Family Life
Sibling conflict is practice, not a problem to eliminate
Siblings argue at rates that alarm parents and are entirely normal. What matters is what the adults do with it.
Bridget Amoah
Editor, Things Parents Know
Bridget edits Things Parents Know and has two children who disagree about almost everything.
Contact Bridget through our contact page — mark your message for their attention and it will be passed on.
47 articles
Family Life
Grandparents, different rules, and the conversation worth having early
Most intergenerational friction is about undiscussed defaults rather than about disagreement. It resolves better before it…
Early Years
Potty training runs on readiness, not on a date in the diary
Starting before the physical signals arrive mostly buys a longer process and more laundry. The signals are easier to spot than the…
Early Years
Babies are not taught to crawl, and floor time does most of the work
Gross motor milestones arrive through maturation plus thousands of failed attempts. Most of the equipment sold to help subtracts…
Early Years
Settling into nursery takes longer than the settling-in week
Most settings offer a few short visits and then a start date. The real adjustment runs for weeks, and it shows up at home rather…
School Years
Most playground fallings-out are not bullying, and the difference matters
Conflict, exclusion and shifting alliances are ordinary features of childhood friendship. Using one word for all of it makes the…
School Years
What a school can actually do about bullying, and what it cannot
Parents and schools usually want the same outcome and talk past each other. Knowing where the school’s powers stop changes what is…
School Years
The move to secondary school costs about a term
Attainment commonly dips at the transfer and then recovers. The predictable causes are organisational rather than academic.
School Years
Term-time absence, and what a missed school day actually costs
The rules differ wildly by country and the cost is not spread evenly across the calendar. Both are worth knowing before anything is…
Teenagers
Social media and teenagers: what the evidence actually supports
The public argument runs a long way ahead of the research. What is reasonably established points at specific uses and at sleep, not…
Teenagers
Consent, taught in ordinary unembarrassing instalments
The single big talk is the least effective format available. The version that works is a decade of small, awkward, low-stakes…
Running a Household
The cost of a child is front-loaded and back-loaded, not spread
Household spending on children is lumpy and fairly predictable. Knowing where the peaks fall is worth more than any saving tip.…
Running a Household
Toy rotation works because choosing is expensive
A room with everything available in it is harder to play in than a room with eight things. The mechanism is attention, not tidiness.
Running a Household
Twenty minutes of household admin a week is the cheapest hour you will spend
Family paperwork does not take long. It takes attention at a moment when there is none, which is precisely why it becomes expensive…
Running a Household
Every household needs a plan for the day it all falls over
The sick child, the closed nursery and the broken car do not arrive on a convenient morning. The plan is cheap to make in advance…
Parent Wellbeing
Shouting at your children: what it does, and how to shorten the cycle
Nearly every parent does it and almost nobody discusses it honestly. What matters more than the shouting is what happens in the ten…
Parent Wellbeing
Adult friendships need scheduling once there are children
Friendships that used to run on spontaneity stop working the moment two calendars have to align. The ones that survive are usually…
Parent Wellbeing
Parental guilt is a gap between two standards, and one of them is invented
Guilt is useful when it points at something you could change. Most parental guilt is measured against a standard nobody has ever…
Parent Wellbeing
Twenty minutes is enough to be worth defending
The all-or-nothing model is what makes exercise disappear from a parent’s week entirely. The evidence does not support the…
Parent Wellbeing
Too much parenting advice is its own problem
The volume of contradictory guidance produces a specific kind of paralysis, and the research underneath most of it is weaker than…
Parent Wellbeing
Parental burnout is a recognised pattern, and it is not the same as tiredness
Researchers describe something with a specific shape and three components. Recognising it matters because the response differs from…
Family Life
A holiday with small children is not a rest, and planning for that helps
It is the same job in an unfamiliar kitchen. Expecting a break is what turns a tiring week into a disappointing one.
Family Life
Long car journeys with children are a scheduling problem
The distance is fixed. What changes the journey is when you leave, how often you stop, and what you kept back for the last hour.
Family Life
Only children are not what the stereotype says
The research on only children has been fairly consistent for decades and contradicts the folklore almost entirely. The genuine…
Family Life
Step-parenting works slowly, and speeding it up backfires
The expectation of a quickly blended family is where most of the difficulty comes from. The literature suggests years, and it keeps…
Family Life
Separating well, from the child’s point of view
The evidence is reasonably clear that ongoing conflict predicts more than the separation itself. That is the one variable the…
Family Life
Talking to children about death without euphemisms
Euphemisms are chosen to soften it and reliably produce more confusion and more fear. Children need the plain word, and a great…
Family Life
Big family occasions get harder as the family gets bigger
Christmases, weddings and milestone birthdays run on assumptions nobody has ever stated out loud. Naming them a month early is what…
Family Life
Photographs of your children online, and the person who will see them later
The decision is being made on behalf of someone who will one day have a view about it. That is a different question from whether…
Family Life
Getting a pet for the children means getting a pet for yourself
Every family predicts the children will do the work, and very few of them do for long. The decision is better made on that…
Family Life
Small family traditions do more than big ones
The things children remember tend to be cheap, repeated and slightly odd. The expensive set pieces are mostly memorable to the…
Early Years
Visitors in the first weeks, and the phrase that gets your afternoon back
Everybody wants to come at once, and almost nobody will suggest a shorter visit themselves. The fix is a stated window rather than…
School Years
Everything your child takes to school will be lost at least once
Loss is not carelessness; it is arithmetic. Dozens of small items move between two buildings twice a day, and a proportion will not…
Teenagers
Subscriptions, skins and money that never looks like money
Small recurring amounts, paid inside apps, are the hardest spending in a household to see. Teenagers are not uniquely bad at this…
Running a Household
Children’s clothes sizes are a guess, and the seasons make it expensive
Sizing is not standardised, growth is not steady, and children outgrow things in the wrong order. That is why the wardrobe is…
Running a Household
A house with children in it costs more to run, and here is where
The extra cost is rarely in the things people budget for. It is in hot water, laundry cycles, heating a house that is occupied all…
Parent Wellbeing
People offer help in a shape that is hard to accept
The standard offer is to let them know if you need anything, which requires the exhausted person to identify a task, ask for it and…
Parent Wellbeing
Touched out is a real state, and it has a practical answer
Being climbed on, leaned against and held for hours produces a genuine need for physical space. It is not a failure of affection…
Parent Wellbeing
Career decisions get made in the years you have least information
The choices that shape a working life are made during the period when you are most tired, most constrained and least able to see…
Family Life
When two parents disagree about the same child
Different instincts are normal and mostly harmless. What causes damage is the disagreement being conducted in front of the child…
Family Life
Age gaps change the logistics more than the relationship
Every gap is described as the best or the worst by somebody who had it. What actually differs is which years are hard and what the…
Family Life
Keeping a family close when it is spread across countries
Distance does not end relationships; irregularity does. What holds a scattered family together is a rhythm that survives time zones…
Family Life
Nobody is keeping the family archive, and it is disappearing
More images of family life exist than ever before and less of it is retrievable. The photographs survive; finding one, or knowing…
Family Life
Sleepovers, and the questions worth asking before the first one
The first invitation arrives with no guidance and a short deadline. There are a handful of things worth knowing, and asking them is…
Family Life
A day out with a mixed-age family is an averaging problem
Anything chosen to suit everybody usually suits nobody particularly. The days that work well are built around one person at a time.
Family Life
Two languages in one household is a logistics decision as much as a cultural one
Families rarely fail at this for lack of commitment. They fail because the arrangement was never made explicit, and the majority…
Family Life
Apologising to your children teaches something a lecture cannot
Adults get it wrong regularly and children notice every time. What they learn from the aftermath depends entirely on what the adult…