Development

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Evolved Nest with Darcia Narvaez Check out the Evolved Nest with Darcia Narvaez podcast. Dr. Narvaez's long list of credentials and work includes her role as an API Board Member.	Make America’s Children Healthy (Part 2): Affection "...affectionate touch has long lasting health effects: (1) Prevents excessive stress (2) Prevents hippocampal dysfunction (control of anxiety) (3) Establishes and maintains social bonding."
12 Ways to Raise a Confident Child From Dr. Sears: "Self-esteem is your child’s passport to a lifetime of mental health and social happiness. It’s the foundation of a child’s well-being and the key to success as an adult. At all ages, how you feel about yourself affects how you act.	Mama's Boy " But then I consider what kind of young man he is going to become, with all the love and sweetness he possesses and I know it’ll be a beautiful thing. Honestly, there’s not even one part of me that wants to “toughen him up.”"
Some winning tips to connect and reconnect with children - at the holidays and all of the time Making time to share time and interests with your child refills the love-tank and lets you bounce back after struggles. Small moments in every day, every week, keep us connected.	AP Research: Nurturing touch changes DNA, Spanking doesn't work, and more It's exciting to see how much research is constantly being churned out that shows just how beneficial Attachment Parenting is to healthy infant and child development!
Navigating sibling squabbles Arguments between siblings are inevitable. The question many parents face, is how to best handle the situation?	Developing resilience in children "The most recent statistics collected by the Pennsylvania Youth Survey (2015) of State College students found that, “The most common depressed thought was “at times I think I am no good at all,” reported by 26.7 percent of students in this... read more
Understanding sensory processing difficulties in our children Many families discover Attachment Parenting in their quest for how to raise their "spirited" children. All children, evident from birth on, have their own unique temperament.	Editor's pick: How your childhood shaped your adult personality Parenting education needs a boost in national politics and policymaking discussions. The effects of growing up feeling unloved has become a public health crisis.

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Journal Studies

When a Parent Goes to War: Effects of Parental Deployment on Very Young Children and Implications for Intervention Paris, R., DeVoe, E. R., Ross, A. M., & Acker, M. L. (2010). When a parent goes to war: Effects of parental deployment on very young children and implications for intervention. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 80(4), 610-618. Post-deployment programs that address parenting would be helpful, especially for families with children from birth through age 5, as this age group is particularly vulnerable to changes in attachment patterns.	Early Mother-Child Separation, Parenting, and Child Well-Being in Early Head Start Families Howard, K., Martin, A., Berlin, L. J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2011). Early mother-child separation, parenting, and child well-being in Early Head Start families.Attachment & Human Development,13(1), 5-26. While it is well known that traumatic or extended separations negatively impact child development, even week-long separations that occur within the first two years of life have lasting consequences on child behavior.
Infant Sleep and Paternal Involvement in Infant Caregiving During the First 6 Months of Life Tikotzky, L., Sadeh, A., & Glickman-Gavrieli, T. (2011). Infant sleep and paternal involvement in infant caregiving during the first 6 months of life. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 36(1), 36-46. In solitary sleep arrangements, mothers were more involved in nighttime parenting than fathers, and breastfeeding was related to less father involvement. More father involvement early on predicted fewer night-wakings by 6 months.	Cross Cultural Differences in Toddler and Infant Sleep Mindell, J. A., Sadeh, A., Wiegand, B., How, T. H., & Goh, D. Y. (2010). Cross-cultural differences in infant and toddler sleep. Sleep Medicine, 11(3), 274-280. Child sleep problems are based more on culturally-influenced parental perceptions than actual biological reasons, and nighttime sleep issues tended to be perceived more problematic than daytime naps.
Normal Sleep Patterns in Infants and Children: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies Galland, B. C., Taylor, B. J., Elder, D. E., & Herbison, P. (2012). Normal sleep patterns in infants and children: A systematic review of observational studies. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 16(3), 213-222. More research is needed to identify normal sleep patterns in breastfed versus bottle-fed infants, in toddlers, on weekdays versus weekends, and as related to gender and ethnic differences. What is known is that children sleep longer at night and experience fewer night-wakings and daytime naps as they develop.	Childhood Sleep Duration and Associated Demographic Characteristics in an English Cohort Blair, P. S., Humphreys, J. S., Gringras, P., Taheri, S., Scott, N., Emond, A., ... & Fleming, P. J. (2012). Childhood sleep duration and associated demographic characteristics in an English cohort. Sleep, 35(3), 353-360. More research is needed to identify what is normal when it comes to child sleep. Some of what is known is that children need longer nighttime sleep until about 9 years old. By school age, most children sleep through the night, but children up to 3 1/2 years old continue to wake at least once. Low birth-weight and pre-term infants sleep more. Infants of younger mother sleep more. All infants sleep longer at night, wake multiple times at night, and sleep longer daytime naps than young children who mostly stop taking naps by 5 years old. Girls sleep longer than boys. Children with siblings sleep less.
Touch for Socioemotional and Physical Well-Being: A Review Field, T. (2010). Touch for socioemotional and physical well-being: A review. Developmental Review, 30(4), 367-383. Touch is needed for social-emotional and physical development and well-being. In addition, there are therapeutic benefits of massage.	The Development of Maternal Touch Across the First Year of Life Ferber, S. G., Feldman, R., & Makhoul, I. R. (2008). The development of maternal touch across the first year of life. Early Human Development, 84(6), 363-370. While maternal touch predicts mother-infant reciprocity, which is linked to positive child cognitive, language, and social-emotional development, the incidence of all forms of nurturing touch decrease through the infant’s first year, especially after six months.
Responsive Feeding is Embedded in a Theoretical Framework of Responsive Parenting Black, M. M., & Aboud, F. E. (2011). Responsive feeding is embedded in a theoretical framework of responsive parenting. The Journal of Nutrition, 141(3), 490-494. While more research is needed, the benefits of responsive feeding on child nutrition and growth are expected to be as great as responsive parenting is to child outcome.	Responsive Feeding and Child Undernutrition in Low-and Middle-Income Countries Bentley, M. E., Wasser, H. M., & Creed‐Kanashiro, H. M. (2011). Responsive feeding and child undernutrition in low-and middle-income countries. The Journal of Nutrition, 141(3), 502-507. Research on responsive feeding is promising, but more research is needed to define child outcomes.

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