Raising another human being can be tough, yet ultimately rewarding. These talks highlight the struggles and successes unique to parenting.

Babble.com publishers Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman, in a lively tag-team, expose 4 facts that parents never, ever admit -- and why they should. Funny and honest, for parents and nonparents alike.

Parenting books promise to teach us how to raise successful children and, in doing so, reveal why each of us turned out the way we did. Developmental psychologist Yuko Munakata tells a different story, challenging and complicating the prevailing wisdom about parents' role in their children's futures.

"Co-parenting" isn't a buzzword -- it's a way of showing up for your family openly, consistently and lovingly, says storyteller and father Joel Leon. In this moving talk, he challenges all parents to play an equal, active role in their children's daily lives, even in a world that often places the weight of sacrifice on mothers alone. Leon encour...

How can parents ensure their children have a healthy relationship with technology? Social psychologist Sonia Livingstone suggests that the key lies in embracing technology alongside children -- and lays out a practical roadmap for how to get there.

You aren't sleeping. You barely have time to eat, let alone peruse TED Talks. Here, talks under six minutes that will give you a quick dose of inspiration.

In her new book "All Joy and No Fun," Jennifer Senior explores how children reshape their parents' lives -- for better and worse.

By loading kids with high expectations and micromanaging their lives at every turn, parents aren't actually helping. At least, that's how Julie Lythcott-Haims sees it. With passion and wry humor, the former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford makes the case for parents to stop defining their children's success via grades and test scores. Instead, she s...

LB Hannahs candidly shares the experience of parenting as a genderqueer individual -- and what it can teach us about authenticity and advocacy. "Authenticity doesn't mean 'comfortable.' It means managing and negotiating the discomfort of everyday life," Hannahs says.

Certain elements of childhood -- school, play, homework -- are often considered universal by those who live in industrial societies. Evolutionary anthropologist Dorsa Amir draws from her time living in foraging societies to explain how the post-industrial experience of childhood is a relatively new development for humanity with wide-ranging impl...

What if we started treating parenting like the real work it is? Podcast host and CEO Angela Garbes details how working families have evolved -- and how companies haven't -- and gives insight into what parents really need from their colleagues and workplaces.

The director of communications for the non-profit Citizen Schools, Colin Stokes thinks deeply about the media he shares with his two young children.

Glen Henry got his superpowers through fatherhood. After leaving behind a job he hated and a manager he didn't get along with, he went to work for an equally demanding boss: his kids. He shares how he went from thinking he knew it all about being a stay-at-home parent to realizing he knew nothing at all -- and how he's now documenting what he's ...

As a mother with a son affected with Fragile X syndrome -- a genetic disorder -- Emilie Weight believes that a diagnosis of disability can create opportunity, not despair. Her son's differences compelled her to question her inner self and her role in the world. With this new mindset she discovered his true superhero qualities when she stopped tr...

The parenting section of the bookstore is overwhelming -- it's "a giant, candy-colored monument to our collective panic," as writer Jennifer Senior puts it. Why is parenthood filled with so much anxiety? Because the goal of modern, middle-class parents -- to raise happy children -- is so elusive. In this honest talk, Senior offers some kinder an...

In this eye-opening talk, author and former sex worker Juniper Fitzgerald challenges societal beliefs about mothers in the sex work industry and discusses how a systemic overhaul of their representation can empower them personally and professionally.

Lynne Elvins candidly shares the experience of adopting a son with her partner Emma -- and what it can teach us about authenticity and advocacy.

Mothers undeniably impact and shape history -- but their stories are often left out or misrepresented, says sociologist and author Anna Malaika Tubbs. This erasure limits policies to support mothers and their essential roles in society. Citing the remarkable lives of Alberta King, Louise Little and Berdis Baldwin (the mothers of Martin Luther Ki...

If you could guarantee that your child would avoid inheriting a serious condition, such as blindness, would you do it? Alastair O'Neill describes the wrenching decisions people have made now that science can pre-screen healthy embryos.

Hidden behind the allure of the newest innovations on the web are plenty of potential pitfalls for children—from online bullying to inappropriate content. Michael Fey offers practical advice for parents to close the digital divide between them and their children to help ensure the whole family has a healthy interaction discovering and enjoying t...

Losing children to illness, disease or acts of violence is devastating and endlessly difficult to cope with. These talks come from parents who have experienced such loss and found a way to make it through.

As a father of four, Dwight Stitt believes that family connection is everything. In this heartfelt talk, Stitt shares his own hardships of fatherhood in the wake of divorce. Determined to maintain strong bonds with his children, he imparts a collection of lessons that he hopes will keep all dads -- divorced or not -- deeply connected to their kids.

Parents, take a deep breath: how your kids turn out isn't fully on you. Of course, parenting plays an important role in shaping who children become, but psychologist Yuko Munakata offers an alternative, research-backed reality that highlights how it's just one of many factors that influence the chaotic complexity of childhood development. A reth...

When Shaka Senghor and Ebony Roberts ended their relationship, they made a pact to protect their son from its fallout. What resulted was a poetic meditation on what it means to raise a child together, yet apart. In this moving and deeply personal talk, Senghor and Roberts share their approach to co-parenting -- an equal, active partnership that ...

A collection of talks to enjoy before welcoming a new little life into the world.

Kids don't come with a manual, and parents don't get grades to affirm they're doing things right. These talks speak to the complexities of parenthood, offering unusual insights and hard-won advice.

How do parents protect their children and help them feel secure again when their homes are ripped apart by war? In this warm-hearted talk, psychologist Aala El-Khani shares her work supporting -- and learning from -- refugee families affected by the civil war in Syria. She asks: How can we help these loving parents give their kids the warm, secu...

Bored in school, failing classes, at odds with peers: This child might be an entrepreneur, says Cameron Herold. In his talk, he makes the case for parenting and education that helps would-be entrepreneurs flourish -- as kids and as adults.

For the past 70 years, scientists in Britain have been studying thousands of children through their lives to find out why some end up happy and healthy while others struggle. It's the longest-running study of human development in the world, and it's produced some of the best-studied people on the planet while changing the way we live, learn and ...

Aala El-Khani explores the needs of families affected by war and displacement and develops resources that support the mental health of children and their caregivers to promote current and future wellbeing.