Apparently, wearing pyjamas says something about your worth as a parent. The headteacher of an academy school has written to parents requesting that they ensure they wash in the morning and refrain from doing the school run in their pyjamas.

With the start of another school year upon us, parents are preparing themselves for the constant task of making lunch boxes.

Parents are often accused of being too pushy when it comes to their child’s education. The stereotype is of a demanding consumer parent and an over-scheduled child, enrolled in violin lessons, language classes, maths tutoring – and the most expensive private school the family can afford.

Children with disabilities are frequently discriminated against in Australian schools. It’s an issue that has been ongoing for years, with reports showing that little has improved since 2002.

As the new school year begins, teachers and parents are pondering how to work together to help children get the most from schooling.

Australia’s population is booming. With it will come more school students – an estimated 650,000 more by 2026, an increase of 17% from today.

Parents use a number of methods to try and raise their children well – rewards, punishments and consciously modelled behaviours or instructions.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg recently posted a photo on the social networking site of his two-month-old daughter in the doctor’s surgery waiting to be vaccinated.

Gentrification is changing how people relate to each other in local primary school communities. In certain areas of Australia, such as the suburbs in Sydney, schools are becoming more polarised.

There is little evidence to show that different parenting styles affect a child’s development. And yet these reasons seem central to David Cameron’s proposal that parenting classes are necessary in Britain.

Across Africa – from South Africa to Botswana, Kenya to Rwanda and many others – January marks the beginning of the academic year for millions of new pupils.

Parents can help children develop their language. But when it comes to building the linguistic structure that undergirds the language, new research shows that children would rather do it themselves.

As part of a government push to invest more in supporting families, David Cameron has outlined that a key part of a new Life Chances Strategy will focus on the role of families in ensuring the best start for children.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) promotes exclusive breastfeeding as the optimal way to feed infants. Most Australian babies – 96% –start out breastfeeding.

Parents in three Australian states are being given misleading information about the dangers of lead exposure for babies and small children – including failing to warn pregnant women about the risks of miscarriage.

It must have been 1996 or 1997 when I first met someone from Monsanto. The anti-GM movement in the UK had by then already acquired some momentum and Monsanto was cast as the prime villain for seeking to import GM soya into Europe, though other seed producers were receiving similar treatment.

English physician Edward Jenner developed the first vaccine more than 200 years ago to protect against smallpox. It was needle-free, involving arm-to-arm inoculation with the vaccinia virus.

One of the most common New Year’s resolutions people make is to lose weight by dieting. The idea is that restricting the pleasures of tasty foods will lead to greater fitness and a finer physique.

By the age of two, children are typically able to say a few hundred words. My son, Alexander, was able to understand almost everything in both languages – Greek and English – but he could say only six words.