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Disciplining a Challenging Preschool Child

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist Question: My son is four years old and he rules the house. His first response to everything is “No!” Getting him dressed, getting him to eat breakfast, getting him off to nursery school or day care is a daily struggle. He throws tantrums whenever he isn’t getting what he wants, and sometimes even when he does. He’s very jealous of his 2 year old sister and constantly goes after her. He wears me down. I know I’m losing it too much and screaming at him, of course, to no avail. My husband

Parenting Strategies with Toddlers

A number of recent workshops with parents of toddlers, teaching toddler parenting tips, produced this list of ideas and key points to keep in mind when you’re parenting a child whose world is expanding fast, but whose verbal skills and grasp of time, place, and consequences are still pretty limited. Use Visual Aids to Show Sequence and Time Visual aids are a huge help in building a sense of sequence and time around the routines that start and end the day. Charts with drawings or pictures paired with clock faces let a child grasp the specific steps needed to get

Focus Keyphrase screen time for babies and toddlers

TV, Infants, and Common Sense

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist For years now, the American Academy of Pediatrics has held that kids under 18 months shouldn’t get any screen time at all, aside from video chatting with grandparents or other family. They’ve reaffirmed that stance more than once since, most recently as part of a broader 2026 update to their media guidelines that moved away from rigid time limits for older kids in favor of families building their own media plan. But the reasoning behind the under-2 guidance hasn’t changed: those early months are a critical window for brain development, one that

Moving and Young Children

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist Moving day. Such excitement! Such distress! It’s an event nearly every family goes through a few times, if not more. The impact on children is as varied as their personalities. But a few guidelines helping kids cope with moving might help. Why Words Aren’t Enough One 4-year-old boy, whose family had moved to a new state at the start of summer, seemed to adjust surprisingly well. He had a great summer. His parents couldn’t believe it, since he tended to struggle with change. In September, he started at his new nursery school.

Is Spanking Harmful to Children?

Short answer, yes. The American Academy of Pediatrics reviewed decades of research and landed on a clear position. Is Spanking Harmful to Children? Parents and caregivers should never spank, hit, slap, or shame a child as a form of discipline. That’s not one doctor’s opinion, it’s the official policy of the largest pediatric organization in the country. It wasn’t always this settled. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, a well known developmental psychologist named Dr. Diana Baumrind ran one of the more thorough studies on the topic, and it complicated the picture for a while. She was responding to

From His Bedroom to His Dorm Room

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist The Long Drive Home Seven and a half hours in the car by yourself leaves a lot of time for reflection. It was the eighth and last return trip from dropping off a child to start a year at college. I kept thinking about the very first time. Lots of hugs, a few tears, and an ache in my gut the whole way home. I sat on his bed and thought, “This room is finally clean.” And I felt sad about it. Really. After thousands of “Clean up your room or else”

The Effective Use of Charts and Rewards

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist Step One: Define the Target Behavior There are four main steps to building a behavior chart that actually works. First, define the “target behavior,” meaning exactly what you want to change. Talk this through with your child. It’s not a guessing game, and your child needs to be part of the process from the start. Let’s use an oppositional child who seems to say no to every request as our example, since that kind of pattern tends to create a lot of unnecessary conflict. Sit down with your child and share your

Holiday Gifts, Social Influences, and Parental Values

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist What Doo-Wop Music Taught Me About Holiday Gifts A while back I was watching one of public TV’s pledge drives, and one of the big incentives for donating was a video of doo-wop music from the ’50s and early ’60s. Along with a lot of my favorite songs, they showed old news clips calling it “the devil’s music” and calling for it to be banned because of the harm it was supposedly doing to teenagers. I remember that as a pretty conformist time, when most of us did what we were told

Good Decisions, Bad Outcomes Are Okay

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist Fall Brings a Flood of Decisions In early fall, parents get hit with a wave of decisions about activities and schedules for their kids all at once. After-school programs, school electives, sports, tutoring, part-time jobs, extended day care, it all lands on the doorstep at the same time. For a lot of parents, this is a genuinely anxious stretch. The worry is always the same. What if we make the wrong call for our child? Three Families, Three Different Dilemmas Jon is 7 and not especially coordinated. His parents think pushing him

Reducing Stress in Our Children

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist Why I’m Starting With a Story About Exercise Injuries Sports medicine researchers have been tracking a real pattern for years now, a steady rise in injuries among adults in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who work out or play sports hard, often called the weekend warrior pattern. Now you may wonder why that’s the lead for an article about reducing stress in children. Follow me for a minute. Some of that rise probably just reflects more people committing to being active, which is a good thing. But there’s also a real sense

Solutions to the Homework Dilemma

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist The After-School Ritual The ritual usually starts with the first after-school sighting of a child by a parent. “How much homework do you have?” Should parents help with homework? Eventually comes the inevitable “Have you done your homework?” For a lot of parents, a real chunk of every evening goes to assisting, checking, or arguing about homework. Time with our kids is so limited and so precious. Is this really how it should be spent? No. What Parents Are Actually Responsible For What is a parent’s actual responsibility when it comes to

Polarized Parenting Hurts Everyone

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist “She makes a different dinner for each kid.”“He walks into the house and starts criticizing the children.”“She threatens a punishment and then forgets about it.”“He gets too angry, the children are afraid of him.”“She lets them get away with too much.”“He punishes them too much.”“She doesn’t support me, and the kids know it.”“His father was never around, he doesn’t know what to do.” When Natural Differences Go Bad These are among the most common statements parents make in my office. They reflect natural differences that have gone bad. Parents are rarely identical

how fathers stay connected long work hours

Fathering When You’re not Home Very Much

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist When Career and Fatherhood Compete for Time In today’s family life, it’s not just men putting in exceptionally long hours outside the home. But men have historically found it harder to build strong relationships with each of their family members. For a lot of husbands and fathers, being dedicated to a successful career is still the main way they express caring. But in an era of shifting marital roles, and growing recognition that relationship intimacy is a real factor in physical health, men are being encouraged to get more “connected” to their

Summertime Challenges

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist School is out. The vision of summer vacation for many parents and kids is a season of lower stress. No more battles over homework, no struggles with academic performance or classroom problems, no wondering whether it was the child or the parent who actually finished that project. But summer brings its own stresses. For working parents, it means arranging care for the kids and covering the added expense that comes with it. For some children, losing the structure and predictability of the school year is genuinely unsettling. Plenty of kids are also

Losing Your Temper: Why Parents Blow It and How to Recover

By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist Tracy is four. Her mother describes her as “attached to my hip.” Recently, during a morning that seemed even more hectic than usual, Barbara’s frustration level kept climbing. “It’s as if she was deliberately being worse, like she knew I had a lot to get done. She wouldn’t play by herself, she wouldn’t eat or wear whatever I put in front of her. She whined and whined unless I played with her and I just couldn’t stand it. Sure I yell at her sometimes, but never like this. I couldn’t believe how

Pros and Cons of Summer Tutoring

Pros and Cons of Summer Tutoring at a Glance By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist Before you decide anything, here’s the short version. A meta-analysis of 39 studies found kids come back to school in the fall testing about a month behind where they left off in spring, and math skills alone can slide by 25 to 34 percent over the break. That’s a real gap. But tutoring isn’t automatically the right answer for every kid, and it comes with real tradeoffs too. Here’s how it breaks down. The Pros It can close a real gap before it

12 Tips for Unorganized Kids

By KidsDirect Editorial Team 12 Tips to Help Your Disorganized Child Stay on Track If your child struggles with planning, gets impulsive, or just can’t seem to keep their stuff together, you’re not alone, and there’s a lot you can do to help. Kids who struggle with organization usually aren’t being lazy or careless. They often just haven’t built the systems yet that make staying on top of things automatic. These twelve tips can help build those systems, for your child and for your own patience. These are tips for disorganized child. Set a Homework Schedule Break homework into set

How to Keep Kids Safe Online

This page has been through a few decades of internet history at this point. It first went up back when “safe surfing” mostly meant chat rooms and dial-up modems. Some of what we said back then still holds up. A lot of it doesn’t. This is basically how to keep kids safe online. Here’s the current version. The Basics Every Kid Should Know Some ground rules never really go out of style, they just need updating for wherever kids actually spend their time now, whether that’s a group chat, a game, or a video app. Never share your full name,

Quick Test for Dads

By KidsDirect Editorial Team How involved are you really? This quick self check walks through seven habits that research keeps linking to strong father child relationships. Answer honestly. Nobody’s grading this but you. Below is a quick test for dads involvement 1Effective dads teach mostly through role modeling, and that only works if you’re actually around to model anything. Are you really “there” for your child? Do you work 60 or more hours a week? Do you travel overnight more than 50 days a year? Do you live in a different city than your child? Do you spend twice as

Dad’s Checklist for Baby Delivery

What to Pack in Your Hospital Bag Before Labor Starts Whether you’re planning a trendy home birth with a doula, a calm water birth in a tub, or a regular trip to the hospital like most parents, you need to get ready ahead of time. Once the contractions start, there’s not much room left for clear thinking. Start by putting together a hospital bag and stashing it somewhere easy to grab, like by the front door or in the trunk of your car. Not every item here applies to every family. Treat this as a starting point and build your

Tips for New Dads

By KidsDirect Editorial Team Tips for New Dads Dads Make a Difference Playing an active, hands on role in your child’s life matters for their emotional, physical, and cognitive development. Babies with involved dads tend to feel more secure, since they learn early on that either parent can meet their needs. Later on, those kids tend to have more confidence and do better in school. We’ve gone deeper into what involved fathers actually do for their kids, but the short version is that showing up consistently, starting now, pays off for years. Becoming a Dad A lot of fathers describe

Dads for the First Time

By KidsDirect Editorial Team Confessions of a First-Time Father Being a first-time father is a rather scary experience. It’s nothing like facing down a grizzly bear with your bare hands or having your in-laws come to stay with no departure date, but it’s up there on the scary scale. Since I was the youngest in my family, I had no experience with babies. When I was growing up, babies were very little people who smelled funny and were quickly handed to your sister the second they started to cry. Babies didn’t seem like such a difficult thing back then. The

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