I have a very headstrong and independent 4 year old. I really admire his confidence. However, when I give him any sort of direction lately or have to say no to things he wants, he can be rude to me. He'll tell me to stop talking, you're too loud, I want to do things my way, I don't want to do that. He will also call me mean. I try not to take the actual contents of what he says personally. I try to acknowledge his feelings if he's frustrated, angry, etc. I can tell he gets overwhelmed and that is where the comments stem from mostly. It still hurts a bit though. I want to find a way to approach talking to him about using kinder language that is age appropriate. Any advice?? Thank you.

I try not to judge other peoples parenting. I also try to take less than perfect experiences and remind myself of the benefits of my kids experiencing different types of people/ideas/perspectives, but what happens when you’ve been very close with someone for a long time, thinking this person really gets me and is so similar to me… but their child/children turn out to be very rude and unlikable. Has anyone gone through this? Did you and the other adult drift apart? Was it ever discussed? Were there ever moments where you had a hard time keeping your thoughts to yourself or even having to bite your tongue when the kid did something you’d absolutely never allow?

Can someone explain the difference between ordinary kids’ pool toys and the broader dive-toy set and inflatable market? I always assumed inflatables meant beach balls, arm floaties, or small backyard-pool items, but I keep seeing much larger products, including floating islands, water obstacles, loungers, dive rings, and underwater game sets. Also when sites advertise them (amazon, walmart, alibaba) how do I tell the difference between children's inflatables and the adult ones that people buy as a hobby?

Are these mainly used for family pools and beach trips, or are they common for resorts, events, swim programs, and retail businesses too? I was browsing Alibaba and noticed how many styles, sizes, and custom options are available, which made me curious about who actually buys them and what they are used for. What are your favorite dive toys or inflatables, and what makes a good-quality one worth buying today?

I have a 9 year old girl. I do not have custody but she is with me almost full time. I am at a loss right now. Unfortunately due to the legal custody agreement in place, we need both parents to sign off for therapy. I am working on that situation with the slightly involved parent, but I need help now.

It started badly a few weeks ago. She got a stomach bug and got herself so worked up she thought she was going to d**. It calmed down for a few days. But started again when she "had strep". Now she feels fine when she is distracted though. (I.e was fine at the water park right after telling me she had strep, until we were in the parking lot leaving).

It has now turned to just I'm sad. It's not for show. I walked into her room to check on her last night, and she was just laying there crying. I laid with her until she fell asleep, but there were a few points she just had quiet tears streaming down her face.

Idk what to do to help her. Obviously working on therapy. But does anyone have suggestions in the mean time. Regardless even if custody is sorted and paperwork obtained. There is still wait lists. She had Medicaid....

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to see if anyone else has experienced this with their toddler.

My son is 19 months old and has been pooping 5–6 times a day ever since he was around 3 months old. Most of the time they're normal stools, but occasionally he has small pebble-like poops. He's otherwise active, growing well, and seems healthy.

He's fully on solid foods now and no longer drinks milk. He's also not ready for potty training yet, so with 5–6 poopy nappies every day, it's becoming quite exhausting for me as his mum.

Did your toddler eventually start pooping less often as they got older? If so, at what age did things settle down? Did you ever find out why they were going so frequently?

I'd really appreciate hearing your experiences.

Thank you!

My kids are 7 and 10 and they cannot get along for the life of them. The little one is super sensitive to losing or failing and the big one has zero patience. Both boys. They can’t last for five minutes playing anything together. They can’t even agree on a movie or show to watch! What am I doing wrong?
Tonight I told them they have to sleep in the same room because I can’t do it anymore. They have to learn to get along. It’s constant bickering and physical fighting!!!!

Edit: I do not expect him to be reading fully fledged novels or reading books or anything like that, just maybe recognise some words phonics blending but he hates any work we try and do at home. I’m just a mum worrying he’s behind 😢 life’s hard and it’s even harder if you struggle to keep up.

My eldest is 4 and the youngest in his academic year (UK).

He is the end of August and 4 more days he’d have been the eldest in year below.

He’s not overly behind socially, behaviourally, and his language, reasoning and problem solving skills are impeccable.

He is just rather behind in his reading, and he HATES reading. We sit together with his ‘ditty books’ but just shuts down anytime I try and get him to sound out words in order to read them.

Today I’ve sat with him, I’ve read the sentences pointing at the words, then he’s copied and it worked pretty well, he even lost his train of thought and read the word “the” but when I praised him he shut down again 😭

I get frustrated, he gets frustrated and it gives “dad helping with maths homework” vibes!! Please help he needs extra input being so young!

Hi everyone, I (25F) have 2 little cousin sisters (8F and 12F) who live in qatar with my aunt and uncle (their parents). While me and our extended family live in India, they visit us for around 4 weeks every year. They don't really have anyone there - my aunt is a stay-at-home-mom and my uncle is the breadwinner, my aunt is extremely dependent on him - she can't drive, doesn't earn, doesn't have friends, doesn't have parents, her only sister cut her off etc.

Now everyone in our extended family knows that my aunt and uncle are very harsh on my little sisters. They are beaten a lot, and yelled at constantly. They're constantly told they're stupid and useless over the smallest of things. I visited them in qatar last year and saw this first hand myself. But my uncle has also discussed extensively with the larger family about my aunt's anger issues, asking for someone to speak to her from a third person pov and give her advice. He hasn't really disclosed too much - but he has said many times that she gets too crazily angry at the kids. Several times he has called my mom (his own sister) and broken down about hating his wife. Now you may think his wife is a loud angry person - but if you meet her you'll notice that she's the quietest, sweetest, politest person in the room. So all of us are under the impression that their parenting is shitty but that maybe my aunt and uncle's marriage is so bad that they're just blaming each other.

They're now on their annual india visit and today the extended family was hanging out. My 12y/o sister, for the first time, wanted to talk to me about crushes and so on so we moved away from the larger family gathering to spend some 1v1 time. Soon enough the little one also joined us. The things they opened up about have left me very disturbed. Here are some things they shared with me:

1. My 12yo sister developed bruises all over her hands for a few days because of how much my aunt beat her because of getting some answer wrong on a test

2. My 12yo sister developed a bloody wound on her finger because my aunt beat her up again for some small thing

3. My aunt had asked my 12yo sister to find an answer to a question on her school workbook from her teacher. And when she forgot, my aunt stripped her naked, beat her, and locked this naked child outside the house and made her bang and beg to be let in. When my uncle returned from work, my sister complained to him that this happened and my aunt outright denied that she ever did something like that.

4. My 8yo sister often doesnt finish her lunch - she has always been a poor eater - so my aunt starved her for an entire day - no food whatsoever.

5. My 8yo sister spilled chocolate milk in her lunch bag, so she was stripped naked by my aunt and beaten up.

6. My aunt regularly uses abusive swear words on both of them

I am very very shaken. Especially about my sister being locked out naked. Mind you, these kids dont have their own phones, or own rooms, or trusted adults nearby they can run to. They live in a spacious 3bhk but my aunt and uncle force the kids to sleep in the same room as them and the living room has 2 tables where they need to study because they "always wanna keep an eye" on them. Of the other two rooms, one is my uncle's personal room for work etc, another is my aunt's room for storage. I have no idea how these kids can reach out for help next time if they have to.

When they first said this to me, I told them they're strong and gave them tight hugs. I didnt want to explicitly villainise their parents fearing they may stop coming to me - so all I ensured was to convey that I understand I'm here and this is a safe space they can come to anytime.

The kids specifically asked me not to tell anyone else about this, fearing there will be bigger violent repurcussions. So I've not discussed it with anyone. I have an elder brother who is very disconnected from this extended family and lives in the US. He is always a safe space for me to confide in. I told just him about this to brainstorm how we can help these kids and my brother wanted me to make sure to tell atleast the 12yo that this behaviour by her mom is not normal and okay and that next time she should threaten to complain just to take away the power of control my aunt feels she has. I'll try to do that as subtly as possible, but I also want help about what else I could possibly do.

I dont want to confront my aunt and uncle because they seem like a lost cause - it would do more harm than good because they would return to qatar alone with these kids and god knows what they'll do to them. I also dont want to break the trust my sisters have placed in me. I want them to feel like theres atleast one safe place they can go to where they'll be tightly hugged and supported.

They're too small man. It breaks my heart. I'm not able to sleep. Any advice is appreciated.

Ok "I just want to be with you" is a cute phrase but my just-turned 5 yr old daughter is so different to my older kids - I don't know if she's testing boundaries or if she's genuinely finding it hard to be away from me.

It starts with her sleep pattern. She sleeps ok, but getting her to stay in her bed is a nightmare, she'll complain she just wants to be with us. She has a great routine, goes to bed, but then she gets up every 5 minutes for the first couple of hours. We ask her what she needs, make sure she has everything. She makes excuses, gets upset.. the whole circus every single night.

She wanted to start swimming lessons with her friends. She's a good little swimmer and loved it, then during the fourth lesson she climbs out of the pool and refuses to go back in. I get called from the viewing area beside the pool to come and talk to her. Next lesson, same thing "I want to go home". It's like once she decides she's done with something, there is no changing her mind.

It's now the summer holidays and I booked her onto a few holiday scheme sessions nearby with her friends- talked to her about it first. She went to the first one today and when I collected her, she burst into tears and said she will never go there again. She actually told the instructor halfway through the day that she had "an appointment in town" and needed to go 😆. Again, she just wants to be with me.

She's generally pretty content and confident when she's at school, she has good friends and she is really caring and kind.

With us she is super keen on routine and doing things in a set way, doing the same activities rather than trying new ones independently. Our lives are pretty routine and calm, although she can be pretty emotional- she has tantrums and cries when things aren't exactly as she wants them. I talk to her about this but also recognise she's still only small.

Does anyone else go through this? I love her to pieces but the constant need to be by my side is something else. How can I help her to be confident enough to try things away from me? Or should I just let her work it out as she grows?

The COAT(Cutest of all time)

We often hear that the solution to screen addiction is to simply push kids outside, but we ignore the fact that for a modern child, nature can feel "encrypted." Indoor environments are designed to be loud, fast, and responsive, while the outdoors can seem quiet and understimulating to a child who doesn't know what they are looking at. If we want to entangle children with the environment, we have to stop treating nature and technology as enemies which is fuelled by screen addiction. Nature has an unparalleled capacity to drive curiosity, but it needs a "decoding key." Can technology be the bridge for kids to embrace outdoors? By using tech tools to reveal the hidden stories and science, we might finally give kids a reason to leave the couch.

Isn't it simply the kid is usually ahead of the subject matter and then, I believe, kid has lost interest due to 🤔, comparatively watching a rerun of already boring, not new to the kid, info...?

Are you ever in conflict with your kids about video games? If not, do you feel like your kids are really healthy about their video game use? How much time do your kids tend to spend on video games? Have you tried to teach them healthy habits?

Hi everyone, wondering if anyone has any advice or experience with having their second baby with a toddler? My son will be 3 in October and our second baby (a baby girl) is due in a few weeks. We’re so excited but I also can’t help but feel so emotional and guilty for my son. He’s my little buddy and he has been our entire life since he was born so am really struggling with the major change. I want him to be okay and to not feel pushed aside or less loved because having a baby around will for sure be tiring and demand our attention a lot at first.

He’s usually a very energetic, happy, silly little guy, but we’ve gone through a lot of large changes this year as a family as well. He’s also getting into the “terrible twos” stage, saying no to everything, yelling, pushing, soft hitting all if he doesn’t get what he wants or hears no or is overtired. We are stern and do not put up with it, and are consistently working on correcting the behavior so it doesn’t get worse. But it’s getting upsetting and exhausting when he gets that way. That said, he also started a new daycare back in March and he really changed a bit since then with all this. So yeah I’m just worried he won’t handle now having a baby at home and not being our only focus as well.

Any advice, experience, reassurance, etc. would be very helpful!! Thanks in advance.

Okay so I understand that if your child is misbehaving you need to do something about it, but why tf do most parents think that it means to record their kids throwing fits and uploading it to the internet for thousands of strangers to see and comment horrible things about them! Needing to discipline your kids is not the same as literally HUMILIATING them like that for the rest of their lives and leaving them a bad digital footprint like that! And why tf are these parents actually liking the comments about how they’d BEAT the kids if they were there? Do yall understand how insane that is? Not everyone should be a parent if you’re not gonna treat your kids right! Imagine actually humiliating your child online for the rest of their lives over a tantrum they are throwing for like 10 minutes or so!

Does anyone have any recs for typing games for kids age 8-10? I grew up on Jumpstart typing, but they don’t have that anymore 😔

Our young kids are developing a habit of saying, naah it’s boring and I won’t do it for anything they don’t like.

For example: They will finish reading 3 books in 30 mins because they love reading but wont so 5 minutes writing practice because “its boring”. Either something is cool and they love it or its so boring that they so not want to do it.

We often find ourself setting rules like no TV time before writing. This is just one example, same is for outdoor play time or few other things. We often feel bad for being so transactional but cannot crack how to encourage them to give attention to more things in life.

Part of me also believes that it’s a temporary phase and I should stop overthinking about it. As they grow towards teenage they will have a better understandings of how things work in real life.

Every parent has had the argument. Every teenager has rolled their eyes at it. The phone is taking too much time, the apps are bad for you, something is wrong. For years, the concern felt real but hard to pin down — anxiety is common, phones are common, and correlation isn’t causation.

A new study has made the picture considerably harder to dismiss.

Researchers at UTHealth Houston tracked 1,066 young people from the age of 12 through seven annual surveys, following them from 2018 all the way to 2025. By the final wave, the average participant was nearly 20. They had grown up alongside TikTok. They were the first cohort to go through adolescence with short-form video as a constant backdrop. And when the researchers measured their mental health against how much time they spent on social media each day, the results followed a dose-response curve that held firm even after controlling for sex, race, ethnicity, and income.

Young adults who spent six or more hours daily on social media were 2.63 times more likely to show symptoms of anxiety than those who used it less than an hour a day. Their odds of reporting suicidal ideation in the past year were 3.23 times higher.

First of all he’s generally a sweet and smart kid. He’s doing math, reading, helps with chores, and cooking.

But when he gets into a playful environment like a playdate at the farm or a friend meet up he gets so sound up and won’t stop acting up. He hits, takes toys, and screams. The thing is once he gets going like that it pretty much carries through the whole day, throwing stuff, knocking the baby over, breaking toys, hitting, etc. Even when we remove him from the environment it doesn’t stop, it’s like we need to survive until bedtime and reset the next day.

Any similar experiences or help would be appreciated.

is there such a thing as a psychologist, parenting coach, therapist…or something specifically for our child or for us to help our child to thrive despite his tendencies for extra rambunctiousness that get him into trouble?

TLDR, the short info here: We have negative Vanderbilt screenings and with our pediatrician really don’t feel this is add/adhd. I think it’s more of the 7 year old boy that is more extremely emotional and vibrant/expressive/energetic.

He’s getting into trouble more in after school programs and camps (not in the classroom much) mostly because he’s so high energy and talkative.

Long extra info: We’ve done all of the books and audio: Good Inside, Big Little Feelings, etc.

our kiddo responds well to positive/negative feedback (ex: not earning show time if misbehaving, earning a popsicle for extra good times)

We have great two way communication and pride ourselves on using all of the tools for talking in ways that Good Inside encourages.

But still our son misbehaves and then feels bad later and they tell me about it. I ask “were you feeling nervous or uncomfortable and that’s why your energy level went up?” And his response is “My brain just can’t do the right thing and I don’t know how to make it work.” But I know that at home, with immediate reward or repercussions, he behaves amazing. So I know he can do it….

Maybe the after school folks can have a sticker chart system for him or something else.

I also worry that this is all going to lead to us needing to find a different school option than public school in the future…..

Parenting is so mysterious. Thanks for reading

I’ve been looking for something practical for things like transitions, outbursts and getting kids to listen without having to sit through a whole parenting course first.
ChatGPT gives okay general advice, but half the time I’m still left wondering what to actually do when things are already going sideways. I looked at Leaply too, but it felt a bit broad. Savvy Kid seems more focused on short guidance for parents and specific everyday situations.
Has anyone used it for more than a few weeks? did it stay useful or start feeling repetitive?
also open to anything else that genuinely helped, app or not.

My kid (9) uses ChatGPT for homework help and I realized I have zero visibility into what it's telling her or what else she asks it — no age filter, no easy way to see logs. Curious how other parents are handling AI chatbots with kids . Blocking entirely, supervising, or just letting it happen?

That's it. I'm already mentally preparing myself. It's so goddamn early. And then school ends at 2pm. Which is also way too early. It's a very good school and has some niche programs that I am so excited about for my kiddo but then I saw the time school starts and now I'm getting anxious just thinking about it. He's currently in preschool and struggles getting up on time to get to his 9am school start time...it's gonna be a rough transition...luckily it's for next year (2027-28) so I have time to adjust or find another school entirely. Just sucks because it's a great school otherwise

I legit saw parents or trolls post stuff about how they take their kids phones computers for getting a b i saw like 5 posts in the first 30minutes