It's easy to buy toy kitchen utensils for girls and model airplanes for boys without another thought -- but there may be reasons not to.

You -- and only you -- get to decide what's important to your family. Not the modern culture of "more" and "faster." Not the experts. Not even your mother. You choose what your family considers valuable, enriching and fun.

I always saw all the therapies and special support not as a race to fix or cure him, not as tools in an arsenal as if I was fighting a battle against autism, but rather, "I want to get to know my son better, I want to understand him so I can love him better and be a better mother to him."

Self-identity is one of the trickier aspects of a child's healthy development because you can't "do" things to your children to give them their self-identity.

The more time and effort put into decorating a nursery, the more likely that the baby will sleep in your room.

We have to love ourselves if we want our kids to love themselves. We don't necessarily have to love them more, we have to love ourselves more. We have to be gentle with ourselves.

One of the key components in the new sport of Competitive Child Raising seems to be the misguided notion that children tween-age and even younger are supposed to know their calling.

"A child who has not been bandaged has not been well parented." Dr. Benjamin Spock taught us many lessons, but this is my favorite. Children need to struggle, sometimes fall down.

You've read all the books, but sometimes the best way to be prepared for parenthood is by living the experiences for yourself -- and then living to te...