That’s very much the message from entrepreneur Naama Bloom, who literally wrote the book about menstruation and puberty called HelloFlo: The Guide, Period. “That’s how you get rid of the stigma. My daughter knows I get my period because she asked me, when she was like three-years-old,” Bloom explains. She notes the conversation was predicated on her daughter noticing her mother’s menstrual pad, which she believed were diapers. Bloom set her straight with a simple explanation of menstruation....

Religion — or lack thereof — is a lens through which we view so much of the world. Some parents have been steadfast in their beliefs for a long time, others have recently evolved their thinking. Some choose not to have religion play a role. All of them, however, know belief and faith are an important part of life, and all of them have a story to tell. Here’s what a few had to say....

“There’s some things we do in medicine because we’ve always done them this way,” says Ann Kellams, M.D., professor of pediatrics at University of Virginia and lead author of the study. But in reality, there’s very little evidence to support most hospitals’ newborn skin care approach, she says. When to Bathe a Newborn Kellams’s team surveyed 73 medical directors on their institutions’ skin care practices: the timing of first bath, skincare practices, skincare products, and skincare education....

The Couple: Erica* (40) and Matt* (48) Years Married: 12Years Together: 18Kids: 10-year-old daughter, 7-year-old sonJobs: Entrepreneur (her) Tool and Manufacturing Representative (him)Location: Ontario You have two kids who are 10 and 7. As far as your sex life is concerned, how is it different now than when you were raising babies? E: The struggle for us in the beginning was finding time to be alone. The struggle now, with the age that they’re at, is that our children still really want a lot of our attention....

Risk is everywhere and associated with everything. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a decade ago estimated 234,000 people a year ended up in emergency rooms because of bathroom injuries alone. While this figure is shockingly high, it probably won’t prevent you from using the toilet or washing your hands. And in general, hiding under the bed to avoid risky decisions is not a realistic option for living life....

First, the understanding bit: It turns out that a tantrum doesn’t just explode in red-faced anger and dwindle (seemingly an infinity later) into gulping sadness. Researchers who recently looked into the anatomy of a tantrum discovered that this conventional understanding is flawed. A tantrum is actually a bit more complex — sadness persists throughout with punctuations of angry behavior. That anger? Not easy to deal with. The sadness, though, can be tackled with kindness....

Nearly 20 years of scientific literature has clarified some of these questions. Many studies have already provided evidence that harsh parenting and discipline aren’t healthy for toddlers, but more recent studies are helping parents understand why while offering healthier alternatives. Discipline Research So Far Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, Ph.D., from the University of Michigan, has been researching children and families, including the effects of corporal punishment, for over 15 years. He’s now seeing public perception in the United States shift toward what the data has been saying for a long time: It’s never okay to hit kids....

When is it a bad idea to over-explain something to a child? I learned an important lesson while talking to my 4-year-old the other day: over-explaining things is just as bad as not explaining them at all. Maybe even worse. Ever start off by answering a simple question for your kid, then another, then another, until at some point you realize that you’re falling into a supermassive black hole that’s going to unravel the space-time continuum?...

YOUR KID’S QUESTIONS Where does lightning come from? Up in the clouds, there all sorts of little bits of rain and snow bouncing around. When those pieces bump into each other, they develop an electric charge, which is just like when you drag your feet across the carpet and get a shock, only way more powerful. Most lightning just shoots around in the cloud and we usually don’t even notice it, but every now and then some leaks out and shoots down to the ground....

Parents in China don’t just do a few things differently ⏤ they live in an entirely different culture. And if you really want to embark on toddler potty-training the Chinese way, you’re going to have to endure a few stares along the way. Here’s what it takes: Watching for Signs of Incoming Pee Part of the secret to potty-training with “elimination communication” is watching for those little hints that your child has to use the bathroom....

Adam Grant, Ph.D., a psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and author of Originals: How Non-Conformists Move The World has 3 kids of his own and understands that instinct. “I’m trying to go beyond intuition, experience, and opinion, and look at evidence,” he says. “There’s some really carefully done comparative and longitudinal studies that look at if you want to raise a creative or a moral or a generous child, what do you do differently?...

Sound familiar? At the heart, procrastination means dividing your energies. “As soon as you say, ‘I have to but I don’t want to,’ you are driving with the brakes on,” says Neil Fiore, psychologist and author of The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play. But you can take your foot off the brake. Learning how to do so takes a bit of effort and self-awareness but it unlocks something amazing: Guilt-free leisure time....

READ MORE: The Fatherly Guide to Porn This is a Constant Conversation As the proliferation of X-rated content is a symptom of modern times, it deserves a modern approach: An open, honest, and frequent discussion about sex and sexual content. And it should happen much, much earlier than many think. “There is no ‘the talk,’” says Dr. Marty Klein, a family and sex therapist and author of His Porn, Her Pain: Confronting America’s PornPanic With Honest Talk About Sex....

Still, it’s hard for kids who throw left-handed to learn some aspects of the game. The vast majority of players are right-handed, and the shape of the infield means that left-handed players have to throw awkwardly to their weak side to get an out at first base. As a result, they’re often relegated to certain positions on the field. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Just because some parts of the game are trickier to learn doesn’t mean there aren’t tips Little League coaches can follow to help ensure a young southpaw on the squad isn’t get shortchanged....

READ MORE: The Fatherly Guide to Poop, Diapers, and Potty Training Notably, the first indication that a kid is approaching potty interest arrives well before most parents would probably expect. “One of the first signs is that they notice that they have actually gone,” explains pediatric nurse practitioner Stephanie Bosche of Philadelphia’s Tri-County Pediatrics. Children, per Bosche, may stop and touch their diaper area in an acknowledgment that something has happened down below....

Alyson and Joe Fenty, California residents who have been together for 15 years, had conversations about their upcoming baby, but had no idea what parenting would actually be like. The couple, who have a seven-month-old daughter (their first), discuss how they tried to prepare their relationship for the arrival of their baby, what things have helped them re-calibrate, and what their sex life is like now that there’s another (very demanding) person in the home....

It’s the Human Touch Super Novo comes, a premium massage chair that comes packed with high-tech bells and whistles that help its massages more closely resemble a rubdown from a real masseuse. Calling it a massage chair is like calling Simone Biles a tumbler. Really? She’s the best. As is this thing. The Super Novo is more of an enveloping pod than a chair. It has an oversized headrest, arm massagers that touch the top and bottom of your upper extremities, and massaging cushions that surround your bottom half from thigh to toes....

Don’t get me wrong. I knew that our devices and screens were really good at creating distance. My wife and I have long used the television to tether our two boys to another room so we could get things done without being hounded. But I also understood that cell phones created both a psychological and physical barrier between me and my kids. In fact, much of my inspiration for banishing tech was the fact that I was feeling disconnected from my family....

He died of a malignant, relentless brain tumor when our son was a year old. I remember the child development specialist urging me to explain his death in the simplest terms to my son and to keep his father’s memory alive by telling stories and leaving his picture on the wall. I did that before our son even understood what I was telling him. I told him stories as he fell asleep....

Now it’s 10 years later. And Steven’s life is a bit different. He is 32 and married. He no longer lives with his parents. And he’s no longer broke. He also has a 4-year-old daughter. What hasn’t changed, however, is his occupation: Steven is a full-time cam model. His wife also works, though she’s landed a “normal” job. Together, their income allows them to live a comfortable life and provide for their daughter....