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    Parenting.com

    Parenting.com

  • Amanda Berry and the Ohio Abductions: What Lies Ahead

    By Judy Dutton for Parenting.comI lost my 2-year-old daughter on a crowded playground once: I blinked, and she was gone. Panic rising in my throat, I ran circles around the park's perimeter, screeching her name, before finally spotting her by the swings. From that point on, I vowed I'd keep my eyeballs glued to her in public. A few months later, I lost (and found) her again. So much for that. Call me a horrible mom or call me human, but those few minutes where I couldn't pinpoint my daughter's whereabouts were the most frightening of my life. ...

  • Confessions of a Social Media Addicted Mom

    By Janelle HanchettWhen I thought about writing this post, I was going to use it as a forum to scold those horribly annoying people who can't have lunch with you because they're too busy tweeting about having lunch with you. And then I realized I am one of those people and I grew immensely uncomfortable. I used to be normal. Then I got an iPhone. I used to have this wretched little Blackberry that did nothing - and even that it does poorly. I would gaze at my husband's iPhone with a longing in my heart: the touch screen, the plethora of apps, Facebook so clear and bright. ...

  • The Greatest Mother's Day Fail of All Time

    By Shawn Bean for Parenting.com It's Mother's Day, 2006, and I'm shopping for Mother's Day. That afternoon, I arrive at our family's holiday gathering with a card and a potted petunia from the Home Depot. As the other moms and grandmoms dive into their gifts, I hand my wife, Brandy, the recyclable, unfertilized tokens of my affection. "I'm so lucky to have you in my life," reads the card's handwritten sentiment. "You've made me a better person and a better father." She smiles sweetly. Extend hand. Pat back. Repeat. ...

  • 5 Kid Foods I Can’t Resist

    I must start this post with the disclaimer that I do not feed my kids the things on the list below very often. In fact, I'm rarely the one offering it to them (apart from the first one-guilty there a few times a month). My kids have a varied and very healthy diet, we all eat lots of whole foods, real food, organic fruits and veggies, meats raised without antibiotics, etc. I have read Michael Pollen, I belong to a food coop, I have a big organic veggie garden in my backyard and yet…I dig me some processed kid food. ...

  • Is ADHD Caused by Lack of Sleep?

    By Leonora Desar for Parenting.com Could sleep-deprivation be causing your child to develop signs of ADHD? According to a new opinion piece in the New York Times, it just might play a role. Dr. Vatsal G. Thakkar, the author of the piece and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine, began wondering if a lack of sleep could cause ADHD-like symptoms when treating an adult who complained of procrastination and forgetfulness. The patient, Dr. Thakkar discovered, did not have symptoms as a child, which ruled out a diagnosis of ADHD. ...

  • Niki Taylor, Supermom

    By Leonora Desar When she was 21, Niki Taylor became the first supermodel to grace six magazine covers in just one month. Now, at 38, Taylor is a mom of four to identical twins Jake and Hunter, 18; Ciel, 4; and Rex, 17 months. She's also a philanthropist, and on April 27th she kicked off the March of Dimes' annual March for Babies in Miami. We caught up with the superstar mom to chat about motherhood, modeling and her proudest parenting moment. How did you get involved with the March of Dimes? Their mission is to improve the health of all babies, and I'm a mom of four healthy children. ...

  • Painting Away the Tears: Boston Children Remember Martin Richard

    In memory of Martin Richard, the eight-year-old killed in the Boston bombings, children gathered outside his home last weekend to paint a 100-foot-long banner, reports NBC.

  • Why My Toddler Had Plastic Surgery

    By Sasha Emmons for Parenting.com "What's that on her head?" It was my daughter Chloe's second day on Earth, and already the mom anxiety had kicked in over what looked like a bruise just above her forehead. "That's just a hemangioma birthmark. It might get a little bigger, but it will go away by the time she's 2," the pediatrician told me. Google gave me more details: A hemangioma, often called a strawberry, is a benign blood-vessel tumor. One in 10 babies (usually girls) will develop one. My husband, Justin, and I tried to laugh it off as we fell madly in love with our Baby Gorbachev. ...

  • Only Half of Parents Regularly Talk to Kids About Money

    By Brian Braiker You would be hard pressed to find parents who didn't believe in the importance of giving their kids a financial education. We couldn't. A recent survey that Parenting conducted with Citi Community Development found that parents overwhelmingly believe in the importance of talking about household budgets, savings and financial goals-but not many are actually doing it on an ongoing basis. ...

  • Why I Told My Daughter She Sucks at Sports

    By Janelle HanchettA couple weeks ago, we were leaving one of those insane, horrible giant trampoline bouncy places and my 11-year-old daughter says to me "I don't think I'm very physical. You know, like Rocket [her brother]. He seems to be really good at sports and flipping and I'm not." What came out my mouth surprised me: "No, you're kind of not." Plus: The Parenting Truth I'm Not Willing to Accept Okay let me back up. As you may have surmised, this child has been with me for approximately 11. ...

  • Raise an Environmentally-Aware Child

    1. Be artful. Stock your child's coloring table with used printer paper and empty cereal boxes. He can draw on the unprinted sides of the paper, and the insides of cereal boxes are great for finger painting. Bonus points for turning his artwork into wrapping paper.

  • 4 Tips for Gardening with Your Toddler

    By Sandy M. Fernández To get your kids to eat more fruits and veggies, get them invested early in life -- the plant's life, that is. "I've never seen a child refuse to eat something she grew herself," says Amanda Grant, author of the brand-new Grow It, Cook It With Kids. She suggests that little ones: Till the soil Give them a little rake and a job clearing the rocks out of a small part of your garden. Toddlers love a task, especially if it involves sitting and rooting around in dirt. ...

  • Early Elective Birth Rates Drop

    Twenty-five hospitals in California, New York, Florida, Illinois and Texas took part in the March of Dimes' Big 5 State Prematurity Initiative to reduce the amount of elective deliveries before 39 weeks in hospitals in the five most populous U.S. states.

  • New Moms Use IPads to Bond with Babies at Cedars-Sinai Hospital

    Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles just recently announced a new program for its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that will use iPads to help their new moms bond with recently delivered babies.

  • Nia Vardalos on "Instant" Motherhood

    By Brian Braiker When Nia Vardalos, writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, left for New York to promote her new book this week, her daughter Ilaria looked up and told her, "Go get some kids adopted." Vardalos is in town to discuss the release of Instant Mom, a book about her ten-year journey to motherhood. Equal parts memoir and adoption how-to manual, Instant Mom is as light and charming as it is profoundly moving in parts. In it Vardalos chronicles the heartbreak and disappointment of infertility, through which she endured 13 in vitro treatments. "I had this sense of failure. ...

  • Children of Divorce Are More Likely to Smoke

    By Kimberly HornerMore bad news for kids with divorced parents - it turns out these kiddos may be more likely to smoke later in life than their peers with married parents, according to recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Toronto. Plus: Raising Healthy, Happy Kids Through a Divorce "Finding this link between parental divorce and smoking is very disturbing," said Esme Fuller-Thomson, lead author of the study in a news release. ...

  • Kid Adopted by Gay Dads Writes Letter to Support Gay Marriage

    Meet Daniel Martinez-Leffew, a 12-year-old boy from California who wrote a letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts urging him to end the ban on gay marriage and strike down Proposition 8.

  • Study: Skim Milk May Not Reduce Obesity Risk

    By Sasha Emmons A surprising new study published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood undercuts what pediatricians and parents have long thought: that drinking low-fat milk is part of a healthy diet to keep your child's weight in check. In fact, researchers found kids who drink skim or 1 percent are actually more likely to be overweight than those who drink 2 percent or whole. Plus: The Health Benefits of Milk "We were very surprised," says study author Mark Daniel DeBoer, M.D. ...

  • Study: Avoiding Fears Makes Kids More Anxious

    The study surveyed both parents and their children, and included more than 800 kids from ages 7 to 18. Parents were asked to describe their kids' avoidance behaviors, while children were asked about their own tendencies in situations that make them uncomfortable.

  • Parenting Without a Future

    In January of 2011, when her son Ronan was just nine months old, Rapp learned he was dying from Tay-Sachs, a ruthless and heartbreaking disease with no cure. Ronan was given no more than three years to live. He had developed normally for six months until he simply stopped. He would very gradually unravel, fading away from her piece by piece, until his death in February 2013.