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Many parents accidentally weight-shame their kids, which can result in trauma. These parents do not intend harm, but the impact of their behavior can be felt for a lifetime.

By Jackie Mader, Photo: Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report, The Hechinger Report, October 25, 2022 At the beginning of 2020, Brisandi Ruiz was hopeful about the year ahead. Her two-year-old was enrolled in a high-quality preschool program near their home in Greenbelt, Maryland. The office manager of a medical technician company, Ruiz was working to validate her medical degree from her home country of the Dominican Republic, so she could practice medicine in the United States. Her husband,...

By Claire McCarthy, MD, Harvard Health Publishing for Harvard Medical School, September 22, 2022 All of us can lower the odds of unintentional shootings. Guns hurt and kill; it’s a simple fact. And while most gun injuries and deaths are the result of an assault or suicide, unintentional injuries happen all the time, including to children and between them. In the six-year span between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2020, there were at least 2,070 unintentional shootings by children under...

"Extremely important" and "very needed" were among the comments of the nearly 100 attendees of the second Connecting Communities One Book at a Time book study webinar when they described Girls on the Brink: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media . The book, published on September 13, 2022, was the focus of a conversation between the author, Donna Jackson Nakazawa , and Carey Sipp, PACEs Connection director of strategic partnerships, on...

Milestones matter! From birth to age 5, your child should reach milestones in how he or she plays, learns, speaks, acts, and moves. Photos and videos in this app illustrate each milestone and make tracking them for your child easy and fun! Track your child’s milestones from age two months to 5 years with CDC’s easy-to-use illustrated checklists; get tips from CDC for encouraging your child’s development; and find out what to do if you are ever concerned about how your child is developing.

By Karen Garcia, Image by Kassia Rico / for The Times, The LA Times, September 28, 2022 Norma Fabian Newton had heard of other new mothers experiencing the “baby blues,” short-term sadness and anxiety. But when she had her first child in her early 30s, she described her experience as a “constant barrage of thoughts.” “I was constantly thinking, ‘I’m not equipped to be a parent, I hate myself, or I hate this decision,’” she said. “In so many ways I had everything, and yet I felt so empty and...

By Jeffrey D. Shahidullah, PhD and Rebecca A. Baum, MD, FAAP, Healthychildren.org Children, teens and families are navigating difficult times. Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether day-to-day stress is getting the best of us, or when something more serious may be going on. In either case, talking with your child's pediatrician is a great place to start. Starting the conversation Many pediatricians check for mental health concerns at well-child visits. The doctor may ask your child...

By Callie Holtermann, Photo by Christopher Gregory-Rivera, The New York Times, October 27, 2022 Relief agencies can help single fathers and mothers maintain the delicate balance between wage-generating hours, personal upkeep and family caregiving time. Someday, Ramiro Torres dreams of opening his own restaurant and serving the tortas, tacos and hamburgers that he loves to prepare to the public. At least one qualified critic, his 11-year-old daughter, Yanely, has long been sold on his...

By Diana Divecha, Greater Good Magazine, October 24, 2022 A new book explains how to feel secure in your parenting decisions so you can be firm but loving with your kids. Home is where we initially learn how to be in the world, and even the smallest interactions between parents and children can have an outsized impact, say Sheri Glucoft Wong, Bay Area family therapist, and Olaf Jorgenson, Silicon Valley private school head. Those little everyday moments together are our opportunities to...

By Upasna Gautam, Photo: Samuel Hall, CNN Health, October 26, 2022 Sahaj Kohli, whose family immigrated to the United Kingdom from India, struggled with an identity crisis familiar to many children of immigrants. As the first in her family to marry a non-Indian, the first to go to therapy and the first to start talking openly about mental health, she found herself needing an outlet to share her challenges. In 2019, she founded Brown Girl Therapy , an online mental health community for...

The need to come to terms with how parental mental health influences the mental health of children has come into sharper focus as the US grapples with a crisis of children experiencing higher rates of anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide. (Illustration by Anna Vignet/KQED) Author: To read Blanca Torres' article, please click here. Pandemic 'forced us to look at the shadows' During the first year of the pandemic, nearly two-thirds of caregivers, including parents, reported adverse...

By The Statesman, October 22, 2022 As a result of strict parenting, the way the body perceives the children’s DNA might alter. Children who grow up with restrictions may have these modifications “hard-wired” into their DNA, increasing their biological risk of depression in adolescence and later in life. Presenting the work at the ECNP Congress in Vienna, Dr Evelien Van Assche said: “We discovered that perceived harsh parenting, with physical punishment and psychological manipulation, can...