#parenting

#parenting

Every family gathering began the same way when I was a kid. I would open my grandparents' front door, and the smell of tamales, turkey, rice, and the best of our Mexican-American world would welcome me at the doorstep. I loved the laughs, food, and family, but before I could settle in, I had to brace myself for the greeting ritual.

Our 18-year-old daughter has been a Taylor Swift fan since she was a toddler. We didn't really have a problem with it as it was harmless music and seemed to be a little empowering. But now with Swift's sexy new look, she wants to emulate that. I am getting constant demands now for clothes which are, let's face it, lingerie. I know I can disagree to the demands but, with the internet and everything, there isn't really much I can do.

My daughter "Kayla" started sixth grade this year. She almost immediately complained about her English teacher, whom she said hated her for no reason and was grading her intentionally poorly. She was getting lower grades on her assignments than she was in other classes, but I had thought this was more projection than anything else and didn't do much except encourage her to work harder on this class if she was behind on it.

Because of time's arrow, my daughter, who was once a toddler, is now a preteen. A new question thus arises: When should I let her get a smartphone? This problem isn't new to me. I have two older kids, now in their 20s. Back in the day, I bought each of them an iPod Touch-essentially, a smartphone without the phone-when they were about her age, and then the full device at around the start of high school.

But what I didn't do, it turned out, was something that my daughter really wanted, and far more important (as is often the case) than everything I did do. This one missing piece symbolized how much I valued her efforts. And not only that, it turned out to be the gauge for how selfish or loving I am-how willing to inconvenience myself for her or anyone.

Consistently, for the last 10 years, my catchphrase has been "next week it'll all calm down". Usually by the Wednesday of any given week, I'll have uttered it with palpable desperation at least four times. And my goal for this elusive calm week isn't even that ambitious, all I want is to finally feel caught up with myself. To feel, even if only for a fleeting moment, like I am on top of things.

"And I have this memory of my wife handing me a printout of the book, and I read it, and I was just pouring tears," he recalled. "You'd think that would be because, like, this is a beautiful story of a trans kid, and it's our kid. But actually, no. Actually, it was because it was about all of us."

"I have two sisters, and we lived in a household with a lot of love in it, but my dad was so tough on me with my Sunday league football team that he very rarely turned around to me and said, 'Well done, boy. You did well today, you played well,'" Beckham said.

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Katie Grant Dickerson was not surprised to learn that she was pregnant with more than one baby. After all, multiples run on both sides of her family - and her sisters are triplets! But she was surprised to learn that she was about to give birth to quadruplets. "Every day we make it through is an accomplishment, a true miracle," Dickerson tells TODAY.com. She and her husband have been coping with the chaos of raising their "quad squad" for 7 months. "The biggest surprise is that we didn't know how hard it would be!"

When I found out I was going to become a mom, I expected a lot of challenges: introducing solids, potty training, teaching my son the basic tenets of right and wrong. One uphill battle I didn't prepare for? Tooth brushing. It turns out, it's not so easy to get a kid to effectively brush their teeth twice a day, every day, forever and ever.

It's pretty common to hear about athletic parents who grew up playing three sports giving birth to kids who couldn't care less about sticks and balls. Suddenly, jock parents find themselves with a kid who loves reading, theater, or art - and they have to pivot from imagining cheer them on in the stands to imagining being at an art opening, a play, a reading, or a First Friday. But what about the other way around?

The parent WhatsApp group known colloquially as Satan's Slack channel is one of those parenting surprises no one warns you about. People tell you about the sleepless nights, the lost identity and the toys that reproduce overnight. But no one says: You'll one day discuss nits with 30 adults as though global peace depends on it. What began as a simple way to share school updates has mutated into a relentless stream of chatter.

Growing up, it's easy to see our parents as these all-knowing, put-together superheroes who always have all the answers. But at some point, usually when we least expect it, we hear or see something that makes us realize that outside of being "Mom" and "Dad," they're just regular people trying their best. One simple comment, one small slip, and at last you're aware that your parents are human, just like you.

Kids may say the darndest things, but parents post about them in the funniest ways.

The details are fuzzy, but I think my husband and I downloaded the YouTube Kids app to our TV sometime in 2022, when between one and three members of the household came down with the flu at the same time. Like countless parents of toddlers before us, we needed something, anything, that would buy us a moment to vomit in peace.

Picture this: You finally sit down after a long day. Dinner is done, dishes are soaking (ignored), and someone is crying in the background (possibly you). You pick up your phone because you suddenly remembered you need a birthday message for a class WhatsApp group. Before you can even unlock it, your child appears: "Mom, can I ask ChatGPT something? It understands me."

"She's taught us so much already. Perspective is a huge thing. The smaller things in life are so much more precious. Our days are filled with lots of cuddles and laughter and love. It's just endless joy."

In my last post, we explored why you may be too tired to parent the way you want-to the knowledge-capacity gap that leaves even well-informed parents unable to use the tools they know when they're depleted. We talked about how chronic stress limits access to the parts of your brain responsible for self-control and empathy. Today, I'm sharing seven practical steps that actually help when you're too exhausted to parent the way you want.

I would routinely stay up late watching TV or reading in bed and say yes to dinners that started long after nightfall. My relationship with mornings was casual-I'd occasionally enjoy a sunrise but I certainly never set an alarm to see one. Then I had children, whose needs demanded an early start, and I spent years stumbling out of bed at their first sounds, making breakfast, and building block towers before I'd fully woken up.

Children and teens are surrounded by technology, and it is imperative to set them up for success. Developing digital literacy among youth is a critical part of child-rearing today. Digital literacy, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO; 2018) is "the ability to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information safely and appropriately through digital technologies." There are many areas of competence within digital literacy, one of which is safety (UNESCO, 2018).

Kevin was the new kid when we met in 10th grade. I was busy dancing; he was busy joining the football team. Eventually, our circles overlapped, and we started dating. By 11th grade, however, I dumped him. He wanted to do football camps all summer instead of hanging out with me. But by senior year, we got back together, and the rest is history. We've been together for over 15 years and have been married since 2018.

I had heard about the special bonds that twins share, and I was excited to witness that up close. I thought it would be like watching a fascinating story unfold. My sons are 13 now, but they have been mostly inseparable since birth. When they were babies, they hit milestones within days of each other. Through the years, they've shared rhythms, reactions, and inside jokes that didn't need explaining.

They're asking ChatGPT how to handle behavioral problems or for medical advice when their kids are sick, USA Today reports, which dovetails with a 2024 study that found parents trust ChatGPT over real health professionals and also deem the information generated by the bot to be trustworthy. It all comes in addition to parents using ChatGPT to keep kids entertained by having the bot read their children bedtime stories or talk with them for hours.

Business Insider has spent a year reporting on the true cost of a cancer diagnosis for young Americans. Cancer cases are rising for people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, derailing finances and future plans at a pivotal stage of life. Dozens of patients have told us they're navigating relationships, fertility decisions, early parenthood, and career growth alongside treatment. They're paying medical bills and for all the unexpected costs along the way.

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We waited until marriage to have sex. This was mostly for religious reasons (we're politically liberal evangelical Christians - we exist!), and because we both believed sex was special - so special it should be done and developed with a special person. At the beginning, it was thrilling - less because we were good at it (we definitely weren't) and more because we were having sex at all. Then, gradually, we got better.