Short, practical essays on getting your family talking — questions that actually work on teenagers, the research behind family stories, and the small daily rituals that outlast big talks.
August 25, 2026An eight-year study found kids with more screen time showed better — not worse — cognitive processing as teens. Take it seriously. The bill was never cognitive; it arrives at bedtime and the dinner table.
August 19, 2026ChatGPT for Teens launched this week — no romance, no claiming feelings, a parental curfew switch. Every subtraction on the list is a diagnosis of what was happening before.
August 9, 2026New research ranked the lifestyle factors connecting kids' mental health to grades and friendships. Sleep won by a mile — screens, the thing we fight about, came a distant second.
August 3, 202638 states send kids back to phone-free classrooms this month. The research says the wins are social, not academic — and the ban ends at the bell.
July 28, 202672% of teens have tried an AI companion, half use one regularly — mostly in secret. The bot's feature list is a job description for the listener they want.
July 21, 2026The AAP just retired the two-hour rule parents have argued over for a decade. The replacement question is harder and better — "instead of what?"
July 14, 2026The people who know your family's best stories won't be around to tell them forever. Ten questions to ask a grandparent this month — and why kids who hear the answers do better.
July 7, 2026"We need to talk" almost never produces talking. What works instead: tiny, repeated rituals small enough to survive your family's worst week.
June 30, 2026Twenty questions, developed at Emory, that predicted children's resilience better than researchers expected — and what the finding actually means for your dinner table.
June 23, 2026Why "how was school?" gets you "fine," and five changes — go first, drop the eye contact, let them write — that get you real answers.
June 16, 2026Silly ones, brave ones, heart ones, heritage ones, dream ones — field-tested questions that produce answers longer than one word.