Customer Reviews
fun & interesting magazine 
2008-01-20
I am a first time parent& have received 2 issues of the magazine. So far I enjoy flipping through the articles & even the advertisements for some ideas. It provides for quick reading for those of us with little time!
Worth the price! 2008-01-07
Subscribed to PARENTS magazine for a year to be sent to my daughter who is expecting in June. IF the magazine is the same as it was 25 yrs ago, she is going to apply alot of what she reads in the articles. Those aritcles helped me raise two wonderful daughters! Great Magazine for a mom who has children. I had time to read them cover to cover because I was a stay-at-home mom for ten yrs. In hinesight I would not have done any different then stay at home where I was able to enjoy my children that I bore....
Never showed up 
2008-01-04
I subscribed this magazine on July 2007. After more 6 months passed, none issue showed up. And Amazone did not response to my info request at all.
Don't subscribe this magazine through Amazon!!!!! Terrible experience.
If you've got any common sense at all, pass on this 
2007-11-13
I subscribed to this after my daughter was around 1 year and, being a stay at home mom, thought I might be able to sneak in a magazine article here and there. What better magazine to subscribe to than one focused on the raising of my darling baby girl? What a mistake! There are 2 types of material in this magazine; alarmist and inane. In fairness, there is occasionally a slightly interesting tidbit that doesn't cause me to immediately throw the thing down in disgust.
I don't fully fault the magazine for all of this as I've noticed that all periodicals seem to be catering to the lowest common denominator as of late. But honestly, the average article seems to assume that most parents are either complete morons or possibly 12 years old. Maybe it's because I'm 33 instead of 23, but I find the majority of the advice to be either extremely obvious or downright ridiculous. I do not need to be told to spend time with my child and I find it unhelpful to make parents think their child is Autistic because their one year old doesn't always look up from their toys when their name is called.
Then there's the household tips. In every issue, there seems to be tons of helpful tips to streamline the management of your home. These are the sort of silly "thirteen different ways to use a laundry basket" that some people may find interesting, but I do not. If I need a shelf, I install a shelf rather than hanging a laundry basket from some hooks. Honestly I feel like I've lost IQ points after reading this magazine. Sometimes I think it would have been more educational to watch The View - and that would have been free.
I give the magazine 2 stars because there is occasionally something interesting in it. I have also seen worse. But if you are an actual adult, have some common sense and want to limit the ridiculous decor in your home to macaroni art created by your child, skip this magazine.
NEVER SHOWED UP 2007-09-04
Ordered this 8 months ago, never received an issue. This is the second subscription I got through Amazon that didn't get to me.
Waste of time 2008-06-07
For the amount of advertising and articles written by advertisers, they should be giving this away. We found Wondertime to be a better (but still flawed) child magazine.
Helpful and entertaining, if your kids are preschoolers 
2008-05-28
After several years I'm letting my subscription to Parents lapse, but only because my children are now aged 8 and 4 and I find it less and less relevant to me. I think it's best suited to parents with kids in the 0-4 age group - although it does attempt to cover older children, I don't feel that it does so very well.
Parents is a colorful and attractive magazine with plenty of bite-size articles - perfect to pick up when you get a spare five minutes here or there. My impression is that the quality of the articles has improved in the last year. I find it a good source of ideas for things to do with the kids and there have been some excellent articles on behavior strategies. As an example: a recent issue had an article offering a new (to me) way to calm down a toddler in full-on tantrum mode. It talked about how we naturally match the degree of a child's excitement when we are celebrating an achievement ("Good for you! Hooray!") but that we tend to meet tantrums with a minimum of emotion ("Calm down, shush now") rather than demonstrating empathy. It suggested mirroring the child's tone/emotion and using words like "You're really angry about this! You wanted to stay longer!". The idea interested me and I decided to give it a try. I have never stopped a tantrum so quickly or effectively. My son calmed down immediately and said "no, I'm not angry, I'm disappointed". Wow. Kudos to you, Parents.
Having said this, there are also several things that I don't like about Parents magazine. It's not usually a very thought-provoking read - subjects tend to be dealt with in a pretty top-line way. And it often feels that there is an obsession with child safety to the point of being alarmist. (It's good to be informed about potential dangers or diseases, but most parents worry enough already!) It also takes a very mainstream approach to parenting. A recent issue did feature an article on cloth diapers, but it was not well researched and gave a lot of misleading information about best practice. Having used cloth diapers for several years, I found much cheaper and easier strategies and I was disappointed in the quality of that article.
Overall this is a good magazine for the busy parent who just wants an easily digestible source of entertainment and ideas.
Good magazine 2008-05-15
I really like Parents magzine. I've also read Cookie and Parenting, but like this one the best.
parents magazine 2008-05-04
this is a great mahazine, designed for all parents no matter the age of their children.
Informative magazine 2008-04-08
We received this magazine earlier than the estimated delivery date and have enjoyed the contents. We have a lot to learn as first time parents and this magazine has been very helpful.
