What type of parent are you? Designed by Wes Mountain, CC BY-NDOur politicians talk a lot about “families”, but what do they really mean when they use this term? What does a modern Australian family look like and how does it compare with ten, 20 or even 30 years ago? […]
Credit: Syda Productions/Shutterstock.com Encouraging kids to get outdoors and be physically active is usually easier in the summertime. The hard part is finding ways for children to get moving and stay active year-round. Making fitness a regular part of a child’s day has its challenges. For one, kids today have […]
Credit: Marcos Mesa Sam Wordley |Shutterstock.com The way you view failure may influence how your children view their own abilities, a new study finds. The researchers set out to study what influences children’s view of their intelligence; some kids see their intelligence as fixed, while others think they can become […]
Reading with your child at home helps to improve their literacy skills How is it that in a country as prosperous as Australia, one in five children are developmentally at risk by the time they start school? What’s more, the problem is twice as great for disadvantaged groups. Children from […]
By Peter Gray Ph.D. When I give talks to parents’ groups about the benefits of outdoor free play for their kids, the first question asked is often something like this: My child doesn’t want to play outdoors because there’s nobody out there to play with. What can I do about […]
By Mary Sauer As parents, our daily responsibilities are seemingly endless. Raising children is a rewarding yet challenging experience. Many of the small, everyday responsibilities that come with raising children can be summed up in one phrase: It is our job to prepare them to be adults. Whether you are […]
Raising a child bilingually does not cause language learning difficulties. www.shutterstock.com by Mark Antoniou ARC Research Fellow, MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University By the age of two, children are typically able to say a few hundred words. My son, Alexander, was able to understand almost […]
It’s not always a bad thing to lie to your kids. from www.shutterstock.com It’s that time of the year again when parents deliberate over whether to lie – or continue the lie – to their kids about Santa Claus. Many parents don’t feel comfortable “lying” to their child just to […]
By Peter Gray Ph.D. If we define parenting as caregiving to one’s child, then the best parent is not the one who parents most, and certainly not the one who parents least, but the one who parents just the right amount. That’s the parent Goldilocks would pick, if she had […]
What do you mean you don’t know? Credit: Dardariel/Shutterstock This article was originally published at The Conversation.The publication contributed the article to Live Science’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. If a child asked you how close an astronaut can get to the sun, the chances are you’d need a moment – […]