parenting

Parents, don’t let your kids fool you into getting them a Nintendo Wii with promises that it’ll make them exercise more. A newly released study says that’s just a bunch of bologna.

Earlier this week, the Susan G. Komen For the Cure foundation said it was cutting funds for breast cancer screenings conducted at Planned Parenthood facilities — and a remarkable firestorm of negative publicity followed. On Friday, the nation’s largest breast-cancer advocacy agency waved the white flag and backed down.

Most parents know about the importance of car seats for infants and toddlers, but booster seats for older kids are often required by law, too — yet a new survey finds lots of carpooling moms and dads use them inconsistently at best.

The trend in recent years that led parents and teachers to boost children’s self-esteem by rewarding them for doing little other than breathing may soon be over, thanks to new research that says such actions are actually making kids less intelligent.

Childhood obesity is soaring. In fact, about a third of US children are currently overweight or obese — and a new study may reveal one big cause. Researchers found toddlers who have a poor relationship with their moms could be twice as likely to be obese by the time they turn 15, possibly because they tend to turn to food as a substitute for motherly comfort.

Back in the ’60s, corporal punishment was common practice for a shocking 94 percent of parents in the US. While a lot of us may find this number unsettling, just as many don’t. In fact, half of all parents today admitted to punishing children by “spanking on the bottom with a bare hand” to a telephone poll conducted by the National Institutes for Mental Health.

Okay, new fathers, pop quiz: it’s 2 a.m. and your infant hasn’t stopped crying for an hour. What do you do? If you don’t know, maybe it’s time to enroll in baby boot camp.

A study of 20,000 US families found kids with fathers suffering from depression are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems than other children. Michael Weitzman at the New York University School of Medicine, who authored the study, said these findings are especially important at a time when unemployment is high and some military dads are returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with emot