Almost 10 years ago, journalist Hillary Frank was pregnant and planning to give birth without medication or surgery — but things didn’t go according to her plan. Instead, Frank experienced a prolonged and difficult labor that left her with a traumatic injury — chronic pain from an episiotomy that didn’t heal as expected, and had to be redone. For months …

Like many kids, Lisa Sparrell’s daughter never liked getting shots at the doctor’s office. “At first she’d cry some, but was quickly placated with rewards like a lollipop or a sticker,” says Sparrell, who lives in Honolulu. But last year, Sparrell’s 10-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a heart defect. In preparation for surgery, the little girl’s trips to the doctor …

Raising happy, self-confident kids involves helping them cope with disappointment. When parents hold their newborn infants, they naturally want what’s best for them. They want to protect them, nurture them, and give them all the opportunities to have a happy life. At the same time, however, children must learn to cope with frustrations and disappointments. Luckily, there are frustrations from …

Flu symptoms can be more severe when you’re pregnant, landing women in the hospital, threatening their lives and even leading to preterm birth or miscarriage. The virus is a risk to the woman and the baby. So, it’s particularly important that people who are pregnant get the flu vaccine. And it’s also important that the effects of those vaccines be …

Researchers have traced a connection between some infections and mental illnesses like schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder. New research from Denmark bolsters that connection. The study, published Thursday in JAMA Psychiatry, shows that a wide variety of infections, even common ones like bronchitis, are linked to a higher risk of many mental illnesses in children and adolescents. The findings support …

Every time Bill Zima, superintendent of schools in Hallowell, Maine, sends an email, it has this sentence under his signature: “Cultivating Hope In All Learners.” This is his school district’s philosophy. It means something very specific. Zima got it from a YouTube video. “A colleague sent it to me. It was a guy in a three-piece suit standing in front …

The couch is dark brown corduroy with lumpy cushions. There are a few telltale smears of food, maybe yogurt or a banana, and some crumbs here and there. It’s a well-loved piece of furniture. Margaret Siebers plops herself down in the center and reaches out to baby daughter Frances, who climbs onto her mother’s lap to breastfeed. “This is where …

If you do a Google image search for “classroom,” you’ll mostly see one familiar scene: rows or groups of desks, with a spot at the front of the room for the teacher. One teacher, many students: It’s basically the definition of school as we know it, going back to the earliest days of the Republic. “We couldn’t afford to have …

We can inspire our kids to be kinder by talking about and practicing kindness ourselves. Today, World Kindness Day, is an opportunity for people across the world to focus on good deeds in their communities, reminding us that kindness is a positive force that connects us all. But how can we make sure that our kids get that message, too? …

Many older first-time moms face a dilemma when it comes to baby No. 2. The clock is ticking louder than ever. But doctors advise waiting at least a year and a half after giving birth before conceiving again. This is the standard advice, based on multiple studies and public health guidelines. But deciding when to try again can be a …

A recent study suggests that boys who spend more time with friends grow into healthier adults. For my three-year-old son, his playmates are an endless source of entertainment: They meet up at the park to go down the slide, ride tricycles, and conspire in plenty of shenanigans. As he gets older, I hope he will also experience the unparalleled gift …

It’s not just baby talk. Any kind of talk with young children — especially if they’re too young to talk back — will do. Because talk is vital to a child’s brain development, says Dana Suskind, who found her passion for literacy in an unlikely place: the operating room. As a surgeon, Suskind performed cochlear implants at the University of …

Since 2011, the American Pediatric Association has advised parents of children under age 2 to avoid screen time for their infants, noting the accumulating evidence of potential risks and the lack of evidence for educational or developmental benefits. Yet screens are an integral part of many young children’s lives. For some families, tablets, computers and smartphones aren’t just a source …

Within three days of starting high school this year, my ninth-grader could not get into bed before 11 p.m. or wake up by 6 a.m. He complained he couldn’t fall asleep but felt foggy during the school day and had to reread lessons a few times at night to finish his homework. And forget morning activities on the weekends — …

Ron Ferguson, an economist at Harvard, has made a career out of studying the achievement gap — the well-documented learning gap that exists between kids of different races and socioeconomic statuses. But even he was surprised to discover that gap visible with “stark differences” by just age 2, meaning “kids aren’t halfway to kindergarten and they’re already well behind their …

When Linda Tock heard her 5-year-old telling her he was going to be sick, she moved quickly. She sprinted for a trash can, ready to run upstairs to help her son, with her husband, Simon, close behind her. Then it happened: a rain of vomit from the balcony above. “I put the trash can over my head,” Tock recalls. “We …

Walking through the woods alone can be a scary prospect for a kid, but not for 7-year-old Matthew of Portland, Oregon. He doesn’t have much of a backyard at his condo, so the woods behind his house essentially serve the same purpose. He spends hours out there: swinging on a tire swing, tromping across the ravine to a friend’s house, …

It may be a new school year, yet I come to sing the praises of trampolines and bubble-blowing, pillow forts and peekaboo, Monopoly and Marco Polo. A new paper in the journal Pediatrics summarizes the evidence for letting kids let loose. “Play is not frivolous,” the paper insists, twice. “It is brain building.” The authors — Michael Yogman, Andrew Garner, …

My friend Cathy and I recently took an afternoon off and got a couples massage. We lay side by side in a small candlelit room, almost completely naked and entirely at ease. It was the third time we had met in person. In February 2017, our mutual friend, Steph, introduced us over email. Steph’s first child had just been born. …

Crayons, of course. Scented markers. Colored pencils, presharpened. And coloring books by the jillions. Why do people like coloring so much? For grown-ups, I can totally get the nostalgia — and the simple pleasure of creating something. But here at NPR Ed, we’re all about kids and learning. And so, as parents head to the store this summer with their …

The way we teach math in America hurts all students, but it may be hurting girls the most. For parents who want to encourage their daughters in STEM subjects, it’s crucial to remember this: Math is the sine qua non. You and your daughter can have fun throwing eggs off a building and making papier-mâché volcanoes, but the only way …

Picture this: You’re in the supermarket with your hungry preschooler in tow. As you reach into the dairy case, you spot a sign with a friendly cartoon cow. It reads: “Ask your child: Where does milk come from? What else comes from a cow?” In a small study published last year, signs like these, placed in Philadelphia-area supermarkets, sparked a …

“Why are traffic lights red, yellow and green?” When a child asks you a question like this, you have a few options. You can shut her down with a “Just because.” You can explain: “Red is for stop and green is for go.” Or, you can turn the question back to her and help her figure out the answer with …

Do you remember the day you decided you were no good at math? Or maybe you had the less common, opposite experience: a moment of math excitement that hooked you for good? Thousands of studies have been published that touch on the topic of “math anxiety.” Overwhelming fear of math, regardless of one’s actual aptitude, affects students of all ages, …

As a parent, did you ever push your child in ways you now regret – or not push enough? Or when you were a child, did you ever feel pushed too hard or not enough? These were the questions we posed to you, our audience, at the conclusion of our story highlighting a troubling situation in Ghana: Parents in the …

Angry footsteps upstairs. Screams. “I hate you!” Slam. Fists, on a bedroom door. Then, inevitably, the unified shriek: “MOOOOMMM!” That was the soundtrack of the year when my daughters were 11 and 12, shared a bedroom and fought like caged tigers. As a parent, I was at a loss. It seemed as though every meal or car ride ended in …

What do you wish you’d known before becoming a parent? In May, we asked our audience this question at the start of How To Raise A Human, our month-long special series on how to make parenting easier. More than 1,000 moms and dads opened up about the struggles and joys of raising children of all ages, from babies to adults, …

The number of men in the United States who are full-time, stay-at-home parents has risen steadily in recent decades, from maybe a million or so in 1984, according to a Pew Research Center estimate, to roughly double that in 2014. That’s still much smaller than the number of stay-at-home moms, of course, and many of the challenges these dads face …

It’s after hours at Rafael Hernandez, an elementary school in the Bronx, and Room 421 is in an uproar. It’s what you would expect from a sixth-grade sex education class learning how to put a condom on. Sex education: The very concept makes a lot of people cringe, conjuring images of teenage giggles and discomfort. It’s also a subject a …

On New Year’s Eve, back in 2012, Savannah Eason retreated into her bedroom and picked up a pair of scissors. “I was holding them up to my palm as if to cut myself,” she says. “Clearly what was happening was I needed someone to do something.” Her dad managed to wrestle the scissors from her hands, but that night it …