When my daughter Risa entered third grade this year, several moms with daughters older than mine warned me about the ugly social politics about to kick in, which would arrive by spring. Boy, were they right.

Parenting is a demanding task and it takes an aware, determined and conscious parent to be a good one. The good news is many of us can be great parent...

Cyberspace is the 2013 version of the playground, and with it comes potential for great danger, as its reach is massively unlimited. Here's what parents can do to safeguard their children.

How do you raise children in the digital age? In part three of my interview with her, Randi Zuckerberg talks about parenting issues in an era where technology is so accessible to kids. She also discusses the children's book she is writing.

Parenting is complicated enough. Being scrutinized by your mother-in-law on every parental decision you make is more than any mother can or should have to take.

Striving and hard work towards success in any aspect of raising, working or maintaining young people is not bad. It is the unrelenting standard of doing everything without some sense of defeat or failure that is unrealistic.

To forgive ourselves is no easy task. We have to rediscover our innocence. If we have the opportunity, as children, to have parents who can say that they are sorry for things, then we learn to forgive them and forgive ourselves.

I know this may come as a shock to you, but I was once a teenager. Don't roll your eyes. I was. And I survived. It was a time of profound and sustained unhappiness for me, although I never truly understood why.

We always want the best for our children. And part of my philosophy in life is to recognize that all we can do for our children is to provide the conditions and context for them to grow and face the challenges that they came into this world with.

By remembering what it was like to be a child, she just never seemed to age. My nana made me realize that we are not just parenting our children, we are raising future parents, and the example that we set in the way that we live and parent today will have a lasting impact on future generations.

They say that those who fight the hardest are those who are the most alike, so perhaps it shouldn't have surprised me that when it comes to parenting, the English and the French have quite a bit in common.

It is hard to understand how Boston bomber suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could go from terrorist to teen heartthrob. So why have some teens taken to social networking channels with #freejahar? (Wrong spelling, but we get the point.)

Persistent criticism breeds resentment and defiance, and undermines a child's initiative, self-confidence and sense of purpose. We need to prevent the buildup of these unhealthy attitudes in the minds of our children.

How do you really tell your children that one of the most important people in their lives has cancer?

As a parent, this story is just another reminder that the world in which we live can be cruel and scary. We will all certainly want to hold our children just a little bit closer, hug them just a little harder.