Parenting

Ruby Mei Zhi Xia McNeil came into her parents’ lives with nothing but a nighty and a pair of plastic shoes. With three years of her life to fill in, Fiona and Jamie McNeil were sure there was more to know about their Chinese adoptive daughter and they were determined to find out. The McNeils, […]

There is every chance the toddlers of today will grow up never having pressed a button on a phone. For them, pressing buttons — a much-loved pursuit of many children — has been replaced with brushing their finger along an iPad or iPhone screen. They will never know a time when information isn’t instantaneous, and […]

For the first time in decades, the average age of first time mothers is declining — why do you think women are having children younger? In the past, women have delayed motherhood to focus on a career, travel or simply to develop their relationship without the distraction of little ones — but this is starting […]

Author Peter Rix relives the moment his baby was born with Down syndrome and takes us on a journey of hope and love, which prompted him to write his novel Water Under Water, inspired by his unique daughter, Joanna. “I need to tell you, Mr Rix, this baby of yours … ” In a room […]

Shared parenting was enshrined in changes to the Family Law Act in 2006, but as Malcolm Knox discovers, the only thing that many separated parents now share is confusion, isolation and heartbreak. Anna* and her ex-husband had been sharing the care of their three-year-old daughter and two-year-old son for nearly a year when she noticed […]

Children as young as two are being prescribed anti-depressants. Elizabeth Burke looks at the arguments for and against medicating sad children. When anti-depressant drugs like Prozac and Zoloft became mainstream in the late 90s there was outcry against the desensitisation of people, a loss of dealing with human issues without drugging and sedating, and of […]

A US woman provoked outrage across the world last week when she admitted to injecting her eight-year-old daughter with Botox on national television. Kerry Campbell was unrepentant in the interview, claiming her daughter Britney had asked for the anti-wrinkle injections to boost her confidence in child beauty pageants. ”It’s a tough world in the pageant […]

A study has found children could be inheriting emotional eating patterns from their parents. Emotional eating was defined in the International Journal of Eating Disorders as “eating in response to a range of negative emotions … or to cope with a negative effect”. It occurs even if we aren’t hungry. In adults, emotional eating is […]

A new US study has found that new mothers of young children are heavier and eat more fatty and high-sugar foods than women without children. The University of Minnesota researchers collected data from 1520 adults with an average age of 25, including parents with children younger than five years old, and found that parents were […]

Radio host Jackie O has sparked a public row about parenting, with several high-profile women jumping to condemn or defend her. Jackie attracted criticism last week when a newspaper columnist complained she had returned to work too soon after giving birth to her daughter Kitty last December. Related: Helping your kids deal with disasters New […]