Every year starts with goals to live differently, to live better. Whether our goals were personal New Year’s resolutions, or professional benchmarks, most of us started 2016 with achievement in mind. We all want a fresh start at being the 

First World Problems is a weekly advice column for India’s first world population. Write to Judy (confidentially!) at contact@theswaddle.com if you’ve broken a nail, felt a little blue, yellow or green lately, or had a strange encounter of the any-numbered kind.   PROBLEM: I 

Reading about marital conflict is easy; judging and suggesting solutions, even easier – when it is happening to someone else. But this column is about me and my parenting journey – unkind words, arguments and all. And talking about conflict 

I have worked with many married couples as they struggle with the fallout from marital infidelity. Some clients reach out for therapy as they find themselves cheating from their marriage. Others reach out as a couple, as a last resort 

On a serene, Sunday evening four years ago, Prathiba, then 38 and a homemaker in Bangalore, was on the verge of crying in a public park. For more than 15 years, she had been happily married to a man she 

If you, like many of us, spent your youth developing your personality – your Muchness, Alice – it may have been time wasted. All that effort creating a persona so grunge it would make Eddie Vedder look like Jimmy Fallon? 

Whether it’s “my bad” or “mea culpa,” we all learned a few golden words from school and family. Yet for today’s young kids, “sorry” seems to be a rare – and resented – word. I recently chanced upon my aunt 

Grown-ups don’t know how to talk to kids. What are you saying? you’re wondering. We talk to kids all the time. It’s so easy! Right? We ask the child standing in front of us in the line, “What’s your name?” 

We think it’s time to bring back the dying tradition of exchanging letters. (We’re not the only ones.) Letter writing can be practical or personal, businesslike or poetic, but all forms hold a lot of value. And teaching your kids 

Ah, the teenage years: when the lovable little person you knew inside and out disappears into a surly scatterbrain. Teens can be unfathomable to parents. If they look like adults, the thinking often goes, they should be able to behave 

Every other week, Sonali Gupta draws on more than 10 years of experience as a clinical psychologist to answer readers’ questions about parenting, family dynamics, relationships, mental health, and more.   Lost The Spark: My husband I have been married for eight years. However, we 

From the tender age of one week, my son liked music and lyrics. In the initial days of Ochoa’s life, my father would play the radio for him early in the morning. It could be a Dev Anand song or 

Every week, we scour the web to bring you interesting bits and pieces from around the world. Enjoy! Homework Stress This study examines the family-wide stress that can result from homework, particularly when parents feel unable to help. It includes 

We’ve all been there – you’re hanging out with someone who has a great career/wonderful husband/adorable child/perfect life, and she (usually she) can’t help but offer “advice” so you can get to the same happy place. She lurks in disguise 

In the winter of 2007, Dr Chandran*, then 41, was enjoying Christmas dinner with family. There was much to celebrate besides the holiday; his wife was in the early stages of pregnancy with their first child, and the mood of 

A year ago, I enrolled for beginners’ French lessons at the Alliance Française de Bombay. Like many people born and raised in India, I was already multilingual, imbibing several languages with ease in my early childhood. But learning a new language 

First World Problems is a weekly advice column for India’s first world population. Write to Judy at contact@theswaddle.com (confidentially!) if you’ve broken a nail, felt a little blue, yellow or green lately, or had a strange encounter of the any-numbered kind. PROBLEM: I have a 

I consider myself fortunate to have grown up in a generation where the practice of exchanging letters was still alive, even if it was on its way out. I remember receiving mail from a family friend in Chicago, who would