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7 votes
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What happened after my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right
66 votes -
What number of kids makes parents happiest?
7 votes -
Learning my father’s language: I made a vow to teach myself Irish, the language my mother struggled to learn, so that my daughters may learn it too
6 votes -
When a child's mental health diagnosis comes too late to help
15 votes -
World health officials take a hard line on screen time for kids. Will busy parents comply?
8 votes -
The first ever World Health Organisation (WHO) physical activity guidelines for under-fives, recommend no screen time for one-year-olds and no more than an hour for two- to-four-year-olds.
An article on a parenting website: Guidance recommends no screen time for under-twos An article in Time magazine: World Health Organization Issues First-Ever Screen Time Guidelines for Young Kids....
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An article on a parenting website: Guidance recommends no screen time for under-twos
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An article in Time magazine: World Health Organization Issues First-Ever Screen Time Guidelines for Young Kids. Here's What to Know
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The WHO's press release: To grow up healthy, children need to sit less and play more
26 votes -
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Experience with coding camps for kids?
HIVE MIND Hey folks! Have any of you: Sent your kids to one of those “coding camps” Gone to one of said camps as a kid Worked at or for one of said camps Mostly he's looking for experiences from...
HIVE MIND Hey folks! Have any of you:
- Sent your kids to one of those “coding camps”
- Gone to one of said camps as a kid
- Worked at or for one of said camps
Mostly he's looking for experiences from the past five years or so.
One of my authors is writing an article on the topic, so please get in touch! jfruh@jfruh.com!
4 votes -
The data all guilt-ridden parents need: What science tells us about breast-feeding, sleep training and all the agonizing decisions of parenthood
15 votes -
They had it coming - The parents indicted in the college-admissions scandal were responding to a changing America, with rage at being robbed of what they believed was rightfully theirs
12 votes -
The cost of having children - women lose earnings for five years after childbirth
12 votes -
Tickling
19 votes -
Her son died. And then anti-vaxers attacked her.
18 votes -
How parents are robbing their children of adulthood
18 votes -
Groomed by a grandfather: A mother discovers that her children have been sexually abused by a close relative for years.
3 votes -
How Inuit parents teach kids to control their anger
17 votes -
Facts alone won’t convince people to vaccinate their kids
10 votes -
What if child care were as standard as coffee at tech conferences?
6 votes -
Kansas Catholic school rejects kindergartner with same-sex parents
6 votes -
Trying to figure out my personal craziness
I hope this is the appropriate Tilde for this. If no one has any input it will still have helped me to type this out. TL;DR In over my head with marriage, foster care, family, and work. My wife...
I hope this is the appropriate Tilde for this. If no one has any input it will still have helped me to type this out.
TL;DR In over my head with marriage, foster care, family, and work.
My wife and I became foster parents about 1.5 years ago with the intention to not adopt, but to care for children 3 and under while bio parents worked to regain custody or other permanent placements were arranged. Our first placement was two girls (7 mo and 2.5 yrs) despite wanting to do just one kid at a time (especially to start). We had them for 6 weeks and mom got them back. We had another placement (8 mo boy) for about another 6 weeks. There was a considerable lull and we were getting frustrated about not getting any new placements when the girls from our first placement were placed into custody again. So we were able to take them in again (now about 1.2 and 3.5 yrs). FF to now and we've had them for about 6 months.
We never really intended to have more than one child and for quite this long and we're struggling. My wife has always had a little less ability to weather stressful situations like this and these last 2-3 weeks I'm carrying a lot of weight. In the meantime, bio mom has gotten pregnant and there's not another hearing regarding custody for another 9 months. We fully expect that she will not be able to take them back at that time (or really realistically ever). What should probably happen would be that the county could place the kids into permanent custody (basically getting them adopted). However, from what we've heard from other foster families, temporary custody could drag on for years.
So, our main dilemma is this. We are not equipped (as a couple) to care for these kids for years. With the likely prospect of no change in custody in the near future, it feels like the best thing for these kids would be to get them into the care of someone looking to do this long-term, perhaps to eventually adopt. That being said, we absolutely love them and it feels like some kind of betrayal to force them to make yet another transition. On the other hand, with our limitations, it seems like that is inevitable anyway. Do we try to make that happen sooner?
Some other data points:
Our fostering license expires in October (about a month after the hearing is scheduled) and we don't intend to continue fostering (at least for a while, and definitely not with our current agency).
We don't have many family members close by to give us a hand with the kids, making us feel isolated and making it hard to get breaks from the kids. Our agency has not been very helpful with lining up respite care, but we're trying to be more aggressive about that now.
I've got things pretty well lined up to retire in about 5 years. My company is also just now kicking off a major project of a similar time frame and I'm in a good position to really make a mark before moving on. It will probably require some serious time commitments and effort to do it the way I want to.Thanks for listening.
12 votes -
When a Newton family welcomed a baby who is deaf, twenty neighbors learned sign language
10 votes -
How to grant your child an inner life
8 votes -
In China, some parents seek an edge with genetic testing
4 votes -
Having children is one of the most destructive things you can to do the environment, say researchers
38 votes -
Unvaccinated teens are fact-checking their parents — and trying to get shots on their own
19 votes -
Let children get bored again
23 votes -
In the era of spellcheck and auto-correct, does it matter that my son can’t spell?
10 votes -
Father-daughter relationships strengthened with these three connectors
5 votes -
The relentlessness of modern parenting
12 votes -
What did your parents do right?
I'm curious to know what you think your own parents (or the people who raised you) did right. What actions, mindsets, or philosophies did they operate by that had a positive effect on you? What...
I'm curious to know what you think your own parents (or the people who raised you) did right. What actions, mindsets, or philosophies did they operate by that had a positive effect on you? What techniques of theirs would you use with your own children? What important lessons did they teach you?
22 votes -
The invisible experiences of first-time Gen-X mothers
4 votes -
Every city should have a toy library
11 votes -
Watching my son's traumatic birth drove me to a breakdown
6 votes -
Family matters: Why a 27-year-old Canadian woman chose to be single and pregnant
5 votes -
Modern STEM toys don't do a good job of educating because they're just toys, not tools
11 votes -
A dark consensus about screens and kids begins to emerge in Silicon Valley
26 votes -
Why parenting is both the toughest and most rewarding gig
7 votes -
Mum's voice makes better smoke alarm for children
3 votes -
The iPhone’s new parental controls block searches for sex ed, allow violence and racism
25 votes -
Baby box safety doubts raised by experts
5 votes -
What I’ve learnt about parenting a queer teen
9 votes -
Why aren't most women represented in the last names of their children?
14 votes -
'We need to know the sex. If it’s a girl we are going to terminate it'
25 votes -
When a DNA test reveals your daughter is not your biological child
11 votes -
Seeing Grease with my son opened my eyes to how problematic it is
32 votes -
Growing up in a house full of books is major boost to literacy and numeracy, study finds
15 votes -
Raised by YouTube - The platform’s entertainment for children is weirder—and more globalized—than adults could have expected
11 votes -
How well-intentioned White families can perpetuate racism
20 votes -
Parents: have your kids been affected by age-inappropriate content?
I was having a conversation with one of my coworkers who mentioned that her child showed a fascination with scary, Halloween-type stuff starting around age 6. She and her husband had a hard time...
I was having a conversation with one of my coworkers who mentioned that her child showed a fascination with scary, Halloween-type stuff starting around age 6. She and her husband had a hard time with whether they should let him enjoy it or limit it. They weren't sure whether to let him read scary books or watch spooky stuff on YouTube, particularly because it's the type of content that can very easily be age-inappropriate--especially for a 6 year old. Nevertheless, it was relatively easy for them to keep it to stuff like Jack-o-Lanterns and black cats since he was so young.
The boy is now older but has retained his interest, and the parents are still struggling with decisions about allowable content, especially because he is starting to age into books and movies that deal with much darker stuff, particularly ideas about death/violence.
I'm not a parent, but I am a teacher, and I have to admit that I'm uncomfortable with some of the stuff my students are exposed to. Over the years I've heard students as young as twelve discuss horror movies like the Saw series or The Human Centipede. I've had middle school students bring books like Gone Girl and 50 Shades of Gray to class. On one hand, I think kids are resilient, and I think a lot of the more difficult or disturbing stuff doesn't quite land for them because they don't really have a context into which to put it yet. I also believe that fictional media is a mostly safe way for us to explore troubling or disturbing ideas.
On the other hand, I think the internet has caused our children to grow up a lot faster than they used to, as they are exposed to mature content (whether intentionally or accidentally) from a very early age. When I was growing up the worst I could do was check out a slightly-risqué book from the school library and hope my parents never found it in my backpack. Now kids are watching violent (often real-world) and pornographic content starting as young as elementary school. Nothing can make your heart sink quite like sixth graders talking excitedly over lunch about a video of a real person getting crushed to death.
What I genuinely don't know is if this has any negative developmental effect. Am I just clutching my pearls here? I'd love to hear some parents talk about how they've handled the decision of what's right for their kids and whether they've had fallout from their kids consuming content that's not appropriate for them.
26 votes -
Edmonton daycare asks parents to bring helmets for the playground
6 votes