6 Ways to Nurture Happy, Healthy Kids
Advice from experts and wise parents on raising little people who thrive.
"Instill in your kids the idea of visualizing who they want to be. My mom used to do this with me all the time; she would point to the
Romper Room hostess and say, 'You have the personality for that.' She had these specific career ideas for me that I thought were hilarious." — Jenny Rosenstratch, author of
Dinner: A Love Story
"Mothering is partly the daily practice of living my own life, so that my daughter is free to live hers." — Sil Reynolds, coauthor of
Mothering & Daughtering: Keeping Your Bond Strong Through the Teen Years
"Calm down, people. I used a special baby shampoo that I later learned had carcinogens in it, and I freaked. Then I found out that it causes cancer only if you feed several bottles of it to your child every hour." —
Jenny Lawson, author of
Let's Pretend This Never Happened
"Get outside! Have a picnic, climb a tree, make a fort, watch the clouds move through the sky. Create an adventure!" — Christy Ziglar, author of
Can't-Wait Willow
"My mother worried endlessly about me—still does, and she's 88 years old—and it was a burden that kept me from taking risks and trying new things that I knew would scare her. Maybe that's why one of my current worries is that my worrying has kept my own daughters from certain adventures that might have been good for them!" — Robin Marantz Henig, coauthor of
Twentysomething: Why Do Young Adults Seem Stuck?
"We sing constantly. When we're studying the spelling word 'over,' I'll belt out, 'Juuuune is busting out all over!' from
Carousel. It distracts them from hating things like homework, and it makes some of the drudgery and ridiculousness of child rearing actually funny." — Vicki Glembocki, author of
The Second
Nine Months: One Woman Tells the Real
Truth About Becoming a Mom. Finally.
Next: How friendship affects children's eating habits
From the
June 2013 issue of
O, The Oprah Magazine
