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Why I’m OK If My Son Never Says “I Love You” My 9-year-old son has never said "I love you." I honestly never gave it a second thought until I realized I was being told "I love you" multiple times daily by my 5-year-old daughter.	How We Can Make Sense of Child Behavior: An interview with Barbara Probst We want to celebrate our child's unique traits, but sometimes their differences can be worrying.
This Birth Would’ve Been This Mom’s Worst Nightmare! It Didn’t Stop Her From Loving It My partner and I had asked all the big questions as we got ready for the birth of our son. We'd prepared ourselves both physically and spiritually for what we expected to be a smooth, beautiful childbirth assisted by our midwife.	I Can Help Protect Our Planet By Raising My Children to Care Absolutely the greatest contribution I can make toward Earth's stewardship is to raise children who care. It's not enough to say we care for the planet: We must live it and model it to our children, and I've learned that this is best done... read more
An Ever-Changing Village: Why Parent Support is Crucial for Military Families One of the many reasons parents find their way to Nurturings is that they're seeking a community and Nurturings can connect them to local parenting groups.	Want To Raise A Creative Child? First, Believe You Are Creative! Then Open Up 15 Minutes Of Your Day We tend to believe that only a few people are genuinely creative, that they are born knowing they are creative and that they go through life with that creative spark undimmed.
Seek Progress Over Perfection with Ourselves and in Parenting Perfectionism is probably the biggest creativity block I run across. When we speak of perfection, we actually are reaching for an unattainable goal, because as human beings, we aren't perfect.	Growing Up Different is OK! What Autism Has Taught This Mom About Raising Her Daughter One of the hardest challenges with raising a special needs child is trying to keep people, including us as her parents, from attmepting to force her into being a "typical" child. Jackie is different.
I Love You When You're Angry I never felt like I could get angry as a child. My parents sure did, but I got the message loud and clear that I was supposed to keep the peace, be good, and above all, never ever lose my cool.	Are You A "Problem Parent"? Happy, confident, caring children grow up in an atmosphere of flexibility and trust, supported by respectful and realistic parents who do not see challenging behaviors as indications that there is a problem with their children.

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Journal Studies

Differential Susceptibility to Parenting and Quality Child Care Pluess, M., & Belsky, J. (2010). Differential susceptibility to parenting and quality child care. Developmental Psychology, 46(2), 379-390. High-quality parenting was predictive of greater academic and social skills for all children, but particularly children with a difficult temperament. In addition, high-quality non-parental child care predicted fewer behavioral problems in children with difficult temperaments.	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.	Patterns of Developmental Change in Infants’ Nighttime Sleep Awakenings from 6 through 36 Months of Age Weinraub, M., Bender, R. H., Friedman, S. L., Susman, E. J., Knoke, B., Bradley, R., ... & Williams, J. (2012). Patterns of Developmental Change in Infants’ Nighttime Sleep Awakenings from 6 through 36 Months of Age. Developmental Psychology, 48(6),1511-1528. Infants with night-wakings were more likely to be boys, be breastfed, have a difficult temperament, come from a large family, have a depressed mother, be in a single-parent home, and/or attend fewer hours of non-parental child care; however, this tendency for more night-wakings tended to resolve by 18 months.
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.	Breastfeeding May Improve Nocturnal Sleep and Reduce Infantile Colic: Potential Role of Breast Milk Melatonin Engler, A. C., Hadash, A., Shehadeh, N., & Pillar, G. (2012). Breastfeeding may improve nocturnal sleep and reduce infantile colic: potential role of breast milk melatonin. European Journal of Pediatrics, 171(4), 729-732. Exclusively breastfed infants had less colic and fussiness, and slept longer. Melatonin, which promotes sleep, available only in breastmilk, showed a clear relationship to infant sleep patterns.
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.	A Longitudinal Investigation of Maternal Touching Across the First 6 Months of Life: Age and Context Effects Jean, A. D., Stack, D. M., & Fogel, A. (2009). A longitudinal investigation of maternal touching across the first 6 months of life: Age and context effects. Infant Behavior and Development, 32(3), 344-349. As infants grew older, mothers provided less nurturing touch, patting and stroking but more tickling and static touch.

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