Parents - July 2021

SUPER SANDWICHES T H AT PA R T Y U P LU N C H

E A SY H A I R F O R T H E H OT T E S T DAYS

L AT H E R U P W I T H T H E B E S T IN KIDS’ SKIN CARE

HERE WE

SUMMER OF FUN

B LAST t he S PR I N KLE R

DIVE into B EAC H READS Olympic gold medalist

Nathan Adrian with newborn daughter Parker

ROC K a N EW SUNSCREEN

COOL DOWN w i th

IC E POPS

JULY 2021 PARENTS.COM

©2021 CROPP Cooperative

We hold ourselves to higher standards of animal care and give our cows more time outside on pasture, which means they get more of the outside stuff cows love like sunshine, fresh air and lots of delicious organic grass. That leads to happy cows and excellent milk you can feel good about serving your family.

Find out more at

ov.coop/animalcare

WHAT’S YOUR RECIPE FOR BACKYARD FUN?

“Family firepit!”

JULIA EDELSTEIN Editor-in-Chief Executive Creative Director AGNETHE GLATVED Executive Editor MIRANDA VAN GELDER Managing Editor PATRICK MOFFITT Deputy Editor DIANE DEBROVNER Food and Lifestyle Director YOLANDA WIKIEL Beauty Director KATE SANDOVAL BOX Senior Editor, Features KATIE ARNOLD-RATLIFF Senior Editor, Books and Travel KAREN CICERO Entertainment Editor JESSICA HARTSHOR N Staff Health Editor EMILY ELVERU Staff Beauty Editor SHANNON M. BAUER Assistant Lifestyle Editor CASSIE HURWITZ Editorial Assistant REBECCA RAKOWITZ

“The hose never fails. Icy water on a hot day.”

ART & PRODUCTION

“Ginormous games, larger than my 4-year-old, like Connect 4 and Jenga.

Such a hit!”

Art Director EMILY FURLANI Associate Art Director JAMIE LEE Senior Designer MARIA FERNANDEZ-DAVILA Art Assistant AVA BRAMSON Production Director VINCENT M. SPINA PHOTO Photo Director MARY CLARE CAHILL Photo Editor JOANNA MUENZ Photo Coordinator MAGGIE BLATTEL Associate Photo Editor ERIKA THOMPSON RESEARCH & COPY Research Director BARBARA BRANDON-CROFT Copy Chief JEAN RODIE Copy Editor SHELLEY WOLSON Test Kitchen Project Manager LINDA BREWER, R.D.N. Deputy Managing Editor TARA LUSTBERG Executive Operations Coordinator, Office of Editor-in-Chief ADRIENNE FARR

“Seeing who can spot the first star at dusk—ideally after a barbecue.”

Contributing Editors ANNA HELM BAXTER, DAPHNE de MARNEFFE, Ph.D., CATHERINE HONG, JOY HOWARD, TAMEKIA REECE, ERIN ZAMMETT RUDDY, VIRGINIA SOLE-SMITH D I G I TA L Digital Content Director JULIA DENNISON Deputy Editor MELISSA BYKOFSKY Senior SEO Editor LIZ LASHWAY Features Editor ANNA HALKIDIS Social Media Editor GILLIAN NIGRO Associate Editor LIBBY RYAN SEO Writer NICOLE HARRIS Associate Producer FRANCESCA SPATOLA

HOSE: STPHILLIPS/GETTY. TELESCOPE: TREKANDSHOOT/GETTY. S’MORES: IMAGEPIXEL/GETTY.

ADVISORY B OARD PEDIATRICS Ari Brown, M.D., Antwon Chavis, M.D., David L. Hill, M.D., Yvonne Maldonado, M.D., Terri McFadden, M.D., Kimberly Montez, M.D., M.P.H., Natalie D. Muth, M.D., M.P.H., R.D.N., Cara Natterson, M.D., Irwin Redlener, M.D., Michael Rich, M.D., M.P.H., Darshak Sanghavi, M.D., Jennifer Shu, M.D. NUTRITION Jill Castle, R.D.N., Maya Feller, R.D., Sally Kuzemchak, R.D., Dalina Soto, R.D. MENTAL HEALTH AND BEHAVIOR Lisa Damour, Ph.D., Wayne Fleisig, Ph.D., Becky Kennedy, Ph.D., Eileen Kennedy-Moore, Ph.D., Harold S. Koplewicz, M.D., Laura S. Olivos, Psy.D., Silvia Pereira-Smith, M.D., Adiaha Spinks-Franklin, M.D., Timothy L. Verduin, Ph.D. ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH Aaron Bernstein, M.D., M.P.H., Philip Landrigan, M.D. DENTISTRY Lezli Levene Harvell, D.M.D., Maria Velasco, D.M.D. WOMEN’S HEALTH Tamika Auguste, M.D., Yamel Belen, R.N., C.L.C., Marjorie Greenfield, M.D., Marta Perez, M.D., Laura Riley, M.D., Alexandra Sacks, M.D.

“A charcuterie board—yes, my kids actually ask for one—frozenfruit bars, and a blanket to relax.”

EDUCATION AND LITERACY Patricia Edwards, Ph.D., Jennifer Serravallo, Colby Sharp ALLERGY Michael Pistiner, M.D., Hemant Sharma, M.D. EMERGENCY MEDICINE AND SAFETY Khama Ennis, M.D., M.P.H., Mark Anthony Griffiths, M.D., Wendy L. Hunter, M.D. SLEEP Maida Chen, M.D., Jodi Mindell, Ph.D., Judith Owens, M.D. DERMATOLOGY Anna Bruckner, M.D., Jody Alpert Levine, M.D., Kim Nichols, M.D. SOCIAL JUSTICE Traci Baxley, Ed.D., Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, Ph.D., Ibram X. Kendi, Ph.D., Julie Lythcott-Haims

MARK JOSEPHSON Senior Vice President, Group Publisher Sales Manager, Meredith Parents Network DONNA LINDSKOG ADVERTISING SALE S West Coast Director JULIE BANFIELD Advertising Sales Staff ALYSSA CRAMER COHEN, CATHERINE DAUN, ANNE GILHOOL, MOLLY THOMPSON, MARIA TOCCO TORRES, NADINE WAXENBERG Assistant BRITTON FORKER Sales Director, Direct Media TYLER HUB National Travel Manager KATY HILDMAN Senior Research Manager ALISON JAYE MARKETING Group Marketing Director KRISTEN STUCCHIO-SUAREZ Senior Marketing Manager JUDY SCHIFFMAN Marketing Manager MARNIE DOWLER Marketing Coordinator DIANA ZULUAGA Group Creative Director JEANETTE CHOW Art Director TRACY D’AGOSTINO A D M I N I S T R AT I O N Executive Business Director JANICE CROAT Business Manager MEGAN WOOD Advertising Business Manager BOB PARLAPIANO Consumer Marketing Manager RACHEL BLACK Production Director MELANIE STOLTENBERG Production Manager COURTNEY PETERSON Director of Quality JOSEPH KOHLER Quality Analyst BEN ANDERSON Prepress Desktop Specialist GREG FAIRHOLM

MEREDITH NATIONAL MEDIA GROUP President CATHERINE LEVENE President, Meredith Magazines DOUG OLSON President, Consumer Products TOM WITSCHI President, Meredith Digital ALYSIA BORSA EVP, Strategic and Business Development DAPHNE KWON

“It’s all about the s’mores.

We have a Three Bears approach to the marshmallows: Barely warm to lightly browned to perfectly charred, they’re all just right.”

Executive Vice Presidents Chief Revenue Officer MICHAEL BROWNSTEIN Digital Sales MARLA NEWMAN Finance MICHAEL RIGGS Marketing and Integrated Communications NANCY WEBER Senior Vice Presidents Consumer Revenue ANDY WILSON Corporate Sales BRIAN KIGHTLINGER Foundry 360 MATT PETERSEN Product and Technology JUSTIN LAW Research Solutions BRITTA CLEVELAND Strategic Planning AMY THIND Strategic Sourcing, Newsstand, Production CHUCK HOWELL Vice Presidents Brand Licensing TOYE CODY, SONDRA NEWKIRK Business Planning and Analysis ROB SILVERSTONE Consumer Marketing STEVE CROWE Corporate Communications JILL DAVISON Finance CHRIS SUSIL Strategic Development KELSEY ANDERSEN Strategic Partnerships ALICIA CERVINI

“My brother-inlaw has a portable merry-goround that makes bubbles. Top that!”

Vice President, Group Editorial Director LIZ VACCARIELLO Chief Digital Content Officer AMANDA DAMERON Director, Editorial Operations and Finance ALEXANDRA BREZ MEREDITH CORPORATION Chairman and Chief Executive Officer TOM HARTY Chief Financial Officer JASON FRIEROTT Chief Development Officer JOHN ZIESER President, Meredith Local Media Group PATRICK McCREERY Senior Vice President, Human Resources DINA NATHANSON Senior Vice President, Chief Communications Officer ERICA JENSEN Vice Chairman MELL MEREDITH FRAZIER

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2021: THE SUMMER OF GRILLED MAC & CHEESE

SCAN FOR GRILLING INSTRUCTIONS

*Party Size Mac & Cheese only.

Visit stouffers.com/grilling for grilling instructions.

R AI S I N G T H E F UTU R E

JULY.

I N E V E RY I S S U E 4 Editor’s Note 7 Playbook 104 Giggles

28

KIDS

15 / Guiding Them Through the Big Return Help kids make sense of their feelings as “normal” life comes back.

22 / Head-to-Toe Pampering The winners of our annual Best Skin Care for Kids awards! Top baby lotions, bath wash, and more.

28 / Water Play All Day! Keep ’em busy this summer with splashy yard games.

38 / The Easiest Summer Lunch Open-face sandwiches that deliver on speed and yum 42 / Next Up: The COVID-19 Vaccine for Kids Insights from experts 44 / The PottyTraining Shortcut How a popular fast-track plan really works 48 / The Book Nook Audiobooks for road trips and great beach reads

CONTENTS

38

50 / Health News Speech milestones, siblings and body types, a safety tip for chargers 51 / Animal House!

Stella, 10, fetches facts about her Shiba Inu, Bronson, 12.

YO U

53 / Mom Bun, But Make It Fun Four off-the-neck hairstyles that are cool in both senses 56 / Welcome to Speed Masking Hair and face treatments that take only minutes

58 / Nathan Adrian’s Victory Lap On the road to Tokyo, the Olympic swimmer beat cancer—and became a dad.

62 / Anyone Can Meditate (Yes, Even You!) Realistic ways to work more “om” into your life 66 / Dealing With Money Stress Talking finances with your partner can pay off.

LIFE

69 / Tap Into Your Child’s Creativity Activities to get kids’ imagination in gear

On the Cover Nathan Adrian and his newborn daughter, Parker. Photograph

by Mark Williams + Sara Hirakawa.

Wardrobe styling by Alvin Stillwell. Hair and makeup by Janet Mariscal. On Nathan: Swimsuit, Speedo USA. On Parker: Onesie, Gap. Illustration and design by Erin Jang.

Special thanks to AC Swim Club.

53

76 / Chicken’s Summer Spin Easy dinners for easy days 84 / Designed With Love and Pride Cute décor and toys from Black-owned brands 90 / Playing It Cool This year’s Best Frozen Treats, taste tested by families

A G E S + S TA G E S

97 / Pregnancy Soothe back pain.

97 / 0–12 Months Understand baby noises and movements.

98 / 1–2 Years Look into child care.

98 / 3–4 Years Keep kids hydrated.

100 / 5–6 Years Stop boredom in its tracks.

100 / 7–9 Years Consider music lessons.

102 / 10–12 Years Let go of some parental control.

PA R E N T S

3 J U LY

2021

EDITOR’S NOTE

We All Deserve More Ice Cream I NEVER

Joey, my 6-year-old, approves of the ice-cream-truck house call.

Other Ways to Feel the Summer Joy Beyond rainbow sprinkles ...

1

only important question: SpongeBob or Snow Cone?

After a year of navigating all sorts of difficult choices surrounding our health and sanity, deeply contemplating ice-cream bars is my idea of nirvana. The calm contentment that descends as we all plop onto the grass and dig into our treats is the proverbial cherry on top. This simple pleasure has managed to reverse even the worst of my kids’ (and my own) bad moods. Ice cream doesn’t just taste good. It tastes like the very best that childhood—and parenthood—has to offer.

At my house, this summer will mark the end of a slower pandemic way of life. By season’s end, the Parents team will be back to commuting to our New York City office to create this magazine. But for now, my family (and, I would guess, many of yours) is embarking on a summer of processing all that has happened and preparing for what’s next.

Parenting in times of transition can be challenging, particularly after a year of intense burnout and loss, and we have a brilliant story on page 15 to help you through it. But we also have a roundup of the best new ice creams, pops, and pints (page 90), which I would argue is just as important to your family.

Let it be your little reminder after a trying year that parenting is fun, and we all deserve to enjoy every last lick of this special summer.

Go All In on Water Play Turn your yard into a DIY water park with tons of getdrenched games that will keep the kids wildly entertained for hours (page 28).

2

Prep a Cool Lunch Simple combos with a twist, like salami on a bagel and a cherry-berry waffle, make open-face sandwiches low-lift and fun (page 38).

3

Be Creative All Day, Every Day Crafters, builders, and authors give real-life ideas (page 69) for helping kids fire up their imagination—and making their brain an interesting place to hang out in for life.

Visit Me on Instagram Simply hover your phone’s camera over the smart code to catch my feed.

We’re here to help. Email JuliaE@parents.com to tell me about the topics you’d like to see in future issues of Parents.

PA R E N T S

4 J U LY

2021

JULIA: MARLEY RIZZUTI. ICE-CREAM TRUCK: COURTESY OF JULIA EDELSTEIN.

thought I’d be the mom who walks into an icecream parlor and orders each of her kids a double scoop in a jumbo waffle cone—you know, the “fancy” one coated in chocolate and dipped in sprinkles. Reserved and cautious, I’ve always been the “single scoop in a small cup with a lid, please” parent. But sometime in the past year, I discovered there’s magic in taking this simple ritual over the top. I say no to a lot of things, but on a hot, warm, or even rainy day, my kids know they can count on ice cream.

I’m an equal-opportunity ice-cream buff, and like my grandma Ann (whose freezer was always densely packed with fudge pops, frozen coconut bars, and pints of Häagen-Dazs), I have options at the ready. But my new favorite thing to do is hire the ice-cream truck to come for a surprise visit. (Not as pricey as I thought, it turns out!)

Have you ever done it? There is nothing better than that moment when the kids pause mid-whatever—arguing, play-fighting—and run toward the tinkling music. As we peruse the menu board, our collective worries vanish and our brains laser in on the

BYE, BRASS. COOLER COLOR, LONGER.

UNCAP THE LOVE

™

PLAYBOOK Your guide to making the days easier and the journey sweeter

FOOD STYLING BY MONICA PIERINI. PROP STYLING BY PAM MORRIS.

LET THERE BE DELIGHT!

Call them snack-laces: These meet kids’ nosh needs like a charm.

Top of the Food Chain These wearable crafts turned snacks put a healthier spin on the classic candy necklace. Kick things off by letting the kids rummage through the pantry for a kaleidoscopic mix of “beads.” They can use anything from Cheerios and pretzels to yogurt-covered raisins and other dried fruit (strawberries, apricots, and goji berries are all good). Even fresh fruit—blueberries and grapes earn points for being least sticky—will work. Your role: Thread a yarn needle (which is large and has a blunt point) with a length of food-safe kitchen twine or unflavored dental floss that’s long enough to slide over a child’s head easily. Then have them start stringing on their goodies. When they’re done, cut off the needle, knot the string around their neck, and let them eat their “art” out!

photograph by L I N D A X I A O

PA R E N T S

7 J U LY

2021

P L AY B O O K

THE SHORT LIST This month’s lineup of what’s new, novel, and nice to know

NURTURE

GARDEN

CLEAN

Jada Pinkett Smith’s new eco-friendly brand, Hey Humans, puts plastic in its place—as in, out of landfills and oceans. The collection includes natural deodorant, bodywash, toothpaste, and lotion geared to all genders and packaged primarily in aluminum and paper. Unique scents like apple matcha and banana aloe are a fun departure from the typical options. Starting at $4; target.com

Want a greener yard—in every sense?

Unlike synthetic chemical pesticides, Arber’s new line is made from microbes (e.g., bacteria) and plant extracts. The natural biopesticides help stop pests from feeding and reproducing and prevent disease, and the plant food boosts growth—all while keeping the good things in your garden (kids, pets, birds, bees, soil) safe. Starting at $22 for a 16-oz. bottle of concentrate; growarber.com

CONCEIVE

When you’re trying to get pregnant, you want to test often. Now there’s an eco-friendly way: Lia, the first flushable and biodegradable FDA-cleared pregnancy test, mailed in discreet packaging. Pee on one end, wait five minutes, then tear off the middle tab for your result. Rip it in two to flush away. $14 for a two-pack; meetlia.com

RECYCLE THOSE BEAUTY EMPTIES Finish a lip balm, toss the empty jar into the recycling bin—all good, right? That practice is actually known as “wish-cycling,” or throwing in nonrecyclable items and hoping for the best, which can, in fact, gunk up the recycling chain.

Happily, there are ways to send beauty containers to their next life stage.

TerraCycle, a company that specializes in recycling, shares how.

1. S E T U P A B I N . For starters, keep a small trash bin in your bathroom just for beauty recycling.

Rinse out any containers, dry them, and return the caps as they go in.

2. R E CYC L E W H AT YO U CA N .

If your area has curbside plastic pickup, you can most likely recycle plastics labeled #1 or #2 (look on the bottom of the item).

3. S H I P O R D R O P O F F T H E R E S T. Go to terracycle.com and enter a brand in the search.

Many companies offer prepaid mailing labels for sending empties to TerraCycle. Alternatively, drop any brand off at a Nordstrom store.

Nordstrom’s Beautycycle program, a partnership with TerraCycle, accepts the empties nationwide.

—Shannon M. Bauer

PA R E N T S

8 J U LY

2021

“THE SHORT LIST”: COURTESY OF THE BRANDS. “RECYCLE THOSE BEAUTY EMPTIES”: SUPERSIZER/GETTY.

You don’t need a Netflix nature special to observe wildlife. Just set up the Butterfly Biome in your yard. The mini wooden A-frame is designed to attract fluttery visitors. Leave the “porch” door open in warmer months so butterflies can gorge on nectar and fruit in the removable cups. When the weather gets chilly, close it up so butterflies can snooze and hibernate inside (they’ll still be able to get out!). Place the house on a sturdy, sunny surface to watch the magic unfold. $35; uncommongoods.com

P L AY B O O K

/ A S K A PA R E N T /

“I announced our baby’s name before she was born and got flak from friends and family who didn’t love it.

How do I handle their side-eye gracefully?”

Get kids going on a slight downhill slope, or give them a gentle push on their lower back.

TEACH YOUR CHILD TO ...

RIDE A BIKE RECOMMENDED AGE: 4+

1

Ditch the training wheels.

When your kid is starting out, opt for a “balance bike,” or DIY one by removing the pedals from their bike and lowering the seat. When they’re sitting, both their feet should rest flat on the ground with a little bend in the knees, says Susan McLucas, founder of the Bicycle Riding School, in Somerville, Massachusetts. Direct them to use their feet to push along and

turn the handlebars whichever way they’re leaning to get a feel for steering on a two-wheeler. (Trikes teach kids to pedal but not to balance or shift their body weight to make turns.)

2

Give them elbow pads, knee pads, and bike gloves so it’s no big deal if they fall.

BikeRadar’s Teach Your Kid How to Ride a Bike, on YouTube, has good tips for helping kids gain confidence on two wheels.

make it an easier sell, McLucas says. Now comes the time for the first official ride: Find a big, open space (like a paved playground or a parking lot) to practice putting their new moves to the test.

3

Get rolling.

To gauge if your child is ready for pedals, see if they can go 50 feet or so without putting their feet down five separate times.

Run alongside them, but don’t touch the seat or the handlebars.

Don’t forget a helmet.

Get your child into the habit of strapping on a helmet before hopping onto their ride. Kids can find them uncomfortable at first, but a fun one may

Niño/Niña Canvas Bike Helmet, $50; bernhelmets.com

/ LET IT GO /

I’m writing a song about parenting—what rhymes with “No, I don’t want to look at your big toenail at 5 a.m.”? @threetimedaddy PA R E N T S

10 J U L Y

2021

“Congrats on passing the first test: not changing your mind.

I didn’t share my child’s name until everyone had signed a legally binding contract stating they wouldn’t have an opinion—or almost.

Choosing a name is one of those practices that’s off-limits to other people, like deciding how many layers your kid needs to wear outside. I’m impressed you want to gracefully handle a reaction that’s so judgmental—people willing to criticize a new parent on a choice so personal deserve to be read by RuPaul. I am a comedian, and the best way to handle hecklers is to have security remove them. But if you don’t have a bodyguard, you’ll have to be honest: ‘You shouldn’t judge me—in 2012, someone named their daughter Hashtag!’ In short, the only person whose opinion on the name matters is yours—until your kid is old enough to change it themselves.”

—Abbi Crutchfield, host of Up Early Tonight, on Hulu, and mom of one @curlycomedy —Caylin Harris

“TEACH YOUR CHILD TO ...,” FROM TOP: PRISCILLA GRAGG; COURTESY OF THE BRAND. “ASK A PARENT”: COURTESY OF THE SUBJECT.

One mom’s take (no wrong answers)

©Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2021

SEKTION/SINARP/HASSLARP Kitchen

$

2259

Based on a 10' × 10' kitchen price

For details, visit IKEA-USA.com/warranty

Pinch salt, not yourself.

No, it’s not a dream. It’s a beautiful, sustainable and affordable quality kitchen.

We even have a team of professionals to help you every step of the way, from measurement to planning to installation – even financing options. Oh, and did we mention it has a 25-year warranty? On second thought, maybe you do need that pinch.

Learn more at IKEA-USA.com/Kitchens What’s included in the price? The kitchen price includes cabinets, fronts, hinges, cover panels, deco strips/ moldings, legs and toekicks. All kitchens also include soft-closing hinges. Your choice of appliances, lighting, knobs/handles, sinks, faucets, countertops and interior accessories are sold separately.

P L AY B O O K

/ HIGHS AND LOWS /

Sonequa Martin-Green The actor known for leading Star Trek: Discovery beams into lighter sci-fi this summer, starring alongside LeBron James in Space Jam: A New Legacy, in theaters and on HBO Max on July 16. Martin-Green, who was 11 years old when the original Michael Jordan film came out 25 years ago, is now a mom of a 6-year-old son and an 11-month-old daughter.

Recent parenting miss I exclusively breastfeed my daughter, Saraiyah, who turns 1 in July. Well, I recently went too many days without drinking enough water, and my production took a big hit.

It can be rectified, but it’s a very involved, multistep process. Sigh. Where’s my gallon jug and my tinctures?

My parenting superpower My imagination. I go pretty hard on creating worlds, characters, and adventures and finding new and exciting things to do and engage in while we play together.

My parenting kryptonite My phone! I wanna cut the time it’s in hand around my children by half. More than half!

I feel like a cool mom when My son is glued to my side and we’re laid out belly laughing. And if I make my daughter laugh, it’s such a win.

I feel like an uncool mom when My son sees me struggle with electronics, which unfortunately is often.

Meal my son loves Rice and broccoli; it’s his jam. Gloriously dependable.

Meal my son rejected I made a chickpea salad one time that my son tried

PA R E N T S

12 J U LY

2021

and said, “Um ... I don’t really like this very much.”

Best time of day At dinnertime, my son and I have our best conversations.

With my daughter, bathtime and all the moments afterward before bed are such sweet bonding time.

Worst time of day Leaving for work. I’m so blessed to be able to do what I love and show my children an example of following your dreams, but leaving them is still hard, every time.

Best traits my kids got from me Kenric got my enthusiasm. I’m excited to see what Saraiyah’s gotten from me as she gets older. For now, I’ll say her eyes. They’re blue, which is incredibly unique for a Black person, and I believe I passed them down to her from my maternal grandfather.

Unfortunate traits my kids got from me My son doesn’t always know when a joke is done.

Definitely got that from me! My daughter shows signs of being impatient

I go pretty hard on creating worlds, characters, and adventures and finding new and exciting things to do and engage in while we play together.

with objects when they don’t operate the way she wants them to, and I think, “Daughter, I’m so sorry.”

At least I have this down How I communicate my children’s value and build their self-esteem I am still figuring this out Uh, everything else?

In Space Jam: A New Legacy, her fictional family calls on Bugs Bunny to beat bad guys.

FROM LEFT: GEORGE PIMENTEL/CONTRIBUTOR/GETTY; COURTESY OF WARNER BROTHERS.

Recent parenting win When my son, Kenric, was younger, he used to ask all the time if he could marry me.

I met him with love for feeling that way but also gently explained why it’s not possible. I thought those days were over, but he recently said over dinner, “I think when I grow up, I’ll marry you, Mommy.” He’s 6, and I’m a puddle on the floor.

SMOOTH , DELICIOUS & Perfectly Yours

STA R B U C KS ® S I G N AT U R E CO L D B R E W, N OW E A S I LY M A D E AT H OM E .

FIND IT IN THE COFFEE AISLE. Avai l a b l e in Si g n a tu re B l a c k , Ca ram e l Do l ce F l a vo re d & Ma d a gas ca r Va ni l l a F l avo re d Co l d B re w.

STAR BUC KS and the Starbuc ks logo are used unde r lice ns e by Nest lé.

60 MILES WHERE YOU BELONG

Plan your trip to The Beach at VisitMyrtleBeach.com

KIDS.

H E L P T H E M T H R I V E I N E V E R Y WA Y THE KEY TO A SMOOTH TRANSITION BACK TO NORMAL LIFE: LOTS OF C O M M U N I C AT I O N

With a little grace and understanding, most kids will readjust with no problem.

Guiding Them Through the Big Return Your kids have been through a once-in-alifetime global event.

Wise words from a few esteemed Parents advisors will help you help them emerge stronger than ever.

by M E G A N B R A D E N - P E R RY

photographs by PRISCILL A G R AG G

PA R E N T S

15 J U L Y

2021

K I D S Ñ M e nt a l H e a lt h

Many kids are anxious about life returning to normal—but preparation makes all the difference.

OV E R T H E

summer of 2020, when my son was about to turn 6, he easily became weepy and frustrated, which I mistook initially for a phase, some emotional milestone. Before his birthday, I told him I didn’t think I could afford an entire SpongeBob-themed party. He sobbed and said I had “betrayed” him. One night I went to change the TV channel and he began to cry, saying he thought I might make him watch the news. It wasn’t until he started in-person school at the end of September and went back to being the joyful, playful, fun-loving kid I knew that it clicked: The pandemic had stirred him up in ways I hadn’t understood at the time.

When school went back to virtual after a winter-holiday spike and he reverted to those volatile summer of 2020 emotions, my suspicions were confirmed.

Multiple parents I’ve spoken with have witnessed a similar shift in their kids, often mistaking it, as I did, for a sign of a new developmental phase. “My daughter had just turned 4 at the beginning of the pandemic, and during the 11 weeks I kept her home, she lived as a cheetah 90 percent of the time,” says Susan Parker, a mom of two in Houston. “I mean that literally. She would not break character,

PA R E N T S

16 J U L Y

2021

even for meals. She wanted me to put her food, which was always ‘gazelle,’ on the ground so she could eat like a cheetah.

And I was so over everything by then that I was like, ‘Whatever, eat your gazelle, cheetah.’ ” Her daughter resumed life as a human kid after going back to day care in June of 2020, Parker says.

But returning to normal life isn’t always a cure-all. Allison Wicks, of Metairie, Louisiana, says, “My 4-yearold son has been extremely clingy and sensitive since last March. I thought going back to school would help, but all it did was make him extreme about hand-washing and cleanliness. He is terrified of germs and of becoming ill.”

Wicks adds, “Poor dude was washing his hands so much that I had to tell him he could only do it under adult supervision, and I had to buy him his own special lotion because the skin on his wrists was beginning to peel.”

Several studies that tracked the impact of the pandemic on kids’ and teens’ mental health last June showed significant changes in behavior and mood in kids around the world, with parents reporting that their children were suffering from anxiety, angry

outbursts, and emotional withdrawal.

Teens in particular have been feeling the sting of isolation. “It’s almost like they’d been held back a year,” says Parents advisor Becky Kennedy, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in New York City. “So much of adolescence is exploring who you are away from your parents and figuring out your identity, exploring your independence through some separation. Teens haven’t been able to do that.” According to the March 2021 C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, 46 percent of parents surveyed noted signs of deteriorating mental health in their teens during this year.

Since the pandemic began, adults have been figuring things out in real time, while kids of all ages have simply been trusting their grown-ups. Now that things are normalizing, kids need us to guide them more than ever. Luckily, pediatricians and child psychologists agree that kids can weather the transition if we set them up for success by planning beforehand, teaching coping strategies, remaining calm, and taking care of ourselves too.

Get Back in the Swing of Things It may sound obvious, but to ease your child’s feelings of isolation, confusion, and loss, you’ll need to get back to some semblance of normal life. According to parents’ reports, children receiving distance learning or hybrid schooling experienced dips in their mental or emotional health more frequently than those who were in school full-time, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); these kids were also far less likely to see friends or spend time outside. What’s more, the CDC found that the parents of kids in distance-

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K I D S Ñ M e nt a l H e a lt h

or hybrid-learning models were also more likely to report emotional challenges, and when a parent is chronically stressed, kids take notice.

In some cases, returning to the community will get kids back into programs and services that vastly improve their lives, since many families rely on in-school counseling, intervention, and community activities that ceased to be available during the pandemic, and they have struggled without them.

This is particularly true for children with special needs. But any child who has been isolated from both peers and new experiences has taken an emotional hit, Dr. Kennedy explains. “Part of the developmental task of childhood is exploring and learning, and we’ve had to tell kids it’s not safe to explore, to separate, to go out and feel free in the world. They’ve had to become inhibited and constrained.”

Now we’re asking them to unlearn everything they’ve been told for more than a year. “We have to respect that we’ve been sending a very different message to kids about how to stay safe, one that is almost antithetical to what we typically tell kids, which is that being out in the world is a good thing,” says Dr. Kennedy. “We have to help them understand this big change, and we’ll have to tolerate some struggle, and help them learn to tolerate some struggle that might come along the way.”

Part of moving forward is looking back with your child and acknowledging explicitly what a strange time it’s been.

“You might say, ‘I know it’s been weird and scary to be home for so long and to go to school in a different way than before,’ ” says Parents advisor Eileen KennedyMoore, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in Princeton, New Jersey, and the author of Kid Confidence. “ ‘And I know I’ve been telling you all kinds of things we have to do to stay safe during this time. But now things are getting a lot better, and we can start to go back into the world without worrying so much.’ ” Dr. KennedyMoore stresses that this explicit naming of the situation is key: “It’s really helpful for kids to hear you say that this has been weird and scary, but also that things are getting better.” Some kids may also need to hear that this situation is very unlikely to recur. Many may now have

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the expectation that life will always be this unpredictable and that their schedules might never be consistent.

Teach Them to Cope One way to help kids manage their feelings during this transition is to arm them with strategies to deal with discomfort. Some kids will be excited and eager to see other kids and experience the world again the way it was prepandemic. Others might feel separation anxiety, overstimulation, or residual fear of contracting COVID-19. You know what’s best for your kids and should be relaxed and understanding about helping them. “For kids who have tendencies toward separation anxiety, it’s going to be hard not to have Mommy and Daddy right there. For kids with social anxiety, it’s going to be rough being around everybody and experiencing the stimulation of it all,” says Dr. Kennedy-Moore. “Some kids have done better with online learning because they’ve been able to work at a slower pace, or they feel more comfortable at home, so it’s going to be an adjustment getting used to in-person instruction and the distractions of the classroom.”

Teaching your child a mantra can help them deal with their biggest concerns.

For a child who may feel separation anxiety upon returning to school, Dr. Kennedy suggests something in the vein of, “Mommy/Daddy/my grown-up always comes back.” For a child who may feel stressed by having less freedom or having to work with other kids again, you might suggest repeating, “It’s okay to be upset, and this will get easier.” A mantra isn’t a magical incantation, but it is “something familiar, and something that a child can rely on to soothe themself because it’s in their control,” says Dr. Kennedy.

Plan Ahead In preparing your kids for post-pandemic life, Dr. Kennedy says there’s value in walking through the steps of an event to help them wrap their head around each part of it. Wonder aloud about what it may be like to do things such as going to school, meeting friends, and visiting the doctor now: “Sometimes at camp or school, we might feel nervous about where to sit at lunch. What could

My little one doesn’t remember life before the pandemic. How will they adapt?

Experts agree that of all kids affected by the pandemic, the youngest will be able to start fresh most easily, as long as you lead by example. “Babies and toddlers take their cues from parents. If you’re relaxed about it, they will be too,” says Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore. “Most of life is an adventure to them, to go and see someplace new.” Ari Brown, M.D., a Parents advisor and author of Baby 411 and Toddler 411, agrees. “Kids under age 3 seem to have navigated this time very well because everyone has been home with them, and that’s a win for them,” she says.

“Many kids don’t start preschool until age 3 or 4, so they’re used to seeing only their family. I have no worries they will jump right in and make friends when they’re able to.”

You can also rest easy about potential developmental delays related to the long period of isolation, says Dr. Brown.

“Kids under age 3 just need a caregiver who provides stimulation—they don’t need to play with other kids to foster development. Although 4-year-olds do need to spend time with other kids for their social and emotional development, keep in mind that they’ll all be starting in the same place when they return to the world and can catch up together.”

and have an image in their mind of how things will be. (As anyone who’s ever suffered from anxiety can tell you, uncertainty is a breeding ground for out-of-control worries. Eliminate that uncertainty and things tend to feel a lot more manageable.)

Another thing to practice is saying goodbye to each other—something you may not have had to do for quite a while.

“Come up with a separation routine in advance, and practice it at least a couple of days before,” Dr. Kennedy says. “It should be short—perhaps a kiss, a high five, and a reminder of when you’re coming back.”

You can also try role-playing, as both a way to prepare and a way to casually check in. “Especially for the little ones, it might be fun to play school and get the stuffed animals out to serve as students,” Dr. Kennedy-Moore says. “Play is a way for kids to explore ideas and figure out the world, and it’s a scenario in which they get to be in control.” She suggests responding to kids’ concerns with questions to help them combat the idea that they’re helpless in the face of their worries. “If your kid says, ‘I’m scared I won’t be able to find the bathroom,’ ask, ‘Who would you ask for help?’ You can act it out together. If they say, ‘I’m worried nobody will play with me,’ you might ask, ‘Where could you go to play near other kids?’ ”

Model Calm “Children look to us to see how to respond to things,” says Dr. Kennedy-

we do when we feel like that?” or “When we visit the doctor, they might ask to look in your mouth, so you’ll have to take off your mask. Do you want to talk about how that makes you feel?” Pose the scenarios casually and let your child lead the conversation with their answers. The goal here isn’t to solve these problems or reassure your child that all will be well; it’s to help them start to visualize what life will be like.

Making and practicing routines in the days leading up to new transitions can help too. For example, you might do a dry run of summer camp drop-off and pickup so your kids know what to expect

KNOW WHEN TO SEEK HELP Behaviors to watch out for include complaints of headaches and stomachaches, loss of interest in what your child previously enjoyed, changes in mood or sleep, feelings of emptiness or hopelessness, and self-harm or thoughts of suicide.

Consult with your pediatrician if you observe this, says Parents advisor Dr. Silvia Pereira-Smith.

However your child navigates this transition, there is comfort in knowing how strong kids can be. Young people, as we’ve been told countless times over the past year, are incredibly resilient, and with the right support—and a parent willing to listen and respond with compassionate care—most will recover from this strange time just fine.

K I D S Ñ M e nt a l H e a lt h

Moore. “It’s called social referencing.

For instance, when a kid sees a dog for the first time, they look at the dog, then they look up at their grown-up to see, ‘Should I be scared here?’ If the adult is calm and matter-of-fact about the dog, it makes it easier for the child to approach it without anxiety.” So as you and your child reenter the world more regularly, make sure to show them with your body language, facial expressions, tone, and demeanor that what you’re doing is normal and safe and that there’s no need to worry.

Says Parents advisor Silvia PereiraSmith, M.D., a developmentalbehavioral pediatrician in Charleston, South Carolina, “Even very young children can pick up the vibes of their caregivers, and they notice things like stress, anxiety, and depression.”

The calmer and more casual you can be, the better off your child will be.

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Keep in mind that for some kids, returning to normal life might be no big deal. “Don’t assume that your kid is going to be worried about it,” says Dr. Kennedy-Moore. “Your kid could be just excited or happy, or may not think twice about it either way, and we definitely don’t want to burden them with our worries about their worries.”

Parents transferring their anxiety onto their kids is another reason why it’s always best to ask open-ended questions of your child and let them guide the conversation. “If they have concerns, you should of course help them work through them,” says

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Dr. Kennedy-Moore. “But you want to make sure you’re not introducing concerns they never had. Instead, we want to communicate our confidence that our kids can handle this and that they’ll be able to manage whatever feelings come up. If you’re the person who’s fighting back tears and saying, ‘Oh, my darling, I’ll be missing you so much all day long,’ at drop-off, you are burdening your child with your anxiety. Instead, blow them a kiss, tell them you can’t wait to hear about everything this afternoon, and leave.”

As parents, taking care of yourself is one of the hardest tasks, despite pop-culture adages about strapping on our oxygen mask first. When kids are unusually needy or are struggling more than usual, it’s even easier to forget to care for ourselves. But given that our kids are looking to us to see how to feel about the next phase of life, “it has never been more important than now to prioritize your own mental health,” Dr. Pereira-Smith says.

“There are plenty of things we can all do to take care of ourselves,” says Dr. Kennedy-Moore. “Start by making sure to get enough sleep, because everything feels more overwhelming when you’re exhausted. Make physical activity part of your day. Have social contact with people you care about.

And let yourself have something pleasant every single day, even if it’s small—use the nice shampoo, do something creative, get out in nature.

Think about what refuels you, and make sure it happens.”

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KIDS— Sk i n C a r e

Head-to-Toe Pampering

BEST SKIN CARE FOR KIDS 2021

Little ones need and deserve the most gentle, effective products.

We tried nearly 300 formulas for skin and hair with 55 families, including our very own kids. These won our trust and praise!

by J E S S I C A H A R T S H O R N and R E B E C C A R A KO W I T Z

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Everyday Creams 1 / BEST CREAM Packed with greens—aloe, avocado, and cucumber—Tubby Todd Bath Co Dream Cream lives up to its name with a rich, nongreasy feel that absorbs easily. Said a mom of kids ages 4 and 7, “I noticed smoother skin almost immediately.” $16 for 4 oz.; tubbytodd.com

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2 / B E S T M U LT I U S E B A L M Dubbed a “holy grail product” by an expectant mom who used it on both her bump and her toddler, the plant-based Baby Bum Natural Monoi Coconut Balm smells like tropical coconut and works wonders as a belly cream, a hand balm, and, of course, a skin softener for kids. $10 for 8 oz.; target.com 3 / B E S T D A I LY L O T I O N One parent rated Bella B Silk & Honey Daily Moisturizing Lotion a “15 out of 10” because it kept

their kid’s skin soft straight through the night and well into the next day. The lightly scented formula with aloe vera, avocado, and shea is a fave among pregnant women too. $8 for 4 oz.; bellabnaturals.com 4 / BEST ECZEMA FIGHTER Fragrance-free The thick, smooth Eucerin Baby Eczema Relief Cream calms itchy, irritated skin while also protecting against future eczema flare-ups.

Testers said the oatmeal-powered moisturizer was an effective addition to their post-bath eczema routine. $9 for 5 oz.; walmart.com

5 / BEST BABY LOTION It’s a nostalgic throwback with the pink bottle and the signature powder scent, but Baby Magic Gentle Baby Lotion is also fortified with powerful ingredients such as aloe and vitamins A and E to nourish your baby’s skin. $3 for 16.5 oz.; walmart.com

Bath and Hair

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1 / BEST 2-IN-1 FOR BABIES Johnson’s CottonTouch Newborn Wash & Shampoo is a “no more tears” formula that got an all-caps “LOVE” from testers who said it lathers fast and leaves a classic clean-baby fragrance.

Very finely milled cotton powder makes it exceptionally soft on your baby’s skin. $5 for 13.6 oz.; walmart.com 2/ BEST 3-IN-1 FOR KIDS Simplify baths and shower time with Suave Kids 3 in 1 Shampoo, Conditioner, Body Wash With 100% Natural Lavender, which works literally all over your kid. A pump dispenser helps prevent them from running through it too fast, and that scent may help them wind down for bed. $5 for 20 oz.; target.com

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3 / BEST SKIN TOOL FOR BABIES

The multipurpose silicone nubs on the Fridababy DermaFrida The SkinSoother are great for massaging in shampoo or lotion, or for softly dusting off dry, flaky skin. $11; frida.com 4 / B E ST WAS H FO R ECZE MA Fragrance-free Formulated to protect extremely dry and irritated skin, the silky-smooth Mustela Stelatopia Cleansing Gel relieves the itchiness, too, tester families with eczema-prone kids verified. $13 for 6.76 oz.; mustelausa.com

ALL PRODUCTS: PETER ARDITO. BABY: JAMIE GRILL ATLAS/STOCKSY.

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5 / B E S T B U B B L E B AT H Little bathers score a multitude of scented bubbles from Alaffia Kids Bubble Bath – Lemon Lavender. Parents noted that it seemed gentler on skin than most bubbly washes, maybe because it’s packed with shea butter. The Alaffia brand funds sustainability,

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education, and gender-equality initiatives in Togo, in West Africa. $15 for 32 oz.; alaffia.com

6 / B E S T D E TA N G L I N G S P R AY Testers who were asked to give Tots by Babyganics Detangling Spray a whirl quickly got hooked.

“It made a brush glide through my toddler’s hair, brought out her curls, and gave them more bounce,” said a mom of a 2-year-old. Use it on wet or dry hair. No need to rinse the formula, which has organic chamomile. $8 for 6 oz.; target.com 7 / BEST CRADLE CAP

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SHAMPOO

After finding that Dr. Eddie’s Happy Cappy Medicated Shampoo & Body Wash works “super-well, very quickly,” one tester couldn’t wait to share it with a friend who was also battling baby flakes.

The formula softens and removes even stubborn, long-lasting cradle cap with antibacterial, antifungal pyrithione zinc.

Testers also had success using it to calm eczema and dry-skin flare-ups. $12 for 8 oz.; buybuybaby.com Fragrance-free

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8 / BEST BLACK HAIR CARE We have to give it up for three products: Natural Bunch Hair Care for Kids Squeaky Clean Moroccan Shampoo and Natural Bunch Hair Care for Kids Knots Out Moroccan Conditioner (not shown) were beloved by testers of kids with kinky or curly hair, who said the products added the right amount of moisture.

Also: “The brand’s Tip-to-Top Green Detangling Brush was the first one that didn’t make my 4-year-old cry,” said one mom. $12 each for 8.5 oz., $7 for the brush; naturalbunchkids.com

HOW WE FOUND OUR WINNERS 4

We evaluated close to 300 parent recommendations, brand best-sellers, and new releases, sending each contender to multiple families for testing. Our 30 winners are all dye-, paraben-, and oxybenzone-free, and all were approved by Parents advisor and dermatologist Jody Alpert Levine, M.D. Dr. Levine notes that kids with very sensitive skin shouldn’t use scented products, so we’ve added Fragrance-free to anything that’s unscented.

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KIDSÑ Sk i n C a r e

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DIAPER-AREA TREATMENTS

BEST DIAPER CREAMS: IT’S A TIE!

Testers felt good about the plant-based oils—argan, lavender, and avocado—in Made Of Organic Diaper Rash Cream. Those soothe and protect, and the 14 percent zinc oxide treats rashes. $14 for 3.4 oz.; amazon.com

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Parents said Badger Zinc Oxide Diaper Cream protected baby skin without leaving a chalky residue on a caregiver’s hands.

The 10 percent zinc oxide powers healing, while organic calendula, beeswax, and sunflower oil plus vitamin E help prevent future breakouts. $14 for 2.9 oz.; amazon.com

Skin Repair and Problem Solvers ITCHY AREAS

The pushpop-like EmBeba Don’t Be Rash Diaper Balm + Skin Protectant is easy for spot applications —the red marks inside a baby’s thigh wrinkles or the dry eczema patches on kids of any age. There’s a place on the package to write your kid’s name, a plus if this goes to day care or preschool, and the blend of botanical extracts and oil infusion is antimicrobial. $15 for 1.69 oz.; embeba.com Fragrance-free

2 / B E S T B A BY FA C E B A L M Some testers didn’t even know there were products to heal a baby’s chapped chin, cheeks, and nose (all results of drool and drips), so they were thrilled to find Earth Mama Organic Baby Face Nose & Cheek Balm.

The ultrarich organic calendulacoconut balm effectively

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treats and also protects against all that dries skin out. $10 for 2 oz.; earthmamaorganics.com 3 / BEST MOISTURE STICK Fragrance-free The Pipette Balm Stick is a convenient, mess-free, anywhere moisturizer that’s easy to apply to a kid who will stand still for only five seconds.

After a long day of constant hand-washing, testers loved this little balm for treating raw hands, but it’s great for lips and cheeks too. $9 for 0.5 oz.; amazon.com 4 / BEST LIP CARE It’s called Evereden Baby Lip Balm, but it’s “soooo good” for anyone, said one mom, who “borrows” from her toddler.

Ingredients such as sunflower, grapeseed, and jojoba oils are safe and nourishing. $9 for 0.13 oz.; ever-eden.com

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B E S T D I A P E R S P R AY Fragrance-free

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“Out-of-this-world amazing” was how a mom of a 1-year-old described Boogie Bottoms No-Rub Diaper Rash Spray, which, unlike traditional creams, you don’t have to apply with your hands. Spritz it right onto a tiny bum! It contains 25 percent zinc oxide to heal rashes. $9 for 1.7 oz; walmart.com

BABY: ULLA NYEMAN.

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KIDSÑ Sk i n C a r e

SHOW HANDS SOME LOVE

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BEST HAND SOAP Fragrance-free

Kids who love foam and parents weary of dry skin from what feels like a million trips to the sink will appreciate Baby Dove Care & Protect Hypoallergenic Foaming Hand Wash. It’s hypoallergenic and safe from birth. $5 for 13.5 oz.; meijer.com

5 BEST SCENTED H A N D - S A N I T I Z E R S P R AY

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Out the Door 1 / BEST SUNSCREEN S P R AY

A spray is key for easy reapplication when you’re already at the picnic, pool, or beach. Banana Boat Kids Mineral Enriched SPF 50+ goes on fast and, testers said, dries fast as your kid runs off. It uses zinc oxide for coverage and is waterresistant for 80 minutes. $8 for 6 oz.; walmart.com 2 / BEST BIG WIPES In the “Where were these for my firstborn?” category, we present WaterWipes XL Bathing Wipes. With these giant 12x8-in. cloths soaked in 99.9 percent water and a touch of fruit extract, you can wipe down your whole baby after a diaper blowout or get the sandbox mess off

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your preschooler’s arms—and we’re sure that, like our testers, you’ll find a hundred other uses. $4.50 for 16; amazon.com

3 / B E S T B U G S P R AY DEET-free Green Goo Bugs Be Gone uses lemongrass, peppermint, and lavender essential oils to repel insects.

After testing, one parent told us they’ll keep a bottle in the house, the car, and the diaper bag all summer. $15 for 4.5 oz.; greengoo.com 4 / BEST BABY WIPES Fragrance-free High-quality yet bargain-priced is just the thing. Hello Bello PlantBased Baby Wipes are made with 99 percent water and a touch of organic aloe and chamomile extract. Nice! $6 for 180; walmart.com

5 / BEST SUNSCREEN LOTION Fragrance-free The premium CeraVe Baby Hydrating Sunscreen SPF 45 “did not disappoint,” said one mom, noting that the nourishing sunscreen lotion didn’t leave a ghostly white tint, despite having the sun-blocking minerals titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. It’s water-resistant for 80 minutes. $18 for 3.5 oz.; amazon.com

Earth Mama Organics Lavender Hand Sanitizer wins over families burned out on harsh smells. It’s got the 80 percent alcohol antiseptic needed to work, but testers said the scent is calming. $5 for 1.67 oz.; earthmamaorganics.com

BEST UNSCENTED H A N D - S A N I T I Z E R S P R AY Fragrance-free

Best for Teens Simply hover your phone’s camera over the smart code to find the top products for older kids, or go to parents.com/teenskin.

If you want 80 percent alcohol antiseptic but need scent-free, try Murphy’s Naturals Hand Sanitizer, which doesn’t feel sticky. The company is veteran-owned and family-run. $10 for a set of one 4 oz. and two 2 oz.; murphysnaturals.com

Usar como se indica. ©JJCI 2021

TESTED BY PEDIATRICIANS DERMATOLOGISTS OPHTHALMOLOGISTS AND LOVED BY FUTURE WORKOUT QUEENS.

SCAN TO SHOP

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WATER PLAY ALL DAY! This summer, it’s going to be easier than you think to blow your kids’ minds. The secret is good old-fashioned H20 (whether you’ve got a pool or not).

Take your pick of these parent-approved backyard games—and prepare for buckets of fun.

by E R I N Z A M M E T T R U D DY / photographs by P R I S C I L L A G R A G G

GRAB THE HOSE Fill ’er up. Place two pails—one full of water, one empty—about 15 feet apart, says Lauren Love, a mother of two in Knoxville, Tennessee, who previously ran a sports camp. Have kids race back and forth trying to transport water from one container to the other using only plastic bowls, sponges, or recycled grocery bags. “The idea here is to get wet,” Love says.

Treat them to a “car wash.” “My boys have me make different trajectories with the hose—a rainbow, a flat line, a

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shower—and they race through on scooters in our driveway,” says Meredith Shanley, a mom of two in Rockport, Massachusetts. “They squeal at the cold water, but it’s great for cooling off.

It counts as a shower in my house!”

(You could also have them, you know, actually wash the car.)

Do better than water balloons.

Broken rubber is a choking hazard and makes a mess. Instead, try DIY “sponge bombs.” Cut colorful sponges into nine strips, then cinch them in the middle with elastics to form a starburst. Soak, and let ’em rip. Use them for relay races, hot potato, or anything you’d do with a ball.

Spritz away. Add water to clean spray bottles so kids can draw pictures on the patio or “water” flowers drawn with sidewalk chalk. “Sometimes the easiest way to entertain a toddler is to use the everyday items they want to play with anyway,” says Mandisa Watts, a mom of three and founder of Happy Toddler Playtime.

Chart an obstacle course.

All you need is a timer and a lineup of events. Come up with your own circuit, or try this one: Hop through hoops, race through a sprinkler, do a spongebomb relay, then skid down a Slip ‘N Slide to the finish line.

K I D S ÑF u n

MAKE IT R AIN

Crank the tunes. Freeze dancing under a sprinkler offers a good soaking if you stop the music at the right time.

“Summer in Arizona is hot, so our outdoor activities are brief and involve water,” says Raquel Beniquez Foreman, who often joins in with her four kids.

Let the dogs out. And the cats and rabbits too. Call out the name of an animal and tell kids they have to act it out while running (or hopping, slithering, or galloping) through the sprinkler.

Build a mini sprinkler. Toddlers may be afraid of big sprinklers, but this version delights with gentle spouts. Just slice a 2-inch chunk off a pool noodle, then cut that into six strips. Stuff three or four of them into one open end of the noodle; secure with duct tape so water can’t escape. Poke a series of holes, spaced every 3 inches, in the noodle.

Stick the hose in the open end, and pack the remaining pieces around the hose to prevent water from trickling out. Turn that bad boy on for a row of mini spurts.

Rely on old faves. “Simon says,” the limbo, freeze tag, and “The Hokey-Pokey” (“Put your right arm in ...”) are a thousand times better under a shower of water.

P L AY S O U S C H E F.

“We bring the plastic fruits and vegetables from our indoor play kitchen out to the water table, add dish soap and sponges, and let kids wash—and then cook—their veggies,” Watts says.

Hand them a pot and a big spoon, and “soup’s” on.

D O IT U P, R A I N B OW - S T Y LE .

Load the water table with ice water, bubble foam in different colors, oobleck, and water beads, the way Caroline Nordstrom, a mom of two in Lincoln, Massachusetts, does for her kids: “My 3-year-old loves the oozy, bubbly mess, and it’s a hit with my 7-year-old too.” Raid the recycling bin for interesting containers they can use as pitchers, or poke holes in the bottom of a jug for a DIY sieve.

G O F I S H I N G.

Get a couple of cheap fishnets from the pet store, and toss little treasures in the table for kids to scoop up. For some math practice, number a few Ping-Pong balls with a Sharpie, and ask your child to add them all at the end.

M A K E LI K E A SA LO N .

“My 5-year-old plays ‘spa day’ with her Barbie dolls,” says Katie Vaccaro, a mom of two in Northport, New York.

“She fully pampers them with bubble bath and makes pool floats for them out of LEGO bricks.”

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Get tangled up. Lay a Twister mat on the lawn, turn on the sprinkler, and play a slippery game of getting from right-foot-red to left-hand-blue.

Level Up the Water Table

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Max Out the Kiddie Pool Hack a teeny water park. Got older toddlers? All you need is a plastic slide and a sprinkler, and you have your very own splash mountain. Put the bottom of the slide into the pool, aim the spray over it, and wheeeeeee!

Work in science. Gather up random waterproof items and play “Sink or float?”

Amanda Cullinan, a mom of three in Summerfield, North Carolina, suggests grabbing anything—a quarter, a bottle cap, a golf ball, a LEGO brick, a pencil—and creating a chart with Sink and Float columns. Ask kids to predict what will happen once the items are plunked in the pool, then compare with the results.

Soak alfresco. Take a bubble bath outside in the kiddie pool. Bath bombs!

Foaming soap! All the toys! “I do this with my kids when things start to feel like Groundhog Day around here, and they love it,” says Meghan Cevey, a mom of three in San Diego.

OPPOSITE: TWO-PIECE BATHING SUIT, CAT AND JACK.

Race boats. “My husband and I save our wine corks. Then come summer, we help the kids build boats for their kiddie pool,” says Jo Piazza, a mom of two in Philadelphia and host of the podcast Under the Influence (which, incidentally, refers to mom influencers on Instagram, not alcohol). Glue a few corks together, make a sail using a toothpick skewered through a triangle of paper, then stick it into a cork, and you’re seaworthy. “We drink a good amount of wine, so we can make a sizable fleet!” Piazza says.

SAFET Y FIRST! (AND SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH) No doubt, water play is super-fun. But there are risks. Stay vigilant and you’ll keep the good times rolling.

Be proactive. Many learn-to-swim facilities were temporarily closed last year, so kids may be out of practice. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advises swimming lessons for many children starting at age 1, but you can teach a baby as young as 4 months old to build confidence in the water, says Jenny McCuiston, cofounder of Goldfish Swim School. Avoid leaving toys in or near the pool so as not to attract kids, and drain baby pools and water tables at the end of each day.

Designate a water guardian.

Ideally, rotate adults every 30 minutes,” says Molly O’Shea, M.D., a pediatrician in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and a water-safety advocate. Have a physical thing—a lanyard with a tag, for instance—to hand off to the next guardian so everyone knows that there’s a person who always has eyes on the kids.

Discuss rules of play. When friends come over, Melissa Gonzalez, a mom of three in Ormond Beach, Florida, and a former lifeguard, relays her requirements: no running on the patio, no going near the pool without an adult, no splashing in others’ faces, no chicken fights, no leaving the yard,

and no wet towels in the house. “Do I have to repeat myself? Absolutely,” she says. “But you want these rules to be ingrained, so repeat them—a lot.”

Save their skin. “My number-one tip is to wear sun-protective clothing,” says Ellen Marmur, M.D., associate clinical professor of dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City. Buy two sets every few seasons, because the UPF may break down. But you still need to put on sunscreen: UV rays also reach about 2 feet underwater, so skin can get burned even if submerged. Apply every two hours or after getting wet.

Protect their eyes. Chemicals from the pool can have harsh effects, says Kara Hartl, M.D., an eye specialist in Fairbanks, Alaska. Have kids wear goggles if they go underwater. “Too much exposure can cause a surface irritation on eyes, like a sunburn,” Dr. Hartl says. Soothe gritty-feeling eyes with over-the-counter lubricated eye drops. Store in the fridge for extra relief.

Keep cool. When temps rise, heat exhaustion and dehydration are issues.

The AAP suggests giving kids water to drink before they ask for it. Plan for extra downtime even if they’re in the water.

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HIT THE POOL Marco Polo will never go out of style, but mix it up with some of these lesser-known activities.

Test their recall. “Categories is one of our favorites,” says Jennifer TietjenProzzo, a mom of two in Fairfield, Connecticut. One person sits on the side of the pool while the others line up to jump off the diving board (or the edge).

The person on the side calls out a category (favorite food! sea animals!) just as the first kid on the board jumps. The object: The jumper has to get their answer out before hitting the water. Try to say “pepperoni pizza”—it’s next to impossible unless you get a lot of air!

Grease the melon. “Think water polo but with a giant, slippery watermelon,” says Brooke Bomar, a mom of three in Durham, North Carolina. “My 11-year-old son plays this with his swim team, and it’s so fun and so hard.” Just rub Vaseline or sunscreen all over a watermelon, then break into two teams and do your best to get the fruit into your goal (the other side of the pool). Don’t like to play with food? You can buy a fake watermelon ball on Amazon.

Give props to the racers. Hand each kid an inner tube and tell them to swim it to the other side of the pool using only their hands to paddle or feet to kick, suggests Jenny McCuiston, a mom of four in Troy, Michigan, and former competitive swimmer who qualified for the Olympic Trials twice.

Her other fave: Each person has to push a beach ball from one end to the other without touching the bottom with their feet. “This one takes a lot of energy and is a great way to practice kicks,” says McCuiston.

Splash in slo-mo. Have all the kids jump separately or together into the pool while you record a video on your phone using the slow-motion setting, which makes anything infinitely cooler.

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Hang ten. Let kids try to balance on boogie boards and see how long they can stand (be sure they are in the middle of the pool, away from edges). It’s great fun for little ones, too—just hold their hand.

Try a change of scenery. Take Marvel figures, L.O.L. Surprise! dolls, or anything plastic into the shallow end or a large stairs area. Something about bringing kids’ actual toys into a place they don’t normally go is a happy switch.

Stoke their competitive side.

“One of the most fun things about being on Survivor four times is all the challenges,” says season 16 champion Parvati Shallow, a mom of one. “Water races are some of the hardest but also the best chances to test your skills.” Start each kid in a different corner, toss a few rings or pool noodles into the center, then, “Ready, set, go”—see who can capture the most and return to their corner first.

INSTANT WOW PR ESENTED BY

BANANA B O AT

Don’t stop the fun to reapply sunscreen; make it part of the fun. Hand kids clean paintbrushes and makeup sponges, and they’ll have a blast painting their skin with SPF, especially if it’s a bright color. Banana Boat Kids Mineral Foam comes in Amazing Apple green and Berry Blast blue, so kids can doodle fruity-scented dots and squiggles onto their body. The tinted SPF 50+ helps you know which spots they missed so you can give them an assist. (No worries; they won’t stay blue and green all day.

The color vanishes once blended in.)

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Bring on the Backyard Fun! Make this a standout summer with playful pit stops in your own backyard.

Creating “stations” with outdoor essentials to keep the kids busy and safe is the key to summertime fun. Try these tips for setting up your backyard for the ultimate staycation!

Activity Stations

Sunscreen Station

Hydration Station

Designate certain parts of the yard for activity stations such as a “sports zone” with equipment to get a game started, a “craft corner” to customize T-shirts, or a “splash pad” for cooling off.

Kids are exposed to harmful UV rays anytime they’re outside, even when playing in their own backyard.

Protect the fun with a sunscreen station where kids can lather up!

Keep the kids hydrated with a “hydration station” where they can swing on by for a cold drink when they get thirsty. It will keep them going strong and saves you a trip to the kitchen.

Decorate a bin where you keep a variety of sunscreen options (lotion, stick, spray, etc.). Add some super silly hats and sunglasses to keep them coming back to reapply.

Make the station colorful, creative, and kid-friendly so the little ones can help themselves.

Use fun paper straws for the drinks or mix fresh fruit in the water.

Get the kids involved in the design of the stations—it’s the most exciting part and you’ll be amazed by their ideas!

Protect the Fun! Fun in the sun doesn’t stop at the beach or pool. We are exposed to the sun’s UV rays no matter what activity we choose, so don’t forget to pick up Banana Boat® sunscreen today! It lasts as long as the fun does.* *Reapply as directed on product label

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Chill Them Out D I G FO R D I N O SAU R S . Toss

plastic toys (or any small trinkets) into a big container, fill it with water, and freeze.

Flip the ice block out of the mold, and give kids some (not-sharp) tools, like a spoon or a paintbrush, as well as a salt shaker and a spray bottle of warm water. Let the excavating begin!

C O N S T RU C T A N I G LO O. “One

of our pandemic impulse purchases was a chest freezer, so now we’re doing a lot of

building with frozen colored ice blocks that I store in there,” says Caroline Nordstrom. She makes the blocks using loaf pans with food coloring, but you can also try Solo cups and create pyramids. “ PA I N T” W IT H “ I C E P O P S .” Fill

ice-pop molds with water and a couple of drops of food coloring (go for the full rainbow), and freeze overnight. Set the kids up outside with white paper to design frosty masterpieces using the pops as paintbrushes.

JUST ADD WATER Cool gear will get you ready for hours of play (let’s hope!).

Laurie Schacht, a mom of three and chief toy officer of The Toy Insider, recommends these splashy picks.

Shield kids

they play.

Fishing Buddies

State of Flow

Wade to Go

Send swimmers underwater to capture cute creatures from the B . TOYS SC O O P-A- D IVIN G S E T . Using a shark-shaped net, they’ll discover a blowfish, a goldfish, a crab, and a lost boot. Ages 3+, $10; amazon.com

The three-tiered RU S HIN G RIVER FALL S WATER PL AY TAB LE includes tipping buckets, pouring cups, and toy boats for a cascade of aqua excitement.

Ages 18 months+, $70; simplay3.com

Keep kids cool and content in the PL AY & S HAD E P O O L , designed with two built-in seats, a spinning water wheel, and funnel cups. The umbrella promises a respite from the sun.

Ages 2+, $80; step2.com

They’ll be over the moon for this.

Pool Party

To Infinity …

Bug Spray

The giant, inflatable H 2 0 G O! B E AC H B O U N C E WATER PARK has room for jumping, sliding, swimming, and splashing. It sets up in two minutes.

Ages 3+, $200; target.com

Outdoor fun really takes off with the help of this I N FL ATA B LE B AC K YA R D RO C KE TS HIP S PRIN KLER , which is more than 7 feet tall and sprays water 360 degrees. Ages 3+, $69; funboy.com

Little kids will be fascinated by the 12 adorable critters in the S PL AS H PATRO L S PRIN KLER that squirt water out of their hats.

Ages 3+, $20; melissaanddoug.com

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ON GIRL: TOP, ZARA. LEGGINGS, CREW CUT. BRACELETS, CAT AND JACK. BOTTOM: COURTESY OF THE BRANDS.

while

NEW MINERAL FOAM SUNSCREEN. KIDS LOVE THE SCENTED, COLORFUL FOAM. MOMS LOVE THE NO-MISSEDSPOTS PROTECTION THAT RUBS IN CLEAR. BANANA BOAT SUNSCREEN LASTS AS LONG AS THE FUN DOES. Reapply as directed on product label.

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E AS IE ST SU MM E R LU N C H TH E

Open-face sandwiches layer flavor and fun in one simple-to-assemble package.

And with no real cooking involved, you can quickly throw together a filling meal for the whole gang on the hottest days. We’ll toast to that! recipes by A N N A H E L M B A X T E R / photographs by C A I T L I N B E N S E L

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FO R M E AT LOV E R S . . .

Avo-Turkey Toast 1 toasted slice multigrain bread + 2 Tbs. avocado smash (see below) + 1 slice deli turkey + 5 half-moon slices tomato Avocado Smash: Place 1 avocado in a bowl and mash with a fork. Add 1 tsp. grated orange zest, 2 tsp. fresh tarragon, ¼ tsp. crushed red-pepper flakes (optional), and ¼ tsp. kosher salt. Mix to combine. Makes 4 servings.

NUTRITION PER SERVING

201 calories; 11g protein; 10g fat (1g sat. fat); 22g carbs; 7g fiber; 2g sugar; 1mg iron; 13mg calcium; 438mg sodium

Salami Bagel 1 toasted bagel half + 2 Tbs. herbed cream cheese (see below) + 2 slices salami Herbed Cream Cheese: Add 1/3 cup mix of fresh basil and flat-leaf parsley (chopped in a food processor); pulse to combine. Add 4 oz. cream cheese (at room temperature); pulse to combine. Makes 4 servings.

NUTRITION PER SERVING

315 calories; 11g protein; 17g fat (8g sat. fat); 30g carbs; 1g fiber; 1g sugar; 1mg iron; 47mg calcium; 701mg sodium

Fancy Ham & Egg 1 baguette half + 1 Tbs. chive butter (see below) + 2 slices deli ham + 3 slices hard-cooked egg Chive Butter: Mash 2 Tbs. unsalted butter (at room temperature) with the back of a fork in a bowl. Add 2 tsp. chopped chives and a pinch of kosher salt; mash to combine. Makes 4 servings.

NUTRITION PER SERVING

332 calories; 19g protein; 19g fat (9g sat. fat); 23g carbs; 1g fiber; 2g sugar; 2mg iron; 48mg calcium; 1,060mg sodium

The unexpected combo of avocado and orange zest somehow just works deliciously.

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FO R A VEG E TARIAN T WI ST ...

Vegan Chickpea Pita 1 toasted pita + 1/2 cup chickpea salad (see below) + 3 tomato slices + quickpickled onions (see below; optional) Vegan Chickpea Salad: Place 2 Tbs. lemon juice, 1 Tbs. vegan mayonnaise, 1 Tbs. nutritional yeast, and 2 tsp. low-sodium soy sauce in a bowl, and whisk to combine.

Add 1 celery stalk (chopped), 1/3 cup cornichons (about 8, finely chopped), two 15-oz. cans chickpeas (drained and rinsed), and ¼ cup flat-leaf parsley (roughly chopped).

Lightly mash half the chickpeas using the back of a fork (this helps to bind the mixture).

Makes 4 servings.

Quick-Pickled Onions: Combine 1/2 small red onion (thinly sliced into half moons), 3 Tbs. red-wine vinegar, and ¼ tsp. kosher salt in a bowl.

Let sit for at least 10 minutes, tossing occasionally, to soften.

Keep leftovers refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. Makes 4 servings.

NUTRITION PER SERVING

278 calories; 12g protein; 5g fat (1g sat. fat); 46g carbs; 11g fiber; 6g sugar; 2mg iron; 62mg calcium; 581mg sodium

Ricotta Rice Cake 1 rice cake + 4 tsp. whole-milk ricotta cheese + 5 slices of plum + 1 Tbs. chopped toasted almonds (optional) + ¼ tsp. lemon zest (optional) NUTRITION PER SERVING

93 calories; 3g protein; 3g fat (2g sat. fat); 14g carbs; 1g fiber; 5g sugar; 0 iron; 45mg calcium; 47mg sodium

Cheesy Apricot 1 slice country white bread + 1 Tbs. mayonnaise + ¼ cup shredded cheddar + 1 Tbs. sliced dried apricots + ¼ Persian cucumber (sliced) + 11/2 tsp. sliced green onion NUTRITION PER SERVING

299 calories; 10g protein; 22g fat (8g sat. fat); 18g carbs; 3g fiber; 6g sugar; 1mg iron; 259mg calcium; 389mg sodium PA R E N T S

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If the dulce de leche is too thick to drizzle, warm it slightly in the microwave on high for 15 to 20 seconds.

TO SATI S F Y A S W E E T TO OT H . . .

Peanutty Muffin

FOOD STYLING BY CHELSEA ZIMMER. PROP STYLING BY CLAIRE SPOLLEN. MIDDLE NAPKIN, MERI MERI.

1 toasted English muffin half + 2 Tbs. peanut butter + 6 raspberries + 3/4 tsp. mini chocolate chips NUTRITION PER SERVING 287 calories; 11g protein; 18g fat

(3g sat. fat); 26g carbs; 5g fiber; 6g sugar; 1mg iron; 74mg calcium; 254mg sodium

Strawberry S’mores 1 baguette half + 2 Tbs. Marshmallow Fluff + 11/2 tsp. dulce de leche + 1 or 2 sliced strawberries + 11/2 tsp. chopped pistachios NUTRITION PER SERVING

189 calories; 4g protein; 5g fat (3g sat. fat); 32g carbs; 2g fiber; 14g sugar; 0 iron; 27mg calcium; 131mg sodium

Cherry-Berry Waffle 1 toasted waffle + 1 oz. cream cheese + 1 Tbs. jam + 2 or 3 pitted, sliced cherries + 6 or 7 blueberries NUTRITION PER SERVING

271 calories; 4g protein; 13g fat (7g sat. fat); 37g carbs; 7g fiber; 20g sugar; 2mg iron; 163mg calcium; 274mg sodium

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Next Up: The COVID-19 Vaccine for Kids Here’s what to expect—and the answers from top health experts to the questions on many parents’ minds.

Q: How much longer until the vaccine is available for all children? And why are kids last?

At press time, three vaccines for adults have been deemed safe and effective against COVID-19: those developed by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the FDA briefly paused the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in April. But making them safe for kids isn’t as simple as lowering the dose. The FDA requires vaccines to be studied in children, because kids’

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immune systems are still developing and they might experience side effects that don’t occur in adults.

A clinical trial has two parts, explains Buddy Creech, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics and director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program.

The first finds the dose that hits “that Goldilocks level of good immune response with the least side effects,” he says. The second is “age de-escalation,” or adjusting that dose for teens, then older kids, then little ones. The Pfizer vaccine gained approval for ages 12 to 15

in May, after a trial indicated it’s 100 percent effective in that group (that’s better than in adults, for whom it’s 95 percent effective). Moderna’s and Johnson & Johnson’s trials for kids ages 12 to 15 are ongoing, and Pfizer and Moderna are in trials for kids 6 months to 11 years old. It’s unclear when these will be ready, but experts expect late 2021 or early 2022.

Q: My partner and I are vaccinated, as are our adult relatives. Who can our unvaccinated kids visit with?

SANTI NUÑEZ/STOCKSY.

by K AT E R O C K W O O D

Kids who are unvaccinated are still a threat to one another. So if there are two households where the adults have been vaccinated but not the babies and kids, they should still visit only while masked and outdoors. But that doesn’t mean your children are destined to be in masks nonstop until they’re vaccinated.

If your unvaccinated child is around only fully vaccinated adults and kids, no one needs to wear a mask and your gathering can take place outdoors.

Q: Will kids’ risk of getting the virus decrease as more adults around them are vaccinated?

It’s likely. “Each vaccination inches us closer to herd immunity,” says Shirin Mazumder, M.D., an infectious diseases specialist and associate professor of medicine at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, in Memphis.

Herd immunity is the tipping point at which enough people are immune to COVID that person-to-person transmission becomes unlikely. (Because kids make up nearly a quarter of the U.S. population, some experts believe we need them to get vaccinated to achieve this.) But keep in mind that no one knows just what percentage of the population needs to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity (some estimate 60 percent; others say 90 percent), and there are experts who now believe that because of vaccine hesitancy and the continued spread of new variants, we may never reach that goal.

However, that doesn’t mean life can’t return to normal. The hope among epidemiologists is that even if we can’t achieve herd immunity, we can still protect the most vulnerable segments of the population from the virus through vaccination, making COVID little more than a seasonal illness like the flu.

Q: Is getting the vaccine worth risking side effects for my child?

Absolutely. Experts argue that side effects like headache, fever, or fatigue are well worth it to protect kids and others from the virus. Even if you think your child is only at risk of a mild case of COVID, removing the risk makes vaccinating them worthwhile. While kids’ hospitalization rates are low, of those

kids who were hospitalized for COVID, one in three were admitted to the ICU—a similar rate to adults’ hospitalizations.

The CDC has also tracked around 3,000 cases of a related condition, multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), which can harm the heart, lungs, kidneys, and other organs. A disproportionate percentage of those cases occur in Black and Latino children, for reasons still being studied.

In April, the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor found that only three in ten parents intended to vaccinate their kids against COVID; 18 percent said they would do so only if schools required it. But it’s key to remember that when one child tests positive, their

GETTING THE SHOT WON’T JUST PROTECT ONE CHILD B U T E V E RYO N E THEY ENCOUNTER.

whole camp or class has to quarantine, and each person with whom they’ve come in contact needs to be notified. So getting the shot won’t just protect one child but everyone they encounter, including some, like infants or the immunocompromised, who may not be able to get vaccinated.

Q: Will kids with high-risk conditions (like asthma or an autoimmune disorder) be vaccinated first?

Probably not, says Krutika Kuppalli, M.D., an infectious diseases physician at the Medical University of South Carolina, in Charleston. “Production should be scaled up so we’ll have enough vaccines for everyone,” she says. In other words, you shouldn’t have to worry about where your kid falls on a giant list, as adults experienced in the spring.

Q: Are there kids who shouldn’t get the vaccine?

Not many. The only adults who are advised to avoid it are those with severe allergic reactions to a component of the vaccine, such as polyethylene glycol in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines or polysorbate in the Johnson & Johnson one. (Food, seasonal, and environmental allergies aren’t a problem.) People with an autoimmune condition or a suppressed immune system aren’t excluded; often, having an underlying health condition “is all the more reason to get vaccinated,” Dr. Kuppalli says.

We may learn more as data from additional pediatric clinical studies is collected, she says. If you have concerns once a vaccine is available to your child, talk to your child’s doctor.

Q: If my kid already had COVID, do they still need the vaccine?

Yes. Researchers don’t know how long or how strongly antibodies from past infections prevent reinfection. But recent studies show that the vaccine can raise the number of antibodies by as much as a thousandfold, making it easier to fight off reinfection. Scientists now think the vaccine can also fight the variants currently circulating around the globe.

Q: Will the COVID vaccine become like a flu shot we get every year?

We don’t yet know how long these vaccines protect against the virus.

Researchers have collected six months’ worth of data in adults so far, and the vaccines’ protection shows no signs of waning, Anthony Fauci, M.D., chief medical advisor to the president and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said.

To figure out the duration of protection, researchers will monitor antibody levels in volunteers. If they see a dip, they’ll know a booster may be necessary.

Another factor at play is variants: As the virus mutates, it’s possible that existing vaccines might not be as strong at fending off those variants. That doesn’t mean scientists will have to go back to the drawing board, but it might mean that vaccinated people will need a new shot in the future that offers targeted protection.

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TH E

POTTY TRAINING S H O RTC UT If you have a little one close to diaper-ditching age, you’ve likely heard about the speedy approach that’s all the rage: Let your child go naked and white-knuckle it through a few days of accidents, and then they’ll start using the potty, no sweat. As it turns out, there’s a little more to it, but experts and parents who have made it through the process in real life can help you prep for the road ahead.

by C L A I R E T R A G E S E R

A S K A PA R E N T

which part of early childhood they find most daunting, and chances are they’ll say potty training.

After all, diapers may not be anybody’s idea of a good time, but at least they’re self-contained and self-explanatory (we’ve yet to meet the kid who doesn’t know how to use one), while the art of mastering the toilet has a learning curve that can be, well, pretty crappy.

Not to mention that leaving the house midtraining requires a working knowledge of every public bathroom for miles around—and oh what fun it is when your kid says they don’t have to go and is wet seconds later.

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Little wonder, then, that more and more parents are keen on speeding up the process. And the increasingly popular three-day method—in which your child stays home and goes nude to focus on toilet training—promises to do just that. There are numerous versions (some allow underwear, many don’t; some suggest going on outings, others forbid it), but nearly all stick to a few basics. First, the diapers disappear.

On the day you intend to start, which some parents call P-Day, you can have a brief farewell ceremony. In most versions, the child goes naked from the waist down (to ensure immediate

freedom for their nether regions) and doesn’t leave the house until they have potty going down pat. Parents ask kids to drink plenty of liquids to give them more opportunity to practice, and in about 72 hours, it all starts to click.

The method’s proponents say it’s more doable for kids than gradual approaches, which can confuse them, and that the three-day crash course helps kids to better grasp what it feels like to have to go. Nudity forces them to pay more attention to their body.

“Children get immediate feedback that they’re voiding or stooling,” says Parents advisor and Atlanta pediatrician

Talk to them beforehand about the big diaper goodbye so it’s not a surprise.

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Knowing If They’re Ready Before you help your child scale Potty Mountain, you’ll need to assess how prepared they are for the climb. Experts vary in their recommendations for the ideal age, but most agree that kids are ready when they wet or soil their diaper at roughly the same times each day, are able to tell you that they’ve gone, prefer

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Undies are the goal, and they can be used over pull-on diapers at night during the training phase.

to hide somewhere to do their business, and can take down and pull up their pants without help. Another indicator is curiosity about what happens on the potty, which can manifest as a keen interest in your bathroom habits.

A key piece of advice: Don’t wait too long. Liz and Nick McCann, of San Diego, decided to try the three-day method with their son, James, a few days after his third birthday. But by the end of Day 3, it still wasn’t sticking.

Over the following weeks, James had several accidents at home and day care.

Part of the problem may have been James’s age.

Three-year-olds are known for their intense stubbornness, so it can take a while for the switch from diapers to potty to stick for them, says Vana Melkonian, M.D., a pediatrician in Weston, Massachusetts. (James now uses the potty just fine.)

Dr. Melkonian recommends starting as early as 18 to 21 months if the child is showing readiness, while some say the sweet spot is between 30 and 33 months. All agree that after 36 months, the going gets tougher.

Setting Up for Success If you’re ready to get started, block off at least three days in which you can be totally focused on your child. “You have

to pay constant attention to them so you can learn the cues that show they’re about to go,” says Brandi Brucks, an in-home potty-training consultant and author of Potty Training in 3 Days: The Step-by-Step Plan for a Clean Break From Dirty Diapers. These can be subtle and can vary depending on whether your child has to pee or poop, but they often include a pause in play, a panicked or vacant expression, sounds (such as grunting), going red in the face, or passing gas. However, every kid is different, so watch closely.

Brucks coaches parents to start prepping their child two weeks in advance by talking frequently about the coming change. “Kids need time to process,” she says. “So telling them in advance is much more effective than just one day saying, ‘No more diapers, you’re going to go on the potty,’ which is too much all at once.” She suggests using this two-week period to introduce the vocabulary of potty going—such as what it means to be wet and dry, for example—and how you’ll be getting rid of the changing table so diaper changes can take place in the bathroom.

It’s helpful to make a few decisions about your approach before diving in (and to stay flexible as you go). Some parents like to set a timer and put their child on the potty every 20 or

PREVIOUS SPREAD: GRACE HUANG. THIS PAGE: ROB AND JULIA CAMPBELL/STOCKSY.

Jennifer Shu, M.D., the medical editor of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ website, HealthyChildren.org. “If they’re wearing underwear, training pants, or pull-on diapers, the sensation of being wet or dirty may not be as noticeable.”

In days of yore, parents trained kids over weeks or months, nudging them toward toilet use with sticker charts and candy while allowing pull-on diapers. “However, it can get confusing for kids to switch back and forth, and I prefer a method where you start as you intend to go on,” says Michelle Swaney, CEO of The Potty School, a pottytraining consulting company. “If the point is to get pee and poop in the toilet, then why wouldn’t we start having them do that as soon as possible?”

The three-day method has also been a boon for parents toughing it out at home during the pandemic. One mom, Sarah Shtutin, of Wayland, Massachusetts, used it with her nearly 2-year-old, Josie, last September, when it became clear that closures in their home state weren’t lifting anytime soon. “We thought, ‘We might as well do this now,’ ” she says. That was also true for San Jose mom Greta Bohney, who used the approach with her son, James, then 21/2.

“We were sheltering in place, and he was showing signs he was ready,” she says. “I was over lifting him onto the changing table. So we gave it a try.”

These rave reviews are heartening, but if you’re hoping one weekend of potty practice will instantly buy you and your child a future free of accidents, you may want to temper your expectations. It’s likely, say experts and parents, that the three days will be merely a strong start to your child’s potty journey. And while the rules may seem cut-and-dried, there are tips that can help you pull it off with less stress for you and your child.

30 minutes. Brucks, however, doesn’t recommend this. “Transitions are difficult for toddlers, and if every 30 minutes you’re making them stop what they’re doing and get up to use the potty, they’ll melt down,” she says.

Instead, she advises watching for those all-important signs that they have to go. And while some three-day methods suggest purchasing a child-size potty, Brucks counsels against this, too, since ultimately your child must get used to using a standard toilet. (You can use a kid-size potty-seat insert on your household toilet, though.)

You may be wondering how you’ll manage naptime and overnights.

Brucks suggests using pull-on diapers for sleeping—but with underwear worn over the diaper. “You’re teaching them not to go in their underwear, and often if they see underwear, it seems to trick them into not going,” she says.

Brucks also says that within a month of potty training, many kids will begin to stay dry for naps and overnight, provided parents remain vigilant—putting on the pull-on diaper just before bed and removing it as soon as they wake up so they don’t use it instead of the potty.

But for some kids, overnight training is a separate process altogether, and many aren’t ready to sleep without protection against bedwetting until years later. (In fact, it’s normal for kids to wet the bed through age 7.)

Bracing for the Inevitable We know what you’re thinking: What about accidents? Unfortunately, into every potty-training journey, a little tinkle must fall: Almost no kids make it through this process without at least a few wet pairs of pants.

But, counterintuitively, during the initial three days, accidents are a good thing, since they’re key to the learning process. “You want your child to have accidents because they need to know what that feels like,” Brucks says, “and you need accidents in order to learn those signs that they’re about to go.”

Brucks stresses that you’ll need to prepare yourself for a potentially long road ahead: “They’re still toddlers—of course they’ll have accidents,” she says.

Matt T., of Southern California, tried the three-day method with his son, Bruce, 2, after hearing that it was a “potty-training gift from God.” While the first few days brought several accidents, he used them as teaching opportunities, gently explaining to Bruce what needed to happen the next time he had to go. This patient talkingit-through approach seemed to help cement what Bruce was learning and

READY, SET, POTTY A few pointers for parents ready to take the plunge.

1

Make it easy on yourself.

Consultant Brandi Brucks suggests removing all obstacles to your focus. Stock up on groceries, clear your schedule if you can, and spend the three days zeroed in.

2

Put your phone away. Because, inevitably, the ten seconds you spend texting will be the ones in which your kiddo soaks the carpet. It’s a law of nature.

3

Not into total nudity? That’s okay.

If you’re worried air-conditioning might leave your little one cold, put them in leg warmers or socks.

4

Keep the potty in the bathroom, if you’re using one. This primes your child to make it to the bathroom, where they’ll eventually go.

5

Protect your home. Cover rugs and couches, play near the bathroom, and buy a bottle of carpet cleaner. By Day 3, you can play farther from the potty or outside.

prepare him for the next chance to practice. “He wound up picking it up really quickly,” Matt says.

The Unexpected Joys While it may sound impossible to parents who dread it, the three-day method can actually make potty training fun. Liz McCann, who used it to train her son, says having three days of totally focused time with her child was a rare bonding experience. By setting aside work and chores, she spent more time with James than she normally would. In fact, Courtney Bolton, Ph.D., a psychologist and a mom of four in Nashville, has an inkling that a big part of the reason why three-day potty training works is that parents pay undivided attention to their kids.

“That attention is very rewarding and can encourage kids to make the transition,” she says.

For Matt, the sense of accomplishment has been the best part. He remembers being at a farmers’ market a few weeks after they’d ditched diapers, when Bruce said he needed to pee. “I thought, ‘I have 30 seconds to find a bathroom.’ I ran into a coffee shop and said, ‘Please, I need your bathroom right now,’ ” he says. He feared Bruce wouldn’t be able to hold it long enough, but it turned out Bruce was just fine. The success delighted both of them. “It’s been so worth it,” says Matt. “For me, potty training has been one of the greatest milestones in parenting.”

It’s helpful to know that for all the glee that comes with dropping your diaper budget down to zero, it can be hard to watch your child morph from little one to big kid—and that a twinge of grief is a common, if unexpected, reaction to the potty-training process.

But it also offers you a chance to be proud of your child’s adaptability, says Amy Palanjian, a mom of three in Pella, Iowa, who founded YummyToddler Food.com. “It’s amazing to realize just how capable our kids are,” she explains.

“As you help them potty train, you see them connect the dots and start to understand that they actually can do this new and very foreign thing. It’s so cool to watch your child become more independent in real time.”

K I D SÑR e a d i n g

THE BOOK NOOK Your monthly guide to making the most of storytime and raising forever readers

3. Marcus Makes a Movie

5 New Titles to Pick Up Now

Written by Kevin Hart, illustrated by David Cooper

Creative thinker alert

1. The Perfect Plan Written and illustrated by Leah Gilbert In this endearing story about leadership and perseverance, a girl brings to life her vision for a cozy tree fort in the woods where she can dream, read, and play. Kids will be caught up in her project—sketching out plans, gathering supplies—and perhaps relate to her flash of self-doubt: “What if I just can’t do it?” Her idea to ask various forest animals for help (beavers for chopping wood, birds for twisting together the high branches) might just inspire some problem-solving skills. Gilbert’s fanciful watercolor illustrations showcase the dazzling sanctuary that results from teamwork. Ages 3 to 6

1

4. The Kids of Cattywampus Street

2

Written by Lisa Jahn-Clough, illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

Teamwork tale

This collection of 11 quirky stories, each focusing on one character who lives on the same meandering block, will give kids all the feels. They’ll express relief for Jamal, whose genuinely wondrous magic ball finds its way back to him after neighbors took it without his permission, and happiness for Charlotta, who shrinks so small she can fit into a beautiful dollhouse. Ideal for reading aloud, these silly or scary tales will help make kids confident storytellers. Ages 7 to 10

2. Beach Toys vs.

School Supplies Written and illustrated by Mike Ciccotello A group of beach toys challenge a bunch of school supplies to a sand-castlebuilding contest in an amusing plot that captures the push-pull of the last days of summer vacation. The vibe is competitive, and so is the wordplay (“ ‘We’re totally going to deflate them,’ said Beach Ball”). But when high tide almost ruins Team School Supplies’ construction, everyone pulls together.

A fresh take on how rivals can become friends, this fun story will get kids psyched for the first day back, especially the part that both teams agree on: “Recess!” Ages 3 to 6

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Stand-up comedian Hart infuses humor and empathy into this story about Marcus, who’s determined to turn the comic book he’s written into a superhero movie. Authentic dialogue and the ups and downs of his journey keep kid readers on the edge of their seat. Cooper, a former Parents photo editor, captures the characters’ ever-changing moods in more than 50 blackand-white illustrations. A sequel is in the works. Ages 8 to 12

3

5. Mimic Makers Written by Kristen Nordstrom, illustrated by Paul Boston

4

5

You and the kids will soak up mind-blowing examples of how animals and plants inspire innovations in this book about biomimicry—when inventors take strategies found in nature and adapt them into technology. One cool case: A scientist came up with a way to prevent algae from growing on submarines by studying the skin of sharks. Short text blocks and bright illustrations make this topic approachable for the pre-K set. Ages 4 to 10

3 FU N AU D I O B O O KS FO R LO N G CAR R I D E S

BOOK CRUSH

Chris Colfer’s Gleeful Twist on Fairy Tales The young actor has become as much of a sensation in the kid-lit world as he is in Hollywood.

What drew you to Goldilocks?

ALL BOOKS: COURTESY OF THE PUBLISHERS. COLFER: COURTESY OF THE SUBJECT. BROCKINGTON AND WEBSTER: COURTESY OF THE SUBJECTS.

When I was little, my mom read fairy tales to me every night before bed, and I became very curious about the characters and their motives. It was hard to imagine that people were just inherently good or evil—I needed more information—so I started filling in the blanks for myself.

Chris Colfer, 31, can’t recall a time that he wasn’t writing for fun. When his memorable role on Glee ended in 2015, he had already penned the first four middle-grade chapter books in the best-selling Land of Stories series, an empowering and thoroughly modern take on fairy tales. Colfer’s latest, Goldilocks: Wanted Dead or Alive, is a graphic novel that takes a deep dive into the origin story of one of the most popular characters in his series.

“Goldilocks is everything I’ve ever wanted to be. She’s strong, brave, smart as a whip, an amazing acrobat, a fearless warrior, but most important, her heart is just as golden as her hair,” he says. “She’s been painted as an outlaw, but she’s willing to do what it takes to protect the people she loves.”

Parents chatted with Colfer, who is developing the series for the big screen.

What is the book’s message?

First, there are always two sides to every story. Second, everyone goes through periods of defeat and hopelessness sooner or later. But sometimes when we hit those low moments—and we convince ourselves that life is over—that’s when our real story begins.

How did your writing journey begin?

It started out as detailed story lines for my action figures and then evolved into short stories. When I was about 7, I tried writing the first Land of Stories book. After I finished a “chapter,” which was about two handwritten pages, I would ride my bike to my grandmother’s house and she would edit it for me. It was difficult writing a novel at 7, so I promised myself I would finish it when I got older and knew more words. Over the years, writing became a saving grace during a series of family tragedies.

One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia, read

by Sisi Aisha Johnson It’s 1968, and Delphine and her younger sisters journey to California to see their mom, who had abandoned them.

“With historical context [the sisters attend a day camp run by the Black Panthers] and atmospheric narration, it puts listeners right into the heat and heart of the story,” says Anne Bogel, creator of the What Should I Read Next? podcast. Ages 8+; 5 hours, 7 minutes The Roman Mysteries, by Caroline Lawrence, read by Kim Hicks The real history of the Roman empire through the eyes of fictional kids, this series will inspire wanderlust and imagination, says Claudia M. Laroye, who blogs at Claudia Travels. Ages 7+; 3 hours, 55 minutes for Volume 1 Anne of Green Gables,

by L. M. Montgomery, read by Rachel McAdams Fresh narration modernizes this classic about an orphaned 11-year-old who’s sent to Canada. “Anne brings compassion, kindness, and beauty wherever she goes,” Bogel says. Ages 8+; 9 hours, 22 minutes RAISING THE FUTURE BOOK CLUB

What’s your advice for parents who want to foster their child’s writing?

Always give them encouraging and honest feedback. Immerse them in books, movies, music, art, or different cultures; the more they’re exposed to, the more they’ll have to draw from. And don’t shelter them from the real world.

It’s okay if they feel overwhelmed or afraid at times—that’s where true creativity comes from.

One of Colfer’s faves

A CELEBRATION OF ALL KINDS OF FAMILIES Filling a void in the kid-lit cannon, fathers of two Ryan Brockington, host of the popular BFFU podcast, and producer Isaac Webster coauthored Daddy & Dada, a short and sweet story about a girl with two dads who encounters many different types of families on her adventures. Watch them read the book and answer questions on @Parents Instagram Live on July 17 at 2 P.M. (ET). Head to parents .com/BookClub for details. Ages 2 to 8

K I D S Ñ H e a lt h Ne w s

Long before your child utters their first word, they start to learn about communication. The best way to encourage that development might seem too obvious to be true: Just speak to them. Plus, integrating these other simple tips will give your daily chatter a boost.

build their independence and your confidence in their comprehension.

A D D O N : To increase your 2year-old’s vocabulary, Politis suggests using the “scaffolding” technique. Build their language one word at a time, just as you climb a scaffold one rung at a time. If they are saying, “ball,” offer them one more word to attach: “red ball,” “hold ball.” Using a single extra word makes it more likely for that new word to sink in—and eventually come out.

Babies N A R R AT E I T: Even if your child can’t respond yet, don’t let that stop you from chatting them up. Rebecca Politis, associate director of health-care services at the American Speech-LanguageHearing Association, recalls talking to her daughter while she was in her carrier.

“I had to get stuff done, so I’d say, ‘Now I’m going to do some laundry,’ ” Politis says. You can also try responding when they babble to teach them that after one person speaks, the other answers.

SAFET Y ALERT

Look for times to speak to your baby face-toface. “Give them the chance to focus on what your mouth is doing,” says Heidi Miller, director of Heidi Miller Speech & Associates, in Florham Park, New Jersey.

“That ‘mirror modeling’ is going to help them learn.”

FAC E T H E M :

Toddlers G I V E TA S KS : A 2-year-old typically understands more than they can say, so boost listening skills by working directions into your day. At storytime, ask them, “Please pick a book.” This will also

Preschoolers T RY C H O I C E S : Three-yearolds can be very talkative but struggle to answer openended questions because they don’t know where to begin.

Miller suggests giving options to jog their memory. Instead of, “How was your day?” ask, “Did you use crayons or paint at school today?”

WA I T I T O U T: Don’t be afraid of “awkward” pauses as you wait for a response—it’s not awkward for your 3-year-old, who is likely formulating their thoughts and getting ready to speak.

If you jump in too quickly, they might lose the chance to say it themselves.

A Cover for Your Charger According to one study, more than 200 children in the United States ages 5 and under are rushed to the emergency room each year for electrical burns caused by the metal end of a plugged-in charger. Watch Your Mouth by Geddy’s Mom snaps over the end of a standard charger when it’s not in use. This keeps little ones, pets, and even adults safe from the current running through the charger’s cord. The device is one-piece—no hinges or screws to worry about—and when you’re using the charger, you can clip the cover around the cord so it doesn’t get misplaced. $13 for three; amazon.com

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PAG I N G D R . M O M

My two kids have very different body types. How do I encourage healthy eating and exercise without shaming one or both of them?

It’s important to share the same message with both kids. Talk about how healthy foods help us feel good, giving us energy and making us stronger and less likely to get sick. Fruits and veggies are great choices for everyone. However, foods with a lot of sugar or salt aren’t very healthy, so no one should eat too many of them.

When it comes to exercise, the best activities are the ones your kids enjoy.

Siblings might be good at and like different activities.

Encourage the interests of both kids.

Think and talk in terms of health rather than weight.

Avoid using terms like fat and scrawny. This also applies to what you say about your own or another adult’s body. Let them know that strength and beauty come in many sizes, and feeling healthy and confident is what matters.

When praising your child and others, focus on traits beyond looks. This will show them that your love for them and their value is not connected to or dependent on body size.

Source: Parents advisor Natalie D. Muth, M.D., M.P.H., R.D.N., a pediatrician in Carlsbad, California, and author of Family Fit Plan.

by R E B E C C A R A KO W I T Z

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: KATE_SEPT2004/GETTY; WERA RODSAWANG/GETTY; COURTESY OF THE BRAND.

Tools to Get Them Talking

K I D S Ñ Pe t s

Animal House!

Stella, 10, fetches facts about her Shiba Inu, Bronson, 12. photograph by P R I S C I L L A G R A G G

1

Everyone asks us if he’s a fox.

He looks like one when he’s curled up in his dog bed.

“The softest part of him is the fur behind his ears.”

WARDROBE STYLING BY JILL ROTHSTEIN FOR THE WALL GROUP. HAIRSTYLING BY CLELIA BERGONZOLI FOR UTOPIA. GROOMING BY THORA FOR WALTER SCHUPFER. PROP STYLING BY JOJO LI FOR HELLO ARTISTS. CHILD WRANGLING BY KAYSH SHINN. ON STELLA: DRESS, THE ANIMAL OBSERVATORY FROM LADIDA.COM. CURTAIN, QUIET TOWN.

2

Bronson likes to chase bubbles and bite them. Also, if you put lotion on your legs, he will go crazy trying to lick it off.

4 3

When we watch movies together, he tries to communicate with the dogs on TV.

His favorite song is Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” because he shakes his body a lot.

5

My mom told me that when Bronson was a little fluffy puppy, he’d go up to the biggest dogs and start yapping at them.

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TODAY’S FORECAST: 100% CHANCE OF HYDRATED SKIN. Clinically proven to lock in hydration with Hyaluronic Acid.

Skin so supple and hydrated, it bounces back.

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YOU.

T E N D T O Y OU R S E L F, B O D Y A N D S OU L

Mom Bun, But Make It Fun

These regal Bantu knots (s ee next page) are hot-mom summer goals.

Between the incessant heat and kids grabbing at your strands, it’s no surprise that pulled-back hair has become the go-to.

Ahead, the coolest ideas for taking it up, up, and away.

by K AT E S A N D OVA L B OX photographs by

HAIRSTYLING BY LACY REDWAY, UNILEVER GLOBAL HAIR-CARE BRAND AMBASSADOR. MAKEUP BY SHAINA EHRLICH FOR KOH GEN DO AT ART DEPARTMENT. MANICURES BY TRENNA SENEY. WARDROBE STYLING BY BRITT Mc CAMEY.

GR ACE RIVE R A

JUST IN TIME F O R T H E H U M I D I T Y,

F O U R W AY S TO GLOW UP THE B U N F O R VA R I O U S HAIR TYPES

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YO U Ñ H a i r

Flatten f lyaways with a paddle brush spritzed with

hairspray.

THE BUN

Bantu Knots T O P R E P : “The healthier your

texture, the easier it is to create this beautiful, protective look, so infuse as much moisture as you can, starting in the shower,” Redway says. Wet hair and apply Nexxus Curl Define Ultra-8 Pre-Wash Treatment ($15; drugstores) by section.

After ten minutes, rinse, then use shampoo and conditioner.

T O S T Y L E : While hair is damp,

apply TRESemmé Flawless Curls Defining Cream ($5; drugstores, not shown), then divide hair into small sections, twirling each into a knot and securing with a clear elastic and, if you like, some gold string too.

THE BUN

All Pinned Up T O P R E P : Hair that’s slightly

dirty is a plus—it’s easy to slick back. But if you’ve just washed it, use a prep spray such as IGK Good Behavior ($27; ulta.com) and blow-dry.

T O S T Y L E : Brush hair into a

high ponytail. “Next, divide the tail into two sections and twist each. Then, holding them by the ends, wrap the sections

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around each other into a bun.

Pin with bobby pins so the bun stays,” says Lacy Redway, Unilever global hair-care brand ambassador and the stylist who created these looks. “Go with what forms—no two buns are alike.” For an eye-catching finish, stack rose-gold bobby pins from the T3 Clip Kit ($20; t3micro.com).

THE BUN

Make It a Double T O P R E P : For super-defined,

T O S T Y L E : Make a zigzag

bouncy curls, Redway worked a curl cream into each coil while it was wet. (If you have 3c curls like these, try Miss Jessie’s Multicultural Curls, $16; target .com, not shown.) “Then dry with a diffuser, slowly rotating your head as you go to ensure a uniform shape,” Redway says.

or middle part with the end of a rattail comb. Then—if you want—smooth your hairline with a mini boar-bristle brush coated in styling cream. Pull each side of your hair into a high bun, and secure with bobby pins. “I love that a few pieces escaped,” Redway notes.

Optional: zigzag part and loose curls

THE BUN

Half Up T O P R E P : “A dollop of mousse

finger-combed through slightly damp hair helps to coax out any texture and create body and grit,” Redway says. We like Hairitage Curl Enhancing Foam ($8; walmart.com).

T O S T Y L E : Gather the top half

PRODUCTS: PETER ARDITO.

of your hair and pull it through a ponytail holder once, then pull it halfway through a second time and wrap and pin the remaining tail around the knot you’ve made—or let the ends stick out for a less fussy, woke-up-likethis finish.

MEET THE BUN WHISPERER

Mom and celebrity hairstylist Lacy Redway whipped up this just-for-fun scrunchieadorned hair tower at the end of our photo shoot.

YO U Ñ Pe r fe c t i s h B e aut y

Welcome to Speed Masking That magical Zen feeling of putting on a face or hair mask is just as good now as it was when you were a teen. Get the mood—and beauty—boost in record time with these five-minute-or-less treatments.

by S H A N N O N M . B A U E R / photographs by J E F F R E Y W E S T B R O O K

Best for smoother skin 5 M I N UTE S

Willow bark and huckleberries plucked from the mountainous conditions at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, are the hero ingredients in (4) Alpyn Beauty Wild Huckleberry 8-Acid Polishing Peel Mask ($56; sephora.com). There’s also vitamin C, a potent brightener, and alpha and beta hydroxy acids, to slough off dead cells.

2

Best for hair damage 2 M I N UTE S

1

Best for colortreated hair SECONDS

(5) Redken Extreme Bleach Recovery Lamellar Water Treatment ($25; amazon.com) is like a bandage for dyed or highlighted strands. The fluid fills in the “cuts” created by the dye process to help make hair shinier, softer, and stronger. After shampooing, pour it over your hair, wait a few seconds, and give it a rinse.

3

Best for glowier skin

Best for curls and coils

3 – 5 M I N UTE S

4

As the name hints, (2) Juice Beauty Prebiotix Instant Flash Facial ($52; ulta.com) is like a fruit smoothie for your face: Aloe vera, apple, and grape help your skin hold in hydration, while glycolic and salicylic acid break down oil and dead skin cells.

1 M I N UTE

Once a week, consider replacing your conditioner with (6) OGX Deeply Restoring + Pracaxi Recovery Oil 60 Second Moisture Treatment ($9; ulta.com), applying from midlength to ends. The plant-based oils and butters saturate strands and hold on to moisture to help alleviate frizz and leave hair silkier.

5

Best for acne 3 M I N UTE S

A one-two punch for pimples, (3) Differin Detox + Soothe 2-Step Treatment Mask ($18; amazon.com) starts with a three-minute warming kaolin clay mask to clear excess oil and gunk from pores.

After you rinse that off, leave the cooling gel on to tame redness and irritation.

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An incentive to 6

Best for hydration

stay still

5 M I N UTE S

7

(7) Sephora Collection Clean Face Mask ($5.50; sephora.com) has an ultrathin sheet that helps its moisturizing ingredients sink in with the speed of a toddler who has a crayon and a plan.

WOMAN: OHLAMOUR STUDIO/STOCKSY.

For those with chemically treated hair or who use a hot tool on the reg, adding in a heavy-duty mask like (1) Pantene Miracle Rescue Intense Rescue Shots ($7 for four; drugstores) can help mend strands and prevent split ends. The ampoules are individually dosed with lipids, a building block for hair that penetrates strands rather than just coating them. Smooth through freshly washed sections from root to tip, with an eye toward any areas of damage.

YO U Ñ C o v e r S t o r y

NATHAN AD RIAN ’ S

V I C T O RY LAP In the past four years, this five-time Olympic gold medalist got married, was diagnosed with and then beat cancer, and trained twice for the 2020 Olympics.

(The opening ceremony in Tokyo is scheduled, fingers crossed, for July 23, following a yearlong delay caused by the pandemic.) Amid everything, he and his wife, Hallie, found new joy as they welcomed their daughter, Parker.

by C AT H E R I N E H O N G / photographs by M A R K W I L L I A M S + S A R A H I R A K AWA

YO U M I G H T

think that the daughter of Olympic gold-medal swimmer Nathan Adrian and former Stanford diver Hallie Adrian would take to bathtime like a duck to water. But nope.

Parker Jacquelyn Adrian, born this past February, did not smile, gurgle, or display a powerful baby backstroke the first time she was lowered into a tub in her Oakland, California, home.

“She hated it,” reports Hallie.

“She cried!” says Nathan.

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“I think maybe she was cold?” says Hallie. “We were all traumatized!”

But the new parents persisted, learning all the usual tricks (like putting a warm washcloth on Parker’s stomach) to make their newborn comfortable in the water.

“Now she finally likes to float around the tub,” says Nathan, clearly tickled.

“She’s got a good kick!” adds Hallie.

Baby Parker is too young to know it, but her father—one of the best sprinters in American swimming history, the

recipient of eight Olympic medals, and a brand ambassador for Olympic outfitter Ralph Lauren—is expected to help lead Team USA to victory this summer. His fourth trip back to the games is all the more remarkable given Nathan’s challenging past few years.

In December 2018, just months after marrying Hallie in Napa Valley, Nathan was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

The couple learned that it could compromise his fertility—devastating

Aside from the athletes, no overseas visitors are allowed at this year’s Games, so Hallie will be rooting from home with Parker.

YO U Ñ C o v e r S t o r y

pool in comparison with an Olympic one. The deepest it gets is 41/2 feet!

I made it back to our real training pool last August.

Nathan, your mom is from Hong Kong. Will Chinese heritage play a role in Parker’s life?

N AT H A N : I’m glad you asked. My parents had the best intentions, but they didn’t focus on race when my siblings and I were growing up, hoping that racism was “over.” I still want to explore more of my identity, and I definitely want to educate Parker on my mom’s side of the family.

for the newlyweds, who had been looking forward to starting a family.

Though the cancer was caught early, Nathan required two surgeries and put training on hold. At one point during recovery, he was restricted from lifting much weight (“I was using soup cans”) and shed more than 10 pounds.

The time off was worrisome for an athlete whose speed is measured to hundredths of a second.

Fast-forward two years (plus one global pandemic), and he and Hallie, the director of merchandising for Pottery Barn Teen, are the elated parents of healthy and well-bathed Parker. To their immense relief, she was conceived naturally after they had made backup IVF plans. Best of all, following several years of medical surveillance, Nathan has been declared cancer-free. “I feel great,” he says, flashing a dimpled grin.

“And I’m looking forward to competing.”

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What was it like having a baby during the pandemic?

N AT H A N : I’ve always been a germophobe.

I wore a mask on a plane before all this, so for me, having a wife pregnant through it all was absolutely terrifying.

H A L L I E : Definitely stressful. Being pregnant is considered a comorbidity, so I didn’t see many friends during those nine months. I was so scared of getting sick and I was nervous about Nathan getting sick. And the delivery! Nathan was able to be at the hospital with me, but my mom couldn’t be there. And then you have the fear that the baby could get it from the nurses or the doctors.

Nathan, what about training?

N AT H A N : I ordered a weight rack for my garage as soon as COVID-19 hit. For a while I trained at the swim club I co-own, AC Swim Club, in San Rafael, California, which has basically a kiddie

When will Parker swim? Do you believe in just throwing a kid in?

H A L L I E : We’re going to wait for swim school until she’s 6 months.

N AT H A N : Regardless of what she does down the road, we want her to be water safe. And no, I don’t believe in throwing babies into the pool. You need them to feel comfortable putting their face in.

H A L L I E : This is Nathan’s area. I’m actually terrible at swimming!

WARDROBE STYLING BY ALVIN STILLWELL. HAIR AND MAKEUP BY JANET MARISCAL. PREVIOUS SPREAD, ON NATHAN: SHIRT AND PANTS, RALPH LAUREN. ON HALLIE: DRESS, ISABEL MARANT. BRACELET, CARTIER. ON PARKER: ONESIE, MAISON ME BABY BY MAISONETTE. THIS PAGE, BOTTOM RIGHT, ON NATHAN: MESH PULLOVER, RALPH LAUREN TEAM USA. ON PARKER: ONESIE, GAP. OPPOSITE, ON NATHAN: SWIMSUIT, SPEEDO USA.

Behind every Olympic athlete are the parents. Does becoming a dad make you think about your parents?

N AT H A N : My parents win a team-effort award. They took turns driving me to early-morning and evening practices, and when I got home there would always be a home-cooked meal on the table. It had to be stressful for them to watch their kid go through training, Olympic Trials, three Olympics so far, and all these ups and downs of my life. I look at Parker and hope she doesn’t put me through what I put my parents through!

Parents’ Lightning Round With Nathan Adrian W H E N I S TA R T E D S W I M M I N G . . .

I had no idea what I was getting into.

FAV O R I T E B A B Y B O O K

Corduroy, which I had growing up L E A S T FAV O R I T E PA R E N T I N G TA S K

Making sure everyone who goes near Parker is up-to-date with vaccinations KEY PIEC E OF BABY G E AR

The Snoo. We live in the Bay area, which is the tech world, so everybody’s got their gadgets.

PA R E N T I N G O O P S M O M E N T

The first time we left the house with Parker, we forgot an extra outfit, and she had her first blowout. At least we didn’t forget the wipes.

S E E N AT H A N S W I M !

USA Swimming will be broadcast on NBC starting July 24.

YO U — S e l f- C a r e

E N CA O Y N N A

M E D I TAT E ( YE S , E VE N YO U! )

You don’t have to be a woo-woo mama to work a little mindfulness into your day. Just a few minutes can help refresh your racing, mile-a-minute brain. Meditation experts and parents who have figured out their own slow-down secrets share how even the busiest moms and dads can take a breather.

by J E N N Y C H E N

YO U ’ V E H E A R D

about the benefits of meditation; maybe you’ve even dabbled in a session or two yourself. But for whatever reason—too busy, too “out there,” too “I don’t know if I’m doing this right”—it hasn’t quite stuck in your selfcare routine. Yet those aforementioned benefits (increased focus, greater empathy, reduced stress) are persuasive, especially when you learn that meditation can grow new connections in parts of your brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, explains Christopher Willard, Psy.D., a

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psychologist at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at Cambridge Health Alliance, in Massachusetts.

A study published in Psychiatry Research found that participants who went through an eight-week meditation program had increased thickness (that’s a good thing) in the parts of the brain that regulate mind-wandering thoughts, manage feelings, and help you learn, think, and remember. The researchers also found that the amygdala (the fightor-flight-response part of the brain

associated with increased anxiety and stress) shrank after the program.

Just as physical exercises target specific muscle groups, each kind of meditation (and there are several) is believed to benefit a separate part of your mind. Mindfulness meditation, for example, hones your attention skills, while loving-kindness meditation builds your compassion. These practices pay dividends in your body too.

When patients with chronic illness used mindfulness to handle stress, they showed

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significant growth in both their physical and mental health, found a review in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research. That’s not surprising, since long-term stress is often linked to inflammation, which can play a major role in cardiovascular and liver disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other serious illnesses.

“Research shows that when people have a regular meditation practice, they show improvements in multiple areas of their life,” says Michelle Maldonado, a meditation teacher in Bristow, Virginia.

“You might begin to have a stronger awareness of conflict in your life and a better understanding of relationship dynamics, and you may develop healthier communication and problem-solving skills.” But getting started—or even finding time to start—can be the hardest part. Here’s everything you need to easily begin your own practice. Serenity ... now.

What is meditation?

It’s actually quite simple: Meditation is a way to rewire and strengthen your brain’s ability to focus on whatever you’re doing with an open-minded and nonjudgmental attitude—whether it’s tapping into your external environment, connecting with your internal feelings, or sending love and empathy to others, according to the journal Nature.

Practitioners advise that newbies need four basic elements for a successful session: a quiet place with as few distractions as possible (yes, this might feel impossible to find); a comfortable posture; a prompt or a mantra to focus on; and a relaxed mind, open to whatever might come—from magical to mundane.

How do I get started?

The good news is that whether or not you realize it, you already know how to meditate, says Sherrell MooreTucker, a meditation coach based in Washington, D.C. Concentrating on a task is a form of meditation, and so is worrying (albeit a negative form). Meditation is really any focused state of awareness.

One of the easiest ways to begin is to incorporate meditation into your day, perhaps by pausing between lunch and the next thing on your to-do list or by being mindful while doing something boring, like folding laundry. This

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Here’s a mantra for you: “They’re only a toddler. They’re only a toddler ...”

method is called an integrated practice, Maldonado says. To start, take three deep breaths and focus on the sensation of their coming in and going out, or take five minutes to notice the stimuli around you: What do you see? (A mound of fluffy towels.) What do you hear? (The dryer humming.) What do you feel? (The soft fibers of terry cloth.)

Once you’re comfortable with the basic approach, try setting aside a block of time to devote to it. Choose a position that feels comfortable to you: sitting in a favorite chair, lying in the grass. And if staying still isn’t working for you or you

feel as if you’ll fall asleep, try a walking meditation—what Buddhists call kinhin.

Pick something to focus on during your walk, such as the sensation of your feet on the ground or the sights and sounds you notice along the path.

The most important part of meditation is to not try to “succeed.” As you sit longer, you might find it harder to stay focused on your breath or sensations.

That’s okay. “Don’t worry too much about doing it ‘right’ or for a specific amount of time,” says Dr. Willard, coauthor of The In-Between Book, which helps kids develop mindfulness. “Just the fact that

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you’re setting the intention of trying to practice some self-care is powerful.”

Rather than judging yourself or getting frustrated if your attention wanders, just acknowledge that it has and, when you feel ready, bring your awareness back to your breath or to noticing your surroundings. The point is less about staying focused and more on noticing when you wander and gently coming back. Over time, you’ll discover that, as with physical exercise, you’ll naturally find it easier to meditate longer.

If it’s impossible for you not to think about tonight’s dinner menu or that form you need to fill out, using a guided meditation can help. Google “guided meditation for anger” (or stress or sadness or whatever emotion you’re struggling with), suggests Jewell Singletary, a yoga and meditation teacher in New York City.

Top off your practice by lighting a candle and focusing on the scent or repeating a mantra (either out loud or in your head). Pick a phrase that’s easy to understand and that resonates with you, says Singletary: “I accept myself” or “I invite lightness and ease into my life.”

How do I know I’m actually

meditating?

It feels different to everyone, but Moore-Tucker says there are some telltale signs you’ve made it. “Time will fly by,” she explains. “You might be in a meditative state for 15 to 20 minutes, but it’ll feel as if no time has passed.” Your body might also begin to feel extremely relaxed—your limbs may be heavy, and your breathing will begin to slow down.

But don’t worry if you don’t experience these sensations. “When I was younger, I had a perfectionist tilt to meditation,” says Maya Szatai, a mom of two from North Haven, Connecticut, who has meditated off and on since her teens.

“I was envious of the people who could sit cross-legged and meditate for hours—I thought this was the ‘real’ way to do it.

Now I try to meditate once a day, usually in the morning when the coffee is brewing and before the rest of my family is up.”

But what if I can’t meditate?

Karate practice and grocery runs can make meditation fall to the absolute

bottom of your priority list. We asked experts and fellow parents for solutions to common practice-preventing obstacles: Start with the quickest meditation ever: Take three long breaths while closing your eyes. If you want a longer, uninterrupted practice, find a time when your kids are asleep or occupied (permission to hand them a tablet granted). Jeffrey Sinor, a dad of a 3-year-old in San Jose, started meditating regularly during the past year by waking up at 5 A.M. “It’s just part of my day now, like eating breakfast,” he says.

“I CAN’ T FIN D A S PARE M O M E NT.”

If you’re running on empty, sitting still might cause you to snooze. Just go with it. The mindfulness practice yoga nidra actually encourages deep relaxation, so it’s okay if you fall asleep. Moore-Tucker suggests looking up “yoga nidra and guided sleep meditations” to gently send you to dreamland.

MINDFULNESS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS The many benefits of meditation—feeling at home in your body, connecting to your surroundings, getting a minute to sit with your thoughts—is just an app away.

“I KE E P D OZIN G O FF.”

“I’M N OT PARTIC U L ARLY S PIRITUAL .”

Meditation is a powerful practice with science behind it. Maldonado, who does nonsecular meditation (meaning it isn’t linked to a specific religion), was introduced to it as a kid by her aunt, who simply called it “sitting quietly.”

“I D O N’ T KN OW WHIC H T YPE TO TRY.”

Test some out and see: Vipassana, sound bath, Zen, Qigong—to name a few.

Explore meditating at various times throughout the day, and try different practices by downloading a meditation app (suggestions at right). Leigh Shulman, a mom of two in Atlanta who has practiced for 15 years, says this is how she figured out what worked for her.

“I like guided meditations with silence in the middle so I can have time to clear my head,” she says.

Start with a walking meditation, or simply be mindful while doing daily activities. “When showering, think about what you’re doing: squeezing shampoo into your hand, squishing suds into your hair,” Szatai says.

D esigned by neuroscientist Judson Brewer, M.D., Ph.D., Sharecare’s Unwinding Anxiety takes you through 30 modules with short daily exercises to help you manage anxious thoughts. It’s pricey, but users say they appreciate the step-by-step lessons. $30 per month; iOS and Google Play

Headspace offers guided meditations and mindfulness exercises (sleep, move, focus) for both beginners and longtime practicers. Get started with “Basics,” then find sessions (some just one minute) under the “Explore” section. $70 per year; iOS and Google Play

The extensive library on Calm includes guided meditations and sleep stories using the soothing voices of celebs like Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba. Try out “Daily Calm,” a ten-minute original meditation that releases daily. $70 per year; iOS and Google Play

“I CAN’ T S IT STILL .”

Meditate on Your Lunch Break Simply hover your phone’s camera over the smart code to find three ways to beat your midday slump.

Created by two moms, MyLife, a sister brand of Parents, offers mindfulness for both adults and kids. A new program just for parents has meditations, selfcompassion strategies, and yoga moves, ranging from two to 12 minutes.

Go to my.life/parents for a free 30-day trial. $59 per year; iOS and Google Play

YO U Ñ H a p p i ly E v e r A f t e r

Dealing With Money Stress No matter how much you love each other, talking about money can feel awkward and scary—but confronting your finances together will pay off.

by D A P H N E

de

MARNEFFE , Ph.D.

stay-at-home mom who feels that her husband, William, watches every penny she spends. “He questions it when I buy a new T-shirt,” she says.

Michael gets anxiety attacks when talking to his wife, Lauren, about her credit-card purchases. “I’m scared of the conflict,” he told me, “and we never seem to resolve anything.” Amanda and Joe are working hard to make ends meet and care for their two sons, and they worry that the constant pressure is squeezing out any sense of fun or lightness in their relationship.

As a therapist, I witness the effects of money stress on so many parents. Life deals them blows they can’t control, like job loss or illness. Children are expensive, and the desire to give them the best opportunities conflicts with budget realities. During the pandemic, an estimated 60 percent of households with kids suffered economic hardship, and it has been worse for Black and Latinx households. Money stress can seem like a song you can’t get out of your head.

It affects your mood, self-esteem, and sense of safety, as well as how you behave with your partner and your loved ones.

Problems with money are compounded by problems with talking about money.

Couples have to make so many decisions: Do we both work full-time? Can we still spend on ourselves when we need diapers and day care? Should we take a family vacation or put money into a college fund? Don’t underestimate the complexity of what you are grappling with. However, finding ways to talk constructively about money stress will have a direct and lasting impact on the health of your relationship. Here are four goals to keep in mind.

Discussing how money was handled when you were growing up can yield some “aha” moments.

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K AY L A I S A

Respect each other’s perspective.

Kayla was annoyed that William worried about every ice-cream cone she bought for the kids, but William was annoyed that she acted as if worrying about finances was solely his problem.

Like them, you may find it hard to avoid playing the blame game. But it’s helpful to try to understand your partner’s values and where they come from.

That might mean asking questions about how money was handled in your own families and what you learned from it. Try to look for the strengths in both perspectives. When Kayla and William were weighing whether to buy a new furnace or take a trip, Kayla said, “The kids are only little for a short time, so we should stretch for a vacation.”

William said, “If we use the furnace money for a trip, we’ll be stressed-out by debt next winter.” Knowing that they were essentially weighing the value of security against the value of family fun helped them acknowledge that both values were important. That made it easier for them to brainstorm creative solutions, such as: “We could plan a week of fun day trips and use the money saved on hotels for the furnace” or “Let’s spring for the trip but agree to no restaurants for six months and put the savings in a fund for the furnace.”

Join together rather than going solo.

Young couples today tend to keep their money more separate than they did in the past, but research suggests that this approach can undermine effective teamwork and planning. In my experience, when couples have separate bank accounts or divide financial tasks (she invests, he pays bills), it works well only if they are both truly involved. In addition, when couples decide that one parent will stay home with the kids or do less paid work, the higher earner can be seen as having more power over the family’s money, and that usually has a negative impact on the couple’s shared sense of fairness and equality.

Money matters are where the rubber meets the road for balancing the needs of “we” versus “me.” That means making difficult decisions together about

Understand that money brings up emotional issues for people: about wants and needs, about having enough, about being a worthy partner. compromising on what to do without.

Ella came into her marriage with student debt, and she and her husband, Chris, felt differently about whether it should be her personal responsibility to pay it off. Ella felt guilty burdening him with her debt, but she felt that their sense of togetherness as a team would be damaged by her being in a state of constant belt-tightening while he wasn’t.

I helped them share their feelings and listen to each other’s point of view. After a few conversations, they agreed that she’d put her salary toward paying off debt while he’d put away an equivalent amount to save for their future house.

Say yes to privacy, no to secrecy.

Everyone needs some privacy, and it’s disrespectful to put someone under constant surveillance about their spending or anything else. However, going behind your partner’s back and being dishonest—whether you’re hiding debt or keeping purchases a secret—is something different altogether. Now you aren’t only stretching your budget, you’re corroding trust, which is a much more precious commodity. Whether

couples keep separate bank accounts or not, I am an advocate for agreeing on an amount of money, however small, that each partner controls and doesn’t need to run by the other partner. People may do this in different ways, including allocating each person $50 per month as “fun money” or agreeing to check in with each other on any purchase over $20.

It’s not always easy to advocate for the importance of a zone of personal choice in spending decisions, especially when money is tight or you aren’t a family earner. But these are the times when it’s most essential. Acting like you don’t “deserve” to spend a cent on yourself because you aren’t making money—even though your whole day is spent caring for others—is a recipe for resentment.

So speak up. When bills are piling up, the stress is so relentless that small indulgences have a bigger impact.

Feeling a moment of freedom to buy something special for yourself can help relieve the ongoing pressure, and, hopefully, you’ll each enjoy seeing the other’s pleasure in having a little treat.

Give yourselves a pat on the back.

It’s frustrating to tirelessly monitor your budget and upsetting when other people can provide things for their kids that you can’t provide for yours. You may feel like a bad person or parent if you can’t meet your long-term goals. We also live in a culture where temptation is everywhere and we are encouraged to define ourselves by what we have and what we can give to our kids.

But it’s important to be gentle on yourself. Acknowledge that it’s hard to change habits, and give yourself credit for baby steps. Understand that money brings up emotional issues for people: about wants and needs, about having enough, about being a worthy partner.

Respect that you may be dealing with hot-button issues, and thank yourselves and each other for every bit of progress.

Daphne de Marneffe, Ph.D., is a psychologist and the author of Maternal Desire and The Rough Patch: Marriage and the Art of Living Together. Visit her at daphnedemarneffe.com.

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LIFE.

ENJOY THE JOURNEY TOGETHER

Tap Into Your Child’s Creativity Research shows that any inventive endeavor can make kids happier, whether it’s drawing, storytelling, or orchestrating wild scenarios with stuffed animals. Here’s how to get your kids inspired to think (and act and write and solve ...) outside the box.

by JAC Q U E LY N M ITC H A R D

DANE TASHIMA.

Let your child’s imagination run wild.

R E A D O N F O R FU N PRO M P T S A N D S K Y ’ S -T H E - L I M I T SUPPLIES.

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sweet, and a fierce reader, our second son loved making sculptures with string. So for his eighth birthday, we gave him a dishwasher-size box of yarn. Next morning, we couldn’t get out the front door: Dan had tied all the yarn together and run around countless times until he had turned the D E E P LY I N T E L L I G E N T,

living room into a colorful cocoon. His ingenuity was frustrating at first, but in time it became clear: This was Dan’s joy. This was Dan being Dan. Who was I to mandate his expression?

As it turns out, many of us, and certainly children, might be happier if we spent our time in the throes of a creative activity. Researchers at UNC Greensboro found that young adults who reported feeling happy and active were more likely to be doing something creative at the time. And many pediatricians say their own observations bear this out. “When kids are given freedom to explore in this way, there can be significant brain growth and personal development,” says Parents advisor Adiaha Spinks-Franklin, M.D., a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine.

You might be thinking, “Well, but what if drawing, writing, or playing music holds zero appeal for my kids, and what if they’re not even interested in yarn cocoons?” That’s okay. Because as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D., author of Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, points out, creativity is not simply about participating in the fine arts. It’s about approaching the world with a spirit of adventure. Even tasting a new food or noticing an unusual bird or window shape or flower can be a creative event.

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So how do you foster that kind of noticing, that spirit of adventure, in your child? Well, most of the time, you can just do nothing.

In fact, learning to do literally nothing with them and for them is one of the best things parents can do to spur on creativity. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but the mother of creativity is boredom, says Peter Gray, Ph.D., research professor of psychology at

Boston College. “Kids are inherently creative,” says Dr. Gray, who goes on to explain that as we age, we often lose that spark of curious experimentation when other factors (jobs, obligations, general adult exhaustion) intrude.

When my older kids were young, I was a widowed working mom with little energy to turn the bathtub into an oatmeal sandbox. I was even too tired to do most things along with them. But

OPPOSITE: PRISCILLA GRAGG. THIS PAGE: DANE TASHIMA.

instinct told me to try withdrawing TV and computers at least five days a week, forcing my crew to use that amazing computer inside their head.

They howled in protest. They got used to it. They thrived.

Unstructured play teaches children their best life skills, says Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids. “When we swoop in on whatever it is our kids are doing—to help them, enrich them, teach them—we are taking what was their project and making it ours. That is deflating. Parents may think, ‘But they’re doing it wrong!’ or ‘It’s so hard for them!’

And that may be true. But the goal is not for our kids to make a perfect muffin or scarf or origami swan. The goal is for them to figure some things out, take small risks, maybe even do something a whole new (and messy) way. The result may be a very lumpy whatever. But it is theirs, and they are on the journey of discovery, trial, error, and excitement.”

One silver lining of the past year is that we’ve been living in a golden moment of kid creativity. Dr. Gray says his research colleagues have found that many children actually prospered during the pandemic. Bored at first, they quickly fell back on their own resources.

Even if your child spent what felt to you like an eternity glued to a screen, take heart: Video games can actually involve a huge amount of creativity, Dr. Gray says, especially those that require strategy and role-playing rather than racing or blowing up a target.

Raising what eventually turned out to be nine children, I really couldn’t devote much time to organized sports and lessons, although I found ways to facilitate genuine interests, usually when the kids made the request. Mostly, we read together, danced together, and created a thumb-size character called Tiny Eddie, who had adventures every week. I did worry that my children would not succeed like kids involved in every sport and club, but I never worried about their ability to amuse themselves.

In more recent years, my seventh-grade daughter knitted every sibling a huge comforter; another of my girls designed and made her own prom dress. One grown son is an actor who also built

his outdoor shower in a weekend. A son still in high school is a computer whiz who cooks gourmet vegetarian meals. My youngest mapped out a coffee maker powered by a stationary bike.

And Dan, our young master of yarn?

He’s now a college grad, happily married, and a sous chef at the ritziest restaurant

One key component to kids’ creativity: adults backing off and letting them discover on their own.

on Cape Cod, who has never once in his life followed a recipe. He always knew his happiness lay outside the usual rules. Maybe your child’s does too.

This isn’t to say that we parents shouldn’t provide the prompts. Sure, ask all kinds of questions about the things you see together. Put ingenuity-inducing materials into their hands. But once your kids have the stuff or the ideas—you’ll find both in the pages to come—stand back. And as you embark upon this family journey toward a more creative life, remember: Your children already possess that spirit of adventure. Your job is to encourage them to keep it.

L I F E ÑTo ge t h e r T i m e

MADE TO

HELP FILL

YOU UP

Spark Their Imagination You know how on Top Chef the host gives each contestant a box of super-random, weird ingredients that they then must find a clever way to use in a sometimes delicious yet always inventive concoction? Well, that same format works brilliantly to inspire your kid’s creativity in other areas beyond cooking, from writing and visual art to building and improv. Just set out a collection of assorted household items, run with a theme (“Jungle safari!”), and invite kids to dream up their own stories, skits, and projects. Let the creative games begin.

Write a Mystery Creative exercise by Lexi Rees, author of writing activity books for kids and The Relic Hunters adventure series

T H E G O A L : Let kids use their powers

of perception to solve the case of the curious photos, then write a book based on what they think is going on in the images. They can study details, location clues, or historical-era hints to help them make up a story based on their guesses.

THE SUPPLIES:

Three photos of people, cut out from a magazine or a newspaper Three photos of a location, like a busy street or an interesting building G U I D E T H E M : “What’s going on in

this picture? What would you write under the photo? Can you guess what was happening before or after it was taken?”

window? Unteach them by handing over unexpected tools to paint with—fingers encouraged too.

Paint in a New Way Creative exercise by Meri Cherry, founder of Meri Cherry Art Studio and author of Play, Make, Create, A Process-Art Handbook

THE SUPPLIES:

Various paints such as oil pastels, watercolors, and acrylics Paper Leaves, flowers, and/or twigs Feathers Sponges Plastic utensils Plastic food containers for mixing G U I D E T H E M : “ What’s the goofiest

T H E G O A L : Your kids are taught to

color inside the lines, but what would happen if you threw that (and their paintbrushes) out the “figurative”

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shape you can create? Can you mix up a color that matches your mood?

Where do you want to display your painting? What will you name it?”

THE SUPPLIES:

Build a Cool House Creative exercise by Jonathan Adolph, author of Cardboard Box Engineering

T H E G O A L : Channel Bob the

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Builder and have kids construct anything from a pet playhouse to a cute castle for toys—just by reusing old cardboard boxes and recycling scraps. Let them go wild customizing it any way they please—trapdoors, swings, whatever!

Cardboard boxes Paper-towel and toilet-paper tubes Wooden craft sticks Egg cartons Paper cups Glue Tape G U I D E T H E M : “ How can you make

the house sturdy so it won’t fall down?

What kinds of visitors will your house have, and how can you design it to work for them? How would they move from one level to the next?”

If your kid is more into the box than the toy inside, go with it.

10 LAYERS

OF WHEAT

IN EVERY BITE

A CEREAL FOR

CINNAMON

ROLL LOVERS

you’ll get roped into playing best supporting sea creature.

Make-Believe Under the Sea Creative exercise by Carol Murphy, founder of Acting Bugs, a drama enrichment program for kids

THE SUPPLIES:

Blanket Shoebox Costume jewelry and coins Beach towels Shovel and pail Blue, purple, and green streamers Oven mitts G U I D E T H E M : “ Who or what might

T H E G O A L : It’s showtime! Have your

kid act out their own ocean adventure, improvising what they’ll discover and the characters that they’ll encounter.

Warning, parents: Chances are high

you see on a trip to the ocean? What might happen if you were swallowed by a whale? How would different sea creatures sound and move? What would different noises sound like underwater?”

—Cassie Hurwitz

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TO LOVE

L I F E ÑTo ge t h e r T i m e

Tools to Get Them Started Consider these the raw materials for innovation.

1 / MAKE

Channel their crafty side with more than a thousand pieces, from googly eyes to sequins to tiny pom-poms, in the Kid Made Modern Arts and Crafts Library.

Ages 8+, $40; kidmademodern.com

1

2 / S O LV E

2

Kids will have to think logically and creatively to tease out the Ravensburger Kids Escape Puzzle: Museum Mysteries. Once they get the pieces in place, they still have to study the riddles to determine how a dino egg was stolen. Ages 9+, $17; amazon.com

The sun helps the blue paper imprint with cool shapes.

3 / PAI NT

Create street art on your driveway or walkway with the chalk paint, foam brushes, and markers in the RoseArt 40-Piece Sidewalk Chalk Paint Deluxe Set. Creations wash away with water. Ages 3+, $37; kohls.com

4 3

4 / EXPERIMENT

Collect objects and arrange them on a special blue sheet included in the SunArt Paper Kit. Lay the sheet outside in the sun for one to five minutes, then rinse it off to see what develops. Ages 6+, $7.50 for twelve 4x6-in. sheets; fatbraintoys.com

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5 / ACT

Make-believe, including at-home theater, takes off with a little inspo. The Great Pretenders Reversible Wonder Cape, gold on one side and red on the other, sparks superhero, magician, or fairy-tale fantasies. $28; maisonette.com 6 / TELL STORIES

The Creative Thinking and Silly Starters flip books provide a jumping-off point to storytelling in the car or writing at home—wherever you might be inspired to spin a yarn. Ages 6 to 8, $10 each; lakeshorelearning.com

6

7 / BUILD

Dig into the LEGO Classic Large Creative Brick Box with 790 pieces for open-ended play (though there’s also an idea book if you need a few). Ages 4+, $44; target.com

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L I F EÑD i n n e r

Chicken’s Summer Spin Bye, dinner rut! We’ll see you never, thanks to these simple poultry dinners your kids will adore — and so will you.

Whip up these laid-back options on those mellow nights (or hey, the chaotic ones too). recipes by A N N A KOV E L / photographs B Y C A I T L I N B E N S E L

Grilled Drumsticks and Corn Wheels For recipe, see page 82.

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Chicken Skewers and Hummus Platter Active Time 30 minutes Total Time 40 minutes Makes 4 servings I N G R E DI E N T S 2 10-oz. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1½-in. cubes ¼ cup plus 1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice (from 2 lemons), divided ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus more for drizzling ½ tsp. kosher salt, divided 2 6½-in. pita rounds 1 head romaine lettuce, chopped 1 cucumber, peeled and chopped 1 small red onion, thinly sliced 4 dill sprigs, coarsely chopped (optional) 1 large tomato, cored and cut into 1-in. pieces ½ cup hummus Paprika or sumac Kalamata olives, pickled sweet piquanté peppers (such as Peppadew) or other pickles, and feta cheese, for serving (optional) MAKE IT

1. Toss together chicken, 3 Tbs. lemon juice, 2 Tbs. oil, and ¼ tsp. salt in a large bowl. Let stand 10 minutes.

2. Preheat grill to medium-high (400°F to 450°F). Thread chicken evenly onto 4 presoaked wooden skewers (about 4 pieces per skewer).

Place skewers on oiled grates; grill, covered, turning occasionally, until chicken is charred and a thermometer inserted into thickest portion of meat registers 165°F, 10 to 12 minutes total.

3. Remove skewers from grill. Add pitas to grates; grill, uncovered, until warmed, about 1 minute per side. Remove pitas from grill; cut each into 4 wedges.

4. Toss together lettuce, cucumber, and onion in a large bowl. Add dill, if using, and toss to combine. Whisk together remaining 2 Tbs. lemon juice, 2 Tbs. oil, and ¼ tsp. salt in a small bowl until combined; pour over salad, and toss to coat.

5. Serve salad in a large bowl. Top with tomatoes, and drizzle with additional oil. Place hummus in a serving dish, and drizzle lightly with additional oil; garnish with paprika. Arrange chicken skewers, pita wedges, hummus, and olives and other accompaniments, if using, on a large platter.

NUTRITION PER SERVING 486 calories; 40g protein; 22g fat (3g sat. fat); 34g carbs; 9g fiber; 6g sugar; 4mg iron; 88mg calcium; 608mg sodium

L I F EÑD i n n e r

This pasta has all the heightof-summer flavors in full effect.

For recipe, see page 82.

FOOD STYLING BY CHELSEA ZIMMER. PROP STYLING BY CHRISTINE KEELY.

Pesto Pinwheels and Curly Pasta

Introduce your kids to the wonders of grilled tropical fruit as a side dish.

Teriyaki Chicken With Grilled Pineapple For recipe, see page 82.

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L I F EÑD i n n e r

Creamy Chicken and Snap Peas For recipe, see page 82.

This dish looks restaurant-worthy, but it comes together in 15 minutes.

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With 75% less fat*, it’s the lightest fried chicken we’ve ever made. tyson.com

*Than USDA data for fast foods chicken breaded fried and boneless. © 2021 Tyson Foods, Inc.

L I F EÑD i n n e r

F R O M PAG E 7 8

F R O M PA G E 7 9

Pesto Pinwheels and Curly Pasta

Teriyaki Chicken With Grilled Pineapple

Active Time 40 minutes Total Time 40 minutes Makes 4 servings

Active Time 55 minutes Total Time 1 hour 35 minutes Makes 6 servings

I N G R E DI E N T S 4 4-oz. chicken breast cutlets

I N G R E DI E N T S 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (2 lbs. total)

1 tsp. kosher salt, divided, plus more for pasta water F R O M PA G E 76

Grilled Drumsticks and Corn Wheels Active Time 20 minutes Total Time 2 hours 40 minutes Makes 5 servings I N G R E DI E N T S 8 chicken drumsticks (1¾ lbs. total) 2 Tbs. olive oil 1 Tbs. dried oregano 1 tsp. kosher salt 1 tsp. paprika or sweet mild pimenton, plus more for corn 2 garlic cloves, grated (1 tsp.)

4 ears fresh corn, shucked 2 Tbs. mayonnaise ⅓ cup finely crumbled cotija cheese (or Parmesan cheese) Coleslaw and lime wedges, for serving MAKE IT

1. Pat chicken dry. Stir together oil, oregano, salt, paprika, and garlic in a small bowl until mixture forms a paste. Rub mixture all over chicken. Refrigerate, uncovered, at least 2 hours or up to 12 hours.

2. Let chicken come to room temperature for 1 hour. Preheat a grill to medium-high (400°F to 450°F). Add chicken to unoiled grates; grill, covered, 10 minutes.

Flip chicken; grill, covered, until a thermometer inserted into thickest portion of meat registers 165°F, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer chicken to a platter and cover with foil until ready to serve.

3. Increase grill to high (450°F to 500°F). Add corn to unoiled grates; grill, uncovered, turning occasionally, until charred on all sides, about 10 minutes. Transfer corn to a cutting board, and let cool slightly, about 2 minutes.

½ tsp. kosher salt

¼ cup store-bought or homemade pesto

½ cup lower-sodium teriyaki sauce

3 Tbs. plus 2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided

3 Tbs. apple cider vinegar

2 tomatoes, cored and cut into 1-in. pieces

½ tsp. ground ginger

1 small garlic clove, grated (optional) 10 oz. fusilli or rotini pasta ¼ cup pitted kalamata olives and Parmesan cheese (optional) 4 fresh basil leaves, torn

2 Tbs. light-brown sugar 2 Tbs. ketchup 1 Tbs. toasted sesame oil 3 Tbs. vegetable oil, divided 6 ½-in.-thick pineapple slices Cucumber spears and lime wedges, for serving

F R O M PA G E 8 0

Creamy Chicken and Snap Peas Active Time 15 minutes Total Time 15 minutes Makes 4 servings I N G R E DI E N T S 4 4-oz. chicken breast cutlets 1¼ tsp. kosher salt, divided 1½ Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil 1 lb. fresh sugar snap peas, trimmed

MAKE IT

MAKE IT

1. Place chicken on a cutting board; sprinkle both sides evenly with ½ tsp. salt. Spread pesto evenly on 1 side of each cutlet (1 Tbs. each). Starting with the narrowest end, roll up each cutlet and secure using 2 wooden picks, pushing them all the way through the rolled-up chicken.

1. Sprinkle chicken with salt.

Let stand at room temperature 30 minutes to 1 hour.

½ cup heavy whipping cream

2. Bring teriyaki sauce, vinegar, sugar, and ginger to a simmer in a pan over medium-high, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Stir in ketchup and sesame oil. Remove from heat. Reserve ¼ cup sauce in a bowl for brushing on cooked chicken and remaining ¼ cup sauce in pan for grilling chicken.

8 fresh basil leaves, torn

2. Heat 2 tsp. oil in a large skillet over medium-high until oil shimmers. Add chicken rolls; cook, turning occasionally and moving wooden picks in chicken as needed, until browned on all sides, about 15 minutes total.

3. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and cook until a thermometer inserted into thickest portion of chicken registers 165°F, about 10 minutes.

Transfer chicken rolls to a cutting board; let rest 5 minutes. Remove wooden picks. Slice each roll crosswise into 5 pieces.

4. While chicken cooks, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high. Stir together tomatoes, garlic (if using), and remaining ½ tsp. salt and 3 Tbs. oil in a large bowl until combined. Cook pasta according to package directions, stirring occasionally. Drain pasta, and add to tomato mixture in bowl; toss to coat. Stir in olives and top with cheese, if using.

3. Preheat a grill to medium-high (400°F to 450°F) on one side and medium-low (300°F to 350°F) on the other side. Brush chicken with 2 Tbs. oil. Place chicken, skin side down, on unoiled grates over medium-high heat; grill, uncovered, rotating chicken if needed, until golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Flip chicken; grill until browned, about 5 minutes.

Move chicken to unoiled grates over medium-low heat, and brush with reserved sauce in pan. Grill, covered, rotating chicken as needed, until skin is brown and a thermometer inserted into thickest portion of chicken registers 165°F, 18 to 20 minutes. Remove chicken from grill, and brush both sides with reserved sauce in bowl.

1 tsp. grated lemon zest plus 2 Tbs. fresh juice (from 1 lemon)

MAKE IT

1. Fill a medium pot with water to a depth of ½ in. Set a steamer basket inside pot. Bring to a boil over medium-high.

2. Pat chicken dry; sprinkle evenly on both sides with 1 tsp. salt. Add oil to a large skillet; heat over medium-high until shimmering. Arrange cutlets in skillet, leaving space between each cutlet. Cook until golden brown on bottoms, 3 to 4 minutes. Flip cutlets; cook until no longer pink in the center and cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove from heat. Transfer cutlets to a plate. Pour off excess fat from skillet (do not wipe skillet clean).

3. While chicken cooks, add sugar snap peas to steamer basket over boiling water; cook until just bright and tender-crisp, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat; transfer snap peas to a medium bowl.

5. Add basil to pasta mixture, and toss to combine. Serve pasta alongside chicken, or toss chicken and pasta together.

4. Brush pineapple evenly with remaining 1 Tbs. oil. Grill, uncovered, on unoiled grates over medium-high heat, flipping once, until marks appear, about 5 minutes. Place on a platter with chicken, cucumbers, and lime.

4. Add cream to skillet; cook over medium, whisking constantly, until cream bubbles and thickens slightly, about 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in lemon zest and juice, basil, and remaining ¼ tsp. salt until combined.

Pour sauce over chicken; serve alongside peas.

NUTRITION PER SERVING

NUTRITION PER SERVING

NUTRITION PER SERVING

NUTRITION PER SERVING

428 calories; 29g protein; 27g fat (7g sat. fat); 21g carbs; 2g fiber; 6g sugar; 2mg iron; 108mg calcium; 804mg sodium

597 calories; 38g protein; 24g fat (4g sat. fat); 58g carbs; 4g fiber; 6g sugar; 3mg iron; 81mg calcium; 635mg sodium

453 calories; 23g protein; 31g fat (7g sat. fat); 21g carbs; 1g fiber; 17g sugar; 2mg iron; 30mg calcium; 747mg sodium

335 calories; 30g protein; 19g fat (8g sat. fat); 10g carbs; 3g fiber; 6g sugar; 3mg iron; 77mg calcium; 664mg sodium

4. Brush mayonnaise evenly over corn. Cut each corn ear crosswise into 5 or 6 wheels (about 1 in. thick). Place cheese on a plate, and roll corn wheels in cheese.

Sprinkle corn with additional paprika. Serve chicken and corn with coleslaw and lime wedges.

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¨

Grilled Thai Chicken Thighs: Start with Kikkoman® Teriyaki Marinade & Sauce, then add some simple accents, like fresh basil, mint, lime and ginger to make a flavorful marinade.

BBQ Thai. Easy as pie. Get this recipe and more inspirations at KikkomanUSA.com.

Look for Kikkoman in the Asian foods aisle of your favorite retailer.

L I F EÑ S h o p p i n g

Designed With Love and Pride Celebrate Black-owned businesses — and make your home beautiful — with this curated roundup of décor, clothing, and toy picks.

by A D R I E N N E FA R R

For Kids’ Rooms 2

1 / SET THE VIBE

The Malick Sidibé pillow, illustrated in the style of the famous 1960s Malian photographer by that name, will up the cool quotient of any room with a hip, joyful design and bold pops of color. $95; 54kibo.com

1

2 / INTRODUCE ART

March for Change is one of dozens of eclectic digital art prints on watercolor paper available from MKoby Art’s five-star-rated Etsy shop.

Frame them yourself to make these pieces your own. $30; etsy.com/shop/MKobyArt 3

3 / S TA S H W I T H S T Y L E

Basket weaving is a generational tradition, but these 8-inch-tall diamond pots have a modern twist: Women in Senegal weave them out of a local grass called ndiorokh and recycled plastic. Use one to hide all the small toys or hair scrunchies, or keep it in the kitchen for snack bars. $45; agowahandmade.com

“The average person in the U.S. doesn’t have access to the creativity of the 1.2 billion people living in Africa.

Trying to close that gap sparks my creativity.”

—Jenna Lipkin, mom of 4-year-old twins, founder of 54kibo

A simple yet gorgeous handcrafted rattan headboard from The Black Home Designs adds natural texture to a kid’s room when they step up to a twin bed. It’s sold in a newly opened New Jersey showroom alongside other luxe items by Neffi Walker, a mother of five. $480; theblackhome.com

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5 / SOFT TOUCH

5

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Use one of the geometric reversible quilts from Candid Art, handmade in Oakland, California, on your kiddo’s bed or as chic wall décor. $215 for a 44x50-in. quilt; candidartaccessories.com

JEFFREY WESTBROOK. PROP STYLING BY MIAKO KATOH.

4 / BIG-KID BEDHEAD

PAINT THAT’S TOO TOUGH TO SCUFFÊ WHEN IT COMES TO SCUFFS, YOU’RE COVERED. INTRODUCING BEHR ULTRA® SCUFF DEFENSE.T

Wall color: Jojoba N390-3

L I F EÑ S h o p p i n g

1

2

Dress Up the Kids 1 + 2 / ALL THE COLORS

Comfy little lounge sets and jaunty bow turbans in the ROYGBIV hues make you crave one of everything from this Brooklyn, New York– based business. Lounge set, $22; bow turban, $10; rahlovesboutique.com

3

3 / N E AT F E E T

There are few things cuter than tiny tootsies. Boutique brand Tippy Tot Shoes specializes in dressing up those little piggies with snappy designs that actually provide great foot support. $80; tippytotshoes.com 4 / PLEASANT DREAMS

“It is important to see reflections of yourself and your culture represented in the media and in the products you consume, especially as a child and on into adulthood.”

4

—Nicole W. Brown, mom of four, founder of Izzy & Liv

5 / SWEET RELIEF

These minimalist teethers for the modern baby are made of silicone and are free of BPA, PVC, latex, phthalate, and lead. $15; prettypleaseteethers.com

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6 / CLOTH CURIOUS?

Leakproof and sturdy, Pooters cloth diaper covers have double-leg gussets that prevent leaks and blowouts (yay!). Made by a mom of four. $12 to $14 each; pootersdiapers.com 7/ LET’S PRETEND

The Lily Frilly dress-up gown is cut shorter in front so a princess tearing around the playground won’t trip.

This fantastical collab is brought to you by a little princess and her mom. $70; lilyfrilly.com

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6

5

1–4: COURTESY OF THE BRANDS. ALL OTHERS: JEFFREY WESTBROOK. PROP STYLING BY MIAKO KATOH.

Your kid will plunk down their anchor and drift off to sleep in these supercomfy, 100 percent cotton Captain of the Sea Pajamas. $26 for three pieces, including a short-sleeved T-shirt (not shown); izzyandliv.com

Cheese. Tacos.

No dinner drama.

© 2019 Kraft Foods

L I F EÑ S h o p p i n g

You’ve Got Mail

1

Subscription boxes offer a way to keep the fun coming on the regular.

2

“We hope Worldgirls will encourage children to foster meaningful connections with people—and dolls!—from different backgrounds, which will change the world for the better.”

What’s the Story?

Receive a package with two or three curated reads featuring Black characters. The books become more advanced as your kid grows older. Monthly, $28, three-month prepay, $80, six-month prepay, $151, one-year prepay, $286; justlikemebox.com

Hands-On Science Kids from pre-K to seventh grade get a STEAM-centric box with a book on a Black trailblazer or a child hero, plus a creative project and an activity built around the likes of robotics or chemistry. Monthly, $35 per box, three-month prepay, $90; browntoybox.com

—Laken and Carlissa King, creators of Worldgirls

3

A Little of Everything

Have Some Fun 1 / M A K E A M AT C H

Add this camping-themed memory game with 48 cards (24 matches) from Little Likes Kids to your collection of screen-free activities. The brand makes excellent puzzles as well. $16; amazon.com 2 / B AT H I N G B U D S

A program director at a facility for children wanted to ease

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bathtime angst for his little clients. He pitched these cute bath toys on Shark Tank and made it happen. Now all parents can have an easier time enticing tykes into the tub. $10; soapsoxkids.com 3 / B I R T H DAY B I R D

Start a birthday tradition with this plush toy named Happy, who will “arrive” from the land of Tuyu each year to celebrate.

Scan the smart code in the accompanying book to hear

an original birthday song, and record birthday memories inside. $40; happythebirthdaybird.com 4 / NEW FRIENDS

Worldgirls is a diverse line of dolls, each with a backstory from a different country around the globe. They’re designed by twin sisters who give every doll a character such as warrior, healer, explorer, rebel, or scholar. $89 each; teamworldgirls.com

Learn More About Their Businesses Simply hover your phone’s camera over the smart code to get more info about the entrepreneurs and companies featured here.

JEFFREY WESTBROOK. PROP STYLING BY MIAKO KATOH.

4

Each Brown Sugar Box, recommended for ages 4 to 9, includes something to wear, décor, toys, and books. $55 per quarter; izzyandliv.com

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Start With a Sheet Create the fortress walls by draping a large sheet over four chairs and securing it with clothespins.

SC AN TH E CO DE TO L E AR N M OR E A BO UT K E E PIN G YO UR H O ME C RITTER-FR EE W I TH H ELP FRO M R AID ES SENT IA L S™ .

Add Personal Touches Help your kiddo choose their favorite pillows, blankets, and toys to create a retreat they’ll want to cozy up in.

Lend a Hand With Lighting Whether it’s a disco ball or a few flashlights, mood lighting will add a perfect finishing touch.

PROTECTION FOR EV ERYONE™

*Based on laboratory testing on German cockroaches, Nielsen xAOC, plant-based ingredients, Ant & Roach segment, 52 weeks ending 12/28/2020. **When used as directed.

L I F EÑD e s s e r t

OUR PROCESS

Fifty kids rated goodies based on flavor and enjoyment. Their parents chimed in on ingredients and portion size.

FU N O N A STIC K

BEST FRUIT Y ICE- CREAM BAR

BEST FROZEN TREATS 2021

Playing It Cool After trying more than 75 new pops, bars, and pints, our panel of parent and kid testers landed on this list of treats that delivered squeals of glee and deep-in-thought mmmm’s.

by K A R E N C I C E R O

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BEST NOSTALGIC TREAT

GoodPop Valencia Orange Twin pops blew the minds of our kid testers and brought back memories for their parents. But unlike the neon hues of the ’80s and ’90s, GoodPop’s sunny color and flavor come from OJ. “It tasted like a cold orange wedge,” said one 6-year-old who shared with his mom.

GIRL: JAMIE GRILL ATLAS/STOCKSY. ALL FROZEN TREATS: COURTESY OF THE BRANDS.

Turkey Hill Strawberry Fruit & Cream Bar Soft strawberry ice cream and mini pieces of strawberries had our kid testers raving that these bars tasted “sweet and tangy at the same time.”

Beet-juice concentrate makes them extra pinkalicious.

REESE’S trademark and trade dress and the REESE’S Orange Color and Crown Design are used under license.

SNICKERS is a trademark of Mars or Affiliates, used under license. HEATH trademark and trade dress are used under license.

L I F EÑD e s s e r t

PRE P O RTIO N E D PIC KS

BEST FROZEN -YOGURT TREAT

Yasso Vanilla Bean Poppables While the Greek fro yo in these mini balls passed the kid test with flying colors, the “crunchies” in the chocolate coating brought down the house. Surprise! They’re toasted quinoa, supplying 2 grams of fiber per serving.

BEST ICE- CREAM CUPS

All of our winning treats are free of artificial food dyes.

BEST MIXED -FLAVOR BAR

Popsicle Mango, Strawberry & Vanilla Swirl Fruit Twisters The scoop from kid testers: The surprise strawberry center and the creamy milk and icy mango swirls around it add up to an “awesome flavor explosion.” As for parents, they were happy to report that the spiral shape is less messy than classic pops.

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BEST NONDAIRY BAR

So Delicious Dairy Free Dipped Mint Fudge Swirl Kids and parents alike praised the texture of these coconutmilk bars, noting that they’re much creamier than other nondairy treats they’d tried.

The crunchy dark-chocolate shell and mint flavor also got two thumbs-ups from the tasting panel.

BEST CHOCOLATE BAR

BEST PREMADE CONE

Blue Bunny Load’d Bars Super Fudge Brownie If your family likes chocolate ice cream with mix-ins, these epic bars will be your jam.

“The brownies in the ice cream were soft and fudgy,” one kid enthused. Our junior tasters also raved about the milkchocolate coating with crispy cookie pieces inside.

Klondike Cones Double Down Chocolate and Classic Chocolate Some kids preferred the chocolate wafer cone and chocolate curls on the Double Down Chocolate version, while others voted for the classic’s crispy cone and peanuts. Both have “a tunnel of chocolate sauce that’s soft and perfect.”

GIRLS: ALEXANDRENA PARKER.

Breyers Reese’s Snack Cups Sold in a pack of ten, this treat with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups one-ups singleflavor options. In the words of a taster: “It’s crunchy and creamy and has the right ratio of Reese’s to ice cream.”

E C U A S P U D N A T S A S K N I R D T U O D N A T FOR S

MAKE IT PUREMADE © 2021 Torani/R. Torre & Company

NO ARTIFICAL FLAVORS OR PRESERVATIVES

*

Torani Puremade Sauces are conscientiously crafted to treat every taste as an opportunity to help people, partners, and communities thrive. Discover easy Torani recipes at Torani.com. Available in the Cocoa aisle at your local grocer or Supercenter. *Awarded to brands that surpass quality standards established by independent professional chefs.

L I F EÑD e s s e r t

National Ice Cream Day is July 18, so keep an eye on the social media feeds of your favorite brands and shops for potential promos.

BEST SORBET

Island Way Sorbet These sorbet-filled fruit shells gave our panel of tasters vacation vibes.

Each box comes with four flavors, but favorites included the mango in half of a hollowed-out orange and the ruby berry in a grapefruit shell. The sorbet is smoother than most, thanks to a splash of cream.

BEST FRUIT Y TREAT

Helados Mexico Bolis Con Crema Strawberry Fresa Popular in Mexico, bolis are frozen treats in a tube. These California-made versions use classic wholesome ingredients like milk, cream, strawberries, sugar, and egg yolks. One kid reviewer called them “melt-in-my-mouth delicious,” while another raved that “they tasted like a smoothie.”

S C OO PAB LE FAVE S

RAISE THE (SUNDAE) BAR Try these fun finishing touches.

S M U C K E R ’ S C H O C O L AT E FUDGE TOPPING

It’s delish on ice cream, but testers also tried it as a dip for strawberries. Yum.

BEST CUSTARD PINT

Tillamook Oregon Strawberry Shortcake Frozen Custard Frozen custard is similar to ice cream but has more pasteurized eggs and butterfat, which make it smoother. Kids gave this flavor, with strawberry-sauce swirls and shortcake pieces, a perfect score for creaminess.

WAT K I N S RAINBOW D E C O R AT I N G SPRINKLES

Sundae Shoppe Minis Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches “It tastes like frozen Oreos,” said one kid tester about this Aldi supermarket exclusive.

Others mentioned that the cookies stayed crunchy. There are 12 to a package, each the perfect size for a toddler.

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BEST KIDS’ PINT

CABOT SWEETENED LIGHT WHIPPED CREAM

Thanks to a touch of vanilla, “it tastes just like homemade,” said one tester.

Serendipity Birthday Cake The iconic New York City restaurant launched a line of ice creams, and our kid testers adored this one, which wowed them with swirls of pink frosting (naturally colored), cake pieces, and sprinkles.

Said one tester: “Every bite felt like a party in my mouth.”

GIRLS: PRISCILLA GRAGG.

BEST ICE- CREAM SANDWICHES

The vivid colors come from vegetable juices and other natural sources.

BEST PINT WITH MIX-INS

Ben & Jerry’s Thick Mint Topped After you break through a thick layer of chocolate ganache and chocolatecovered cookie pieces, you’ll hit mint ice cream with more cookies swirled throughout.

“It tastes like frozen Thin Mints!” said one kid tester.

It’s a Tie!

BEST DAIRY-FREE PINT

KIDS: SASHA GULISH.

Mauna Loa Macadamia Milk Mango Liliko‘i Mango and passion fruit are a dream team, especially when blended with macadamia-nut milk. The slightly tangy result won over little panelists, who rated it higher than many of the regular ice creams they tried.

365 by Whole Foods Market Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Kid testers couldn’t tell the difference between a scoop of this treat made with almond milk and regular ice cream. “The cookie-dough pieces taste very natural, and there are plenty of them,” said one tester. Bonus: It’s gluten-free to boot.

UNDERRATED CLASSICS We asked a few food-expert parents for some overlooked flavors worth checking out. (They all happen to be fruit-forward!)

“I love Trader Joe’s Mini Mochi.

They’re a perfect size for kids to try.

Mango is my favorite flavor, but the store also sells it with coconut-based Thai tea filling.”

—PAT TANUMIHARDJA, AUTHOR OF INSTANT POT ASIAN PRESSURE COOKER MEALS

“Häagen-Dazs Pineapple Coconut has all the things I look for in a good scoop—it’s rich, creamy, and not too sweet or overloaded with add-ins.”

—PARENTS CONTRIBUTING EDITOR JOY HOWARD, AUTHOR OF DISNEY EATS

“The lime Outshine Fruit Bars strike the right balance of tart and sweet and are super-refreshing.”

—LEENA SAINI, AUTHOR OF AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 PUREES: EASY RECIPES FOR GLOBAL BABY FOOD

7:32 pm 9:47 pm 12:03 am 2:26 am 7:10 am 8:14 am

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Ages + Stages ADVICE AS YOUR CHILD GROWS

P R E G N A N CY

HOW TO

Ease Back Pain

by E M I LY E LV E R U

Expect to experience some.

Back pain during pregnancy is supercommon—50 to 75 percent of pregnant women have it at least part of the time.

You can blame it on the increase of a hormone called relaxin, which causes the joints and ligaments to relax (hence the name) during pregnancy in preparation for labor. Its main job is to facilitate the softening of the uterine muscles and the cervix. In addition, as you get closer to your delivery date,your uterus places more weight on your pelvic ligaments and can add to your aches.

Low back pain that’s worse when you’re standing but eases once you sit or lie down is considered normal during pregnancy. But talk to your doctor if the pain starts to radiate down your legs into your calves or feet; interferes with daily activities; or causes fever, chills, weight loss, weakness, or sensory issues.

shoes with good arch support . Wearing a pregnancy support belt can also help (yes, it may make you feel like a WWE wrestler). Some studies show that acupuncture might relieve low back pain, but consult with your doctor before scheduling an appointment.

Focus on your posture.

As your uterus expands, the way you stand and walk may change. Your body is naturally accommodating for the shift in your center of gravity and the laxity of your ligaments. At night, you may be most comfortable sleeping on your side with a pillow between your legs. Also, your lower back might curve more inward while your pelvis tips forward. To straighten up, work on regularly strengthening your pelvic floor and core muscles (go to parents.com/pelvicfloor for exercises).

Lighten your load.

Lift with your knees and hips and reduce the amount of weight you carry. Let your ob-gyn help you figure out what your new weight limit might be. Just don’t forget to give yourself—and your back— a break every once in a while, Mama.

Sources: Charla Fischer, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at NYU Langone’s Spine Center, in New York City; Temeka Zore, M.D., an ob-gyn and a reproductive endocrinologist at Spring Fertility, in San Francisco.

0 –12 MONTHS

Get relief.

For normal back pain, it’s safe to take acetaminophen, but avoid ibuprofen and other NSAIDs (unless your ob-gyn says it’s okay) as there is a risk of causing low amniotic fluid and heart issues for your baby. Stick to low-heeled, cushioned

HOW TO

Interpret Their Noises and Movements

new and ever-changing world. But there are a few standard moves most babies do right out of the gate that you should know about. For example, their arms and legs will stretch out wide as you lay them on their back, their hand will instinctively grasp anything you place in it, and their head will turn to nurse if you stroke their cheek. At around 4 months, your baby will be able to deliberately move their arms and legs. You can challenge them by placing a rattle or their bottle just out of reach during tummy time.

By 4 or 5 months, they’ll be able to coordinate those arms and legs enough to roll over. As your baby approaches age 1, you’ll probably hear their first word pop out and even see them take their first curious little steps.

Understand those weird sounds.

Your newborn will also make some strange noises during their first month.

You might notice that they’ll “pant” for ten or so seconds before returning to normal breathing, hiccup often, gurgle their saliva, or grunt as they poop or pass gas. All of these things are normal and show that your baby is just learning how to regulate their breathing, deal with spit, or make a dirty diaper. They’ll also be cooing—trying to form vowel sounds like “aah” and “ooh.” Many of these sounds will fade away in the first three or four months as their neurological system develops. Of course, a panting child might be alarming, especially to a new parent. Infants are still learning how to breathe through their mouth, so if it sounds like they’re struggling, check for any crusty boogers that may be obstructing their nostrils. If you feel that they are really having trouble breathing or they are becoming discolored, call your doctor right away.

by E M I LY E LV E R U

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Help them progress.

Know their normal moves.

Newborns are noisy, fidgety little humans whose brains are trying to figure out how to function in this

Infants love to imitate. They’ll smile when you smile, stick out their tongue if you stick out your tongue, and watch your mouth movements. Even though your baby can’t actually verbalize any real words back to you, you should still

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A G E S + S TA G E S

talk, sing, and make plenty of eye contact with them. This is how those sounds eventually turn into words. Starting on Day 1, you can help them build strength in their arms and legs by getting down on the floor with them during tummy time or placing them directly on your chest as you recline on the couch. They love this kind of human interaction.

Stay in touch with the doctor.

Remember, it’s important to keep your regular checkups with the pediatrician too. Not only is this a time for your baby to get their vaccines and have their weight checked, but the doctor will also assess overall development, including their reflexes, hearing, and vision. Docs want you to check in if you have any worries, so don’t be afraid to contact them.

Sources: Victoria Chen, M.D., a member of the Parents AAP Panel and a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at Cohen Children’s Medical Center, in New Hyde Park, New York; Brenda Anders Pring, M.D., a member of the Parents AAP Panel and a pediatrician at Atrius Health, in Boston.

1 –2 Y E A R S

HOW TO

Get Ready for Child Care

by R E N É E S A G I V R I E B L I N G

Schedule a visit.

Find out if the child-care location you are considering allows visits during operating hours. This will let you see how they function. Check for covered electrical outlets, fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, and the presence of a first-aid kit. Note their teacher-to-child ratio. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) recommends a maximum of 12 toddlers in a group, with at least one adult for every six kids.

Ask the director if the children are supervised even when they’re sleeping.

Find out about the curriculum.

Seek out a program staffed by teachers who have either a child development

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degree or a child development associate credential. Ask the director whether there is a gradually increasing focus on skill and language development as the kids approach age 2. They should keep a log of diaper changes and naptimes, as well as your child’s mood and activities.

The curriculum should offer regular opportunities to learn through handson materials, exploration, and play.

Toddlers pick up math concepts by building with blocks and counting toys, and they gain early literacy skills through stories, songs, and finger play. Caregivers should also consciously encourage kids to put on their coat by themselves and feed themselves.

caregivers, and let them know that they’ll have fun at the center.

Sources: Susan M. Hedges, Ph.D., director of program standards and assessment for the NAEYC; Ada Stone, director of StepnStones Childcare, in Lake Orion, Michigan; Linda Whitehead, Ph.D., vice president of education and development at Bright Horizons Family Solutions, a global child-care provider.

3–4 YEARS

HOW TO

Keep Your Child Hydrated

by R E B E C C A R A KO W I T Z

Ask about safety.

Whether your child will be at a center or in a private home, check that the facility is licensed by the state and hasn’t been cited for any violations.

You can search for a high-quality earlychildhood program accredited by the NAEYC at naeyc.org. Be specific when you’re asking about COVID-19 safety.

Try these NAEYC-recommended questions: What do their daily health checks, hygiene, sanitizing, and social-distancing practices consist of for students and staff; how often do they monitor to ensure that their caregivers are following the appropriate guidelines; do they require that everyone wear masks; and what are their procedures if any of the children or staff test positive for COVID. Smooth the transition.

Starting at a child-care center will be a big change for your toddler and for you. Some tears are natural (on both sides), but there are some clear-cut steps you can take to help them feel at ease. Before their first day, try reading picture books about going to child care or school such as Bye-Bye Time, by Elizabeth Verdick, and The Kissing Hand, by Audrey Penn, and talk to your child about what to expect. Let them acclimate to the new environment gradually by sending them part-time for the first week, if possible. Give your tot a picture of you or a lovey to soothe them during the day. Above all, show your child that you like their

Create good habits.

As the saying goes, you can lead a preschooler to water, but you can’t make them drink. For 3- and 4-year-olds, the American Academy of Pediatrics generally recommends four to five cups of fluids per day, depending on their weight and physical activity; most of these fluids should be water. This amount will increase in warmer months. When it’s hot outside, or if your child is very active and sweating, be sure they are sipping additional water at least every 20 minutes; they should always have liquids available. Take water bottles with you when you leave the house, and offer your child something to sip during moments of stillness, such as screen time and car rides. Try to model proper hydration yourself. When kiddos see Mom or Dad consistently reaching for water, they will be more inclined to do the same. You might also try reading them a book like Drinking Water, by Mari C. Schuh, which explains why their body needs water.

Mix it up.

For added flavor, freeze berries or fruit slices to use as an ice substitute. Also, your child does not need to get their liquids exclusively from, well, liquids.

Juicy fruits like watermelon and berries, fruit and veggie pouches, vegetables like cucumbers, and healthy fruit ice pops can all help your little one get hydrated.

A G E S + S TA G E S

Try to keep fruit juices and electrolyte drinks to a minimum, and dilute them with water, because they contain a lot of sugar. It’s also helpful to let your child pick out their own special cup, water bottle, or silly straw.

Keep an eye out.

A good sign of proper hydration is light-yellow or clear urine. Darker urine, decreased urine, dry skin, chapped lips, and no tears when crying can all be signs of dehydration. By the time your child simply feels thirsty, they may already be dehydrated, so do your best to stay ahead of the situation. Kids get rehydrated pretty quickly; if you’re worried your child is dehydrated, offer them small sips of fluids frequently. You should visit the emergency room or call 911 if your child experiences extreme lethargy, unresponsiveness, vomiting, lack of sweat, and severe abdominal pain.

Sources: Lisa Englander Landes, M.P.H., R.D., clinical dietitian at Children’s Hospital Colorado, in Aurora; Parents advisor Jennifer Shu, M.D., medical editor of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ website and a pediatrician in Atlanta.

5–6 YEARS

HOW TO

Keep Them From Being Bored

by K AT E R O C K W O O D

Give their imagination a boost.

Once children this age are engaged in independent, creative play, anything is possible. But they require more prompting than older children to get there. Give them a nudge in the right direction with open-ended materials (empty paper-towel rolls, tape, crayons, paper, action figurines), and ask them a specific, project-based question.

Try: “What’s the dino’s mission today?”

“Could you use this to create a new adventure?” Or “What else could this do?” Spending a few minutes helping your kids get started—even building or drawing alongside them—can often

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yield long stretches of imaginative, independent play.

Accept the mess.

Boredom-busting play at this age tends to mean pulling out toys, getting dirty, and making a mess (hello, living-room forts and backyard mud pies). If you can, set aside castoffs for outdoor play: washable shoes, a stained outfit, mismatched Tupperware. You can give the kids the green light to really get into their games while spending less (fun-sapping) energy reminding them not to get too dirty. For indoor play, cleanup may still have to be a group activity in order to actually get things tidy. But ten minutes of sofa-cushion straightening might be worth the two hours of play they spend in their fort.

Brainstorm in advance.

The phrase “I’m booooooored. What can I doooooo?” may sound like nails on a chalkboard. But rather than rattling off a list of proposed activities, encourage your kid to solve the boredom themselves (and seed more buy-in for the suggestion) by jotting ideas onto pieces of paper and putting them into a jar or a box. Try: Draw a family portrait, make paper airplanes, create your own board game, play charades, create a time capsule, put on a puppet show. You can separate ideas into solo and family games if you’re worried that a “make cookies” prompt will pull you away from your own to-do list.

7– 9 Y E A R S

HOW TO

Introduce an Instrument

by TA M E K I A R E E C E

Surround them with music.

Research has shown that playing an instrument helps improve children’s academic and social skills, promotes discipline, and boosts self-esteem. By now, your kid is developing their own musical tastes, they’re physically able to hold most instruments comfortably, and they have the finger strength required to play. The best way to get your budding musician interested in an instrument is to make music a regular part of their life. When kids hear music, they start to absorb and learn musical concepts like rhythm, melody, and changes in pitch. Challenge them to make sounds with their voice or with items around the home. If they’re interested, offer to get them an instrument. But don’t force it. Kids are more likely to stick to music if it’s what they want to do rather than something you push on them.

Let them choose.

Give them a job.

Children this age love to feel useful, and boredom needn’t always be addressed with board games and art activities.

Instead, task your kid with a household chore (washing the family car, watering the houseplants, feeding the pet, even making lunch). Or try asking what they’d like to help with or learn around the house. The key is not to wield a chore as a threat or a punishment to banish boredom but as an opportunity for them to think about their interests or curiosities and master a new skill. For more ideas, see “Tap Into Your Child’s Creativity,” on page 69.

Sources: Parker Huston, Ph.D., clinical director of On Our Sleeves and a pediatric psychologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, in Columbus, Ohio; Heidi McBain, a licensed family therapist and registered play therapist.

The piano or keyboard, recorder, drums, violin, ukulele (the nylon strings are easier to press than those on a guitar), or a small electric guitar make good choices for early learners. A woodwind or brass instrument can be tricky to play because your child has to hold it up and supply the air to produce a sound. But if your child has their heart set on a flute or a trumpet, let them try.

Find the right teacher.

A skilled instructor will ensure your child is learning proper techniques and not developing bad habits that could lead to hand, back, or neck injuries. While group lessons tend to be more affordable and can provide kids with socialization, private lessons offer one-on-one,

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personalized attention that really helps kids build skills. Try the Music Teachers National Association (mtna.org) to help you locate an instructor, or ask your child’s teacher or your family and friends for recommendations. Virtual music lessons can also be effective if the instructor works directly with your child in real time.

Music-learning software, apps, and games can help too. Try NoobNotes, Simply Piano, and Guitar Tuna.

Although these apps and games do not replace real instruction, they can be a great supplement to lessons.

10 –12 YEARS

HOW TO

Release Some Parental Control

by M I C H E L L E C R O U C H

Accept that they’re growing up.

Make practice more fun.

Most music teachers recommend that kids this age practice for 15 to 30 minutes about five time a week. Set a reminder and make it part of your child’s routine. While practice should be serious, look for ways to spice it up. Do a quick Google search for a backing track (like an instrumental) that your child can jam along with to help them feel as if they’re playing with a band. A lot of their musical toys may already have these tracks built in. Little drummers can practice on books, or you can use chalk to draw a musical staff in your driveway and have your child jump to notes as you call them. And even air guitar or playing the piano on a paper keyboard helps build muscle memory.

Give encouragement.

We actually learn music from our mistakes, so perfection should not be the goal. Provide the vocals, dance, or be their audience. Offer positive feedback like, “I can hear how hard you’re working on that chord.” Avoid being overly critical, and give your child kudos when they nail that tough song. And if they want to quit early on, talk to them to find out why. They may be bored or struggling, or they don’t like the instrument.

Your child’s teacher could also have some ideas to reignite their interest. If they’re not feeling the instrument, allow them to try others. There’s nothing wrong with getting a taste for more than one.

Sources: Anna Cucciardo, director of Music Time, in Livermore, California; George Ramsay, cofounder and CEO of Bold Music Lessons, in Charlotte, North Carolina; Karen Thickstun, president of the Music Teachers National Association and director of Butler Community Arts School at Butler University, in Indianapolis.

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It may be hard to let go and give your tween more freedom, but they can’t learn responsibility and gain confidence with constant supervision. Offer small, age-appropriate opportunities for them to be independent, like ordering and paying for themselves at a sandwich shop, making their own breakfast, or putting themselves to bed (but you should still enforce a bedtime, because getting enough sleep is essential at this age).

Let them have a phone.

Many experts say this is about the right age to give your child a smartphone and start teaching digital safety and etiquette.

Use built-in controls for screen-time limits, apps you’re not comfortable with, and inappropriate content, and have them plug in the device outside their bedroom at night. After you’ve built some trust, you can gradually offer more access.

Double down on responsibility.

Are you still waking your tween in the morning or hounding them to do chores?

Step back and start teaching the timemanagement skills needed for a successful adulthood. Buy them an alarm clock so they can get themselves up, and let them take ownership of getting homework done each day. If your kid needs support, buy a planner and sit down with them weekly to figure out when the work will be done. If this doesn’t solve the issue, let them face the music—the consequences from the teacher will likely have a bigger impact than anything you could say or do.

Allow them to go solo.

Many children this age are mature enough to spend a short time at home

alone while you run a quick errand.

This helps build responsibility and independence while also growing your trust in each other. Check that they know how to reach you, and run through different scenarios: Do they know how to contact a neighbor? What should they do if someone comes to the door? (For more information about leaving your child alone, visit childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/ homealone.pdf.) Depending on the maturity of your child, it’s healthy to start letting them go on a few adult-free excursions. Can they take the dog out without you in tow, walk a few blocks to a friend’s house, or go with a pal up the street to the local ice-cream shop? You can shadow your child the first few times to make sure they follow safety rules.

Give them some spending power.

Consider increasing your child’s weekly allowance, and put them in charge of paying for some of their wants, whether it’s making in-app purchases on Fortnight or spending money on their favorite snack while you’re food shopping. Prepaid debit cards for kids from companies like FamZoo or Greenlight make it easy to pay your child and track spending without having to have cash on hand. Talk about the importance of saving, and encourage your tween to start putting aside some money for a high-dollar item they really want, whether it’s a newer iPhone or an expensive pair of shoes.

Sources: John Duffy, Psy.D., a Chicago psychologist and author of Parenting the New Teen in the Age of Anxiety; Melissa Laracuenta-Hernandez, Psy.D., a psychologist in White Plains, New York.

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