As swimming lessons return across the country post COVID, the Australian Swim Schools Association would like to share the following tips for parents preparing for their children's first swimming lessons. While swimming lessons can start for babies from as young as eight weeks old, the most...
Treatment is key to avoid long-term pain, writes Steven Edwards Every day, parents around the world are told their child’s flat feet are normal and they will grow out of it. This isn’t true – they just grow up and out of their paediatricians’ practice. There’s no evidence...
Tania Ferfolja and Jacqueline Ullman report on the outcome of their study of over 2,000 Australian parents Debates about how schools acknowledge gender and sexuality diversity have been ongoing in Australia. It’s often claimed parents oppose the inclusion of gender and sexuality diversity content in the...
What do I need to know? asks Thea van de Mortel With the surge in Omicron cases, doctors are finding presentations of croup in children seeking hospital care for COVID in Australia and internationally. In some cases, children presenting to hospital with croup are infected only with...
Researcher Elaine Reese looks at how you can talk to your toddler to safeguard their well-being when they grow into a teenager. As parents, we all hope our teens will be healthy and happy. Our new research shows one way to help is to have positive...
Research shows that the first years of a child’s life may be the optimal window for establishing healthy eating behaviours. Like all child development, learning to eat is a skill that takes time and practice. As parents, there are a number of things you can do...
In Australia, on any given day, about 43,000 children have a parent in prison and there is no formal system to support them, wrotes Catherine Flynn. We have to use the word “about”, as there is no official process to identify this group of children. There...
Lisa Johnson wavers about giving straight answers to kids’ curly questions. “Mummy, what does ‘rape’ mean?” Five simple words, one short question, but when coming out of the mouth of a chirpy eight-year-old boy, quite disturbing. So disturbing, in fact, that my friend, the mother of...
Shankari Chandran draws the positives from potential negatives. On 18 October 2003 at precisely 8.24pm, I unreservedly loved my mother-in-law (who I call Mum). At 8.25pm, I handed our newborn daughter to her, and as Mum tenderly cuddled her, I felt an uncomfortable tingling sensation. I...
It might be child’s play, but play is also a great parenting tool....
