Advice

Bullyproofing your child

By Liat Hughes Joshi, Mar 24, 2012

There's no magic way to ensure bullying will never happen to your children but there are a few things you can do to at least help prevent it and reduce its impact a little if they end up on the receiving end. Think of it as 'bullyproofing' your child.

Polite notice: Please keep down your loud parenting!

By Laura Kemp, Mar 5, 2012

So there we were at soft play and I'd settled down while my son had gone off to run riot in the colourful cages of chaos. I had chocolate to the right of me, coffee to the left of me and I was happily logged onto the free wifi, ready to catch up with the world on my iPhone, when it happened.

DS dilemma: If your child loves computer games does that make you a bad mother?

By Lucy Sweet, Mar 2, 2012

According to CBeebies and the Boden catalogue, children are always mucking about outside, picking vegetables and making recycled rain catchers with plastic bottles and wooden spoons. But for my square-eyed four-year-old, life revolves around one thing, and one thing only - his friend's Super Mario game.

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 children 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.

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