For the last ten years, as a family therapist and co-founder of The Family Dinner Project, I’ve talked to hundreds of families about their dinners. Most parents know about the scientifically proven academic, nutritional, and emotional benefits of regular family dinner— higher-grades and bigger vocabularies, greater resilience and better nutrition, as well as lower rates ...

Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) often spend years trying to get the right diagnosis. A new study about the syndrome’s genetic roots may help to change that. A new study’s results are a step forward in dealing with PCOS, a leading cause of infertility in women. The recent study published in the Journal of ...

After discussing the importance of not using chemicals on their lawn, my friend hired a gardener. She never saw him weeding the grass, but it no longer grew weeds. After a few months of this, she asked if he was using chemicals to treat the grass. “Oh no, we don’t use anything,” he answered. “No ...

The question a lot of new parents ask when they have an unsettled baby that is spitting up is – how do I know if my baby has reflux? Reflux is a topic very close to my heart! My first child, Jacob, had severe Gastro-esophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) resulting in his failure to thrive. This ...

Everyone knows the basic pregnancy rules — don’t smoke, don’t drink. Try to avoid raw fish. It’s all pretty clear. However, when it comes to using safe hair care and beauty products, things can get a little hazy. Certain ingredients can be harmful to pregnant women. When placed on the skin or scalp, those ingredients ...

When summer sets in, lots of families head to the beach, lake, pool, and even the pond to cool off and enjoy the fresh waters. There are those who don their snorkel masks for an underwater adventure while others like taking their rowboats, kayaks, and canoes out for fishing and water sporting. While all of ...

When most couples say “I do”, they never imagine that one day they might be tempted to say “I don’t anymore.” Experiencing difficulties in marriage doesn’t have to mean the end of your relationship. Taking a marriage course or going to marriage counseling can help you learn how to strengthen your bond and prevent a ...

Developing allergies is often hereditary, but that doesn’t mean you can’t develop them over time — even if nobody in your family has them. According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, more than 50 million Americans experience various types of allergies each year. According to WebMD, 40% of children in the United States ...

If there’s one thing that kids have and adults don’t, it is the sense of wonder when encountering the world for the first time. In their early years, almost everything is amazing by default. That’s why stuff we might consider routine, they’ll find to be incredibly fascinating. This sense of wonder needs to be fueled, ...

For adults, vegetarianism can be a healthy dietary choice. With proper planning, most adults can get the same or better nutrients from a vegetarian diet that they get from an omnivorous diet. Vegetarian diets for children, though, might not seem as easy — their growing bodies require proper nutrition to reach their full potential. Vegetarianism ...

We’ve previously mentioned the dangers of poison confusion with regular, safe products, especially where children are concerned. However, confusion isn’t the only way for exposure to poisonous toxins to occur. Knowing where hidden toxins lay is the first step. It’s time to educate yourself on common toxins you may be exposed to during spring cleaning, ...

I know that new technology can often be a source of anxiety for parents. You want to make sure that your child is engaging constructively with the media they consume, but it can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak. Screen time can be a touchy subject for many families, ...

The brains of young children resemble sponges with the way they quickly absorb new information, and no age is too early to begin teaching your kids to treat their other mother — Mother Earth — with care. As quickly as children learn new things, they also distract themselves easily from any lesson that seems too ...

More kids have twitches and tics than ever! Just as we are seeing more childhood conditions like allergies, food sensitivities, ADHD, and autism, studies confirm that there are also more youngsters with tics as well. Researcher Dr. Kevin Black estimates that 50% of children may have tics at some point during their childhood.1 Let’s not ...

As a pediatrician, I take care of sick children throughout the year. But the winter season brings airborne winter viruses that make children prone to getting sick all season long. This is especially taxing on parents as they watch their children feel miserable, miss school, and in turn, miss work themselves. It isn’t surprising that ...

When I set out to write Raising Humans in a Digital World: Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology, one thing I knew for sure — parents don’t need to be assaulted with more data, they need solutions. There are so many mixed messages out there about kids and screens—Screens are good! Screens are ...

For parents who aren’t familiar with the infant gut microbiome, it’s important to note that nature intended for a specific strain of good gut bacteria called B. infantis to outgrow bad bacteria during the first six months of life. When the good bacteria thrive, the bad gut bacteria linked to colic, eczema, allergies and asthma ...

It’s that time of the year again. Kids will be on vacation with “nothing to do.” These days, activities that fill that free-time void no longer include long walks in the park, daydreaming, or doodling. Free time is more likely filled by Snapchat, Fortnight, and texting. Most kids will want to spend the lazy hours ...

I can still remember the chilling and heartrending moment, 11:00pm on Wednesday night of January 20th, 2016, when I received a call from our pediatrician to learn that my beautiful healthy twelve-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). This blog is not about my personal experience and the ups and downs for the ...

The holidays are supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. However, it is not always true, for kids or adults. Your kids may not spend the holiday being in all smiles and having fun. Sometimes the signals that they are struggling with holiday depression might not be noticed. We think of children ...

The infant gut microbiome is made up of thousands of different bacterial strains. Some of these strains are considered “good” and can help build important things like immunity and metabolism. Others, like E. coli and Strep, are considered “bad” and can lead to infection, illness, and health conditions like colic, eczema, allergies, and asthma. All of these bacteria strains, ...