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5 votes
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College financial-aid loophole: Wealthy US parents transfer guardianship of their teens to get aid
15 votes -
Fatal distraction: Forgetting a child in the backseat of a car is a horrifying mistake. Is it a crime?
19 votes -
William and Ida are Denmark's most popular names again
3 votes -
Madelaine Gnewski: ‘Sweden's parental leave may be generous but it's tying women to the home’
8 votes -
When you’re trans, living with your parents can be complicated
8 votes -
Queer parenting: The beauty of the sometimes less-visible modern family
5 votes -
"Shona is one of the almost 50 people worldwide known as skyborns—impromptu deliveries who increase the passenger manifest, mid-flight."
4 votes -
YouTube now disallows minors from live-streaming unless accompanied by an adult
16 votes -
Choosing the right coding summer camp for your kid: nine questions to ask
3 votes -
Coming of age in cohousing: Growing up communally brings exposure to the world of adults—and lessons in interdependence
7 votes -
After men in Spain got paternity leave, they wanted fewer kids
17 votes -
Making playgrounds a little more dangerous
12 votes -
Thirty essential ideas you should know about ADHD
7 votes -
It’s time to stop referring to maternity leave as “generous”
10 votes -
How do you turn kids into bookworms? All ten children's laureates share their tips
7 votes -
Secrets of a Maya supermom: What parenting books don't tell you
7 votes -
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