Back-to-school is a season for fresh starts — and that includes your home. At the first signs of spring, most of us open the windows and pull out the cleaning bucket for a full-on assault on dirt, dust and clutter. We should do the same at the start of fall, says cleaning expert Donna Smallin, author of Cleaning Plain and Simple and the One-Minute Cleaner. “Fall is when you’re going to be...
For many of us, the bedtime warning, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite!” was just a silly thing grown-ups said. Now it’s a real and rising threat in many parts of the country.
After more than 50 years of virtual elimination in the U.S., bedbugs have made a roaring comeback over the last decade, spreading most rapidly in the last six years, according to Richard Cooper, a research entomologist and...
The mere mention of starting a family-wide fitness routine may send everyone running for cover. But incorporating more physical activity into your family life doesn’t have to be a painful and serious undertaking. Here are three family-friendly fitness moves to get fit and have fun — together.
Get Hooping
Remember Hula-Hoops? As a kid, you’d twirl those giant plastic rings on your waist,...
It’s a basic premise for successful parenting: You tell your kids what you want them to do, and they do it. But how often do you resort to yelling or pestering to get that result?
The problem may be you, not your kids, according to parenting expert Dr. Michele Borba, author of The Big Book of Parenting Solutions: 101 Answers to Your Everyday Challenges and Wildest Worries and 22 other books. “We...
All parents want their kids to feel like they can take on the world. So you may naturally gush over her every scribble, tied shoelace and successful trip to the potty. But is that the best strategy to build competence today and success in the future?
“Confidence is not something you can bestow like a gift,” says Vickie Holland, a parenting coach in Santa Monica, Calif., and the author of the forthcoming...
Playdates, birthday parties, school plays. For shy kids, activities that require interaction with strangers are torturous — if not impossible. And research shows that most shy children won’t outgrow their social anxiety.
Some kids are wired to be shy, according to Samuel Putnam, a professor of psychology at Bowdoin College who has studied shyness in children. As infants, they’re troubled...
