How Children Are Influenced by Their Neighborhoods

Parents want what’s best for our children—and our current parenting culture offers an endless stream of suggestions for how to set kids up for success. Though most of this advice focuses on individual actions—parenting strategies or weekend enrichment, for example—our children are also hugely influenced by factors outside the home, such as the neighborhoods they […]

7 Reasons Adult Children Stay Connected to Toxic Parents

Parent-child relationships are often portrayed as inherently loving, but this isn’t true for many adult children. Instead, they endure ongoing emotional harm or mistreatment from their parents that undermines their self-worth. If you find yourself in this situation, you might question why you remain in contact with parents who consistently belittle you, manipulate you, ignore […]

Eldest Children Suffer Under Coercive Control Domestic Violence

Co-authored with Julie Nee All children suffer in families where one partner abuses and controls the other (Stark, 2023). In our work, we have seen that first-born child often suffer the most. In coercive control, one person dominates their partner through tactics including intimidation, isolation, and emotional, physical, sexual, and financial abuse (Fontes, 2015). Coercive […]