A lot of people – men and women – were turned off by Time Magazine’s May 21, 2012 cover photo, which has come to be known as the Time Magazine breastfeeding cover, depicting a woman breastfeeding her nearly-four-year-old son. Not just nursing him but standing beside him, tank top pulled down, as he stood on a chair so he could reach her exposed breast.

The cover story that accompanies the photo is about attachment parenting, a parenting method that includes co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, and baby-wearing. The article is entitled “Are you mom enough? Why attachment parenting drives some mothers to extremes — and how Dr. Bill Sears became their guru.”

I’m not here to ague whether attachment parenting is the best way to parent. I think different methods are right for different families. There is no one “right” way to parent….

The way I see it, there are two ways to celebrate Mother’s Day: with your family or without them.

Some moms want Mother’s Day to be their day. A day for Mom to do all the things she doesn’t get to do the other 364 days a year because she’s so busy  raising her family, taking care of the house, and a little thing I like to call “working.” Celebrating Mother’s Day for these moms might entail sleeping in, a day at the spa with girlfriends, and – dare I say it? – a nighttime date with Dad.

Other Moms want to celebrate Mother’s Day by celebrating being a mom. Their ideal Mother’s Day could include all the kids pilling into bed together in the morning followed by a fun family activity like mini golf or a picnic, a family dinner…

One day last week, my daughter Emily’s kindergarten let out early. Her friend’s mom offered to pick up both girls and take them to play at her house until I came home from work. I asked her whether she had an extra booster seat that Emily could sit in, and when she said no I told her I’d leave work early and pick the girls up myself.

A lot of people would think I was crazy, taking off a half day of work because I wouldn’t let my daughter ride for two minutes without a car seat. But the distance you’re driving isn’t relevant. In fact, over 50% of car accidents occur within 5 miles of home. And it doesn’t matter how much I trust the driver or how slowly she’s driving – there’s no telling who is going to…

We spent a lot of time with other families over spring break, and subsequently we saw a lot of kids having a lot of meltdowns. I’m always interested in how other parents deal with tantrums when their children get over-excited, over-tired or just plain upset.

1. Remove child from the situation.
What I’ve found works best is removing the child from the situation. In the best-case scenario, you’ll catch them while they’re still in the process of getting worked up and haven’t quite crossed over yet into tantrum mode. In other words, try to nip the tantrum in the bud – stop it before it even happens.

Call your child by name and have him follow you out of the room. If he refuses to listen, move him to another room, up the stairs or out the door – if possible, to…

My kids are on spring break. My husband and I are not. This means that, unfortunately for all of us, TV and computer screentime is becoming our fall-back babysitter – something that makes me feel guilty and that is definitely not good for my kids.
 
Something clicked in me this week, though, and I decided it was really important that I spend time outside with my kids. Not only is fresh air and exercise good for kids physically, but kids who get regular exercise also do better in school, have better problem-solving and decision-making skills and are more creative. Getting your kids outdoors can also help combat depression and childhood obesity.
 
My husband and I are taking turns working and hanging out with the kids over their school vacation. While there is inevitably some screentime happening sometime during the day, we’re…

Disciplining kids is difficult enough, but what do we do when other people’s kids enter the picture? When you’re in a restaurant and the kids at the next table are running around and making a racket, a friend’s child who is over for a play date is misbehaving, a child in your carpool is hitting his seat-mate, or the kid in front of you at the supermarket is teasing your child, how do you react? Do you talk to the child or to the parent, or try to ignore the situation entirely? It’s difficult to know. Here are my thoughts on dealing with other people’s children.
 
I think the reason we are so scared to intervene when it comes to other people’s kids is because it may feel like we’re criticizing the parents. No one wants to be criticized on…

Every night I have the same problem. I’m about to turn out the lights and head to bed when I realize that I still haven’t done my least favorite daily chore: making lunches for my kids.

Ideas for school lunches is a topic often re-visted by my friends. It seems our children are getting bored and we’re running out of ideas for how to make healthy kids lunches that they will actually eat!

My rule of thumb is that when making lunches, every kid gets a carbohydrate (the fuel little bodies need for physical activity), a protein (which builds up and maintains muscle and bodily tissue), a fruit and a vegetable. Usually, but not always, the carbohydrate and the protein are combined in a sandwich, which takes one step out of making healthy kids lunches. They each have a water bottle,…

When I was a teenager, I volunteered helping a family with an autistic child. I babysat for their three kids once a week so they could get a break. Now those kids are in their 20s and, when I brought my own children to visit my hometown this week, I wanted them to meet each other.
 
My kids don’t have a lot of experience around people with special needs. Teaching kids about disabilities is tricky. When someone uses a wheelchair or wears a hearing aid, teaching children about special needs is easier because there is a visible physical disability. But what about explaining something like autism or Down syndrome? And how do we teach empathy to our children? How do we get them to understand how to behave around people who are different from them and what to say and…

I just got off a 16-hour flight with my kids. It was supposed to be 11 but we were stuck on the tarmac for five hours before takeoff. It was a night flight, but of course they only slept for a total of four hours. Air travel with children can be stressful, but if you are prepared, it doesn’t have to be a nightmare. In fact, if you are prepared with the right equipment and travel activities for kids, flying with your little ones can even be fun!
 
Here are my top ten tips for flying with children:
 
1. Make air travel with children as painless as possible by planning as much as you can in advance. Order a bulkhead seat for extra leg-room, especially if you have a baby. Make sure the seat is equipped for a bassinet attachment. (You…

Last week, North Carolina dad Tommy Jordan’s video response to his daughter, Hannah’s, Facebook status went viral.
 
Hannah Jordan had written a long status message, chock full of curse words, complaining about the expectations her parents have of her (to do a couple of chores around the house) and what a difficult life she has. She even said that when her parents get older, she’s not going to be there to take care of them.
 
Hannah Jordan’s words were rude. They showed a lack of respect and a lack of appreciation. She was acting like a rebellious teenager. But her behavior, while disrespectful, was frankly appropriate for her age and not unexpected.
 
Her father, Tommy Jordan’s, response was an example of something that has come to be known as “extreme parenting,” and it …

When my son Alex was two, he would get my high-heeled shoes out of my bedroom, put them on and toddle around the house in them. Kind of frequently. This was something that, when Emily was little, she never did. Now she’s five and she still doesn’t. She has high heels in her dress-up bin (well, all the dress-up clothes, both “boy” and “girl” are in one dress-up bin) and I’d say she and Alex wear them about as frequently as one another. Alex likes to wear the firefighter’s costume and the police officer’s hat, but when he asks me to help him put a tutu on, I don’t think twice.

This got me thinking about gender stereotypes in children. How much of it is placed upon them by the adults in their lives, by the toy companies and the…

I didn’t expect to be in a role of talking to children about divorce. But family friends just gave me the shocking news that they’re getting divorced.  The news was surprising for me because, at least in public, they always seemed like such a perfect couple. So now I’m trying to wrap my head around this new reality, and at the same time I’m trying to figure out how to tell kids about divorce.
 
My daughter Emily came home yesterday and said “Rachel said her parents are getting divorced. What does that mean?”
 
Talking to children about divorce is tough. When discussing any tough topics with kids, I am a big believer of first asking what your child heard, what she knows, and what she thinks about a subject. Listen first, then talk. She might have assumptions that are completely off-base, or…

Recently my friend asked me how she could get her three-year-old to understand not to run into the street while she’s busy buckling or unbuckling her baby into his car seat.  In other words, she wanted to know how to stop saying no to children.
 
While I have a number of suggestions for teaching kids about following directions, I told her that in this case none of my tips apply. When it comes to your child’s safety, get out of “teaching” mode and take immediate action. In this case, the three-year-old should be buckled before the baby gets put into his car seat, so she has no chance to stand by the car, wait, and potentially run. When getting out of the car, baby should be taken out and put in his stroller first, and the three-year-old last so Mom has…

Some of my children were potty trained younger, some older. With some of them toilet training was a struggle while with some of them it was a breeze. Every child is different and potty training is going to differ based on their personalities as well as their physical maturity and capabilities.

A friend recently asked me for advice about “night training” his four-year-old son. I told him there is no such thing as “night training.” I really believe that there isn’t.

Wetting the bed is completely normal for kids under seven years old. Only 85% of kids under 6 are night trained. Yes, some kids are dry at night at the same time they are toilet trained during the day (be that age 1.5, 2, 3 or even later). Some take a little bit longer for night training than they do…

In the olden days, pregnancy loss and infant loss were a common, accepted part of everyday life.

Today, even though every healthy pregnancy has a one in five chance of ending in miscarriage, somehow the subject has become taboo. Doctors don’t warn you about how likely it is to happen. Friends and relatives don’t mention that they’ve experienced it personally. No one talks about it. I don’t know why; Maybe it’s just too sad. Maybe people are afraid if they mention the word, it will happen to them. Whatever the reason, there is a stigma attached to the subjects of miscarriage, pregnancy loss, stillbirth and infant loss. Nobody wants to think about them. Nobody wants to talk about them. And the consequences, unfortunately, are that when a pregnancy or infant is lost, the parents are completely unprepared because they didn’t know…