Ok, just a pad?

Well, a tampon and a pad, they are in the other bathroom (I know).

I love how self assured and secure kids feel these days to get what they need. Growing up my sister would have never dared discuss her period with our dad.

Kids these days are amazing.

My daughter ( 10 ) is a wonderful little girl . She has ADHD and with it comes some challenges she is In resource room at school ( both push in and pull out) as well as OT and in school counseling . The start of school is often difficult for her but after a few weeks we are typically good . This year is totally different, she is failing tests left and right and blames everyone but herself.

Just today she got a 60 on a science quiz , typically something she would not fail. Her answers made no sense and she told me it was because we didn’t study enough. I asked her to study multiple times a day for the last week we have known about the quiz and she refused . She has a horrible habit of not being able to take responsibility for her actions and instead blaming everyone else.

I have taken away her iPad , TV , Toys , and now her beloved squishy collection. I have tried talking to her but she just cries and throws a tantrum that you would expect a toddler to throw . Her teacher has spoken to her , the school psychologist , every adult in her life and she insists nothing is going on . She has become so mean to me , telling me she hates me and i am the worst mom for taking her things away . She screams and yells and stomps her feet, my two toddlers don’t even act this way .

I think it is important to note that we are only met with this behavior when she is being requested to do something related to school . I am burnt out , i have fought so hard to get her all of the accommodations she has in school, to make sure her ADHD medication is correct ( looking into a change but wont see the doctor for a few weeks) trying everything to set her up for success and she has put zero effort in for herself. My husband says i should just let her face the natural consequences of her actions, if she chooses to not study and fails tests and assignments thats on her . But it feels so wrong to do that . I am trying to find an outside therapist, but even with excellent insurance finding mental healthcare that is covered is extremely difficult , and in the past she has not participated in therapy enough to benefit from it .

What would you do ? Continue to fight ( both for and with you child ) or let them learn naturally that actions have consequences and not intervene any longer ?

My 14 year old son loves chatting with me before school, usually right after he wakes up. He comes downstairs in his PJs with messy bedhead and sleepy eyes, and just talks to me about whatever is on his mind for the day. It’s really sweet ❤️

But he has pretty strong morning breath and is a close talker lol! He faces directly to me when he talks which makes his morning breath really noticeable 😂. Overall though his oral hygiene is good, and his breath is fine after brushing. So it’s just a first thing in the morning thing.

It doesn’t really bother me, but I feel like he has no idea lol. But would you mention it so he knows, especially for sleepovers or anytime he might chat with other people first thing in the morning? I don’t want to make him self conscious, but I wonder if he should be aware. Would you say something or leave it alone?

We would like some perspectives on these situations and what you would do:

1. Kid is bullying others including mine at the playground. Didn't see his adult anywhere so I asked him where his adult was, he didn't know. I told him nicely to be careful as he is big and strong and they are small so he needs to be gentle.

2. I have kids over for a playdate (sans their adults), if mean/bad words spoken, I remind everyone to be kind.

If they are breaking MY house rules, I remind them nicely.

1. I hosted a potluck, kid A is saying mean things to my son (notorious for this). Parent sees, but says nothing.

Parent also is a hands off type (they need to learn on their own how to speak/treat people because karma).

I step in and tell him to be kind and that there's no reason to say things like that (sternly because again, not the first time).

1. Went out for dinner with my close friend (and the fams). We've been family friends since kids were babies. I joke with their 8yr old son about cheeks being red cos of the cold and he kicked me full force.

Parent of child continued chatting and drinking.

I have a 3 year old and a almost 1 year old. All I want to know is what your target bedtime is. I do not want to give any context. I understand everyones situation is different. I just want to see what other people think what bedtime should be for toddlers.

I’ve now not been punched, kicked or bitten for four weeks!

My 6 year old really struggles with anger. To the point he would throw things, trash his room, bite, kick, scream, and so on.

This is more prevalent during school holidays as he likes routine.

School suggest GP (no problems in school), GP suggest school and around I went.

Well, today he was angry. Usual sibling stuff. But he took himself to his room. He told me he was angry, he used his words. He asked for space.

It was glorious! I am so pleased with him.

I know a 6yo shouldn’t hit. It’s probably the passage of time but it has been such a struggle that no one understood

Tell me what I'm doing wrong. My twins are 7 years old and are taking *hours* to fall asleep most nights.

Dinner around 6pm. We generally don't do bedtime snacks. No screen time on weekdays, and its early in the day on weekends.

Most days of the week someone has an extra curricular, but at worst it throws off the following schedule by 15ish minutes:

We start the bedtime routine around 7:45. They get into PJs, brush their teeth, we floss them, then they come downstairs for some family reading. We tuck them in around 8:15, and they get 15 minutes to do a quiet activity in bed under the glow of a red light before lights out.

One has a night light, and often listens to a meditation or story after lights out.

The others' room is pitch black and silent, but they will often sing or talk to themselves.

They're in separate rooms, but can hear each other.

They wake up without alarms around 8am, plus or minus 30 minutes. Their school starts late, so this is okay with our family.

They take forever to fall asleep - some nights they'll lie in bed quietly for over 2 hours. Eventually someone will pipe up and tell me they're having trouble sleeping, and every time I'm shocked to find out they're even awake.

What can I change to better support their sleep?

As the title says - does it get easier or harder to have sexy time with the spouse as the kids get older? Kids become more independent but also stay up later. Do you have any tips for a particular age?

I’m about three weeks postpartum with my first baby and I have no idea what to do throughout the day partially because my baby is so young and they’re feeding so often that I feel like I really can’t get out of the house but I want to. Even if it’s something small but I am also terrified to take them out of the house because of seasonal 🦠 (apparently I can’t say R S V without getting flagged I don’t know ). I just would love some input from parents who have been through this. What are some things I can do maybe places I can go that aren’t gonna put my baby at risk but also will give me an excuse to do something besides sitting on the couch and nursing and changing diapers all day? (Besides going on a walk)

I have a 3yo and a 3mo and right now bedtime takes forever trying to get them both to sleep one at a time. At some point, i would hope they need the same things to fall asleep - stories, a song, a hug? Bedtime has become a special space where my toddler and I get to bond with no distractions. Just wondering what your bedtime rituals are and how did you handle it with multiple kids. When did you do it all together?

I’ll preface this by saying that I care about courtesy and optics a lot, and I’m probably in my head way too much about this.

We’re having a birthday party for my kid soon and invited their classmates, along with a few kids from another class at the same childcare (we’re friends with the parents). The venue has a cap on how many kids we can invite, and we’ve already hit that limit.

Recently, a mom from childcare invited us to her kid’s birthday party. It’s the same weekend as ours, but on a different day, so we’d be free to go. Our kids are in different classrooms now, but they used to be in the same room when they were younger and still sometimes play together during outside time. When this mom asked her kid who else they wanted to invite from outside their class, my kid’s name came up.

Would it be in poor taste to accept the invitation and go to their party, but not invite them to my kid’s party because we’ve already hit our venue’s guest limit?

Guess I’m just concerned about the optics of it since we’d have some guest list overlap. I don’t think it would be a big deal, especially since my child was invited in the “second tier”, haha. But curious about what might the appropriate thing to do here.

Your kid makes a friend and becomes really good friends but you don’t get along with the parent as they are passive aggressive and kinda rude and that parent starts taking pictures of them together at school and you don’t know how to approach it? People say I’m being over the top but they never asked me if they could take pictures of my kid with their kid.

If your friend or family member has a downright annoying, attention seeking, or disruptive kid - how do you as the adult behave when their focus is on you? How do you respond when that behavior is focused on your child?

All ive ever heard is that is frowned upon and pointless to parent someone elses kid.

My oldest is 6. I feel like I am constantly telling him to please think before you do something. For example, the reason why I’m finally reaching out for help, I told him please go to the playroom right now, you and brother are being quite loud, I’m trying to get the baby asleep. He took a loud toy from the playroom, and started playing with it right by my door.

No, I don’t think this is him acting out because of a new baby brother. He did this well before I got pregnant with the third and he made choices like this before he even had a second brother.

Is there any games or a conversation that I can have with him that worked for your kids? I do understand how at this age he is still learning the ins and outs of pushing boundary, but he does start learning that he needs to listen the first time. And I feel like this falls underneath some sort of category of teaching consent as in ‘no means no’

My 6 month old uses the shnuggle infant tub currently for bath time. Once she outgrows it and can sit up on her own or even crawl, I’m considering whether to buy the shnuggle toddler tub or just put her in the regular bath tub. What did you do?

So my baby is 6 months and is starting solids. Are we good to introduce berries? With all the recalls I can’t keep up. I wanted to give her strawberries. Maybe cooking them?

In the USA so many many food recalls

I'm planning to redo my bathroom and would love to install an Italian/walk-in shower. However, I’m hesitating because I have two young kids (4.5 and 1.5) who really enjoy playing in the bath.

I know portable or foldable tubs exist, and kids can still have fun playing in a walk-in shower, but I'm on the fence—it feels like it would really disrupt our evening routine.

What do you guys think? Has anyone made this transition with toddlers? Any regrets or tips?

Middle school bullies?!

What are we doing about school bully’s?
My son is in 7th grade this year and is having a hard time fitting in. He is getting bullied on a regular basis. Last week one of his “friends” pants him in the hallway. At lunch the group of kids he sits with almost daily take his food ( not all his food but they‘ll steal a muffin or his popcorn, whatever looks good) In class one of the same kids is shoving his books/ computer off his desk daily.
He goes to a smaller school, I’m talking like a total of 35 kids in his class. So he finds it hard to tell on the other kids because for 1. Retaliation 2. Friend pool is small. I’m struggling because other than tell him he needs new friends, these kids are jerks.
I don’t want to fight all his battles for him. When he got pants I called other kids parents right away but with one of the other kids parents I already don’t see eye to eye. I’m I supposed to do, go down to the school and step in for him or is that over stepping and going to hinder him more?
For context I’m a Dad, hes my oldest son. I was bullied in middle school and would say it was some of my worst years in life. I hate seeing him go through something similar.

Coming up in a few months I plan to fly home out of state with my daughter who will be 11 months at the time. Any advice for flying with a baby?

Is it better to do a direct flight or fly for a few hours and then have a layover? What do you guys usually bring for something like that?

I’ll admit some of my anxiety is just that, mine and not my daughters’s. But I could use advice or feedback.

I am a divorced dad of 3 grade school kids and promised each that they can have a friend birthday party when they turn 8. My oldest turns 8 in 3 1/2 weeks and she wanted a roller skating party. I got the invitations filled out and sent her to school with them a week and a half ago. She handed out about 25 there and maybe 5 more at Girl Scouts to any of the scouts who didn’t get one at school. Her brother and sister each handed out one invitation to a friend of their choice.

The party is 3 1/2 weeks out but I’m growing nervous that the turnout will be disappointing. Only two parents have confirmed their child would like to come. Two have already declined. Leaving maybe 20 to 30 who haven’t responded.

My daughter is extremely polite, well behaved, vibrant and is excelling at school. But I’ve noticed she hasn’t made any close female friends and tends to stick to playing and socializing with the boys. I’m worried that this may be disincentivizing some of the kids from coming.

My daughter is mostly oblivious to the RSVP situation but it’s stressful for me. I want my kids to be happy, make friends, have fun. I wasn’t a very outgoing kid at this age but I remember my McDonald’s birthday in 1984 had a number of classmates (I was only allowed to invite a set number). I also make sure we attend parties that they’re invited to whenever possible and am pretty on top of it when it comes to RSVPing. I wouldn’t want one of their classmates to be disappointed on their birthday. This makes it more concerning that several of these same kids’ parents haven’t responded to the invitation.

Am I expecting too much hoping that 20 to 30 parents would have RDVPd “yes” or “no” by now? To me, success would be maybe 6 classmates attending. A head count is also important for planning and I still have no idea how many kids to expect.

My toddler (20 months old) has started tapping on the TV.

The TV is secured to the TV unit, and it does look pretty solid… but it’s something I bought off Amazon and I’m not 100% sure how secure it is. (It’s something you stick to the TV and to the TV unit, with a sturdy cable in between. So it’s not screwed in but stuck on.)

So I’ve been thinking maybe we should buy a higher TV unit, something more like a sideboard, so he can’t reach the TV. But it’s pretty pricey, and I don’t want to do that unless I need to.

In your experience, how long was your toddler doing stuff like that, and when where they able to understand that they shouldn’t and stopped ?

(For info : the Tv isn’t even necessarily on, and mostly he ignores it. But sometimes I play music on it so it’s just a static picture. Or he just likes to see his own reflection in it even when it’s off.)

Looking for a "dumb phone" for my child. I don't want any apps or Internet just looking for him to be able to text and call. I was looking at the wise phone or the pinwheel. Any one have experience with these?

So my child had lice recently. And this has been a pretty traumatizing experience. If anyone has anything similar to share pls do and how it ended.

I’ve never had lice growing up but remember kids being checked in school. My daughter’s classmate and friend had it and their parent told us about it. We didn’t think my daughter had it until a week later when my husband found lice in her hair. I never experienced lice and was ready to call a specialist. Husband said he had it as a kid and it wasn’t a big deal and that we just needed to be thorough or whatever. We spent all weekend educating ourselves and regularly brushing her hair, doing laundry, checking everyone’s hair, using treatment etc.

A week later my daughter is itching her hair and the school calls me to pick her up. The other kids see it and we know their parents. My daughter does extracurricular activities with some of these friends. Word gets out and I get scathing messages saying my kids aren’t welcome until I get this out of control. One activity teacher bans my kids for a month and a half chastises me for not going to a specialist in the first place. Stating im irresponsible basically. I know the other parents are talking about it. I’m basically traumatized at this point. Also I did go to a specialist when she got sent home, and I told these people this… but they’re still upset. I’m also worried to even send my kid back to school because I’m worried how the other kids are going to treat her.

I have the best daughter (1) she is my whole world. I can get frustrated easily but something Ive been working on. Days like today it's hard for me to process the mom guilt I have when I have a tough day so my mood and energy is down. I might not make her giggle as much or forget to sing her favorite song or give as many kisses. Its always after I get a few minutes alone after bedtime to come out of the fog of frustration and have all this guilt.

Just venting to see if others have had a similar feeling, did something help?