All About Children

Growing Concerns

Growing Concerns is a childrearing question and answer column with Dr. Martha Erickson.

4/5/2007 Article

Question: Our next-door neighbor's child behaves very badly and seems to be unsupervised much of the time. We worry about his safety and about the bad influence he might have on our children, but we're not sure what to do since it's not really our place to discipline someone else's child. Do you have any suggestions?

3/29/2007 Article

Question: A 12-year-old neighbor has expressed interest in baby-sitting for our two young children, and she strikes me as someone who would do a great job. But my husband says a 12-year-old is too young. What are your thoughts?

3/22/2007 Article

Question: We recently watched a video of when my now 4-year-old daughter was the age of our 20-month-old son. It was amazing how much more verbal she was at his age. She would say "No, Mommy!" and could also sing most of "Happy Birthday to You." My son isn't nearly as verbal. His version of "no" is "uh-uh." I don't think we've read as much to our son as we did to our daughter, although now his bedtime routine includes books. I'm afraid he may have suffered from being the second child.  Should I worry?  Have I done something wrong and if so what can I do to fix it?

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