Although you’re exhausted by bedtime, your child seems to be bouncing off the walls when he is supposed to be getting ready for sleep. His excess energy means you get to deal with extra delays and protests. How is he supposed to get enough sleep when he’s so hyper?

Children hear and learn from the sounds of speech even while they are still in the womb. Language learning accelerates once infants are born. Children’s language instincts inspire them to learn the syntax of their native language and a vocabulary of approximately 5,000 words over their first 5 years of life.

When kids enter school, they may become more independent and more difficult to discipline as a result of outside influences. Oftentimes, the more demanding you become while trying to maintain control, the more resistant they seem to become.

Late childhood is generally defined as ages 9 through 12. Up until this point, most children have been growing at fairly predictable rates. Now, all bets are off due the often wild fluctuations in physical development.

If you want to save a bit of cash without skimping on team spirit, you can make your own cheerleading pom-poms at home. By creating your own cheerleading gear, you can make them in your favorite team's colors and customize the size, depending on the age and preference of the intended cheerleader.

Rebellious behavior can drive a wedge in between your relationship with your child. You may think that a heavy, strict hand is the best way to stop rebellious behavior in its tracks, but it might just serve to cause your child to rebel even harder against stringent rules and regulations.

Physical play includes activities that use physical movements to allow children to use their energy, and it gives children the chance to develop gross and fine motor skills, learn new things and socialize. Physical play also benefits a child’s health.

Today's computers have changed the lives of children of all ages. While this technology can be an amazing thing to enjoy and use for learning and entertainment, it can also have sometimes unseen effects on your child’s health and development.

More and more kids are smoking pot. The National Institute on Drug Abuse found, in its 2012 Monitoring the Future survey of eighth, 10th and 12th graders, that 36 percent of high school seniors and 11 percent of eighth graders had smoked it in the previous year.

Because children, especially young children, require proper nutrition daily to grow and develop at an appropriate pace, severely restricting an overweight child’s calorie intake is generally not a good idea -- unless your doctor recommends it.

Middle school is a time of transition for students. They are expected to leave behind the supports of elementary school and grow into the challenges of high school. One common area of concern is organizational skills.

If your kids love digging into arts and crafts projects with paint or glue up to their elbows, relax -- they’re learning and developing in essential ways while they’re making a beautiful mess.