Making your child into an Accomplished Liar

A primary rule for parents when dealing with lying is don't badger or corner children! Imagine you give a child the third degree about whether or not she has homework.

She denies it six times and finally, after your seventh question, she admits that, Yes, she has some.

What has happened?

By this time, of course, you are furious. More important, however, you also have given your child six times to practice lying!

You may think to yourself, "Sooner or later she'll realize she can't fool me and she'll give up." Wrong. Many children will continue to take the easy way out: they will simply attempt to avoid any confrontation with you and become better liars.

Either You Know the Truth or You Don’t
Look at it this way: you either know the truth or you don't. If you don't know what is going on, ask once and don't badger.

It's a good idea here not to ask "impulsively”.

Many kids simply respond back impulsively. They lie, but their real desire is just to end the conversation, get rid of you, and avoid trouble.

If you are going to ask, you might say something like, "I want you to tell me the story of what happened, but not right now. Think about it a while and we'll talk in fifteen minutes."

If she tells you the story and you find out later that the child lied, punish her for whatever the offense was as well as for the lie. No lectures or tantrums from you.

Deal with the problem and try to fix things, as best you can, so that lying does not seem necessary to the child.

If you do know what has happened, tell her what you know and deal with it. If she has done something wrong that you know about, simply punish her reasonably for that and end the conversation with, "I'm sure you'll do better next time."

Keep Your Perspective
Some parents still prefer to ask a child what happened, even when they already know what it was. This is OK if you do it right.

You should say something like, "I got a call from the school today about an incident at lunch. I'm going to ask you to tell me the story, but not right now. I want you to think about it for a while, and then when you're ready you can tell me, but remember I already pretty much know what happened."

Lying is not good, but it certainly isn't the end of the world either. It happens from time to time. It doesn't mean that your kids don't love you or that they are bound to grow up to become professional criminals.

However, over time, frequent emotional overreactions on your part, combined with badgering and cornering, can produce a very Accomplished Liar.

Parenting: Feeding Issues in childhood

Helping children learn to eat well can sometimes be a challenge. 

Some children happily eat whatever is put in front of them while others seem to eat like birds and exist more on air than food.

A new study by a researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine shows that parents influence how much children eat more than they may think.

In this collaborative study between the CU School of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine and University of Alabama Birmingham, researchers observed normal, everyday mealtimes in the homes of 145 parents and their preschoolers recruited from a Head Start program in the Houston area.

They investigated the relationships between how much parents served themselves at mealtime, the amounts of foods they served to their children and how much children ate at dinner time.

The results revealed that parents served children very similar amounts to those they gave themselves and that the amounts children were served strongly predicted the amounts they ate.

For some children, this resulted in the consumption of adult-sized portions.

"The good news," said Susan Johnson, PhD, professor of pediatrics at the CU School of Medicine and a lead investigator for the study, "is that parents influence their children much more than they may feel they do."

"The challenge remains as to how to encourage children to consume a healthy diet and to eat amounts that help them grow appropriately."

"Clearly, family habits and behaviours are both incredibly important in this regard."

Johnson suggests paying attention to the portions offered to children and for parents to ensure that they offer child-sized portions of healthy foods.

Prompting children to eat according to their feelings of hunger and fullness, rather than parents deciding how much is enough, also is an important step towards promoting healthy eating and growth.

This study will be published in the April 2014 issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

More Information: 'Portion sizes for children are predicted by parental characteristics and the amounts parents serve themselves' Susan L Johnson, et al., Am J Clin Nutr April 2014 ajcn.078311 - doi: 10.3945/​ajcn.113.078311

10 Things Your Dog Can Teach Your Child and You - Cesar Milan

A balanced pup or dog can teach a child so much more than how to properly care for an animal and be confident in their lives.

But first you, the Parent, have to create and maintain the balance in the dog and in the child.

You can be loving and friendly but you are NOT a 'friend' of the dog or the child and you should behave accordingly.

They will find and develop their own friendships separate from you and it is important that they do so.

You have a primary responsibility to be the Parent to the child and the Packleader to the dog, focus on those tasks, take them seriously and all will benefit.

Studies have found that a pet encourages a child's physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development.

Children who have pets are more likely to have higher self-esteem, develop better social skills, and even have more friends but do not discount your role in this relationship. It is pivotal.

Here are just a few of the lessons that Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, suggests your dog can impart to your child.

Love and Loyalty
There are few (if any!) species on earth that boast the devotion that comes naturally to a dog. Coming home to that happy face and wagging tail every day without fail can help your child develop confidence and self-esteem.

Exercise
Dogs provide a wealth of opportunities for your child to get active — joining for the walk, romping around the backyard, or playing a game of fetch.

They also serve as an example of why exercise is so important. Dogs need regular physical activity to stay emotionally and mentally balanced — that's true for humans, too.

The Importance of Family
Dogs are naturally pack animals, and research shows that they bring out that instinct in humans, too. Families spend more time interacting after getting a pet.

Use your dog as an opportunity to connect as a parent. Get the whole pack out for walks, playtime, and involve them in the care and grooming.

A dog is not just another toy to be picked up and put away when your child claims they are bored. A dog is a commitment for the child, as the child is to you as a parent! There is a vital life lesson right there.

Reading
If you can't help your child practice reading because you have to cook dinner? No problem! Your dog can take over for awhile.

Research shows that he may actually do a better job than you anyway, particularly if your child is struggling. Why? Children are more relaxed, likely because a dog is a nonjudgmental audience.

Recent research claims that children with reading and learning difficulties such as Dyslexia, benefit greatly when they practice in front of their dog.

Patience and Compassion
A dog isn't capable of all the things that humans are, and as your dog ages, she will require special care and attention.

Understanding those differences can help your child learn to be patient and compassionate with those who suffer from disabilities, the elderly, and younger children.

Communication
Reading your dog's body language can help your child pick up on non-verbal communication between humans, too.

You can encourage this by taking the time to teach your child about common cues. It's beneficial for his safety around other dogs, too.

Socialisation
One study asked children what advice they had for kids who had trouble making friends. Their answer? Get a pet!

Dogs encourage your child to put their communication skills to use. Since dogs serve as an easy icebreaker and a shared interest, it makes meeting new friends easier.

Trust
If your child has trouble opening up to you, he may still feel comfortable talking to his dog, providing a safe outlet for private thoughts and secrets. The trust he builds with his dog can help him eventually learn to open up to others, too.

Responsibility
The more your child is involved in the care of your animal, the more she'll learn about responsibility. Let your child take the lead on providing for your dog's basic needs (with your supervision, of course).

Silliness
Sure, dogs help teach responsibility, but more importantly, they also serve as a reminder to let loose, have some fun, and live in the moment!

There are few things more fun (and mood-boosting) than acting nutty and carefree with your pup.

Clearly these lessons are valuable for parents, too.

It's all too easy in this busy day-and-age to lose sight of what's really important. Take a moment to thank your pup for imparting these important life lessons to your pack — and for bringing you all back to the here and now.

Good Parenting: There is no definitive Rule Book

Any parent will tell you that there is no simple recipe for raising a child. Being a parent means getting hefty doses of advice – often unsolicited – from others.

But such advice often fails to consider a critical factor: the child. A new review of dozens of studies involving more than 14,600 pairs of twins shows that children's genetics significantly affect how they are parented.

Reut Avinun

"There is a lot of pressure on parents these days to produce children that excel in everything, socially and academically," says Reut Avinun of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

"Since children are not born tabula rasa, I felt it was important to explore their side of the story, to show how they can affect their environment, and specifically parental behaviour."

Most studies of parenting look at only the reverse, how parents affect their children's experiences.

To explore the flip side, Avinun and Ariel Knafo looked to twins. They reasoned that if parents treat identical twins, who share 100 percent of their genes, more similarly than non-identical twins, who share on average 50 percent of their genes, then it suggests that the child's genes shape parenting.

Indeed, across 32 studies of twins, they found that children's genetically-influenced characteristics do affect parental behavior.

As published in Personality and Social Psychology Review, they estimated that 23 percent of differences in parenting is due to a child's genetics.

The genotype-related differences are ways that the children evoke different responses from their environment.

For example, a child that is antisocial is more likely to elicit harsh discipline from parents than a more social child.

In one recent study, Knafo's research group found that boys with less self-control are more likely to experience lower levels of positive maternal behaviour.

For boys, but not for girls, a particular genotype – a polymorphic region in the gene that codes for the serotonin transporter – predicted mothers' levels of positive parenting and the boys' level of self-control.

"In other words, boys' genetically influenced level of self-control affected the behaviour of their mothers toward them," Avinun says.

Avinun and Knafo also found that children's shared environment – socioeconomics, cultural exposure, etc. – accounts for 43 percent of parenting differences.

And the non-shared environment – different schools, friends, etc. – accounts for 34 percent of the differences.

Importantly, the study's findings support the idea that parenting does not necessarily affect children in the same family, in a similar way.

Several factors affect the extent to which genetics influence parenting. Avinun and Knafo found, for example, that age was important, supporting the argument that the child's genetic influence on parenting increases with age.

"As children become increasingly autonomous, their genetic tendencies are more likely to be able to affect their behaviour, which in turn influences parental behaviour," Avinun says.

The research in total, Avinun says, "means that parenting should not be viewed solely as a characteristic of the parent, but as something that results from both parental and child attributes."

Therefore, any interventions or treatments to help parenting should consider both the parents and children, and could vary even within a family.

"The discussion of 'nature vs. nurture' has transformed into 'nature and nurture.' We now understand that most characteristics are determined by the interplay between genetic and environmental influences," Avinun says.

Because children are born differently, there never can be a general rule book for raising children, she explains.

"There isn't one style of ideal parenting. Each child requires a different environment to excel. So parents should not invest a lot of effort in trying to treat their children similarly, but instead, be aware of the variation in their children's attributes and nurture them accordingly."

More information:
The study, "Parenting as a Reaction Evoked by Children's Genotype: A Meta-Analysis of Children-as-Twins Studies" by Reut Avinun and Ariel Knafo, was published online on August 12, 2013, and is forthcoming in print in November 2013 in Personality and Social Psychology Review: psr.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/08/12/1088868313498308

Parenting Teenagers: Using harsh verbal discipline with teens is detrimental

Many American parents yell or shout at their teenagers. A new longitudinal study has found that using such harsh verbal discipline in early adolescence can be harmful to teens later.

Instead of minimizing teens' problematic or unwanted behaviour, harsh verbal discipline may actually aggravate it.

Ming-Te Wang

The study, from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Michigan, appears in the journal Child Development.

Harsh verbal discipline happens when parents use psychological force to cause a child to experience emotional pain or discomfort in an effort to correct or control behaviour.

It can vary in severity from yelling and shouting at a child to insulting and using words to humiliate.

Many parents shift from physical to verbal discipline as their children enter adolescence, and harsh verbal discipline is not uncommon.

A nationally representative survey found that about 90 percent of American parents reported one or more instances of using harsh verbal discipline with children of all ages; the rate of the more severe forms of harsh verbal discipline (swearing and cursing, calling names) directed at teens was 50 percent.

Few studies have looked at harsh verbal discipline in adolescence. This study found that when parents use it in early adolescence, teens suffer detrimental outcomes later.

The children of mothers and fathers who used harsh verbal discipline when they were 13 suffered more depressive symptoms between ages 13 and 14 than their peers who weren't disciplined in this way; they were also more likely to have conduct problems such as misbehaving at school, lying to parents, stealing, or fighting.

Moreover, the study found that not only does harsh verbal discipline appear to be ineffective at addressing behaviour problems in youths, it actually appears to increase unwanted behaviours.

Parents' hostility increases the risk of delinquency by lowering inhibition and fostering anger, irritability, and belligerence in adolescents, the researchers found.

The effect went the other way, too. Children who had conduct problems at 13 elicited more harsh verbal discipline from their parents between ages 13 and 14.

The study looked at 967 two-parent families and their children. About half were European American; 40 percent were African American and the rest were of other ethnic backgrounds.

Most of the families were middle class. Students and parents completed surveys over a two-year period on topics related to their mental health, child-rearing practices, the quality of the parent-child relationship, and general demographics.

Adolescents' conduct problems were assessed at ages 13 and 14 by survey questions like;

"In the past year, how often have you:

1. been disobedient in school, 
2. lied to your parents,
3. stolen from a store, 
4. been involved in a gang fight, and 
5. damaged public or private property for fun?" 

The response format ranged from 1 (never) to 5 (10 or more times).

Parents' behaviours indicating harsh verbal discipline were measured by questions like;

"In the past year, after your child has disobeyed you or done something wrong, how often have you:

• shouted, yelled, or screamed at the child, 
• swore or cursed at the child, and 
• called the child dumb or lazy or some other name like that?" 

Items were rated on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always).

"This is one of the first studies to indicate that parents' harsh verbal discipline is damaging to the developing adolescent," says Ming-Te Wang, assistant professor of psychology in education at the University of Pittsburgh, who led the study.

"The notion that harsh discipline is without consequence, once there is a strong parent-child bond—that the adolescent will understand that 'they're doing this because they love me'—is misguided because parents' warmth didn't lessen the effects of harsh verbal discipline.

"Indeed, harsh verbal discipline appears to be detrimental in all circumstances," Wang concludes.

Wang suggests that parents who want to modify their teenage children's unwanted behaviour would do better by discussing with them their concerns about the consequences of the behaviour.

The study's findings can inform parenting programs so that parents can learn alternatives to shouting and insulting their teens.

Canadian Researchers Discover Two Parents are often Better Than One

A team of researchers at the University of Calgary's Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) have discovered that adult brain cell production might be determined, in part, by the early parental environment.

The study suggests that dual parenting may be more beneficial than single parenting.

Scientists studied mouse pups that were raised by either dual or single parents and found that adult cell production in the brain might be triggered by early life experiences.

The scientists also found that the increased adult brain cell production varied based on gender. Specifically, female pups raised by two parents had enhanced white matter production as adults, increasing motor coordination and sociability.

Male pups raised by dual parents displayed more grey matter production as an adult, which improves learning and memory.

Samuel Weiss

"Our new work adds to a growing body of knowledge, which indicates that early, supportive experiences have long lasting, positive impact on adult brain function," says Samuel Weiss, PhD, senior author of the study and director of the HBI.

Surprisingly, the advantages of dual parenting were also passed along when these two groups reproduced, even if their offspring were raised by one female.

The advantages of dual parenting were thus passed along to the next generation.

To conduct the study, scientists divided mice into three groups

1. pups raised to adulthood by one female 
2. pups raised to adulthood by one female and one male and 
3. pups raised to adulthood by two females. 

Researchers then waited for the offspring to reach adulthood to find out if there was any impact on brain cell production.

Scientists say that this research provides evidence that, in the mouse model, parenting and the environment directly impact adult brain cell production.

While it's not known at this point, it is possible that similar effects could be seen in other mammals, such as humans.

More information: 
The study is published in the May 1 edition of PLOS ONE. dx.plos.org/10.137… pone.0062701

Care-Giving Skills: Being a Good partner and a Good Parent

Being a good partner may make you a better parent, according to a new study. According to the researchers, the same set of skills that we use to be caring toward our partners is what we use to nurture our children.

The study sought to examine how caregiving plays out in families -- "how one relationship affects another relationship," says Abigail Millings of the University of Bristol, lead author of the work published online this week in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

"We wanted to see how romantic relationships between parents might be associated with what kind of parents they are."

Romantic Care-giving and Parenting
Previous research had looked at similar care-giving processes within romantic relationships or between parents and children, but rarely for both groups. "Our work is the first to look at romantic care-giving and parenting styles at the same time," Millings says.

Looking at 125 couples with children aged 7 to 8 years, the study, carried out at the University of East Anglia, examined a few factors: the way the couples are attached toward each other; the parenting styles they use with their children; and their "caregiving responsiveness."

Care-giving Responsiveness
Care-giving responsiveness is the "capacity to be 'tuned in' to what the other person needs," Millings says.

"In romantic relationships and in parenting, this might mean noticing when the other person has had a bad day, knowing how to cheer them up, and whether they even want cheering up" and, it's not "just about picking you up when you're down, it's also about being able to respond appropriately to the good stuff in life."

They found that a common skill set underpins caregiving across different types of relationships, and for both mothers and fathers.

"If you can 'do' responsive caregiving, it seems that you can do it across different relationships," Millings says.

Surprisingly, however, the researchers found that how you care toward your partner does not relate to how your partner behaves as a parent.

Millings also underscores that the data do not yet speak to what causes our caregiving toward our partners to be mirrored in our caregiving for our children, or if it's the other way around.

"It might be the case that practicing being sensitive and responsive to our partners, (by really listening and by really thinking about the other person's perspective) will also help us to improve these skills with our kids," she says. "But we need to do more research to see whether the association can actually be used in this way."

Single Parents
She points out that parents can have great relationships with their children without having a partner. Her team would therefore like to explore how caregiving and parenting relate to one another in other family structures.

If they find that improving care-giving responsiveness in one relationship does indeed improve relationship functioning elsewhere, it may be possible to use this idea to design a self-help program that enables people to improve their own personal relationships.

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Parenting: When does Discipline Begin?

To read more of this article click on the link to the Newsletter here

A parent's guide to dyslexia

Despite dyslexia being more widely understood today than it was in the classrooms of the past, many children are still going undiagnosed, meaning they miss out on the crucial help and support they need.

Around 4 per cent of the population are thought to be severely affected by dyslexia, with a further 6 per cent having mild to moderate symptoms.

Put simply, dyslexia is a condition where the brain has difficulty interpreting information, which can present as difficulties with reading, writing and sequencing. While the majority of people are born with it, it can occasionally be caused by a trauma such as meningitis.

The important thing to remember is that dyslexia can affect people in different ways. Some dyslexics are good readers, while others are great at maths. It can also affect other areas such as short-term memory, organisational skills, time management and finding your way around geographically.

'Every child is different,' says Katrina Cochrane, southern regional manager at UK charity Dyslexia Action.

'Some children with dyslexia get to university without it ever being detected. But once there, they find the workload and different skills required for study hard to cope with.'

But spotting the signs early can make a world of difference.

'All the research shows that early diagnosis and support can help compensate children who are dyslexic, meaning they're not affected to such an extent,' adds Katrina Cochrane.


Read more of this article here: A parent's guide to dyslexia

Child Development: Talk to your babies

Talk to your babies | ScienceBlog.com

Northwestern University researchers have found that even before infants begin to speak, words play an important role in their cognition. For 3-month-old infants, words influence performance in a cognitive task in a way that goes beyond the influence of other kinds of sounds, including musical tones.

The research by Alissa Ferry, Susan Hespos and Sandra Waxman in the psychology department in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, will appear in the March/April edition of the journal Child Development. In the study, infants who heard words provided evidence of categorization, while infants who heard tone sequences did not.

Three-month-old infants were shown a series of pictures of fish that were paired with words or beeps. Infants in the word group were told, for example, "Look at the toma!" ?-- a made-up word for fish, as they viewed each picture. Other infants heard a series of beeps carefully matched to the labeling phrases for tone and duration. Then infants were shown a picture of a new fish and a dinosaur side-by-side as the researchers measured how long they looked at each picture. If the infants formed the category, they would look longer at one picture than the other.

Teaching self-control skills to children reduces classroom problems

Children taught skills to monitor and control their anger and other emotions improved their classroom behaviour and had significantly fewer school disciplinary referrals and suspensions, according to a study by University of Rochester Medical Centre researchers.

Children in a school-based mentoring program were about half as likely to have any discipline incident over the three-month period of the study, according to an article published online by the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. They also had a 43 percent decrease in mean suspensions as compared to the control group, which did not receive mentoring of the self-control skills.

In the four-month interval after the intervention began, 1.8 percent of children in the mentored group were suspended compared to 6.1 percent of the control group. Children taught the new skills also had a 46 percent decrease in mean office disciplinary referrals as compared to the children in the study's control group

"It is exciting that adult mentors, who are not mental health professionals, taught children a set of skills that significantly strengthened the children's ability to function well in their classrooms and meet school expectations," said Peter Wyman, Ph.D., lead author of the article and associate professor of Psychiatry at the Medical Centre.

"This study suggests that with appropriate guidance from a trained adult, young children are capable of learning a great deal about their emotions and skills for handling their emotions effectively and those skills can have direct, positive benefits for their functioning in school."

The study evaluated the effectiveness of the Rochester Resilience Project that was developed by Wyman and Wendi Cross, Ph.D., associate professor of Psychiatry and Paediatrics at the Medical Centre, to address the needs of young children with emerging behavioural and social-emotional problems by providing an accessible school-based intervention.

In a relationship with an intervention mentor over four months, children learn and practice behavioural and cognitive skills designed to strengthen their self-regulation of emotions and address specific goals to improve school adaptation.

"Our goal in developing the Rochester Resilience Project was to 'translate' findings from research about how children learn skills to be more resilient in relationships with adults into an accessible program in schools," Wyman said. "Being a successful student in elementary school classrooms establishes a foundation that makes healthy development more likely in the future."

Activities establish the Resilience Project mentor as an empathic adult informed about each child's life context, strengths and challenges. Through adult-led interactive learning and practice in natural settings, children are taught to monitor their own emotions and the emotion of others, using cues to identify feelings and intensities of feelings.

Mentors introduce 'feelings check-in' as a standard practice that serves as a teaching tool about feelings and a transition to skills focused on managing feelings.

Self-control and reducing escalation of emotions is taught through the concept of a "feelings thermometer" to depict intensity. Children learn to use "mental muscles" as a tool to monitor feelings and to stop feelings from entering a hot zone.

They also learn to maintain control and regain equilibrium through strategies such as taking a deep-breath, stepping back from emotionally intense situations, and using an imaginary umbrella as protection from hurtful words.

For each of the 14 weekly lessons, children met individually with their mentors for approximately 25 minutes in a private setting during the school day. The skills taught to children are labeled in simple terms suited to developmental level.

Reinforcement and feedback from mentors in settings in which children use new skills is also critical for children to successfully acquire the skills. Mentors collaborated with teachers to identify classroom situations in which the mentors could provide reminders to children to use new skills, and cues were provided, a sticker or button, for example, for the child to take as a reminder.

In the study, 226 children from kindergarten up to third grade in two urban elementary schools took part. They had manifested emerging behavioural, social-emotional, and/or on-task learning problems at school.

This population was selected due to evidence that those problems increase the likelihood that children will be less successful at school and may develop behavioural problems, such as substance abuse.

Children who received the intervention showed improved functioning in all domains of classroom behaviour rated by teachers.

The intervention had a positive impact on children's classroom behaviours and rates of disciplinary incidents, including fewer aggressive or disruptive problems, improved on-task learning behaviours and peer social skills, and less shy-withdrawn and more assertive behaviours, the researchers concluded.

After the study was completed, children in the control group also were mentored and taught the self-control skills. The mentoring improved peer social skills, more for girls, than for boys.

Link: www.urmc.rochester.edu

50 Things Parent Say to their Kids

Fathers suffering from postpartum depression.

Fathers suffering from postpartum depression. It’s a topic not usually discussed publicly, but doctors are saying the problem is more widespread than you would think.

The birth of a child is supposed to be a happy time for a new father but suddenly a screaming baby, sleepless nights and coming second in your wife's affections, makes him feel confused, helpless and out of control.

It changes their role in life and affects their sense of themselves.

“I think new fathers have indeed suffered depression for a long time, but that the equality of gender in our society now makes it a little easier to speak about,” said Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist.

There are even Web sites dedicated to the topic, which address the symptoms, treatments and support groups.

“In my own practice, I have treated many men with postpartum depression who see the birth of their children as heralding major changes in their lives, including higher levels of responsibility and commitment, which can provoke anxiety,” Ablow wrote. “Others fear that they will lose the affection of their wives as attention is (appropriately) diverted from them to their children.”

History of Depression
Men who have a history of depression are at an increased risk of developing postpartum depression, as are men whose partners are also depressed.

Like most cases of depression, symptoms include low mood, tearfulness, decreased energy, low self-esteem, impaired sleep and/or appetite and thoughts of suicide, Ablow said.

While postpartum depression in fathers usually occurs within four weeks of the baby’s delivery, Ablow said he has seen some cases develop after the three-month mark.

If you suspect your baby's father is suffering from postpartum depression, be supportive, Ablow advised. Remind him that his feelings are only temporary and they won’t last forever. Urge him to go to counseling, as psychotherapy is often an effective means of treatment.

Psychotherapy
“Psychotherapy is very effective in treating postpartum depression in men because the issues are so often tied to their own suboptimal experiences with their dads and their misgivings about marriage and commitment,” Ablow said. “Medications, including SSRIs, can also be very helpful.”

Women should try to include the new dads into the new ritual of mother-child bonding. He may feel withdrawn from the child, and encouraging him to spend time with the new baby may be helpful. Also, scheduling some time for romance — maybe a “date night” — can’t hurt either