us. It was a decision driven by a vision I shared with my husband: a chance to reset, create new opportunities, and build a future on our own terms. That was more than 13 years ago, and I've learned a lot since then.

Halloween is nearly two months away, but there's already trouble brewing over my 13-year-old daughter, "Shelby's" choice of costume. Shelby wants to go as a sexy nurse. My husband is vehemently against it and has told her that she is "not going out dressed as a slut." The costume is a little on the skimpy side, but it's not THAT revealing. And our daughter is no longer a child. I don't see the harm in this sort of thing for a single evening.

In hardly any time at all, the footage of the horrifying moment when a bullet hit conservative activist Charlie Kirk in the neck cascaded across the internet. Whether seeing it inadvertently or seeking it out, onlookers far from the crowd at a Utah college could be exposed to disturbingly close and potentially bloody glimpses of his shooting and the resulting chaos. It's the product of a digital-first world where the presence of smartphones and social media makes current events readily accessible and often, practically unavoidable.

The general attitude was, 'Well, what are you going to do? The technology is here to stay. This is the way the kids connect. You can't fight the future,' Haidt tells TODAY.com after his broadcast appearance on Sept. 11. He has been advocating for a play-based childhood rather than a phone-based one.

This week,a listener asks for help navigating one of parenting's most delicate moments: how to tell kids about divorce. Zak, Elizabeth, and Lucy share advice on language that reassures, pitfalls to avoid, and ways to keep the focus on love and stability. Plus, triumphs and fails: Friday night plans go awry, shoe shopping mishaps, and a school drop-off turns into a win.

"If you're not good to someone, you will not only ruin their day, but guess what: You're going to feel really bad about yourself. So nix that behavior. "And I've taught them that if you clean up after yourself, you're going to have more calmness in your space," she added. "Your head is as messy as your room is. Someone said that to me, and it changed my life forever."

Far from the Tree, Andrew Solomon's brilliant nonfiction book about parenting children different from oneself, offers the useful distinction between vertical and horizontal identities. Vertical identities are inherited a family name, an ethnicity, or a nationality; horizontal identities are qualities that define us which parents may have nothing to do with, such as the kinship people with autism feel with one another, or being gay or deaf.

HGTV favorites Ben Napier and Erin Napier agree on a few things: Great Pyrenees are the best dogs, there's no place like Laurel, Mississippi, and warm colors have the power to make any home feel instantly cozy and welcoming. According to Ben, they are also decidedly "anti-giant birthdays" for their daughters, Helen, 7, and Mae, 4. At the girls' school, classroom parties require inviting every child. The Napiers prefer to keep celebrations small and intimate

"He was born ready for a haircut," Yanez, who lives in Oregon, tells TODAY.com. Noah, who is 5 months old, has piles of beautiful thick hair, which his many admirers can see in videos his mom posts on TikTok. One video of Noah, sitting in a bouncer with morning bedhead, is giving "big hair, don't care" energy. "My five-month old with fluffy hair," Yanez wrote as a caption.

When my oldest son Edwin first started preschool, it was incredibly stressful. He was about 3, and it was the first time in a big classroom for him. As a sensitive, quiet child, he was very upset on the first day. He cried and clung to me, and it broke my heart to see his little hand reaching for me with tear-soaked eyes as I left him there. Needless to say, I cried too.

I'm not talking about the clutter in an everyday way (like shoes piled by the front door, or mail all over the kitchen counter), but the things that we've intentionally filled our home with (like decorative plates and photos). Sometimes I forget that all of that stuff is creating noise in the background of our home, making it feel loud and messy even on those rare occasions when it's clean.

My wife works two days a week, one weekend day and one weekday, while I work full time making the large majority of our income. Her job is very important (medical field), and she is a great mom, does a ton of housework, and is all around a wonderful person. I'm fully taking all of that into account when I vent here,

Looking back, most parents and adult children are going to have some regrets about their adolescent time together. They may regret what they did (commission) or didn't do (omission)-mistakes made or opportunities missed. Commission regrets might be: "I wish I hadn't lied to them about so much and grown so far away." Dishonesty costs intimacy, creating distance from distrust. Or: "We held onto her too tight when we should have done more letting go!" Their need to control delayed important youthful learning from life experience.

The "but" is the problem. As the great philosopher Pee-Wee Herman once said, "Everyone I know has a big 'but.'" "It's not about the Barbies. The problem here is guilt," says Eve Rodsky, the author of "Fair Play" and "Find Your Unicorn Space," which is all about making time for creativity and your own passion projects as an adult. " Mother's guilt, and not feeling like you're enough as a parent."

For many parents, that knowledge can spark panic: What if this is the first place my child learns about sex? What if they think that's what real intimacy looks like? Here's the good news: you don't need to panic, but you do need to prepare. The truth is, your child will be exposed to ideas about sex, whether through peers, media or yes, pornography. And it will happen long before you'd ideally want it to.

We had only been there for a little over an hour. Alicia was extremely upset and said it wasn't fair that she had to be punished as well because her sister was acting up. When I suggested to Jane that Alicia had a point and that she take Annie home and come back for Alicia and me, she responded that she was taking both girls, and I was welcome to order an Uber to get home if I wanted to stay.

I jumped out of my skin when the woman got in his face and demanded he fork over the Harrison Bader home run ball. I'm literally leaning back as she's in my face, yelling and yelling and yelling, and I pretty much just wanted her to go away. I had a fork-in-the-road, either, you know, do something I was probably going to regret, or, be dad and show him how to de-escalate the situation. So that's where I went.

Reading aloud from birth is one of the most powerful predictors of literacy and school success. More than a warm bedtime ritual, it's a daily act that wires a child's brain for language, strengthens bonds with caregivers, and sparks a love of learning. Yet, headlines warn of trouble. A recent study reveals that only 41 percent of children between birth and age 4 are read to frequently, a dramatic drop from 64 percent in 2012.

My husband "Trent" and I have a 14-year-old son, "Michael," who started high school last month. Michael is attending the same high school Trent went to where he was the star of the football team. Trent has been pressuring our son to try out for football since practically the day he graduated from junior high. Michael did not try out-he's into lacrosse-and Trent has ratcheted up the pressure, trying to convince him there's still time for him to join (there isn't). He's even gone so far as to offer to buy him a car when he's old enough to drive if he play football! Michael is really beginning to tire of his dad's pestering, but his objections go in one ear and out the other with Trent. What can I do to get through to my husband that our son already has a sport he enjoys?

For the kids, there's a lot to love. There are the action montages, a bright retro futuristic setting, a visual style that is gee-whiz superhero cool, but in a comic way - shiny and light and not over the top. The movie is just more palatable for kids than most other Marvel movies, emotionally and cognitively. The superheroes are relatable as family but they also play the part of role models well, interacting with and caring deeply about the public they serve.

We get it: parenting is endless and extremely hard work. You'd be forgiven if you need a cocktail or two to wind down your day. But who has time to make said cocktail? Approximately no mothers. That's when you call in the big guns, aka the canned cocktail aficionados to do the work for you. Our faves include everything from bloody marys (sometimes they help on those early Saturday morning baseball games?) to espresso martinis (because we all like to be fancy sometimes).

"I made them hold those signs,"

"When they become full-fledged teenagers, they don't want you to text them," Scott, who shares two kids with wife Naomi Scott, jokingly says. "They don't want you to text them, and if you do, it needs to be brief and you can't use punctuation, or it'll be embarrassing." "OK, so leave them alone," Brody notes, asking the "Severance" star if he could divulge his phone philosophy with his kids.

This morning, we were going on like the little safari in Animal Kingdom, and there was a family behind us that was carrying [their] screaming three-year-old by his arms, being like, 'You have to stop this. You have to stop screaming. You've been looking forward to this all week, and now you're being such a brat!'

When we talk to a good friend about a problem, we tend to feel better. This usually has less to do with the friend's advice-if they even offer any-and more to do with their simply listening and validating our feelings. This is especially true for children, especially considering how a child's mind works. For kids, it's not necessarily about finding an intellectual solution to whatever problem they're having.

When I was deciding whether to have children, in the early 2000s, most of what I read about the prospect was negative. Articles detailed the sleep deprivation, the physical challenges of pregnancy, the sheer overwhelmingness of motherhood. If you want to be happy, these writers warned, don't have children. You might not want to get married, either-after all, marriage, research suggested, mostly benefits men.

Actor Liev Schreiber says his daughter Kai coming out as trans 'didn't feel like that big of a deal' - here, the co-chairs of Mammies for Trans Rights share their experiences and some of the challenges they face In May this year, Ray Donovan actor Liev Schreiber talked about how his trans daughter came out to him.

Dropping my daughter off at Heuston Station for the train to Electric Picnic on Friday, I was battling the vicious heartburn which goes with parental worry. We had the usual frank chats about sex, drugs and booze the night before, and now it was time to wish her a wonderful adventure. Cue a wave of maternal nausea.

My parents were never upfront with me about financial matters and basically left me flat footed when it came to learning to be an adult. I never wanted that for my son and have been frank about covering the costs of college and his car when he graduates. He has been working since he was 14 and saving half his paycheck. He also is taking dual credit and AP classes. He will essentially start college off as a junior if he plays his cards right.

I know texting your parents feels as though it should be no big deal for your husband, but asking others for favors is a hard thing to do. A lot of us struggle with this! It's easier for you to ask your parents because they're your parents. Is being the primary communicator what's bothering you, or is it more about the principle of wanting him to feel comfortable asking?

I don't know what to do about the relationship between my children. My son is the eldest and my daughter is three years younger. He is so horrible to her and nothing I do or say makes any difference. He tells her what to do all the time and sneers whenever she says anything. He makes jokes about her to his friends and just never misses an opportunity to put her down.

Former reality TV star Kristin Cavallari has sparked fierce debate by admitting that she lets her 11- and 9-year-old children sleep in her bed once a week. This controversial practice was candidly discussed by Cavallari on her podcast, "Let's Be Honest." In a recent episode, the mother of three explained how the tradition began because of 11-year-old Jaxon and his fear of missing out on things-which she said made him a "really hard baby."

She had been walking her dog when she came across Harry wandering the neighborhood in tears. He told her that "Grandma won't wake up." She took him home and found Patricia passed out. A nearly empty Scotch bottle (which had been a gift from a client to my husband; we don't drink and were planning to re-gift it) was on the floor. My neighbor called 911, and then she called me.