Family

Most parents know about the importance of car seats for infants and toddlers, but booster seats for older kids are often required by law, too — yet a new survey finds lots of carpooling moms and dads use them inconsistently at best.

In news that will likely make mothers everywhere wince in sympathetic pain, a 14-pound baby boy has been born in Des Moines, Iowa.

Young people who attempt suicide may be doing it at a younger age, according to a recently released study.

The trend in recent years that led parents and teachers to boost children’s self-esteem by rewarding them for doing little other than breathing may soon be over, thanks to new research that says such actions are actually making kids less intelligent.

We’ve all seen the heartwarming videos of soldiers stationed overseas surprising their children stateside with early returns home. And that’s how this video of Capt. Cherissa Jackson, who had been deployed in Afghanistan, begins, with mom surprising her daughters Anita and Ashley at a Gaitherburg, Maryland Kentucky Fried Chicken. But then it gets even more touching.

People buying a house who can’t get a loan the traditional way are sometimes tapping a less conventional source: their parents.

Childhood obesity is soaring. In fact, about a third of US children are currently overweight or obese — and a new study may reveal one big cause. Researchers found toddlers who have a poor relationship with their moms could be twice as likely to be obese by the time they turn 15, possibly because they tend to turn to food as a substitute for motherly comfort.

Eleven-year-old Jared Flanders willfully disobeyed his father and left his Massachusetts home one day last week without an accompanying adult. But Jared had a good reason to defy his dad, since his objective was to attend a funeral for a firefighter killed during the line of duty.

Back in the ’60s, corporal punishment was common practice for a shocking 94 percent of parents in the US. While a lot of us may find this number unsettling, just as many don’t. In fact, half of all parents today admitted to punishing children by “spanking on the bottom with a bare hand” to a telephone poll conducted by the National Institutes for Mental Health.

Greece’s version of Jim Bob Duggar has been exposed as a fraud due to a tiny slip up. The man, whose identity is protected by Greek law, created 19 non-existent children in order to live off of government benefits. Unfortunately, police caught on to the scheme when the man’s taxes claimed he had the largest family in the country.