Published on Psychology Today

This weekend, I attended the 40th annual meeting of the International Congress on Infant Studies in Philadelphia, where experts in the field of infant and child development came together to exchange ideas about how children develop, and best practices for promoting their health and well-being. While we were at the conference, hundreds of people came together in almost 600 different locations across the country to participate in the March to Keep Families Together, some right outside our window in Philly. In fact, several of our conference members left the talks to join the march. The protests were organiz...

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Have you ever tried to change your child’s behavior by offering him a reward? Offered dessert if your child would just sit still and eat her dinner? Offered a toy if he would willingly go to his doctor’s visit without protest? Used sticker charts or financial incentives to encourage good behavior or good grades in school? In all of these cases you’re using a classic learning technique in psychology called operant conditioning. The logic behind it is quite intuitive—a behavior that is rewarded is more likely to be repeated. Operant conditioning has been used to teach animals like dogs and rats, as well as...

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If you’re a mom, chances are you’ve heard of “mom brain,” and maybe you’ve even blamed it for a lapse in judgment, a missed appointment, or a minor emotional breakdown at some point in your life. As the mother of a toddler and a newborn, it feels like “mom brain” is the new normal for me. I am forgetful, absent-minded, and am apt to get incredibly emotional if I see so much as a hallmark commercial that features a child within a few years of my son’s age. Watching movies that have anything to do with a child getting lost or hurt is out of the question, and any news footage of children suffering can send m...

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Three years ago when my son was born, my life changed forever. The first few months were the most difficult of my life, but the ones that followed were among the best. Every day I watch as he developed and became a more delightful person. It was difficult to imagine loving anyone more, even a second child. Which is why when I found out I was pregnant again, I couldn’t possibly fathom what it would be like to have a second son—one that I would obviously love as much as the first.

Besides being worried about loving the second one as much as the first, I was also worried about how much time I would have for a...

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These days, social media has become so integrated into our lives that it’s hard to imagine a time before we had Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Facebook has nearly 2 billion users, and according to various online reports, we spend about 50 minutes on Facebook every day, and a whopping 5 hours each day looking at our smart phones. The frequency with which we typically engage with media has led several researchers to ask whether there are any consequences of spending so much time online, and in particular, whether all of this media time has negative effects on us, and on our children.

A recent study sugges...

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There is a strong belief among many people that having children makes you happier. Indeed, most young adults have plans to have children when they get older, and believe that having kids will one day make them feel more satisfied with their lives (Hansen, 2012). On top of feeling that having children makes you a happier person, there is also a common belief among adults that having kids makes a marriage stronger. But although there is some evidence that couples with kids are less likely to divorce than couples without (e.g., White & Booth, 1985), it turns out that having children might not make your marri...

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With recent worry about mass shootings and gun violence in the United States, one of the questions that always comes up is whether violent media promotes violent or aggressive behavior. This is something that is especially important to think about for parents, as violent content is common on television and in movies, on the internet, and in some of the most popular children’s video games.

Although the issue is often presented as controversial in the media, we have pretty good evidence that exposure to violent media does make children more aggressive. And we’ve known it for decades. In one of the most well-...

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With the holiday season in full swing, the toy industry is bustling with moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends buying gifts for their littlest loved ones. Toy buying used to be simple: A nice doll for girls, and a matchbox car for boys. But these days, shopping for kids’ toys can be utterly overwhelming. There are hundreds of products that line the aisles of most toy stores, many of which have flashing lights, play music, and some even talk to you as you walk by. Some products even boast their utility in teaching children new words, musical skills, and even math. It’s enough to make your he...

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With Thanksgiving on the horizon, delicious food is on everyone’s mind. For many of us, eating a large meal with friends and family is a happy occasion, and one that we (and our stomachs) often look forward to. In fact, I look forward to dinnertime almost every night. At least I did, until I had my son. These days, mealtimes aren’t quite as much fun, as they mean sitting across the table from a 2-year-old who will likely refuse everything I put in front of him. Even when he was nursing, my son was a picky eater; he was particular about when he wanted to eat, and even which breast he would take milk from....

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With the fast approach of Halloween, there is no doubt that children everywhere have their minds on ghosts, goblins, and witches, along with other popular fantasy characters that commonly take the spotlight in the month of October. They’ll dress up as their favorite cartoon characters for trick-or-treating, and they may even pretend to be those characters as they travel in groups to ring neighborhood doorbells in search of chocolate or caramel covered treats.

Unfortunately, fantasies of ghosts and goblins can also come with some scary imagery, followed by the inevitable fears of monsters that might be hidi...