Parenting skills require thinking – about the child, about yourself and about the interaction between you. Add in a spouse, other children, pets and life – and you get a more complicated scenario. I'll do my best to keep the "scenes" as simple as I can when first introducing topics but then will raise questions about the influences of the "added" effects.

Also because much of what I will be writing is based on American research, what I say will be more true of American kids than kids around the world. Some information from other countries will appear so that we can see the differences in child rearing and ask if any of it makes a difference..and since we are a country of many types of families, some of what we learn from other cultures may explain your or your neighbor's in-home culture.