• Supporting Sadness

A young child’s sadness provokes an exquisite kind of pain. Children of any age can have big overwhelming feelings. Knowing that parents will stay as present and loving as the child gets through them instills hope.

Healthy Aggression

 

• Understanding Agression and Connecting

When a parent’s own distress distorts their ability to receive and contain their young child’s healthy aggression, a downward spiral of dysregulation for both parent and child may occur.

 

• Parenting Styles

The differences among authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting are important. Authoritarian parenting is linked to difficulty with emotional regulation in children. Authoritative parenting, in contrast, is associated with children having a greater capacity for emotional regulation, flexible thinking, and social competence. 

 

• Teaching Kindness

There is a Quaker saying: “Attitudes are caught, not taught.” Children want to be like the important adults in their lives. They’re watching and listening. Make your vote a teaching moment.

Encourage Pretend Play

• Playful Learning
Fred Rogers said “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play IS serious learning. At various times, play is a way to cope with life and to prepare for adulthood. Playing is a way to solve problems and to express feelings. In fact, play is the real work of childhood.”

DIY Classes for Kids

• Grandparents' Academy
Coronavirus doesn't make elders expendable or children less needy. Connect these two generations––conscript the grandparents as teachers. Pool children from the neighborhood and form an online school with their grandparents.

Coronavirus and Toddlers

• Talking to Toddlers About Corona
It's important to confine your answer to the toddler's questions––and not your fears. Preschoolers live in the here-and-now and coronavirus is a momentary inconvenience (to them). Don't share adult worries by over-answering.

How to Talk About the Coronavirus

• Virus Talk Tips Tailored for Age
It starts with being aware of developmental stages, anticipating how a child might be processing what s/he is hearing, and being ready with responses that are both honest and age-appropriate.

Keep Kids Busy (and Learning) in Quarantine

• Facilitate Active, Engaged Learning
It may be tempting to hand over an iPhone or iPad or but the younger the child, the worse this is for their language and cognitive development.

Location Trackers for Kids

• Digital Tethers Harm Children
Assuaging parental fears poses risk to a child's social and emotional development–– and it isn’t just about threats to autonomy; it’s also about the anxiety it can instill.

There's No Such Thing as a 'Sugar High'

• Sugar Doesn't Affect Children's Behavior
Investigations have thoroughly refuted this myth. But even though cutting down on sugar will not affect children’s behavior, it helps protect them against obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

Parenting Teens Through Their Problems

• Here's What They Want
When teenagers bring parents their problems, the response is to offer suggestions and solutions. Why do teenagers so often dismiss those ideas?

Making Mistakes

• Mistakes Are Opportunities
Just ask Fred Rogers, here with pianist Andre Watts. With children, comment on the process, not the product. Help children refuel so they can try again. Let children see that adults make mistakes, too. For more information, sign up for more information through the Fred Rogers Center. 

Early Intervention for Preschoolers

• Early Intervention Can Change a Life
Early Intervention is a free, national program to help children under age 3 who have developmental delays and disabilities.

Protecting Against Sexual Predators

• Video Games and Online Chats Are ‘Hunting Grounds’ for Sexual Predators
Parents need to know what their children are playing online. Sometimes that means blocking users and shutting off chat functions, and sometimes it means monitoring the games as they are being played.

Preventing Teen Suicide

• Put Away the Screen & Go to Bed
Between 2007 and 2017 suicide has increased by 56% in 10 to 24-year-olds. Since 2011 youthful suicide attempts have increased 400% –– and that's an undercount. There is a compelling link between “problematic internet and social media use and sleep disturbance among youth,” and “these associations contribute to depressive symptoms in this group.”

Dressing Up in Costume

• The Meaning of Costumes and Masks
Much of children’s pretending and play comes out of their inner needs and feelings– and helps them work on their fears and master them. Fred Roger's said that play allows children to work on what’s close to their hearts, but from a safe distance.

Spanking

• Resolving Differences About Spanking
Teaching your children how to self-regulate requires tools and strategies for effective discipline. The word discipline, in fact, is derived from the Latin word discere, which means “to learn.”

Strengthening Social Skills

• What Is Social Competence?

It's about being able to deal with conflicts, frustration, jealousy and disappointment and involves skills like problem- solving, self-control, self-regulation, communication, and seeing things from another perspective. It's the foundation of academic success.

If You Ever Hurt My Daughter

• I Swear I Will
Let her navigate her own emotional growth.