Susan Newman's Blog, page 3

How to Prepare Your Adult Child to Leave Home

Photo: Maria Ziegler/ Unsplash Help your adult child prepare to leave home with these six tips.

According to a Pew Research study, 52% of young adults live with one or both of their parents. This number has been steadily increasing for some time, but now due to the economic effects of the pandemic, more and more individuals have moved back home to live with their parents—many immediately after college graduation. How to help prepare your adult child to leave home is something parents will...

One Child or More? 7 Questions to Ask Yourself

Volodymyr Hryshchenko/Unsplash

Report after report predicts fewer babies as a result of the pandemic. Most base their findings on the large number of women saying that they plan to put off having babies or have fewer of them. If you have one child and are on the fence about having more children, you may want to consider if or why one child may be just right for you. 

Planning family size is complicated. Asking yourself these seven questions may help you begin to clarify what is best for...

Expecting or Not?: How COVID-19 May Affect Your Decision

Neelendu Banerjee

Historically, natural disasters, terrorist attacks and blackouts have affected the birth rate. Similarly, initial signs during the COVID-19 pandemic point to fewer babies in the coming years, continuing a trend that gained noticeable momentum during the Great Recession in 2008 and has remained low. You may be wondering if you should have a baby during the pandemic or if you’re Being Practical About Having Babies or Should I Keep My Firstborn an Only Child? or if  Mothers Wi...

No, Only Children Aren’t Worse Off in the Pandemic

Only Children Doing Well in the Pandemic 

Photo Credit:  Efratzig/Pixabay

The assumption seems to be that only children are having a tougher time dealing with social restrictions related to the pandemic than kids with siblings. But the reality is COVID-19 created challenges for all families. Only children aren’t worse off in the pandemic after months and months of being home.

Nonetheless, because of consensus thinking, parents of one can feel guilty and think their child would be more c...

6 Tips for Parents of Millennials Moving Back Home

Many young Millennials are moving back home in the COVID-19 era. In this guest post, Wilfred Farquharson IV, Ph.D., director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic at Stony Brook Medicine in New York, shares advice for families readjusting to having adult kids under the same roof with their parents:

The pandemic has ushered in a time of great uncertainty for many, including younger generations who in recent months have made the decision to move back home. A study by the Pew ...

They Can Go Home Again

Originally posted on Psychology Today on July 2, 2020. Please do not share on social media.

Photo Credit: Moya Mc Allister

FAMILY HAS ALWAYS been a lifeline, and the coronavirus has led thousands of young adults to grab on tight. Whether just out of college, newly furloughed or laid off, or a few years into their first jobs, sons and daughters have returned to their parents’ home to wait out the spread of the virus and its damage to the economy. For most, this wasn’t their first choice, bu...

A Memory Building Challenge

Photo Credit: Irina Murza Unsplash

Home life can be fragmented and finding time to create lasting positive memories and be together are a rarity and a treat. Doing so is much easier and more important than you may think.

In a study of autobiographical memory, Dr. Susan Bluck, who directs the Story Lab at the University of Florida and her co-authors asked, “What do individuals use the memories of their life for?” Among other things, they discovered that memories are important for “maintain...

A Covid-19 Memory Building Challenge

Photo by Jacqueline Macou Pixabay

You dont always have to be doing something with your children. Just being home and in the same room is often enough. Thats something I noted in my book, Little Things Long Remembered: Making Your Children Feel Special Every Day. That was thenwhen home life was fragmented and finding time to be together a rarity and a treat. 

With schools and most offices closed and social distancing in place, being home pretty much 24/7, sometimes getting on each others...

7 Tips for Increasing Your Productivity When You Work From Home

Photo Credit: Carl Heyerdahl/Unsplash

When you work from home fulltime or part time, too many people in your life—definitely in mine—think you’re available 24/7 to cover an extra carpool run, walk their dog, watch for a neighbor’s delivery, drop a package at the post office… To others, it’s no big deal for us to juggle our schedules; we’re mostly home after all. There’s no boss standing in our office doorway or at our desk wanting results on the spot.But, there are some easy ways of stopping...

To Have or Not to Have Another Child

Author with daughter. Photo/ Adam Wallace

Deciding to have or not to have another child can be an emotional roller coaster with the ride often lasting for years. When you have one child and struggle with the idea of having another, your thinking can easily become clouded by the only child stereotypes and by friends and relatives who offer advice as if you hadn’t entertained the pros and cons yourself.

In this guest post, Ashleigh Wallace, ope...