“If your brain isn’t cognitively ready to imagine someone else’s experience, it’s harder to have empathy,” said Pressman.

Yet it is important that as kids move from toddler-dom into the school-age years, parents actively teach them that they will not always get their way. Parents also should explain to children that not getting their way may feel bad, which is expected.

For example, when your child is shopping for a friend’s birthday present and they ask for a toy of their own, don’t give in, Pressman urged. Instead, maybe say something like: “We’re going into the store to buy a present for Billy. I know sometimes that can feel hard, and it’s hard to focus,” Pressman said. That’s it.

You’re giving them space to grapple with what it feels like to not get their way, and you’re showing them that you expect them to get through it. It can be a pretty powerful lesson, particularly when it’s repeated often as a natural part of growing up.

When mommy blogger Lacey Spears was convicted for the murder of her beloved five-year-old son Garnett, thousands of Spears' social media followers were absolutely shocked. For years prior, the young Kentucky mother had taken to the Internet for support by documenting Garnett's various health struggles. Lacey exhaustively blogged Garnett's medical journey, all the while hiding the one thing that was keeping him sick: unbeknownst to Lacey's faithful supporters, she had been secretly poisoning the child with life-threatening doses of salt through a feeding tube.

In the winter of 2014, Garnett passed away in a New York hospital from toxic amounts of sodium in his bloodstream. Detectives were sent to Spears' home where they discovered Garnett's medications tucked behind a large can of salt. It was then revealed that Spears had asked a neighbor to enter their home and dispose of Garnett's feeding bag which was allegedly filled with the equivalent of 69 packets of salt.

After a highly publicized two-week trial, Spears was sentenced 20-years-to-life for the second degree murder of Garnett. The New York prosecutors called her actions, "nothing short of torture." Death by salt poisoning is extremely painful, and Garnett spent his last days screaming in agony (the hospital-room videos are disturbing) before the decision was made to take him off of life support. The defense blamed the hospital for both the elevated levels of sodium in Garnett's blood and his subsequent death. Spears maintains her innocence and vehemently insists that she does not have Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy. Obviously, the judge thought otherwise, citing "mental illness she refuses to acknowledge."

Parents often refer to their children as their “pride and joy.” But research tells a different story: Having kids doesn’t necessarily make people happier.

Most parents feel that their children are incredibly important sources of life satisfaction, says Jennifer Glass, professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and a demographer who studies the relationship between parenthood and well-being.

“But that’s not the same thing as happiness, and it’s not the same thing as financial well-being, good physical health or good emotional health,” Glass tells CNBC Make It.

So, why does having kids not provide the happiness that we think it will?

Q. Baby, not grandchild: Our oldest daughter is nearing 40 and frustrated by her lack of prospects in having a husband, a home, and a child. Her standards are profoundly high: must make six figures, be 6 feet tall, and no previous marriages or children. She is divorced herself. She is a very driven career woman and works 60 hour weeks regularly.

She announced to her father and me that she will be proceeding forward as a single mother and getting a sperm donation. We were happy but hesitant. That quickly turned to horror when our daughter told us she was looking to move back home with us. Her expectations were that I would be taking care of the baby while she continued her career normally. I love my children and I love my grandchildren, but I am done raising babies. My husband and I are nearing retirement and have plans that do not include diapers and midnight feedings.

We told our daughter this would not be possible and she became upset. She accused us of being “selfish” and denying her the chance of being a mother. My husband lost his temper and told her the only one who was being selfish here was her. She is the one making the choice to have a child and demanding everyone rearrange their lives over it. At this point, our daughter is no longer talking to us but is speaking to her siblings. She is proceeding with her plan and has an appointment at a clinic. If this works, this will be our first biological grandchildren (our son married a woman with older children). It breaks my heart that we might miss this. We tried reaching out to our daughter but no response. She can carry a grudge to the grave. What can we do here?

My 6-year-old daughter has beautiful blond hair and blue eyes. She gets compliments regularly from people on how pretty she is and basks in the attention. She attends a small private school and there is a little boy in her class who is black. He is sweet, well-mannered, and has a great sense of humor. His parents are lovely people. The problem is that over the last two years my daughter has been making comments about people’s skin, particularly addressed to this little boy. These comments are along the lines of, “I don’t want to sit by him because he has dark skin.” Her teacher and I have sat down to discuss this with her and explain that this behavior is unacceptable to no avail. The other day she watched the beginning of Love Actually with me and she commented that the interracial couple shouldn’t be getting married because they don’t look right together. Obviously my method of teaching her to treat everyone equally and be accepting of all different people is not working. Her school is getting more concerned, although they know I am trying my best to combat it. Do I just hope she grows out of this, or is there something else I can do?

I am happily married, financially stable, and a mom of a beautiful, feral toddler. On a drunken night I convinced myself that I did, in fact, want a sibling for my toddler—quite the 180 from my staunch stance of being “one and done!” I’m now 10 weeks pregnant with my second child and plagued with nausea, vomiting, and most of all regret. Should I terminate this pregnancy and tell all (including my husband) that I miscarried? He, his parents, and my parents are all excited about baby No. 2. I, however, am completely disappointed in myself for having a lapse in judgment and thinking I would be OK with getting pregnant again.

—Thinking About Termination

By the time school administrators in Florida moved last year to fire Susan Oyer, the Boca Raton Middle School teacher had spent nearly a decade drawing harassment complaints from children and parents.

There were accusations she quarreled with students. That she mocked their grades and intelligence. That she used their race or nationality to demean them. That she threatened to sue them. That she revealed confidential information about them to their classmates.

Students reported she pushed a girl from behind. That she prohibited students from using the bathroom. That she belittled a girl for not being an American citizen and threatened to report her to immigration authorities.

A Manhattan private school aiming to use more “inclusive language” is encouraging its students to stop using the terms “mom,” “dad” and “parents” because the words make “assumptions” about kids’ home lives.

The Grace Church School in Noho — which offers academic courses for junior kindergarten through 12th grade — issued a 12-page guide to students and staff explaining the school’s mission of inclusivity.

Get ready for the latest woke wave in education: comprehensive sex ed for kids as young as 5 — thanks to a new bill in the state Senate.

Legislation sponsored by state Sen. Samra G. Brouk, a freshman Democrat from Rochester, would tie New York’s health curriculum to standards written by a left-wing interest group that advocates “Sex Ed for Social Change” — and would make those lessons mandatory statewide.

The proposal would require stores with 500 or more employees to maintain “undivided areas of its sales floor” for childcare items, kids clothes and toys, “regardless of whether an item has traditionally been marketed for either girls or for boys,” according to the legislation.

The bill, which refers to “unjustified differences in similar products that are traditionally marketed either for girls or for boys,” would also ban signs indicating specific items are for girls or boys.

Online, any California-based businesses selling childcare items, children’s clothing or toys, would have to “dedicate a section of the internet website to the sale of those items and articles that is titled, at the discretion of the retailer, ‘kids,’ ‘unisex,’ or ‘gender neutral.’”, the bill states.

NPR journalist Michaeleen Doucleff suggests that parents consider throwing out most of the toys they’ve bought for their kids. It’s an extreme piece of advice, but the way Doucleff frames it, it seems entirely sensible: “Kids spent two hundred thousand years without these items,” she writes.

American child-rearing strategy comes away looking at best bizarre and at worst counterproductive. “Our culture often has things backward when it comes to kids,” she writes.

Doucleff arrives at this conclusion while traveling, with her then-3-year-old daughter. During her outings, she witnesses well-adjusted, drama-free kids share generously with their siblings and do chores without being asked.

It's been a little over a week since the California mom told PEOPLE her three sons were expelled from Sacred Heart Parish School in Sacramento due to her presence on the adult social platform.

Despite her family parting ways with the Catholic school — which previously said "we cannot discuss the status or circumstances of any member of our school or parish community" — Crystal, 44, claims she's still being harassed by the same mom who initially reported her page to the principal after her husband found it.

"I think she tries to deflect her unhappiness on other people and that's a bad way to live your life," she continues. "I really hope she can find some peace within herself to help her with whatever issues she has."

Every member of a school board in Northern California resigned on Friday after a video revealed they mocked parents during a virtual public meeting about reopening schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lisa Brizendine, president of the Oakley Union Elementary School District, resigned along with members Kim Beede, Erica Ippolito and Richie Masadas.

They were caught on video during a meeting saying parents treated teachers as their 'personal babysitters' and they only wanted classrooms to re-open so they could smoke pot 'uninterrupted'.

Recently I was using my mom’s iPad (with her permission), when she must have accidentally synced all her devices or something, because all of her texts started popping up on the screen. That’s how I found out she was having an affair with a woman. As soon as I realized what I was reading, I shut the iPad down, but I still saw enough, and I don’t know what to do. I feel like my dad should know. But I don’t know if it’s my place for me to tell him, or if I can tell him without outing my mom. I don’t want to out anyone, no matter who they are. But I feel like I’m part of the secret if I keep this from him. I obviously don’t want my parents to get a divorce either. I don’t want to cause it, if it does happen. What’s the best way to approach this that won’t cause any harm?

—Lost Privacy

The parents of an 8-year-old student who killed himself after being persistently bullied can move forward with a lawsuit against the Cincinnati school district that alleges wrongful death and other charges, a federal appeals panel ruled Tuesday.

The lawsuit's allegations also charge school officials with intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and failure to report child abuse. The lawsuit says Taye was bullied at his elementary school starting in first grade, with the bullying escalating in his third grade year.

Other students punched and kicked him in assaults and on Jan. 24, 2017, knocked him unconscious by throwing him against a bathroom wall, the parents say in the lawsuit.

He stayed home sick the next day, returned to school Jan. 26 and was bullied again in the bathroom by students who took his water bottle and tried to flush it down the toilet, his parents say. He killed himself that evening in his bedroom.