Jarrod Partridge

How Old Should a Child Be to Learn to Ride a Bike

Your neighbor’s five-year-old is already flying down the sidewalk without training wheels, and your child still won’t get near the pedals. It’s easy to wonder if you’re behind schedule. You’re not. Most kids ride independently somewhere between age 3 and 8, with the average landing around 5 to 7. What predicts success has less to […]

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The ‘Last Uppy’ TikTok Trend Has Parents Holding Their Kids One More Time

A dad asks his almost-15-year-old son for one more hold, the way he used to when the boy was small enough to carry on one hip. The son says yes. The video amassed hundreds of thousands of views within days. Now parents across TikTok are doing the same thing with their own tweens and teens,

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Schools Nationwide Are Rewriting the Rules on What Parents Must Be Told

A single school board meeting in Kinnelon, New Jersey has turned into a national flashpoint. Families are threatening to leave the district. Parents on both sides are packing public comment sessions. And the fight isn’t really about Kinnelon at all. It’s about a question that districts across the country are being forced to answer this

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High School Students Writing On Paper At Desk

Can a Teenager Be a Narcissist? What Psychologists Want Parents to Know

Your teenager rolled their eyes at your feelings again. They talked over you at dinner, took credit for their sibling’s science project, and stormed off when you asked them to unload the dishwasher. Somewhere between the slammed door and the silence, you found yourself typing the question into your phone: can a teenager be a

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Child Safety Groups Warn Parents After AI Turns Family Photos Into Fake Abuse Images

An ordinary family photo, posted to a birthday album or a school website, can now be pulled by a stranger and turned into exploitative content in minutes using freely available AI tools. Child safety organizations say this shift has happened fast enough that most parents have no idea their family photos carry this new risk,

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Why ‘Velcro Kids’ Are Everywhere Right Now and What Actually Helps

A toddler who tries to follow a parent into the bathroom. A 7-year-old who refuses to play in the next room alone. A middle schooler who still wants a parent within sight at a birthday party. Parents online have started calling this pattern the “velcro kid,” and the term has spread fast enough that psychologists

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The One Communication Rule a Child Expert Wants Every Parent to Try

“Can you please put your shoes on?” sounds polite. It also isn’t a real question, and most kids know it. A child development specialist who has worked with more than 5,000 families says that gap, between what a parent asks and what a parent actually means, is behind more bedtime standoffs and morning meltdowns than

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How Do Homeschoolers Get A Driver's Permit

Kids Watch 708 TikTok Videos a Day and Half Last Under 5 Seconds

Researchers tracked children’s phones minute by minute instead of asking them to remember their own screen time, and the real numbers landed harder than any survey ever could. Kids in the study watched an average of 708 TikTok videos a day. Half of those videos lasted five seconds or less. Three in four children logged

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Should You Fill a Cavity in Baby Teeth? What Dentists Actually Recommend

Your dentist points to a dark spot on your toddler’s molar and says the word every parent dreads: cavity. Then comes the harder question. The tooth is going to fall out eventually, so does it really need a filling now? In nearly every case, yes. Cavities in baby teeth spread faster than cavities in adult

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Most Social Media Child Safety Features Fail, Northeastern Study Finds

You flipped on the parental controls. You set the account to private, turned on the screen time reminders, and trusted the “teen safety” settings the app promised. New research from Northeastern University suggests a lot of that effort does far less than parents assume. When researchers set out to test 86 child safety features across

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Viral ‘Everyone Deserves a Wife’ TikTok Captures the Mental Load Moms Carry

Jillian Orr went to a Nashville playground with her three boys and came home with a viral video. The 35-year-old preschool teacher had spent the outing juggling a Capri Sun, crackers, and diapers while watching two moms nearby split the parenting work without a word: one pushed the baby on the swings and handed out

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House Passes KIDS Act With New Parental Controls and Age Checks for Social Media

The House of Representatives passed the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act on June 29 by a vote of 267 to 117, the biggest step Congress has taken on children’s online safety in nearly three decades. The package would rewrite the rules for how platforms treat users under 18: new parental controls, restrictions on the

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How To Find Your School Schedule

Should an 11-Year-Old Have a Boyfriend? What Child Psychologists Advise

Your 11-year-old just announced she has a boyfriend, and you are somewhere between amused and alarmed. Take the middle path, and take a breath. Here is the short version: at 11, a boyfriend is usually a label rather than a relationship, most child psychologists advise steering tweens to friendships and group activities instead of one-on-one

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