Parenting

Stories related to parenting

‘If you batch cook, he will batch-eat the whole lot in one sitting’: The real cost of raising teenagers

School bills, sports and the subsequent medical costs, food and pocket money all mount up to put pressure on household finances

Leaving Cert stress? A parent, a psychologist and a guidance counsellor share advice

Conversations with Parents brings you a special Leaving Cert episode with an expert panel to help parents and students navigate the whole experience

Summer camps for children: The best and most popular non-sports camps in Ireland

From singing or learning a language, to archaeology and cookery, here are some of the camps on offer this summer

‘My husband wants our child in mainstream schooling, but I want to look at alternatives’

Ask the Expert: She’s quite artistic, funny and highly emotionally intelligent, but struggles academically at school

‘There’s an issue around mindset’: Parents on hybrid working and childcare pressures

With some employers, ‘there’s an issue around mindset’ regarding in-office demands, one couple says

Séamas O’Reilly: One of those days that makes you realise parenting is properly hard

A skin infection, rejection from nursery, a bit of light shoplifting, and to top the day off, a not-entirely-glowing review of my new book

I tried to tell the GP I was seeing things but he ‘gave me eczema cream’

Survey results suggest about half of children in Ireland live with a parent with poor mental health for at least part of childhood

Coleen Nolan: ‘Everyone thought we were nuns ... and that we’d never even kissed a boy’

Jen Hogan: On Conversations with Parents, Nolan discusses how her own experience growing up influenced her as a parent

Tigers Childcare sells 34-creche business to UK group in deal that could be worth €75m-plus

Founder Karen Clince retains a reduced stake in fast-growing business and will remain in charge of the Irish operation

One phrase has always annoyed me: ‘Remember there’s always someone worse off than you’

Am I supposed to take comfort or pleasure in the greater hardship of others? Or is it that there’s a suffering competition?

My daughters may never be ready to talk about my cancer over a midweek pasta bake

The cheery news is we are all deteriorating as we move towards the ultimate state of necrosis. Accepting this is not depressing, it’s liberating

Séamas O’Reilly: I met my son crying at the school gates and felt like a war criminal

None of the responsible, loving, joyous acts you carry out as a dad soothe you very much on those occasions you mess up

Seán Moncrieff: My new granddaughter has advantages most other kids don’t

Globally, about 380,000 babies arrived on the same day as Granddaughter Number Two. A fifth were born into poverty

Valerie French’s brother welcomes plan to strip parenting rights from spouse killers

Bill known as ‘Valerie’s Law’ to be presented to Cabinet on Wednesday

Dec Pierce on cancer diagnosis: ‘No one’s going to believe this could happen to a bloke’

Today FM host tells host Jen Hogan about the shock of learning he had breast cancer

‘My daughter gets anxious and overwhelmed, and it can escalate into angry outbursts’

Ask the Expert: When the meltdown is over, she doesn’t understand why she was so angry

When you’re in crisis the world is kinder and you’re kinder to yourself

A year on from my son’s treatment for leukaemia, I find myself back in a world of expectations I can’t quite meet. The bar feels impossibly high again

Séamas O’Reilly: My children are my greatest source of joy - and stress, sadness, guilt and fear

It appears there’s quite strong proof that having children does not, in any measurable way, make you more happy

I’m the only male at home and it’s not weird. It’s a fascinating honour

Family environment makes me think of the opening line of John McGahern’s Amongst Women

Oisín McConville: ‘At one stage, football was the only thing that kept me alive’

The two-time All Star winner says his gambling addiction was so bad ‘loan sharks wouldn’t even touch me in the end’

‘Although I understand why my sibling received more attention . . . issues remain strong in my life’

Having to take on adult responsibilities at an early age can have negative effects that last into adulthood

I’ve recently come into a lump sum and want to invest it. What should I do?

How to invest: Options for investing a lump sum; long-term saving for children; and whether you should pay down your mortgage before you invest

I am a Gen Z trapped in the body of a Gen X

Jen Hogan: Nothing is certain, not your desk, not your emojis, not even your generation

Róisín Ingle: Getting a tattoo was my friend’s idea. I’m calling it my ‘mild-life’ crisis

Róisín Ingle: It’s no big deal, only a bit of ink on skin, but also it’s permanent, so it’s sort of a big deal

Children must learn their letters, their numbers – and then 6,000 facts about animals

The average four-year-old would almost certainly beat the average 40-year-old in a quiz on animal facts

Colman Noctor: ‘Behaviour is always the signpost to a problem. It is very rarely the problem’

Noctor is a well-known child and adolescent psychotherapist

Preparing to move from primary school to secondary starts now, not in September

A new school can feel like an alien experience. Everything is different

‘My son has intense meltdowns, including hitting, when asked to do reasonable things’

Ask the Expert: Things can escalate so quickly that it is frightening

Séamas O’Reilly: When I turned 40 my daughter’s eyes went wide as saucers. She has been known to cook the numbers

Her passion to be bigger and older stops just short of wanting to be an adult. Any suggestion that she is as old as, say, her parents, evokes disgust

Submit your questions on: Maternity leave in Ireland

Experts in HR, employment law and career progression can offer their view on your maternity leave queries

Having a baby: can you and your employer afford it?

Ireland offers more generous time off than most countries, but low level of financial support means many parents cannot afford to take it

Flexible work could help parents balance jobs and childcare

AI may transform work, but employers can already retain talent through genuine flexible roles

We’d all love long teacher holidays, but how keen would we be on the job that goes with them?

Any parent, in their more honest don’t-say-it-out-loud moments, will admit that looking after kids can be boring

Jen Hogan: You may be questioning the sort of company I keep

I had just about got rid of Cilla Black singing Lionel Richie classics on Instagram, when I’d algorithmically relocated to foot odour feed hell

‘Working’ or ‘stay-at-home’ parent is a false choice. Most of us want something in between

The words of Australian swimmer Cameron McEvoy are in stark contrast to the vogue for pernicious tradwife influencing

Honest talk about one of life’s biggest challenges: Conversations with Parents podcast is back

Conversations with Parents podcast with Jen Hogan

My wife and I felt shame when told our child needed glasses. We’d ignored the warnings

My wife and I felt shame, casting our minds back through warnings we’d missed, when told our child needed spectacles

Raising Chelsea: Conception, birth and first brand partnership of an aristocratic nepo baby

Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo’s Disney show blurs lines between family life and brand-building

How to manage family finances after a separation

Transparency, planning and consideration are essential for parents who need to remember the focus must be on what works for the children

Inland Fisheries Ireland’s €60,000 PR outlay and protests at rising fuel costs

Early Edition podcast: Today’s top stories from The Irish Times

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