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Good on you for being level-headed as you hit the big 4-0. A lot of guys are buying flashy cars and other expensive man-toys to show the world their virility. Instead, you’re using the milestone to seriously assess your financial preparedness. You’re right – there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to how big your nest egg should be. It depends on factors like the lifestyle you expect to have in retirement, when you decide to stop working and where you’ll live....

According to David Rettew, M.D., a child psychiatrist at the University of Vermont, telling children their personalities are predetermined by their DNA can be harmful — true or not. Though scientists now suspect that personality traits are closely tied to genetics, Rettew suggests parents emphasize that negative qualities can be changed, and that nature and nurture work in close concert. “As long as you don’t suggest some kind of inevitability, it can be useful for kids to have some idea of what their personalities tend to be, and that [any given trait] is around 50% nature and 50% nurture,” Rettew says....

It is normal for young children to experience anxiety when separating from parents or caregivers. When you layer a pandemic on top of ordinary back-to-school stress, many children will be struggling more than usual. In everyday language, it’s common for people to talk about children (or even pets) experiencing separation anxiety. When children experience more intense fears and anxieties that interfere with going to school over a prolonged period of time, or that interfere with how they function at school and/or how they interact with others, this is what psychologists call separation anxiety disorder....

“You have to understand from a kids perspective what happens with the holiday season,” explains Dr. Laura Markham author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting. “It’s pretty unfair that we make it about presents for them and then we think they’re being bratty and ungrateful because they make long lists about what they want.” The trick, then, is in managing a child’s expectations around the season....

Parents need to recognize the limits of their patience – both their own and their partner’s – and be ready to intervene appropriately, according to Dr. Roseanne Lesack, director of the child psychology clinic at Nova Southeastern University. “I think the most important piece of it is to know your own limits. Because in the heat of the moment, not only are children not thinking rationally, but adults are not thinking rationally....

Discipline is about more than just getting kids to listen and obey — it’s a way for parents to pass their core values on to their kids. And when it comes to disciplining a stubborn child, punishment isn’t the main objective; setting boundaries is. The Key To Dealing With a Stubborn Child Is Maintaining Authority “If you have a strong-willed child who doesn’t listen, who doesn’t like boundaries, or who is combative about them, acknowledge that you have no control over their personality, but you do have control over how they learn,” says parenting educator Sharon Silver, founder of Proactive Parenting and author of Stop Reacting and Start Responding....

For many parents, brain fog is all too common. The challenges of parenting are uniquely primed to cause the sort of cognitive overload that experts identify as a common precursor to brain fog. With the exception of a few specific medical conditions and medications, stress is the primary cause of most cases of brain fog. And in an era where high stress levels abound, the unique difficulties of caring for a child during the COVID-19 pandemic have made parents one of the most stressed-out groups of all....

“Obviously, you can hear the farts,” says Linda Palmer, D.C., author of Baby Poop. “That’s the first clue that a baby has gas.” Parents can use their hearing more deliberately, too, and investigate the buildup at the source. “You can put your ear to their tummy and listen for growling,” Palmer adds. Any bubbling or growling sounds coming from a baby’s stomach indicate that something is boiling. Another sign of trapped gas is, of course, a grumpy baby....

“Doing things the old way is easy, comfortable, and familiar,” says Jill A. Stoddard, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist in San Diego, California and author of Be Mighty. That’s the first problem along the path of self-discipline. The second is the feeling of not measuring up since everyone else always seems like they have it together. But that’s the destructive myth, one that makes us believe that “the most disciplined people are always disciplined 24/7,” says Trevor Cote, Ph....

But, you’re the grown-up. You know what is best in life isn’t necessarily best for them, by Crom! That will put you at odds for many years to come. Here’s how to negotiate with your toddler while they’re still young — by not really negotiating. Toddler Tactics A toddler has a limited set of tools that they can use to make you give in to their demands. It generally includes repetitive questions to wear you down, screaming, going limp, and their finishing move: the tantrum....

Now that we’ve been experiencing lockdown, a picture is starting to unfold. Two very different dynamics seem to be emerging among couples social distancing at home, says Carla Manly, a psychologist in Santa Rosa, California. One set of couples she sees is taking advantage of the quarantine to focus on their relationship issues, shoring up weak spots and working on problems previously allowed to fester. The other set is couples who appear to be deteriorating during the pandemic....

“You want to be mindful with what is important to your family,” says Lisa Howe, a family therapist and parenting coach based in San Diego, California. “Some families may have a rule, for example, that they don’t use phones at the dinner table. Some families may not care. But the rules are specific to your family,” she says. In other words, good boundaries are rooted in the values that are important to the family....

For a variety of mundane reasons, I am the only one in our family who attends our neighborhood dojo, Sun Dojo. There I practice Brazilian jiu-jitsu with my fellow sweaty judo-ka. Though they do have a Brooklyn Ninja program for kids Tony’s age, he’s not quite ready to commit. (Or, honestly, his mother isn’t quite ready to commit to shlepping him there every week.) But I recently asked the co-owner (and mother of two daughters) of Sun Dojo, Professor Laurel Carroll, for some easy tips to get Tony on the way from being a ony-itsu sensei to actually getting on the mat....

But to be a great outfielder, you have to know how to catch a fly ball. And learning to do that as a young child can be both difficult, and scary ⏤ it is, after all, practically a rock plummeting down from the sky. Not only do they have to be proficient at catching with a glove, but now they’re also asked to catch while running, or at least moving around the field....

However, bullying does become a part of many children’s experience. According to the National Association of School Psychologists, more than 3.2 million students are victims of bullying each year. And even though they’re not, many children feel alone. READ MORE: The Fatherly Guide to Bullying Take the example of Curtis Beane. His ears stuck out, and the bullies wouldn’t let him forget it. In seventh grade, he was tripped, hit, mocked, pushed, isolated — first by a boy who decided that he wanted to hurt Curtis, and then by almost everyone Curtis considered a friend....

What is a lunar occultation? According to In-The-Sky.org, an occultation “refers to any astronomical event in which one object appears hidden behind another.” It’s not the same thing as an eclipse, which happens when a shadow is cast, “such as when the Moon’s shadow falls over Earth during a solar eclipse.” Lunar occultation happens when the Moon covers the view from another object — in this case, Uranus will disappear behind the Moon....

I’ve been practicing family law for more than 20 years in the Washington, D.C. area, and one of the craziest cases I ever encountered involved a lady who alleged that her husband — my client — was emotionally abusive and stalking her online in order to get a protective order, one that ultimately got him kicked out of the house for two weeks. During that time, we filed for divorce while she orchestrated a move out, and took more than 75-percent of what was in the house, leaving it in horrible condition....

As I was stacking the pizza boxes on the table my seven-year-old kid, the middle child of three, came into the kitchen. He was utterly devastated. His feisty little sister had robbed his handheld video game and she was not giving it back. In no uncertain terms, he insisted this madness was resolved before we ate. I looked over his sister perched on one of the dining chairs. Under her mass of curly blonde hair, I saw the scowling little face of our four-year-old, who we call “Queen,” lit from underneath by the haze of Galaga on an LCD inches from her nose....

In response to Adam Sandler getting turned away from one of the chain’s stores because he didn’t want to wait 30 minutes for a table (understandable), an IHOP hostess working at the restaurant posted a viral video of her realizing that she had turned away Adam Sandler. The interaction blew up everywhere, especially after Sandler revealed it wasn’t the wait that made him leave — it’s that the milkshakes weren’t unlimited as a part of the unlimited meals at the International House of Pancakes....