When my daughter was a baby, my husband and I had no idea what we were doing, and so we tag-teamed on most parenting tasks. We'd sit together in a cramped bathroom and give our infant a bath, take turns making helicopter sounds while feeding her spoonfuls of of mashed avocado, and change her nappy with one person holding up her legs and the other person wiping. Eventually though, as she grew older and we became more capable, we realised: Nobody's got time for all that!

I'm not exactly the most tech-savvy parent, so when I was offered a Nintendo Labo Vehicle Kit to check out, I was at first like, "Wait, what's a Labo?" Luckily, my son, Ryan, who had just received a much-coveted Nintendo Switch for his 8th birthday, was like, "It's where you build really cool stuff and then you can play it on TV!"

If your kid is feeling anxious about something — perhaps a test or a sick relative or an upcoming shot — guided imagery can help. It’s a technique that uses mental visualisations to give one more control and a greater sense of peace.

The best way to get your kids into LEGO is to hand them a tub of LEGO bricks and say, "Here, go wild." But eventually, they may want to think even bigger and work with more bricks than they own. This free tool lets them build virtual LEGO models with about 10,000 different parts, and then purchase the bricks to assemble their creations in real life if they want to (and yes, they will want to).

For many families, homework time is a struggle. And in an era of digital distraction, it is only getting tougher. Here are some hacks to help your kids concentrate. Zero judgement if you use them on yourself, too.

You may have tried chore charts. Perhaps you’ve turned the task of tidying up into a game. Maybe you’ve offered pocket money or attempted strict routines or belted out the “Clean Up Song” 27 times in a row (hey, it miraculously works when your kid’s teacher sings it, right?).

When touring different preschools for my daughter, I visited one where I got to observe the kids playing on the playground. While climbing the ladder on the slide, a little boy accidentally stepped on a little girl's finger, and she started crying. What happened next left me astounded.

We're in the last week of school holidays, it's pouring rain, and it's highly likely cabin fever has set in. Before you get roped into playing yet another round of Monopoly, think outside of the family-game box.

We may get some angry emails for this, but some of the classic drinking games you played in university — sans booze — can make for terrific children’s games. Think about it. The beauty of them is their sheer simplicity and ability to captivate a crowd with rapidly dwindling attention spans. That includes both kindergarteners and that guy who had a few too many beers.

My brother was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in primary school. A neurological condition caused by an underproduction of attention-regulating chemicals in the brain, ADHD comes in three types: Inattentive, hyperactive/impulsive and combination. He was hyperactive, literally crawling up walls as he scaled the load beam between our dining room and kitchen. His energy was undeniable.

How do you help kids learn social skills, gain persistence, and wow their friends at the school lunch tables? Magic. Specifically, teach them some magic tricks.

But you can’t just hand them a Magic 101 guidebook and expect them to become young Houdinis — how you introduce the art makes a difference. Here are some good ways to do it, according to magicians.

What’s it like to be a Muslim today? It’s a question that Wajahat Ali — a New York Times contributing op-ed writer, Emmy-nominated producer and one of CNN’s 25 Most Influential Muslims — is always thinking about. In his work, he has mused on everything from how Ramadan has become mainstream to the first time he heard his Pakistani-American-immigrant father say “I love you” to the midlife crisis he’s been having as he approaches 40.

A father of two, Ali shares with us how he parents.

Board games teach kids about rules, sportsmanship and strategy. Children love games, and more than likely, you, their parents, will be playing a lot of these games with them. Why not try the ones that are fun for adults as well? Here are some games that take the boring out of child’s play, for every age.

Most old kids TV shows are like bottles of champagne gone flat. Once the fizz of the pop culture moment passes, they’re just vinegar you pour down the drain. But not always. Some shows transcend their moment, by chance or by design, and manage to become timeless. The 10 programs listed below are my choices for older kid-and-teen focused TV shows that even the most jaded modern child will enjoy.

When I was a kid, birthday cakes had simple adornments: Some frosting, candles, and maybe the guest of honour’s name handwritten in red food dye. But times have changed. Nowadays, it seems that no child’s party is complete without a sugar-filled masterpiece in the form of a shimmery unicorn head or a Lightning McQueen race car.

While the trend may be good for Instagram pics, it’s bad news for parents’ budgets.

Kids are naturally curious — this is a wonderful thing. But they also haven’t mastered social cues. This can make parents uncomfortable.

Some parents, I'm realising, are good at mornings. I'm not one of them, but I'd like to be, and I sort of have to be, especially as my kid heads off to kindergarten where there are school bells and real tardy slips.

Giving kids medicine can be torture for all parties involved. When my daughter was a toddler, the process would often escalate from bribes to pleas to threats to “ugh, fine, let’s just pin her down” as my husband and I would proceed to shoot a dose of syrup into her screaming mouth with a syringe.

The struggle is real — and universal. Thankfully, over the years, doctors and parents have come up with some clever hacks to make the medicine go down with less of a fight. Here are some ideas to try.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently released a new policy statement about how to support children and teens who identify as transgender or who fall under an umbrella they call “gender diverse”.

Parents, to curb your kid's phone usage, you may no longer need to hold their chargers hostage, yell out nightly countdowns ("Three more minutes!") or draft up elaborate tech contracts that you'll look at exactly once. At least, if you're on Apple devices. The new iOS 12 parental controls are here, and they allow you to manage your children's screen time — set app time limits, block off chunks of "downtime" and track their daily habits — all from your own phone. Here's what you can do, and how to do it.