Greg Kratz of the Deseret News was worried about his wife’s trip away from home. Namely, that he wouldn’t be able to wrangle his kids in her absence. It’s a common fear among dads – I had it, once, as have some of my friends – and I think it’s a good fear to have. It’s good partially because you SHOULD be worried about taking care of your children, but mostly because there’s really nothing to worry about. And for me, one of the best feelings in the world is to do something I thought would be hard and finding out how very easy it actually was.

Kratz’s kids are older than my 2-year-old NJ, and he’s got four compared to my one. And I spent the first year of NJ’s life at home stay-at-home dad-ing it, so it’s been something I’ve dealt with for quite a while. Heck, I even named myself Dad Solo  for blogging purposes. But I still think my Solo Parenting Rules can apply. Here are my suggestions:

Marry a good parent. This is key, for reasons that are obvious and maybe not-so-obvious. In his article, Kratz mentions that his wife is “an amazing mother” and a lot of his fretting seems based on the notion that he won’t live up to her standard. This is not a bug, though – this is a feature. He should leverage his wife’s mom-amazingness for all it’s worth. Obviously she can give him the basic run-down – “Kids up at 6:30 a.m. Get breakfast on the table by 7. Rodrigo won’t eat fruit in the morning, but Penelope won’t eat anything but fruit.” Etc., etc. If you’re the second-string quarterback, you’re usually not expected to win the game single-handedly. You’re just there to make sure things run smoothly. If the starting QB is on the sidelines, bring him/her a nice cup of Gatorade and ask what plays will work best.

And there’s ways to cheat here, too. Before my wife went out of town on business once, months ago, I did a little hand-wringing over NJ’s meals for daycare. Since I’m either still getting up or brushing my teeth or already at work when she packs the kid’s lunch, I wasn’t sure what, and how much, was ending up in NJ’s lunch box. I asked about this, scrunched up my brow a little bit to show confusion, and voila! My wife – because she, too, is an amazing mother – was making NJ’s lunches for the week and setting them up, in order, in the fridge. All I had to do was put them in the lunch box each morning, something I managed quite nicely and did not screw up once.  

Bob Trott

Bob Trott and daughter NJ: Not afraid to fly solo.

Take a guilt trip. My 2-year-old is a little young to get all the nuances of this one, but I can usually make my patented “sad face” and she knows I’m not happy and something needs to change. I can’t wait until she’s older so I can go full-blown “Hey, Dad’s doing the best he can, cut him some slack!” on her.

If necessary, make new rules. Earlier I said the new solo parent was like a back-up quarterback, but he’s also the new sheriff in town. Can your job go more smoothly if you ignore a rule or a step in your family’s routine? Then do it.

NJ understands that once in a while her mommy has to go away for a couple of nights for work. Still, of course, she misses her mommy. The first morning my wife’s gone, NJ will cry some because of that. But afterward, we talk about work and now mommy’s going to be home before you know it and all’s well. But just barely, sometimes – “Where’s Mommy?” usually comes up at dinnertime. And I don’t mind admitting that I have warded off toddler tears by breaking our very strict one-cookie-for-dessert rule. The second cookie comes with a long “after this we take a bath, read stories and go to bed” string attached. And it works. In fact, NJ often gets a conspiratorial gleam in her eye when I bring it up. She thinks we’ve got quite a little secret going.

Be fun. A corollary to the “new rules” rule (because extra cookies are fun!). Not that you’re not normally a barrel of monkeys at a New Year’s Eve party, but loosen up some and enjoy the one-on-one time.

Run out the clock. Back to the quarterback comparison – when you’re subbing for the starter and you’ve got a lead, don’t blow it by getting too fancy or elaborate. At the risk of offending Al Gore, I’ve driven a dozing baby around in my car for an hour or more so 1) she could finally get that nap she was fighting for so long, and 2) I could get some peace and quiet. Also, cute baristas working drive-thru coffee joints always love to see a sleeping baby in the back seat. And if there’s a game on the radio, or you’ve got 689 Springsteen tunes on your iPod, all the better.

Play for sympathy. When your spouse returns, be sure to tell him or her how great things went in his or her absence. You’re reassuring your spouse and building your own solo parenting bona fides at the same time. But ALWAYS be sure to mention the thing that didn’t go so great. A little “Of course, last night the kid wailed for hours after bedtime” will go a long way toward ensuring that the help you’re getting under the “Marry a good parent” entry above will be even better next time around.

The response to Kratz’s column was an eye-opener for him – he heard lots of “just shut up and be a good parent” from many readers. But it’s only natural to be nervous (or concerned, or wary, or whatever word fits your situation) about doing something like that for the first time. I’m looking forward to reading how his solo-dad stint went.

What else do solo dads need to know? Share your solo parenting tips.

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Courtesy: The Curren family

Anwyn Cook (far left) and Chloe Cook (left) pictured with their parents Erik Curren (right) and Lindsay (far right), authors of the "Occupy Parenting" blog.

After Lindsay and Erik Curren went to a few “Occupy Wall Street” events in different cities, they thought: How can we bring this home to our family?

Not the protesters themselves, but the spirit of resistance.

“For years we had been talking about how difficult it is to be a parent in the face of all this commercialism,” Erik Curren said.

Occupy Parenting was born. Lindsay told Erik they needed to create something to fight “too much tension, too many conflicting expectations, too much trying to keep up with the Joneses” in families.

They created a website to “take the family back from the marketplace.” Their goal: “To bring parents in the 99% together everywhere to free ourselves and our kids from the rule of greed.”

The Staunton, Va., couple say they’ve always felt they’re fighting big corporations’ control over their family and, especially, their daughters, 14-year-old Chloe and 16-year-old Anwyn.

“They didn’t watch a stitch of TV before their third birthday,” she says. “There were no computers at age 5. Nothing automated, no plastic.”

She says they provide what their children need -- but not always what they want.

They always have limited trips to the mall, and try not to accumulate “stuff” just to keep up with what other families do.

The Currens are environmental activists who own Curren Media Group, a media consulting and marketing firm, and Lindsay writes Lindsay’s List, a women’s conservation blog.

They say they’re worried about other parents struggling to instill their own values in the face of what they consider a corporate onslaught.

“A lot of values are advanced by TV and advertising that may not harmonize with my values,” adds Lindsay. “We need to have a more prominent national conversation about our values concerning consumption.”

I learned that firsthand a long time ago.

My youngest child was about 5, watching a video, when she asked for a pencil and paper. I asked why she needed it and she said the TV told her to write down a phone number. I followed her across the room and saw that the video had successfully sucked in my kid, convincing her she needed more videos, and just how to get them.

The company was doing what companies do best: trying to make a profit. And I knew I had to do what I do best: teach my child to understand and resist the marketing.

“For decades, corporate marketers have been occupying our kids with their me-first mindset,” say the Currens. “No more. It's time to occupy parenting.”

They want their site to be a place where parents can discuss those things and share solutions.

Just the kind of support I needed when I came across as the bad guy for telling a 5-year-old she wasn’t going to do what the TV tells her to do.

What about you: Would you join the “Occupy Parenting” movement?

Jane Clifford is a Southern California-based writer and mother of four.

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Many low-income parents feel they must resort to “formula stretching,” to keep their infants fed, even with government food assistance programs, a new study shows.

The study found that 30 percent of parents who brought their infants to an inner city children’s clinic didn’t have enough food to make it through each month. And a full 15 percent, or about 1 in 8, made ends meet by watering down their babies’ formula or by feeding less frequently, according to the study which was published in Clinical Pediatrics.

“We knew this was a high-risk population,” said study co-author Andrew Beck, a fellow in general academic pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. “But these numbers are still staggering.”

Up till now there has been little research on infants in families that don’t have enough food, Beck said. Studies of hunger and food shortages across the nation have found that 16 to 22 percent of American families come up short some months.

Beck and his colleagues surveyed 144 parents of infants who attended the hospital’s Pediatric Primary Care Center. The vast majority of families who come to the clinic are covered by Medicaid and receive food stamps as well as assistance getting infant formula through a program called WIC.

 The researchers asked about food availability and feeding behavior in a 37-question survey that also looked at sociodemographic characteristics such as patient age, race, parental age, education, ethnicity and source of insurance.

Even though the majority of parents were receiving help through foods stamps and WIC, many did not have enough food to feed their families. In fact, some 65 percent of families ran out of WIC-supplied infant formula most months. And the result, in many cases, was that parents diluted or cut back on formula for their infants.

This kind of formula stretching may have consequences for the infants, Beck said.

“There will be a subset of children who will have what is called ‘failure to thrive,’” Beck explained. “More often, though, the ramifications of this tend to be less visible -- problems with cognition and behavior. In some it may lead to obesity later in life.”

While some might point to breast feeding as a solution, not every mom is in the position to do this for her child. In some jobs it’s virtually impossible to express milk during the day when a mom is away from her baby.

“Clearly, we encourage and actively support breastfeeding,” Beck said. “The reality is that a relatively low percentage of our patients breastfeed by the time they reach us.  If they do, we continue to encourage it and have a breastfeeding clinic if they need it.  Although they likely wouldn't require formula, we need to do education and a nutritional assessment for mom.  Also, as the first year progresses, even fewer families continue to nurse.”

Many of these patients may be slipping through the cracks, Beck said. At his hospital, residents reported problems with food availability in only 2 percent of parents attending the clinic.

It was clear, Beck said, that residents didn’t know how to ferret out these kinds of issues. In a second study, published in Pediatrics, the researchers showed that the numbers shot up when doctors were given the right questions to ask of their patients.

Right now Beck and his colleagues are working on finding solutions for parents who don’t have enough to feed their kids. But those solutions will only work if doctors can figure out who needs help, Beck said.  

Related: 

• Working moms are healthier, happier
• Lip-reading babies may offer autism clues
• Seeing double? Number of twins in U.S. spikes

Chauffeuring kids around amid all the other responsibilities that parents face can be exhausting duty. To ease nerves and boost sales, automakers are offering vehicle-shopping parents an array of conveniences. Sifting through the latest models, Parenting magazine has come up with seven to suit just about everyone's taste — even those underage back-seat drivers.

Two of the seven featured in the magazine are:

Courtesy of GM Company

The Chevrolet Traverse can easily carry half your kid's soccer team.

Chevrolet Traverse
By the numbers: Three rows, up to eight seats, 17 mpg city/24 mpg highway

Carpool 2.0: Sliding second-row seats that children as young as 7 can operate. Play tunes on your smartphone through the sound system using wireless Bluetooth.

Mommy, I can do it: The seat belts are easy for kids to snap themselves into.

No sticky seats: The cup holders can accommodate juice boxes and sippy cups.

Price: From $29,510; chevrolet.com

Courtesy of Toyota Motor Corp.

The Prius V has plenty of room in the back — just don't forget the kids.

Toyota Prius V
By the numbers: Five seats, 67 cubic feet of storage with the rear seatbacks down (that's approximately 98 paper grocery bags), 44 mpg city/40 mpg highway

Appy family: The dashboard doubles as a tablet. Toyota's Entune multimedia system lets you use the in-dash touchscreen to tune in to The Muppets station on Pandora, search Bing for the nearest Pinkberry, or get live traffic reports.

Price: From $26,400; toyota.com

Of course, now you just have to find that middle ground between the wheels you want and the one the kids want.

More from Parenting.com:

10 best cities for families 
Common car seat mistakes you may be making   
17 convertible car seats with extended rear facing

Target

Ryan's mother says "the whole process of modeling is an extreme confidence booster" for the young model.

By Julia Rubin, Styleite

For all the controversy surrounding some child models, it gives us great pleasure to dote on the latest pint-size star. His name is Ryan, and he has Down syndrome.

The adorable 6-year-old’s latest modeling gig is for Target, and he also appeared in a Nordstrom catalog this past summer. Daddyblogger Noah’s Dad posted both of the photos, and Ryan’s proud mom commented:

We are very pleased that Nordstrom placed Ryan in their catalog. The whole process of modeling is an extreme confidence booster for him. He received so much warmth and caring from the Nordstrom crew that he thought they were there just for him! We are honored that Ryan is making the Down Syndrome community proud. He is a beautiful boy inside and out. He makes us better parents, and a better family.

Nordstrom

Nordstrom's newest pint-size model, Ryan, is just one of the gang.

The best thing about Target and Nordstrom’s casting of Ryan is that he’s not singled out in any way — he’s just another super cute kid smiling for the camera. The ads are inclusive, yet they aren’t trying to prove a point. They come across as completely ordinary, which in this case is a really wonderful thing.

More: Meet The Most Terrifying Toddlers & Tiaras Contestant Ever

World Leaders Kiss In Controversial Benetton Campaign

Online Retailer Inadvertently Features Nude Man In Kids Ad

By MyHealthNewsDaily

Mothers who have jobs are healthier than those who are not employed, at least when their children are very young, a new study finds.

Working mothers in the study were less depressed and reported better overall health than moms who stayed at home with their young children, though this benefit of working did not extend into children's school years.

There was no difference between the health of mothers who worked part time and those who worked full time, the researchers said.
Stay-at-home moms may be more socially isolated than working moms, which might increase their chances of being depressed, the researchers said. Stay-at-home moms might also be under more stress as a result of being at home with their children all day. This stress may be relieved somewhat when their children start school, which may explain why the link disappeared when children entered preschool.

The study is published in the December issue of the Journal of Family Psychology

The results are based on interviews, starting in 1991, with 1,364 mothers from Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. Researchers interviewed women throughout their children's infancy, preschool years and into elementary school.

The researchers defined working part time as working one-to-32 hours per week. About 25 percent of mothers were employed part time during the study period, although mothers moved in and out of part-time work. Mothers reported whether they experienced symptoms of depression and rated their overall health as "poor," "fair," "good" or "excellent."

The mothers also answered questions about conflicts between their work and family lives, and how involved they were in their child's schooling.

Working moms reported fewer symptoms of depression and were more likely to rate their health "excellent," compared with nonemployed mothers, according to the study.

Mothers working part time tended to report less conflict between work and family than those working full time, the researchers said.

Mothers employed part time reported being just as involved in their child's schooling as stay-at-home moms, and more involved than moms who worked full time. In addition, mothers working part time provided more learning opportunities for their toddlers than stay-at-home moms and moms working full time, the researchers said.

Couples' emotional intimacy did not appear to be affected by the mothers' employment status: the level of emotional understanding between partners was similar for working moms and stay-at-home moms.

The findings in the study held even after the researchers took into account factors that could have influenced the results, including the mother's education and certain personality traits.

The researchers noted they examined the mother's well-being in relation to one child only, and additional siblings should be considered in future studies. 
 

Moms, how does this finding line up with your own experience? Tell us on Facebook.

• 11 Big Fat Pregnancy Myths
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Getty Images

No maternity clothing here: Jennifer Garner at the "Butter" premiere on Sept. 13, 2011 in Toronto, Canada; Garner at the Motion Picture & Television Fund's "Reel Stories, Real Lives" on Nov. 5, 2011 in Los Angeles; Garner in Lanvin dress at the Butter premiere in November 2011.

By Chiara Atik

There is no better excuse than pregnancy for elastic waistbands and loose-fitting shirts. Unfortunately for Jennifer Garner, who is expecting her third child in February, stylist Rachel Zoe has something else in mind for her.

“Rachel Zoe is so determined to not put me in maternity clothes,” the actress told InStyle recently. (Interestingly, Zoe declared Garner her celebrity mom style icon last month).

Indeed, unlike fellow pregnant stars Beyonce or Jessica Simpson, who have lately taken to flaunting their baby bumps, Garner has been seen at events wearing dresses that non-pregnant starlets might also wear on the red carpet.

At the AFI screening of Butter in Los Angeles on Nov. 7, Garner wore a loose, asymmetrical Lanvin mini-dress, paired with thick black heels and a whole lotta leg. The previous Saturday, she wore a tightly-fitted black lace dress with towering bronze heels and a black tuxedo jacket at The Hollywood Reporter's Annual Next Generation Reception.

Of course, while Zoe may dictate Garner’s red carpet look, daytime is a different story. In the past few weeks, Garner has been repeatedly photographed out and about in Los Angeles, wearing comfortable clothing that much more closely resembles the wardrobe of an expectant mom: loose fitting jeans, leggings, flats, and maternity tops.

And as for red carpet looks for the duration of her pregnancy, Garner hasn’t given up hope of maternity-wear.

“I have four months to go," Garner said. "Sooner or later, [Zoe] is going to have to put me in a maternity dress. Eventually that is going to happen, but so far she has gotten her way.”

How can one attempt Garner's chic wardrobe on a budget? Rosie Pope, maternity fashion designer and star of Bravo's "Pregnant In Heels," uses TODAY.com's Katie Quinn to showcase the best fall and winter trends for new moms and moms-to-be.

Chiara Atik is a New York based writer who loves to watch 80s sitcoms and read Italian Vogue.

More: Slideshow: Stars’ maternity style
Rachel Zoe on parenting, style and beauty

Exposing small children to lots of environments isn’t terribly scary because we’re right beside them holding their hands, scanning the surroundings for any danger. But once they become teenagers — so reckless, so dopey, so sleepy — it’s much more challenging.

Last week, the mother of a 13-year-old boy told me that she enjoyed my book, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, but hasn't been able to bring herself to read The Blessing of a B Minus. She said:

Lucas must get A’s. And he’s not much of a student so I help him with his homework for at least two hours every night. I have your book on my night table but I can’t open it. It’s the title. It makes me want to throw-up.

A teen we interviewed for TODAY said her mom’s top three fears are “me learning to drive, choking, and me being abducted. And somehow she ties everything into those three issues.”

Other teens complain that their parents demand that they text them at every turn. When you get to the party…when you leave the party…when you arrive home if I’m already asleep so if I wake up in the night I can check to see that you got home safely.

Some tell me they can’t win in communicating with their parents: If I don’t tell them stuff they seem sad, or betrayed or imagine the worst, but if I do they overreact and want to take over.

I’m starting to think that the most loving, intelligent parents wish their children would just skip adolescence entirely, that our world is just too dangerous and competitive to chance any risky moves. They pray that their child will go from pleasant, diligent third-grader to junior statesman with no experimentation or mistakes or the possibility of blemishes on the high school transcripts in between.  

But there’s more danger in this formula than in a robust, rocky adolescence because if they go off to college — land of beer pong, co-ed dorms and no one taking attendance in class, land where the only person in charge is the 19-year-old resident adviser in the dorm — without learning how to drive, both literally and metaphorically, there’s a greater chance they’ll end up being in a wreck.

College deans have nicknames for overprotected freshman who lack resilience, stick-to-itiveness and spirit. They call them “teacups.” And they call the incoming students who have been grinding away at their studies, extracurriculars and test prep throughout middle school and high school “crispies.” The fragile and the fried. Neither type is likely to flourish on their own.  Neither is properly prepared.

So how can parents ultimately let go? I’ve found inspiration in poetry. Here are a few lines to repeat to yourself when the temptation to rescue, protect, spy, pry, and prod becomes overwhelming.

Hitting the road: For parents with beginning teen drivers.

The best way out is through. (Robert Frost)

The sages teach that every parent has an obligation to teach their child how to swim. This means that where you see danger (think about the places he could go, the company he could keep, the things he could do in that car!) your child sees freedom and opportunity to study for the big history test at Olivia's house. 

The only way for your child to become an experienced driver is for your child to drive — a lot! In all different conditions! — even if you keep gasping and hitting the imaginary brake on the floor of the passenger seat. 

Please check in: For the text-addicted parent.

Teach us to care and not to care, teach us to sit still. (T.S. Eliot) 

If you need constant reassurance from your child, you project your own insecurity and make them nervous, too. You also invite them to lie, since unlike the days when parents actually answered a landline and you could ask to speak to your child, a text actually tells you nothing about your teen's actual coordinates.

So unplug! You'll set a good example and give your teen a chance to learn good navigation skills.

On prying , spying and cross-examining: For the parent who wants to be as close to their teen as they were to their cuddly, talkative, friendly young child.

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky. (Ranier Maria Rilke)  

Beware suffocating your teen and be grateful that they spare you the details. The closer you get to anything, the more you see the flaws and the potential for peril. So step back and give your child space to grow.

Unless you want your daughter calling you from the salad bar in the college cafeteria  asking, “Do I like Russian dressing?” or e-mailing her papers for you to edit, you can think of the teen years as a launching pad, or an entertaining, three-ring circus, or a midnight sail underneath a starry sky.

Scary? For sure. But exciting, too.

Dr. Wendy Mogel is a clinical psychologist, parenting expert and the author of the New York Times bestselling parenting book, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee. Her new book, The Blessing of a B Minus, is about raising teenagers.

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Everyone knows not to get between a bear and her cubs, but if mama bears used bottles maybe they’d be a little more mellow.

A study published in the September issue of Psychological Science found that nursing mothers are roughly twice as aggressive as bottle-feeding moms and women without children when confronted by a threat.

“Maternal defense does not involve nursing mothers going out and looking for bar fights, but when they have a helpless baby, they’re more likely to defend themselves when the fight comes to them,” said Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook, a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA’s Department of Health Psychology.

Similar aggression has been observed in lactating monkeys, rats, mice, deer, hamsters, lions, prairie voles and sheep. When reading a book about how vicious predators become loveable moms, Hahn-Holbrook noticed that many of our preconceptions about mothers being quite docile were actually wrong for other species. She wondered if the same thing would hold true for humans.

She and other researchers recruited 18 nursing mothers, 17 women who were feeding formula to their babies and 20 non-mothers. The women were told they’d be playing a competitive computer game against a research assistant posing as a rude and aggressive study participant. When the women “won” a round of the game, each got to choose how long and loudly they would blast their opponent with an annoying sound.

After accounting for other differences, the researchers found that breast-feeding mothers delivered sound blasts to the rude opponent that were more than twice as loud and long as those administered by non-mothers and nearly twice as loud and long as those by bottle-feeding mothers.

The study suggests that lactation—and not just motherhood in general—kicks maternal protection into overdrive. During the confrontations, for instance, nursing moms exhibited lower blood pressure levels than the other two groups of women. That can actually dampen fear and stress responses and give them a little extra moxie to defend their offspring, the study concluded.

“We interpreted this as breastfeeding being nature’s way of helping moms calmly but effectively deal with potential threats,” Hahn-Holbrook said. But in a day and age when we’re not exactly likely to be chased by saber-toothed tigers, does the aggression factor add any benefit?

“That’s completely beyond the scope of our study, but I’m sure there are plenty of contexts in which moms could use a little extra help in that regard,” she said. “This wouldn’t just come up in terms of predators but might also encourage a mom to run back into a burning building and save an infant. I definitely think that moms generally are inspired to do that, but I wonder if lactation would just give moms a little extra push and a little extra courage.”

BEIJING—The school term may be coming to a close for summer, but education remains a hot topic.

At least that’s the way the China Times sees it.

The Taiwan-based newspaper invited Amy Chua, author of the controversial Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, to Beijing for several public speaking engagements earlier this week.

“She uses the Chinese way to educate her kids, and it’s very successful,” said Shao Jian Biao, the deputy editor in chief at China Times.  “But parents here in China have been trying the western way, because they thought it was better.  A lot of parents are confused.”

East or West?
Monday morning saw a small group of Chinese reporters—all of them female—turn up a hotel business center, eager to get Chua to expound on her views on raising children.

“I’m a mother, and I read her book very carefully,” said Shen Feng Li, Vice Director of Shanghai Morning Post.  “In China, we pay a lot of attention to education.”

Courtesy Citic Press

A Chinese translation of "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother."

At a corporate gathering in another hotel, the audience was again largely female.  “I have a little boy, and I read her book.  I agreed with it,” said a stylishly-dressed executive who did not want to give her name.

For any parent who might have been living under a rock this year, Chua’s book was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal in January with a headline that served as a wake-up call (of sorts) to Americans already anxious about a rising China: “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.”

As it turned out, her book isn’t really about how the Chinese make better parents.  It’s a much more personal account of the challenges facing a mother wanting the very best for her children.

“I actually wrote this book in a moment of crisis, when my younger daughter, Lulu, turned 13, became a teenager, and rebelled against my very strict parenting,” Chua explained.

In fact, Chua took great pains to set the record straight.

“A lot of people in China…misunderstand.  They think [the book’s] like a parenting guide, and they don’t realize it’s supposed to be funny,” she said. 

The book, which was translated into Chinese and available almost immediately after its release in the U.S., was titled “Being a Mom in America” in China.

Among the greater misunderstandings amongst Chinese, Chua continued, is that “they don’t realize that at the end of the book I actually change and loosen up….  Many people in China only saw the opening about these strict rules, and they thought I was telling everyone, ‘Hey, everybody should do this.’”

Adrienne Mong

Amy Chua (right) and her daughters meet with Chinese reporters in Beijing.

Nonetheless, many people here disagreed with the parenting method Chua described in her book.

“An overseas Chinese wrote a book about China and teaching” so people were curious, said Dr. Henry Wang from the Center for China & Globalization, a think tank in Beijing.  But “people feel that even now the Chinese parents may not be that restrictive, or as harsh, or perhaps more demanding.”

“I think today’s parents in China have a different perspective and attitude than she does,” said Shen.  “I’m not sure her method would work here.”

Better to be balanced
Chua agreed.

“There needs to be balance,” she repeatedly told audiences.  “I think when the children are very young, the Chinese way is very good.  You have to guide them, teach them, to have respect, to have self-discipline [and be] hard-working.  But when they’re older, you have to be freer.”

In fact, the Yale Law School professor at times sounded evangelical about mixing East and West.

“I think China and America have opposite problems,” she said.  “The Chinese school system is already very strict….  But in America, it’s very free, everybody’s playing all the time.  So I felt I had to be stricter.”

Ultimately, audiences were curious about Chua’s daughters, 18-year old Sophia and 15-year old Lulu.  After all, their success—as students, as individuals, as daughters—would ultimately give credence to her choice of parenting style.

At the smaller gathering of reporters, Sophia (who calls herself a Tiger Cub and writes a light-hearted but thoughtful blog of her own) parried questions in fluent Mandarin with poise and confidence.

When a reporter asked the teenager whether she regretted “spending all that time practicing the piano,” Sophia rejected the notion.  “Not really….  Now I’m grown up.  I have a lot of time to do what I whatever I want, and I have the confidence to know that I can be good at it,” she said. 

Moreover, said the 18-year old, who will start college at Harvard in the autumn, “I think I will also be a Tiger Mother.  Maybe I will give my children more choice to choose their own activities.  When they’re very little, if they don’t like the activity I’ve picked for them, I won’t make them continue.  Whatever they want to pursue is fine.  As long as they’re very good and work very hard at it.”

Spoken like a true cub.

When a kid acts up, who’s to blame? The kid, or the parents?

It’s a question as old as “why doesn’t he call?” and equally unanswerable. Or is it? TODAY experts Stacy Kaiser and Debra Shigley weigh in on kids behaving badly, and offer some tips.

Kaiser, a psychotherapist (and mom) from Los Angeles, contends that parents are responsible when their kids act like little monsters. Good parenting equals good kids, in other words.

New mom Shigley, author of “The Go-Getter Girl’s Guide,” thinks kiddo conduct is a nature/nurture sandwich. Parents can provide the tools for good behavior, but children spring forth with their own little personalities. (And some of them are demonic.) She does note that while many parents are quick to take credit for their child's good behavior, whether good grades or even something like a baby sleeping through the night, they're less hasty about claiming responsibility for bad grades and tantrums.

One thing to remember, Kathie Lee points out: "No matter what you think, no one has perfect children."

What do you think? Can a strong-willed (and bratty) kid override even the best parenting? Or is it always the parents’ fault if a kid behaves badly?  Vote in our poll, and weigh in with your comments.

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Foursquare now warns users if they check into a school with a history of corporeal punishment.

Whether you think corporeal punishment — in other words spanking or paddling — is an acceptable form of discipline in schools or not, you certainly should be aware whether or not your child's educators are prone to using it.

Location-based social networking service Foursquare will help you keep track.

FastCompany reports that billionaire fashion designer Marc Ecko is launching Unlimited Justice, a national campaign to end the practice of corporal punishment in schools, and that he's using social media to aid his cause.

He has teamed up with Foursquare to encourage the service's users to add tips — notes that can be viewed by those who "check into" particular locations — which will alert folks if they're walking into a school where corporeal punishment is used.

Ecko isn't the first person to think of using social networking to support a public cause, of course. We've seen that Facebook and Twitter were powerful tools for protestors in Egypt and that Google's crowd sourcing tools aided the search for missing people during natural disasters. It's almost surprising that Foursquare hasn't been widely used for similar causes as the combination of its tips and alert features could certainly help bring people together, but we're glad to see that such applications are getting some publicity with the Unlimited Justice campaign.

Now, we're definitely not certain that many Foursquare users are actually prone to checking into primary schools, but we still believe that this is a clever use of the social networking service's features. After all — unlike a paddling — a bit of additional information about your child's educators rarely hurts.

Related stories:

• Foursquare reveals rudest cities in the world
• Is Foursquare the new Facebook?

Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's a bit obsessed with Twitter, loves to be liked on Facebook, and doesn't approve of spanking in schools.