Who is Dr. Heins?

Dr. Marilyn Heins is a pediatrician, author, parenting educator, lecturer, mother, step-mother, and grandmother. She has written two parenting books (click here to order a copy of ParenTips) and writes all of the content for ParentKidsRight.com. For 18 years she wrote a parenting column for the Arizona Daily Star. Although much parenting advice is available on the health and care of children, Dr. Heins is one of the few experts to focus on both the challenges and the rewards of being a parent. She stresses that parenting is NOT instinctive---the skills and strategies needed to do a good parenting job must be taught. Dr. Heins' advice balances the needs of the parent with the needs of the child. She understands parents and helps them deal with their concerns in a warm, sincere manner. She provides astute professional observations and suggestions peppered with anecdotes from her own parenting experiences. She has received hundreds of fan letters about her work from a diverse range of readers, including not only parents but also doctors, writers, university professors, and from children themselves. Dr. Heins is in demand as a speaker and workshop leader. She appears regularly before groups of parents including single parents and step-parents. She also speaks to grandparents, teachers, child care providers, medical professionals, students, and women's groups.

She served as Director of Pediatrics at Detroit Receiving Hospital and Director of Project PRESCAD, a federally funded program to provide comprehensive health services for medically indigent children. She was the Associate Dean for Student Affairs at Wayne State University School of Medicine and Vice Dean and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

Dr. Heins was a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Medical Association, served on the National Board of Medical Examiners, chaired the Committee on Medical Education of the American Hospital Association, and served as the first woman Chair of the Group on Student Affairs of the Association of American Medical Colleges. She belongs to many professional organizations and is also active in community organizations focusing on women and children’s health, parenting education, and women’s issues.

Her special interests in pediatrics include helping parents to parent and teaching health professionals how to help parents parent. She has published 58 papers and is the senior author of Child Care/Parent Care, Doubleday, 1987, a comprehensive book on child care focusing on the needs of the parents as well as those of the child. Her latest book, ParenTips was published in 1999 and her website, ParentKidsRight.com, is a popular resource for parents. Dr. Heins was the producer and host of a weekly call-in radio program called The Parenting Show which aired on KNST, Tucson’s leading talk radio station for two years. She wrote nearly 950 parenting columns for the Arizona Daily Star and currently devotes her time to writing, consulting, lecturing, and conducting workshops for parents and those who work with children.

She was married for nearly 49 years to a veterinarian who died in 2007. (Click on the Order Page to order the children’s book he wrote, Two Arizona Black Birds) Their daughter, who completed residencies in both internal medicine and psychiatry, is the Associate Chair for Clinical Affairs, Psychiatry Department, University of Michigan Medical School and the mother of twins. Their son is a musician. Dr. Heins also has two stepsons and three step-grandsons. She enjoys music especially opera, literature, travel, and the outdoors.

Favorite links to sites that are helpful to parents:

http://home.att.net/~xchar/tna/
“tna” stands for The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris whose work puts contemporary parenting in perspective.

http://www.npn.org
New Parent Network is a collection of English and Spanish parenting information from preconception to first grade.

www.drtoy.com
Great information about what toys to buy and not to buy.

www.newsletter.kidsgrowth.com
Useful information about children’s health.