Fact Check Policies

Every article on Happy Day Play is fact-checked before publication and re-checked over its lifetime. This page describes the standards we use, the sources we draw on, and the process every claim goes through before it appears on our site.

Last reviewed: 5/28/26

What we mean by "Fact-Checked against NCFR Standards"

The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) is the professional society for family scientists and family life educators, founded in 1938. NCFR maintains the Framework for Life Span Family Life Education, a research-grounded set of content standards across ten substantive areas of family life, and the ethical principles that guide family life educators.

When we say an article has been "Fact-Checked against NCFR Standards," we mean:

  • The article's substantive claims align with the relevant Family Life Education content area as defined by NCFR.

  • The article reflects the ethical principles of family life education, particularly the commitment to providing evidence-informed, non-coercive, family-strengthening information.

  • The article does not contradict current consensus from NCFR-affiliated publications, including the Journal of Marriage and Family, the Journal of Family Theory and Review, and Family Relations.

Our founder, Kaitlynn Blyth, is an active member of NCFR. This is a real professional standing within a real professional body.

Our source hierarchy

Not all sources are created equal. We prioritize sources in roughly this order:

  1. Peer-reviewed journals. Studies published in Pediatrics, Child Development, Journal of Family Theory and Review, Developmental Psychology, and similar caliber.

  2. Position statements from major professional bodies. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the National Association for the Education of Young Children, NCFR, and equivalent.

  3. Government health bodies. The CDC, NIH, HHS, the World Health Organization, and corresponding state and city public-health departments.

  4. Established nonprofits in child development. Zero to Three, the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, the Yale Child Study Center, and similar.

  5. Reputable established media. The New York Times, the Atlantic, NPR, Scientific American, used primarily for context and reporting on primary research, not as the primary source for claims of fact.

  6. Practitioner experience. Our own years of working directly with families, clearly labeled as such ("In our classes...," "What we see most often...").

  7. Personal anecdote. First-person stories from the founder, clearly labeled and never presented as evidence of broader claims.

Every article cites a minimum of three sources from tiers 1 through 4. Tiers 5 through 7 may appear but never as the sole support for a claim of fact.

What we do not consider credible sources

  • Social media posts as evidence of fact

  • Single-product company websites as the source for claims about that product's category

  • Personal blogs without verifiable credentials

  • Predatory or pay-to-publish journals

  • Research that has been retracted, even if widely cited before retraction

How a claim moves through fact-check

  1. The writer cites as they draft. Every factual claim is linked to a specific source in the working draft, not left for later.

  2. Sources are verified. Each cited source is opened and read to confirm it actually supports the claim made. This is the single most common place fact-checks fail elsewhere. A source is cited but doesn't say what the article claims. We check.

  3. NCFR alignment is checked. The article's claims are read against the relevant NCFR framework content area.

  4. Corrections are logged internally. Any change made during fact-check is logged, so we know what was changed and why.

  5. Publication. The article goes live with the "Last fact-checked" date matching the date of final review.

  6. Ongoing review. High-traffic and time-sensitive articles are re-checked at least annually.

How we handle conflicting evidence

Child development research is a real science, which means it has real disagreements. When credible sources disagree, we say so. We don't pick a side and present it as settled. Instead, we describe the range of credible positions, the strength of evidence behind each, and what an evidence-informed reader might do with that uncertainty.

You will frequently see phrases like "most current research suggests...," "experts disagree about...," or "the evidence for X is stronger than the evidence for Y, but neither is definitive" in our articles. This is not hedging. It is honest reporting on the state of the field.

How we handle our own commercial interests

Happy Day Play is a business. We run classes, programs, parties, events, field-trips, and content creation. When we recommend one of our own offerings within an article, we do so transparently. The recommendation is identified as such, and you can see in our Editorial Guidelines that our recommendations are never paid placements.

We never frame a class recommendation as if it were a research finding. "Family Music classes can help toddlers practice co-regulation" is a recommendation. "Studies show that music interventions are associated with improved emotional regulation in toddlers" is a sourced claim. We do not blur these.

Corrections and disputed claims

If you believe a factual claim in any of our articles is wrong, please email hello@happydayplay.com with:

  • The URL of the article

  • The specific claim you are disputing (a direct quote helps)

  • The source you believe supports a different claim

We respond to correction requests within five business days. If a material correction is warranted, we update the article, note the correction at the bottom, and update the "Last fact-checked" date.

Adherence to industry standards

Our fact-checking practices align with the citation, methods, and corrections principles of the Trust Project's 8 Trust Indicators. They also reflect the editorial sourcing principles of the now-retired HONcode standard for health information.

Related policies

For our broader editorial commitments, see our Editorial Guidelines. For details on who verifies our content, see our Expert Verification Process. For our approach to AI tools, see Our AI Policy.

This policy was last reviewed on May 28, 2026.