Pick your parenting style: optimist or pessimist

Teens worry about tech too |

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SUBSCRIBE to TIME Magazine Hey folks who are folks, School is just around the corner. Hold tight. Don't forget that school supplies are not a life and death situation. Also, if you have one of those kids like I do who loses a LOT of expensive textbooks, do not forget to check eBay. I have bought books from Goodwills in several states. They might even have been my child's books. And of you can afford it, throw in some extra paper or a spare pack of pencils for the teacher or a kid who's short. There was a kid at one of my children's schools who went around giving each of her classmates a tiny novelty eraser. Since my kid was new that year, it meant the world to him to feel so included. Despite the fact that summer can seem long and expensive, the end of each season can be a little melancholy, what with kids going to college or pre-school or high school for the first time. Just take a moment to breathe it in, if you can. This too shall pass. Also send me first day of school uniform photos. I love them. You can reach me at belinda.luscombe@time.com or @luscombeland on Twitter. P.S. If you like this newsletter, please pass it on to a friend. And if you got it from a friend, sign up here for email delivery each Friday. You know, more or less. roundup We didn't have a newsletter last week, but I didn't want you to miss out on the report that suggests that parents aren't the only ones who worry that teens  spend too much time online. According to Pew, at least half of teens worry about it too. On a recent trip with two teens of my acquaintance, we were cut off for several days without any online access. When we got it back, you could see that they had kind of enjoyed some time outside the Web bubble. (That doesn't mean they voluntarily gave up Web access when it was available.) But, please note, most teens also think parents spend to much time on their phones.  Rule one of parenting: Monkey see, monkey do. TIME It's a classic parenting dilemma. Which is more effective: punishment or reward? This piece, from the author a new parenting book, Now Say This, makes a pretty compelling argument that this is perhaps the wrong question. Parenting effectively is less about controlling a child's behavior and more about helping a child to understand how to behave and why. This is not about having no discipline, but about really creating discipline, rather than imposing it. (On that note: if you were the lady with the four year old boy on the 8-hour plane ride next to me yesterday, I salute you. That kid was a champion.) New York Times. Ugh. Measles is back. there are many reasons why, but in this country, it has to do with vaccination. Please vaccinate your children. It's not just for them, it's for all the less robust children they encounter for whom measles is incredibly serious. TIME I probably get a new parenting book every week, lucky me. Most of them have some real solid nuggets, but sometimes it feels like reading a dictionary to figure out how to write a book. Two that crossed my desk recently caught my eye however. One of them, Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear, is about how parenting has become governed by judgment and shame. The other, How to Be a Happier Parent, is about how to make parenting more fun. You could say they were the pessimist's or optimist's guides to raising kids. Here's what you need to know about them. TIME A new study has found that the relationship between daughters and fathers has an influence over how lonely young girls feel. Those with a better relationship had daughters who grew less lonely more quickly as they grew older. The study did not find the same for sons, nor did the mother-daughter relationship show a similar impact. Why? The report doesn't say, but here's the author's theory: "In our society, mothers tend to be responsible for everyday care and stability for their children. Fathers have more freedom to interact with their children in different ways, to challenge them and have a wider range of emotional contact. That may be one reason why fathers had more impact on their daughters." Science Daily It's parenting 101 that we should read books to our kids, even books without words. But are there also better ways than others to read books? These Australian academics think so, and here's their advice. The Conversation. If you're still not persuaded by the whole reading thing, I'm going to hand it over to this guy. Now This PFFT: Parenting from Famous Types Alyson Hannigan, actor and parent of two "I feel like I had kids in order to get out of obligations. My husband and I were sort of already not the people who wanted to go anywhere. We would use our dogs as an excuse, 'Oh we can't—the dogs.' And then, finally, we were lucky enough to have children and we were like, ahhhh now we have a legitimate excuse not to go anywhere."   To Unsubscribe You have received this e-mail because you are subscribed to this newsletter from TIME.com. Unsubscribe here. Update Email Click here to update your email address. Privacy Policy Please read our Privacy Policy, or copy and paste this link into your browser: http://timeinc.net/subs/privacy/td/policy.html TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. For Further Communication Please contact parents@time.com TIME Customer Service 3000 University Center Drive Tampa, FL 33612-6408 Connect with TIME Find TIME on Facebook Follow TIME on Twitter Subscribe to more TIME Newsletters Get TIME on your Mobile Device Get TIME on your iPad Subscribe to RSS Feed