Dear Mr. Dad: My eight-year old daughter’s best friend—a girl she’s known since kindergarten—just moved out of the area. My daughter doesn’t make friends very easily—she’s always had a small number of pretty intense friendships—and she seems particularly devastated that this girl is leaving town. I’m worried about her. Is there anything I can do to make her feel better?
A: Losing a friend—whether because of a physical separation or a relationship-ending disagreement—is usually a major event in a child’s life. Unfortunately, though, too few parents take these breakups seriously enough, and may try to comfort a child with a well-meaning but flip, “Don’t worry, you’ll find another friend” or “You can always email each other.” I’m glad you’re taking your daughter’s loss more seriously.

The truth is that children at this age make very deep emotional attachments to their friends, and although losing friends is a normal part of growing up, friends are not interchangeable. Parents need to encourage children to explore and understand why a friendship ended (although in this case, it’s pretty clear—at least to you). Otherwise, “they can end up blaming themselves, and that self-blame may make them wary of forming new friendships in the future,” says psychotherapist Mary Lamia. Reassuring your daughter that she’s in no way to blame for her friend moving, may help.

On the other hand, as irrational as it seems to most adults, your daughter may be very angry at her friend for leaving. So if you have any suspicion that she’s blaming her friend, it’s important that you gently encourage her to forgive. “Hurt feelings, disappointment, and transgressions are an inevitable part of close friendship,” says Lamia.

You’re absolutely right to be concerned about your daughter’s reactions. “Children often compare potential new friends to the old one,” says Lamia. “And usually, the new ones can’t compare.” You may need to remind your daughter that establishing a friendship often takes time. Encourage her to talk about the feelings and emotions she’s experiencing, and let her know that you understand how hard it can be to lose a friend, and that being sad, angry, and hurt is perfectly normal.

At the end of the day, your daughter will be okay, Although it comes naturally to some, for others, making friends is very difficult. And since your daughter values quality over quantity (and that’s just fine—as long as the quantity isn’t zero), it may take her longer than you think to move on. If she’s still down in the dumps in a few weeks, talk to her pediatrician about getting her some counseling.
In the meantime, here are seven characteristics that researchers believe (and common sense confirms) are critical to forming long-lasting, healthy friendships:

• Friends share—anything from toys to secrets.
• Friends help each other. This might mean anything from helping a fellow preschooler look for a lost doll to helping a fellow twelve-year-old deal with the death of a parent.
• Friends forgive. This is easy enough for a toddler, a little harder for school-age kids, and pretty tough for pre-adolescents.
• Friends manage their conflicts. Everyone has fights once in a while, but friends are willing to spend the time it takes to work things out.
• Friends are active participants in maintaining the relationship and don’t just wait for the others to call.
• Friends want the chance to be open and frank with someone who is open and frank with them.
• Friends keep each other’s confidences and stick up for each other.

Dear Mr. Dad: We’ve tried to stress the importance of study habits to our 12-year-old son. But no matter what we do or say, he seems to end up playing video games instead of doing his homework. What can we do to make him start taking studying seriously?

A: Whoa. Before we get to the homework thing, we need to talk about the real issue: What can you do to get your son to start taking YOU seriously? The simplest approach (although, I admit that it’s not going to be easy) is to take away the video games. Whether it’s confiscating his DS or tablet, locking up his game controllers, or activating the parental controls on his computer, you need to take some firm steps right now. Your son is still young, but if he doesn’t start taking schoolwork more seriously soon, his grades may interfere with his post-high-school education and, eventually, his choice of career.

If possible, get your son involved in the discussion—have him suggest ways he can earn back his gaming time. The more the rules come from him, the greater the chance that he’ll follow them. But make sure he’s got things in the right order. Schoolwork first, then games. No exceptions.

Okay, back to homework—but again, we have to start with a different question: When did this behavior start? If he’s never had any interest in studying, that’s one thing (and we’ll get to that in a minute). But if this is a relatively new development, you need to figure out what’s going on.

Has anything in your son’s life changed recently? Did you just move to a new neighborhood? Could he be having a problem with a teacher? Is there any possibility that he’s being bullied at school? Have you and your spouse been fighting a lot or are you getting divorced? Any of these can cause significant—but usually temporary—changes in study habits.

Your assignment is to get answers to these and other similar questions that could be influencing your son’s schoolwork. This is going to involve spending more one-on-one time with your son and learning about his life and how he feels about things.

The temptation is to sit him down and start grilling him, face to face. Don’t. It’s hard for a teen to interpret that kind of approach as anything but hostile. Instead, start by asking him general questions about school, friends, music and other non-explosive topics. And do this while you’re driving. There’s something about not having to look at each other that can remove some of the barrier to communication. If you listen carefully and resist the urge to lecture, you may get the answers to your questions without actually having to come right out and ask them. And in the process, you’ll be strengthening your relationship with each other.

Now, what if he’s ever been interested in studying? Is it possible that he’s not getting enough intellectual stimulation? This is big. A child who finds schoolwork to be boring may simply tune out.

If it’s not that, communicating with your son will still be the goal, but there’s a twist. In this case, you’ll try to find ways to build on his natural interests. For example, if he loves sports or mechanics or cooking or whatever, start there. And then find ways to introduce math or science or language arts principles through those interests. Showing him that what he’s learning has some actual real-world applications will make it a lot more interesting—and worth working on.

Dear Mr. Dad. It seems like every other day there’s a scary story in the news about childhood obesity and diabetes and more. What I rarely hear about is what to actually do about it—aside from “eat less junk and do more exercise.” I don’t find that terribly helpful. Can you offer some specific ideas on how to get my kids healthier?

A: Definitely. Before we start, though, I encourage you to stop thinking in terms of, “get my kids healthier,” and instead talk about “get healthier as a family.” As I’m sure you’ve discovered in other situations, children often pay more attention to what you do than what you say. So when it comes to diet and exercise, you’ll need to model the behavior you’re trying to encourage.

As for nutrition, in case you missed it, the food pyramid is out and MyPlate is in. The simple idea is that all of us—kids and adults—should be eating more fruits and vegetables, a bit less protein, grains, and dairy. Since the exact amounts of those categories depend on each person’s sex, weight, height, and activity level, visit choosemyplate.gov for some tools to help you calculate what’s right for you and your children.

Now for exercise. The bottom line is that most of us need more of it. But defining “more” is as hard as defining “good nutrition.” As a guideline, children should get 60 minutes of exercise every day and adults should get 30. Alternatively, adults should try to walk 8,500–10,000 steps per day, while children should shoot for 10,000-13,000. Here are some ideas to help you reach these goals.

• Use technology as an incentive. Call me crazy, but I think the calls for kids to “just say no to technology” are completely unrealistic. In fact, our kids need to be tech savvy to succeed as adults. That said, moderation is key. And tradeoffs. Len Saunders, author of Keeping Kids Fit, suggests that children earn non-homework-related tech time by banking physical activity time. He suggests a 2-to-1 ratio–an hour of exercise earns you 30 minutes on the DS or Wii. You can hear an interview I did with Saunders at mrdad.com/radio (search for Saunders).
• Be flexible. Those 10,000 steps or 60 minutes of exercise don’t have to be done in one chunk. Ten minutes here, 20 there add up. Also, while team sports are great, they aren’t for everyone. So encourage your child to run, jump rope, do push-ups and sit-ups, hula hoop, and do jumping jacks.
• Do it together. Matching pedometers can make things even more fun. Regular pedometers keep track of how many steps your child takes over the course of a day and can add an element of competition. But consider getting a Striiv instead. Besides tracking steps, the Striiv (striiv.com) gives challenges throughout the day, includes games that encourage activity, and makes donations to charity when you or your child achieve your goals. My 8-year old and I have been using them for a few weeks and they’ve made walks, runs, and bike rides much more fun.
• Use commercials. If you’re watching TV (another thing you should be doing as a family instead of using the tube as a babysitter), do a different exercise for each commercial break.
• Talk to the school. With the focus in recent years on grades and test scores, many schools dropped or cut back on physical education. Ironically, there’s a clear connection between exercise and academic achievement: kids who exercise more tend to get better grades.

Dear Mr. Dad: We’ve always taught our kids to say “please,” “thank you,” “excuse me,” and the other basics. But where are the rules about texting and using cell phones and all those other things that didn’t even exist when our parents were teaching us how to be polite?

A: Great question. Reminds me of last Thanksgiving, which I hosted. I was sitting at one end of the table and noticed that two guests at the other end were staring into their laps and, you guessed it, texting. I didn’t want to embarrass them, so I did the next best thing: sent each of them a sternly worded text telling them to stop texting. That seemed to resolve the issue. But that whole experience (we’ll skip the other guest who repeatedly checked football scores on his phone and then got up to go watch a game on TV) taught me two things. First, that while “please” and “thank you” are still important, there are dozens of other situations that Emily Post never even dreamed of. And second, today’s technologies haven’t changed the fact that good, old-fashioned manner are just as important as they ever were.

So here are a few 21st century scenarios and some thoughts on how to handle them. If you have an idea of one we should cover here, please let us know. We’ll feature some of the best in future columns.

Texting or talking on the phone at the dinner table. My basic rule is No. It’s rude—in the same way that reading a book at the dinner table or ignoring or excluding people in a social situation would be rude. It shows a basic disrespect for other people around you. The same goes for playing games on your phone or DS or other handheld device. Of course, if there’s a true emergency (an Angry Birds tournament doesn’t count), the rules change. But even then, stand up, say a polite, “would you please excuse me?” and go somewhere private.

Social media. Yes, it’s everywhere, but the Golden Rule still applies: Don’t do anything to anyone else that you wouldn’t want someone to do to you. Thinking about YouTube-ing a video of a friend making a fool of herself after having had a few too many drinks? Considering re-Tweeting a confidential message someone sent you? Toying with the idea of posting some really nasty comments on someone’s Facebook Wall? Take a deep breath and imagine that the roles are reversed and someone else was posting videos, Tweeting, or cyberbullying you.

Email. We all know that it’s rude to write in all caps because IT SEEMS LIKE YOU’RE SCREAMING. But be very careful about how you use Reply or Reply All. Does everyone on the email list really need to see your response to the original sender? I’m guessing not. And be even more careful about using BCC. If you’re using BCC to send potentially embarrassing information to someone who really has no business knowing it, you’re playing with fire. Eventually the other person will find out and you’ll be pegged—rightfully so—as an untrustworthy person who betrays friends and can’t keep a secret. And finally, try not to send email thank-you notes unless it’s for something very informal. It’s not appropriate, for example, for a child to write one “thanks for the cool birthday present” email and CC all of her guests (we’ve received more than one of these). Written thank-yous take more time and effort but they’re much more meaningful—to both the writer and the recipient.

Dear Mr. Dad, I was changing my two year old daughter’s diaper after she’d come home from spending the day with her father (he and I are not together). She was touching herself and I told her to stop because her hands were dirty. She then said that “daddy touches me here.” I am completely freaking out. Why would he do something like that to her? Should I call the police?

A: I know I’m going to take a lot of flak for this, but the first thing you need to do is take a big, deep breath and calm down. Your natural reaction to hearing what your daughter said is to jump into action and do everything you possibly can to protect her—what parent wouldn’t? Ordinarily, I’d suggest erring on the side of caution and immediately making the call to the authorities. But before you pick up the phone, you need to be absolutely sure you know exactly what’s going on.

Taking your daughter to the emergency room for a cough that turns out to be nothing more than a cold may cost you a few extra co-pay dollars and leave you feeling a little embarrassed. But making a child abuse report for something that that turns out to be a misunderstanding is completely different. Many family law attorneys call a child abuse accusation the nuclear bomb of divorce cases, and with good reason: Once you start the process there is no going back. Ever. I've done a lot of research and writing on accusations of child abuse and I've seen too many cases where unfounded (and sometimes deliberately false) accusations have completely destroyed the lives of the accused.

As you know, diaper changing involves touching a child in a way that in any other circumstance would be completely inappropriate. And while no one wants to believe that a child would lie about something as serious as abuse, the fact is that you’re dealing with a two-year old. Kids that age still have trouble differentiating fact from fiction and are notoriously unreliable witnesses.

So what should you do? Start with checking in with your gut. Do you honestly have any reason to believe that your daughter’s father would abuse her? The answer is probably No. But don’t leave it at that—we’ve all heard of cases where people no one would ever suspect (priests, coaches, trusted relatives) have done the most horrible things.

If you have a good relationship with your ex, ask him if he's noticed anything different about your daughter, whether she's behaving oddly or saying strange things while she's with him. If he hasn't, tell him what your daughter said. But choose your words carefully. Your goal here is to gather information. Coming out and accusing him is a guaranteed conversation stopper.

You may want to get some advice from a close friend, but be careful: certain people—doctors, therapists, day care workers, and others are what’s called “mandated reporters,” meaning that they are required to report any suspicion of abuse—even if they aren’t 100 percent sure.

Although it’s tempting, try not to ask your daughter any more about this. Toddlers have an uncanny ability to read our expressions and will adapt what they say to what they think we want to hear—even if it’s completely made up. So wait a little and see whether she brings it up again without any prompting.

I’m not trying to minimize your fears—just hearing your story makes me wince. I just want you to be absolutely sure before you pick up that phone.

Dear Mr. Dad: My wife and I sometimes fight when our children, eight and ten, are present. We know we probably shouldn’t argue in front of them but things are sometimes so tense that we can’t stop ourselves (I recently lost my job and we’re facing possible foreclosure). How damaging is it to argue in front of children, and how can we stop?

A: You’re right: you probably shouldn’t argue in front of your children. Some studies have found that kids whose parents fight a lot may become depressed, anxious, or withdrawn. They may also imitate their parents and pick fights with siblings, friends, and even other adults.

That said, it’s completely unrealistic to think that you and your wife should never argue at all. Disagreements are a natural part of even the best relationships. In fact, not having any arguments might be worse than an occasional flare-up. Small quarrels are good for letting off steam—and given your precarious financial situation, you’re producing enough steam to supply your whole neighborhood with electricity. Keeping it all bottled up will eventually lead to a huge explosion. Exposing your kids to small amounts of conflict—along with the same number of make-ups—demonstrates effective problem-solving skills and shows that fighting with someone you love is not the end of the world.

So your challenge isn’t really to step arguing at all, but to find ways to handle your disagreements constructively. One excellent approach is to agree that when you see that an argument is in danger of turning ugly, you’ll stop and give yourselves time to cool off. Come up with a secret word or phrase that either one of you can say that signals it’s time for a break. If you’re able to postpone the argument for a bit, chances are that one of three things will happen: You’ll be able to discuss things more calmly, you’ll realize that the issue wasn’t as big a deal as you thought, or you’ll forget what you were arguing about in the first place.

Of course, despite your best intentions, you’re never going to be able to stop yourselves every time. Here are some things to do when your kids end up with front-row seats:

• Fight fair. No yelling, no swearing, no personal insults, no threats, no door slamming or vase throwing, and certainly no physical violence of any kind, ever.
• Damage control. Talk to your children about what they saw. Don’t go into details or lay any blame. Simply tell them that you and mom disagreed and lost your tempers, but now you’ve made up and everything is okay.
• Don’t pretend things are fine when they aren’t. Your kids are old enough to understand that you’ll all need to make some sacrifices for the good of the family. But don’t panic them—they need to know that no matter what happens, you’ll be there to care for them.
• Reassure. Children often blame themselves for their parents’ conflicts. Let them know it’s not their fault.
• Explain. If possible, tell your children how you resolved the issue. For example: “We disagreed on where to spend the holidays, but compromised by going to grandma’s on Christmas Eve and to Aunt Mary’s on Christmas Day.”
• Have some fun, either as a family or in smaller groups. And make sure your kids see you and their mom are genuinely happy and in love.

Finally, if your fights become more frequent, more aggressive, or if either of you can’t control or manage your temper, get some professional counseling.