You may think that sending Junior into the den of germs known as third grade makes you more likely to get sick. But according to new research led by Carnegie Mellon University, adults who have children are 52 percent less likely to catch colds than are adults without children. Scientists exposed 795 healthy people between the ages of 18 and […]
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Five expert tips for better bedtime storytelling
In our annual Family issue, we gave you all the ingredients for a perfect bedtime story, from heroes and settings to plot twists and happy endings. The only thing we didn’t teach you: How to deliver the story in an engrossing manner. So I reached out to a handful of professional storytellers for advice on giving a great performance. These […]
How to Avoid Colds and Flu This Fall (Really!)
Welcome Fall! Ochre leaves crunching underfoot, sweet mulled cider, crisp apple picking…and…ahhh-choo! The return of cold and flu season. Ugh. To try to isolate the best, most proven tips for staying well, I recently did a Q & A with Elizabeth Lyster, MD, a board-certified ob/gyn with Holtorf Medical Group in Foster City, California, who had some surprising tips and […]
Putting Loved Ones First
I’m very close to my family and my group of friends. It has always been this way. When I was younger it was quite easy to give both sets of people the attention they deserved. Although, I have to admit that during my pre-teen and teenage years my I fought tooth and nail to give my friends more attention than […]
Your Picky Eating Questions, Answered
A while ago we asked you on Facebook for your biggest challenges when it comes to having a picky eater in the house. We called in Elizabeth Pantley, best-selling author of The No-Cry Picky Eater Solution to help solve your problems. We’ll be sharing them over the next few weeks. I have a 7 year old daughter who only eats […]
Are You Running a Bed-and-Breakfast Without Knowing It?
On Saturday morning I went to the gym and, while I was there, it started to rain. The rain was quite dramatic, coming down in sheets. Pouring, I guess you would say. Anyway, when I got home I saw that both of our Saturday papers were on the front walk, exactly where they were when I left for the gym […]
Back-to-School Time! Little Backpacks, Big Problems
If aliens landed on earth today, they’d surely know it was back-to-school time as soon as they logged into Facebook and saw the images appearing on many moms’ Timelines this week. (Yes, there are about a million things wrong with that scenario…for one thing, perhaps our far-out friends are still hooked on Friendster…) Anyways, the point is—while you’re loading up […]
Show Us Your Family Photos!
Hi everyone! In case you haven’t seen it, our annual issue of Real Simple Family is out on newsstands (and available for download). And we want your help illustrating one of the stories on RealSimple.com. For our story on tips for taking a better family photo, we want to showcase family photos from our readers that exemplify those tricks. To […]
Get Your Kids to Open Up About Their Days
If your child is notoriously tight-lipped about his or her day (please an adjective other than “fine”), use this game to get them to share a little insight in to what they did while you were at work. Two Truths and a Lie As the parent, start out by telling your child two things that were true about your day, […]
