Parenting

Stories related to parenting

‘My ex-wife is tracking my daughter’s mobile phone location when she is with me’

Ask the Expert: It feels like I am under surveillance about my parenting. What should I do? What are my rights about this?

Dublin school to review ethos statement over message telling parents students must attend all religious ceremonies

Lobby group Education Equality says school's instruction breached children’s constitutional rights

Iceland in a camper van, with a toddler: the first problem was getting the rental company to part with a vehicle

Travelling via camper van in the winter months in Iceland is a challenging but rewarding experience

‘I woke up one morning to 2,000 comments. I’ve had death threats’: How schools deal with social media fallout

Online hatred and toxicity can be hugely damaging, but are digital literacy classes really enough to tackle it?

‘Trust me, I’m a family Christmas expert and these are the rules to live by’

Create time for yourself to enjoy the magic of the season, and take as much of Christmas Eve off as possible

‘It’s given me the motivation to say, I’m not just a mam stuck at home with a disability who can’t do stuff’: Social enterprise Town Scientist

Sessions developed by engineer, scientist, writer and performer Dr Niamh Shaw inspire parents to start new conversations around the kitchen table

Look out ladies. Elon Musk has plans for your womb

The pronatalist movement has roots in creepy tradwife visions, but does that matter if it leads to financial supports for families?

‘There could be two cars, but the fridge is empty’: Hidden poverty in middle-class Ireland

A day spent in the Vincent de Paul southeast region office reveals the large number of requests from vulnerable seeking help with everything from food and utility bills to rent arrears and broken toilets

Is there such a thing as too much parental leave?

The economic benefits of maternity leave do appear to have a limit in terms of mothers returning to work and promotion

Séamas O’Reilly: ‘My little boy is the same age now as I was when my mother died’

Conversations with Parents podcast with Jen Hogan

What do children know or understand of life and political issues?

Quite a lot, if only they had the chance to be heard – and reducing the voting age to 16 would give them that voice

‘The hardest thing about being a parent is being unavailable to my kids because I have to work so hard to feed and clothe them’

Our recent article on the topic of regretting parenthood sparked numerous responses. Below, we share a selection of the views we received

‘I believe my nephew may have ADHD or autism, but his parents won’t discuss it’

Ask the Expert: When we do rarely meet up, nobody is allowed to discuss my brother’s son for fear the family will never return to visit us. How to approach this?

How technology created a ‘recipe for loneliness’

The rise of smartphones and social networking apps has forever changed social norms around how we communicate

The Care Dilemma by David Goodhart: A book about the vital unpaid care work that makes society tick will antagonise many readers

Despite the best of intentions and some strong ideas, Goodhart seems to underestimate the extent to which he pushes readers’ buttons

My daughter wants to study engineering at college. I’m not sure it’s right for her

A degree in this area opens a vast array of career pathways and is highly valued around the world

Youth mental health: ‘What we need to try and do is break the stigma attached to talking about it’

Limited funding, staffing pressures and increasing demand make provision of mental health services to the public a major task

Terry Prone on allowing son Anton Savage to be in her publicity as a child: ‘I think it was the wrong thing to do’

Conversations with Parents podcast with Jen Hogan

From screentime to dinner time: how parents can improve family life, diet and relationships

The Healthy Families programme helps parents to implement gradual but significant improvements to family wellbeing

‘Be an adult’ we tell our older teenagers but the Irish school system treats them like children

Our 18- and 19-year-olds, who can legally drink and vote, sit in school uniforms, call other adults ‘sir’ and ‘miss’ and must ask permission to use the toilet

Reusable cloth nappies vs disposables: would you put €500 a year in the bin?

Disposables are hardly without their ick factor, and the cost savings and environmental benefits of reusables are compelling

Ivan Yates: ‘The lack of affection from my parents’ generation was a huge mistake’

Conversations with Parents podcast with Jen Hogan

‘My daughter enjoys college, but it is getting her there consistently that is the problem’

Ask the Expert: Our daughter has autism and would not attend school for three years. Now at college, her attendance has improved greatly, but we walk on eggshells around her. How can we better support her?

How is childless Clare getting on, I wonder? Is she happier? Hungover?

Perhaps wondering about whether my childless counterpart is happier is fruitless

Victoria Smurfit: ‘Postpartum depression had me manically sobbing in the middle of Ranelagh’

Conversations with Parents podcast with Jen Hogan: In this episode Hollywood actor Victoria Smurfit talks about how her children are coping with their mother’s steamy role in Rivals

‘There are times I regret having kids. They’re adults, and it’s now that I’m regretting it, which seems strange’

Parenting Taboos: Regretting parenthood, or wishing you hadn’t had some of your children, is a deeply guarded secret for some parents

Some ideas for parents that may make the week a little less ghastly for all

Jen Hogan: Halloween and midterm are coming but don’t be afraid, because there’s plenty that you and the kids might enjoy, from a haunted trail in north Dublin to a ninja course in Galway and a book with ghost stories from every county

‘How should I talk to my teens about masturbation?’

Surely it’s vital to tell them to discover what pleases them and to get to know their bodies, or is this still taboo?

Maïa Dunphy: ‘I was terrified of becoming a single parent. Now I am one’

Conversations with Parents podcast with Jen Hogan: The writer and TV star on having a one child, needing her mum and à la carte Catholicism

‘I went to a CrossFit session on her due date’: Julie-Ann Russell on pregnancy as an elite athlete

Parenting in My Shoes: Working and training, the Republic of Ireland and Galway United player suffers from the dreaded parental guilt

Only mothers who find recognition in professional life seem to be guilty of ‘having it all’

Society considers mums suspected of working by choice to be playing a zero-sum game where career ambition comes at the cost of motherly love

‘Our 16-year-old daughter has stopped going to school regularly – should we take her phone away?’

Ask the Expert: Her school says she is always on her phone and not getting enough sleep, but she disagrees

Having a favourite child: ‘Unfortunately, it impacts on them, but they do it all to themselves’

Parenting taboos: If parents are aware they have a favourite child, there are things they can do to address the situation

Tony Cantwell on ADHD: ‘I just thought is this what parenting is, a big fog?’

Conversations with Parents podcast with Jen Hogan

Baby loss: If they had said to me, ‘you can keep him in there forever’, I would have done it

For Gill Lee, October will always be the month she lost her son Danny, in her sixth month of pregnancy

Loneliness in your 40s: ‘As a parent, your friends are often other parents ... they’re not your tribe or people you’d choose’

Jen Hogan: Social media links us in a non-physical way and is frequently fake or superficial. People who live close to us and who are available to meet up with are vital to middle-aged wellbeing

Ireland set to be one of first countries in world to allow women pause maternity leave if seriously ill, Minister says

Roderic O’Gorman introduces Bill that also entitles Oireachtas members to maternity leave and will regulate non-disclosure agreements

Are you entitled to go on maternity leave a second time straight after your first ends?

Some employers may not be ‘best pleased’ about a second maternity leave being taken so soon after the first

‘We’re lucky she has a place. It’s not what she should have’: Brendan O’Connor’s daughter unable to secure special class in mainstream school

Radio presenter says his daughter, who has Down syndrome, experienced less inclusion as she progressed through the education system

Brendan O’Connor in a new parenting podcast: ‘I was mad. I was mental’

Conversations with Parents podcast with Jen Hogan

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