Advice

Should parents push children to read classic books?

By Catherine Cooper, Feb 22, 2012

I recently booked tickets to take my children, aged seven and nine to see The Railway Children at the theatre, and thinking they may get more out of it if they already knew the story, ordered the book to read to them.

Do you choose your children's friends?

By Glynis Kozma, Feb 16, 2012

I remember when I was 11 and I had a friend, let's call her Anne. She was my newest and best friend at secondary school. My parents, for no good reason I could fathom, thought she was a bad influence.

Do you teach your children manners?

By Glynis Kozma, Feb 14, 2012

We are now more polite as a society than we were 20 years ago, according to the findings of the Young Foundation. If you regularly commute, battle with road rage or suffer surly shop assistants, this might come as a surprise to you. It did to me.

The health and safety jobsworths who make parenting so tricky

By Keith Kendrick, Feb 9, 2012

Our writer laments the ridiculous lack-of-common-sense cotton wool-wrapped health and safety culture which means parents cannot make decisions for their own children on what is dangerous.

Should you let your child wear whatever they like?

By Ceri Roberts, Feb 9, 2012

Every time that five year-old Suri Cruise steps out in dancing shoes and red lipstick her mum, Katie Holmes, gets it in the neck. According to the damning reader comments, Katie should know better.

Advice column: Problem play dates

By Liat Hughes Joshi, Jan 31, 2012

Got a parenting problem? Parentdish's agony aunt Liat Hughes Joshi and author of Raising Children: The Primary Years, plus her panel of experts from child psychologists to nutritionists, can help. This week play dates

Why is talking about bed wetting such a taboo?

By Liz Stansfield, Jan 31, 2012

Half of parents have never talked to other mums and dads about our children wetting the bed. Does it embarrass you?

Parents' guilty habits

By James Moore, Jan 21, 2012

The 15 guilty habits every parent will do at least once, despite always swearing they won’t. How many will you admit to?

Second child syndrome

By Keris Stainton, Jan 18, 2012

Victoria Wood does a joke about how with your first child you get a height chart and dutifully measure them at regular intervals, but with your second you know they've grown by the position of the snot mark on your coat.

How to help your children grow up to be friends, not just family

By Jackie Cosh, Jan 10, 2012

When a friend told me that her husband had six brothers but that they only really saw one I must admit to being a bit taken aback. As a mum of four I like to think that I have created my own little family network.