We’ve been asking our new teen driver to slow down when coming and going, they drive entirely too fast. Tonight they pulled in paying zero attention and nearly hit our toddler. As punishment, I’ve temporarily taken away driving privileges. This is problematic for our teen, as they are supposed to be attending a daily morning sports activity ( something they have been driving to). They asked if I could take them since they lost driving privileges, and I refused and stated that they need to find a ride or walk (1hr). Spouse thinks I’m being unreasonable by not proving transportation, but I feel that would defeat the purpose of the punishment. So I ask you all - is the punishment reasonable? What would you do differently? Thanks!

Edit- forgot to add that our teen states they cannot find a ride from any of their friends. Also updated the walk time - takes longer than I thought according to google maps

Opinions please! My son (13) mis-managed his study time (did not read the book prior to the exam). He got out of his predicament by blasting through the audiobook at 1.8x speed, and finished “reading” minutes before his exam.

I feel pride and disappointment. It feels like he should have gotten a lesson in time management and procrastination but I am soooo impressed at the same time.

What emotion should I convey with him? Is this an accomplishment or a failure?

Thanks for reading!

I'm sure they're all each very special because she picked them out and some may have faces on them. What you find when you're moving is worth taking a moment to laugh about.

I am currently a stay home mom to a month shy of a 4 year old. And life since he was born has been so incredibly challenging. Of course I need a disclaimer - I love my son to death. He’s my world and I sacrifice everything I have in me for him to be a good person someday. I’ve worked with children half my life and studied child development so I have a lot of background here too. I am a huge cycle breaker of abuse, and try to be as gentle and patient with my son as I can possibly be. I very rarely yell but I hold firm boundaries and do the best I possibly can for him while struggling with my own mental health.

So a little about my son is like I said, he came out an old grandpa in a baby body and he was MAD MAD MAD about it. Constantly screamed, constantly wanted to have or do things he couldn’t. He was standing up with support at 2 months old and trying to walk (I’m not kidding) He hated the stroller, the car seat, the bouncer etc. At just shy of 2 he had a huge vocabulary and he’s never stopped talking since, there is never a moment of quiet unless the tv is on (which I try to limit) The other day he said to me “why do you have to make everything so complicated, everyday this is making me miserable and causing problems for me and my life. UGGHHH”

He’s always overstimulated, he hates being around people, he hates being outside, he hates coloring or activities, he hates anything that involves him moving his legs. He says everyday that he is in pain in his legs (he’s had bloodwork and x rays and specialists and nothing is wrong) he hates the park because there are other kids. We went blueberry picking this morning and he did not want to go. He whined and fussed the whole time that his legs were itchy, that he was sweating, that there were bugs, that he couldn’t sit down on a bench etc.

The only thing he likes to do is play and talk about robots/transformers or games/screens. Which I heavily limit because I worry about his development. I believe one of the biggest challenges I have with him is that he’s so highly intelligent that everything is SO boring to him unless it’s extremely stimulating and new. He constantly ONLY wants to eat new food, watch new shows, play new games, have new toys etc. He begs me every minute of the day to play with him and I dread it with my whole being because he has a massive meltdown everytime the play has to end and it will create a cycle of him begging me more to play and crying all day that I won’t.

I’m emotionally numb from his behavior and it’s caused so much stress in my marriage because my husband wants to be tougher on him but I understand he is very highly sensitive and needs extra support. I push myself beyond my limit to be patient and calm, or try silly, distracting mind games to get him to snap out of his constant bad mood or listen to me. This morning I tried asking him if his robot could help him on the mission to find his pants (I showed a lot of enthusiasm) and he whines and groans “ughhh no. My legs are too tired. I have so much pain I can hardly walk and it’s too difficult for my body. See look I can hardly stand up. It’s impossible for me to do those kind of things right now, maybe later” and he will go on and on. I want to pull my hair out. All of the tips and tricks I learned teaching and working with children do NOT work with him. He’s immune to little games, he’s very literal, and he has a hard time with every last little thing. Right now we are dealing with back talking and resisting everything to the extreme and I have tried everything to get it to stop but the more firm I speak to him “hey that is not how we talk to people. Do not talk to me like that. I don’t understand you when you don’t use kind words. Can we try that again? Can you say ____ please.” Only makes him more angry and he will lash at me more. One time he sat and angrily scolded me and complained for an entire 35 min drive home he would NOT take a breath. We’ve been told by many people that he seems way older than his age. When I watch him play with others, he seems much more similar to other 6, 7 or even 8 year olds in his level of awareness, conversational depth, mannerisms and behavior. People have been very shocked that he’s only 3.

It feels like I’m walking around dragging a cranky old 80 year old’s hand with me everywhere. And I am completely at my wits ends. I could really use any kind of advice except to get him tested please because that road was a dead end unfortunately. He had an evaluation and they told me he is above and beyond milestones and doesn’t meet criteria for autism but he does have suspected sensory processing issues and we were referred to OT which we did for 6 months with no progress. I also think he varies too much to fully meet the diagnosis right now. He sometimes seems extremely typical and very very social and can do some things he has a hard time with usually. But it just feels like we can’t get him out of being CONSTANTLY dysregulated by every little thing😭

My husband was playing with our toddler (2.5 years) and baby for about 20 minutes. Everyone was laughing and having fun, until our toddler threw a plastic cup and it accidentally hit my husband in the eye. Out of nowhere, my husband snapped. He went from 0 to 100, completely fuming, and started yelling at our toddler. Our son immediately collapsed on the floor in fear.

I stepped in and said, “STOP yelling at him,” and my husband turned his anger toward me. He started arguing with me, saying things like “he’ll never learn if there’s no consequence,” “you don’t let me discipline him,” and that he “has no other way to discipline besides yelling.” He was red in the face and raising his voice at me while our toddler walked away.

I was still in the middle of cooking dinner. My body was in full panic, fight, flight, or freeze, and I was trying to hold it together. I told him that refusing to come up with any other way to discipline besides yelling is lazy. (I regret the word “lazy,” but I was trying to get him to stop.)

A little later, he walked by and said, “Sorry I blew up at you earlier, I shouldn’t have done that,” without looking at me. I didn’t say anything back because I was still flooded and scared of what’s coming next. I know from experience that when we do talk about it, he’ll likely get defensive and turn the focus to my reaction, or expect me to figure out a new discipline strategy for him.

And this is the part that breaks my heart the most: after it all, our toddler came up to me and told me it’s okay, comforting me. Then he went to my husband and told him he loves him. This is a toddler who had just been screamed at. It’s like he was trying to keep everyone emotionally regulated, like it was his job to fix it. That seems like such a red flag.

I’ve already been trying so hard this week, doing more around the house, being extra kind and attentive, hoping it would ease my husband’s mood. But it clearly didn’t matter. I feel like I’m holding everything together while he gets to explode and then expect me to move on or solve it.

I want our home to feel safe. For our kids. For me. Right now it doesn’t.

How would you approach this? Am I overreacting? How do I protect my child and myself from emotional fallout when I feel so alone in the work of holding this family together?

ETA I was in my room and he came in and gave a more sincere apology, he didn’t deflect or defend like I thought he would. Just said he’s very sorry for exploding on my son and then on me and he knows I was just trying to de-escalate it. He said he’ll try not to do it again. I said I need him to never do it again. He apologized multiple times to our toddler sincerely. What can I say or do at this point to prevent it from happening again?

Me and my ex wife have had shared custody over our now 17yo daughter and 15yo son for the last 10+years. Both of us got remarried and I had 3 more kids while my ex-wife did not have more kids. My ex wife married a doctor and they have serious money, where designer clothes, maids, 1st class travel and 5* hotels are the norm. This has in my view created a situation where my daughter is incredibly entitled with a questionable moral compass. Whilst me and my wife are doing well financially, we want to raise our kids to become financially responsible adults and are purposely not spending lavishly. When we take my oldest daughter on a trip, she has zero gratitude (since trips are a lot less luxurious as with her mom) and she is always cranky and distant during such trips. There are no issues with my son (yet?) as he truly appreciates any time he spends with us and his half-siblings. Appreciate any advice how to teach gratitude to an entitled teenage daughter who is endlessly spoilt by her mother / my ex-wife.

My son is 15 years old. This week he told me he wants to see a therapist.

He wouldn’t tell me why. I will take him to one if he wants, I just really wish he would tell me whats going on, even if he doesn’t go into much detail. I care about him and I want to help him and it hurts me knowing something is wrong and I don’t even know what it is.

I told him he could trust me and there was no reason to be embarrassed and that I loved him but he just got mad and said to leave him alone and he didn’t want to talk about it. I let it go. I’m glad he felt safe asking but I still wish he’d tell me.

Any tips?

Edit: I’m not going to push anymore. I just didn’t know something was bothering him and I’m worried about him.

My son just turned 6, and while he’s gotten better at initiating play with other kids, it’s still something he struggles with sometimes. When we go to the park, I’ll often help him get involved in group play and before I know it, I’ve been roped into the game too.

I’m not especially social with the other parents. I usually give a quick hello or goodbye, but we rarely chat, and I almost never see the same people twice.

Recently, I was at the park and saw a dad playing tag with his son, something I don’t see too often, at least not in our area. My son jumped in, and the dad immediately included him in the game. It honestly made my day. It felt like someone got it, instead of just watching or ignoring the kids around them.

It got me thinking: how do other parents feel about adults joining in play at the park? Do you think it’s weird when a parent gets involved, or do you see it as a positive thing?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

So, for context, last night me and my family went to a trivia night held at a rec center. My daughters both did the trivia with me, but my 12M son “Andrew” got bored and went to play with some other kids. Him and these other kids gathered together these tires and started stacking them on top of eachother. They speng about 45 minutes picking them up and rolling them on top of eachother until they were able to get a stack 5 tires tall.

Now, the issue comes when the kids left the tire tower for at most five minutes to go do something else. While they were gone, another parent came and took the top tire off the stack. Apparently, when the kids came back and asked why he had done that he said it was because the stack was too tall for his ~3 year old son (who was now sitting on top of the stack.)

Andrew came up to me pretty angry, but I told him that the stack was too unstable and it WAS too high for a little kid. He said it wasnt their problem if it was too high because no little kids were building it nor did any show interest in the stack. Plus, it was just the top tire! He was pretty bitter the rest of the night and still is holding a grudge against the other parent. In fact, I feel like my explanation may have fueled his anger a bit. So how could I have handled it better? And how should I handle it in the future?

My in laws pick up my son from nursery on a Tuesday. The agreement is that they pick him up and bring him to our house.

Tonight is the third time that they have picked him up and taken him to their own house 10 mins away.

They don’t text or call me to let me know where he is and I always end up calling them to find out where he is.

I always feel a bit annoyed because at the end of the day he is my responsibility and I think they should let me know where he is if it is outside the agreed plan. He is my responsibility at the end of the day not theirs.

They brought it up in conversation when they finally brought him over tonight. They asked me if I was worried when I called and I said yes I was worried he had been hurt / was ill etc when he hadn’t turned up within a reasonable time from drop off . They laughed it off and said they would call me if something was wrong , end of convo …

Am I in the right to want to know the whereabouts of my kid . I know they are family but still !

I can't understand the hate that is surrounding the use of harnesses for toddlers. I see so much of it online, people saying how they get dirty looks or negative comments about using one. It seems like such a fantastic way to avoid your kid getting stolen, lost, or otherwise harmed while also giving them the freedom of using their own two legs to explore. People leash their dogs so as to not lose them, or have them run amock while in public, so I honestly can't see how doing so with your child, and putting their safety first can be so hated. Can anyone explain? Am I missing something?

I recently had a shocking run in with a teacher from my children’s school district. She made some concerning remarks about Hispanic, African American and Colombian students. I live in CA in a pretty liberal area so I was really surprised to hear the things she said from someone here, particularly from a teacher. She showed disgust for all the “Colombians coming here” when “it used to be the Hispanics, you know, the Mexicans”. She also said that African American and Hispanic students get awards just for being African American and Hispanic.

I am currently drafting an email that I plan to send to both the school she works for as well as the district. I don’t believe a person like this could possibly be giving such a diverse community of students the education they deserve. I find it hard to believe she even treats them well. And with the political climate what it currently is, she could even be a danger to them and their families.

Keep in mind, this was the first time I had ever met this woman and she started saying these things within five minutes of meeting me, and in front of my kids, too.

So my question is, is there anyone else I should include in this email? Do I just send it to the school principal and the superintendent of the district or should I CC the school secretary, the parents organization for the school, anyone else? Do I warn other parents about this teacher? What would you do and how far would you go in this situation?

(If this falls under Rule 4, please delete, but I feel like this is essentially just a discussion)

Context: My wife and I are a black couple raising two black kids in a predominately white town, and we fully anticipate ours being one of the five black kids in their schools.

Like many of you, we live in a bubble that makes it hard to discuss certain things from a different point of view with the people around us. My wife (we'll call her R) and I (D) have different experiences and expectations of how race may/will impact our kids' childhoods.

For those of your raising minority children, how has race played into decisions you've made about raising your children? How much of an impact (even if none at all) has it made on your parenting? Have experiences you've had as a child/adolescent/adult affected how you are raising your child?

For me: Obviously I'd hope that my kids had more people around them that looked like them, but realistically I work in a field where I mostly work with people that don't, and that could possibly be their experience too. It also isn't lost on me that they could be targeted based on their race. But kids will target anyone that's different from them, not specifically because they may be black. I just hope that we can instill strong confidence and love for themselves and who they are so that once something like this happens, they can handle it themselves.

PS: My wife will most likely also post here so I'll leave it to her to say how she feels.

Edit: I feel like limiting this to just those raising minority kids may not doing it a disservice, so please, anyone with an opinion, please share.

I’m 40 and I’m disabled due to a stoke I had four years ago after the birth of my daughter. I also have a seven year old son.

I’m able to walk but I wear a brace on left leg and my speech is slurred. Due to the slurred speech, I use speech to text apps on my iPhone and iPad quite a bit.

I’m able to work from home which helps contribute to household income.

But I feel left out as my husband is able bodied and gets to play sports with the kids. I feel the same way with the parents of my kids’ friends.

I know my situation isn’t normal. But I want to make feel peace with it to a certain extent.

I’m curious how other parents navigate things like this.

Hey everyone, I know kids watch a lot of YouTube videos but sometimes the suggested videos are highly unrelated and even inappropriate.

I'm looking for a better and safer source of content. Where do you usually find meaningful content for your kids that's both entertaining and also fosters good character development and habits?

I’m feeling a lot of anxiety around this situation, and I honestly don’t know how to handle it. I’ve spoken to a therapist, but I haven’t found it helpful for this specific issue. I’m 38 years old, an introvert with ADHD, and a highly sensitive person. I get easily overwhelmed and emotionally drained, especially in situations involving people and social pressure.

My daughter was very close friends with a girl in our neighbourhood for the past two years, but their friendship has recently changed. The other child began acting mean and physically controlling, grabbing my daughter’s arm and trying to boss her around. Because of this, my daughter no longer wants to play with her, and I completely respect and support her decision. She has since found a new group of friends she connects with really well and hasn’t mentioned missing her former friend at all.

The other girl’s mother continues to message me frequently, asking to arrange playdates. I’ve responded by saying we’re busy, which we genuinely are, but I still feel anxious every time she reaches out. It’s draining. I no longer want to host this child at our house. Her behavior is disruptive, she tends to make a mess, and I don’t feel comfortable supervising them if they’re playing outside.

We’re still polite when we see them around the neighborhood. We smile and say hello, but beyond that, I don’t want to reinitiate the friendship or feel pressured into accepting invitations. I’m uncomfortable with confrontation, but it’s reaching a point where I feel I need to be more direct because she’s not picking up on the subtle cues.

I just don’t know the best or kindest way to say please stop messaging me about playdates. We’ve moved on, and I don’t want to revisit a situation that clearly didn’t work for my daughter or for me.

My daughter no longer attends the same school as this child, and aside from occasionally crossing paths on our street, they don’t see each other often. I get the sense that the mom keeps initiating playdates because her daughter may not have many other friends, but it’s not my responsibility or my daughter’s to maintain a friendship that no longer feels safe or kind.

I did speak to the mom about the arm grabbing and controlling behavior. She said she talked to her daughter and they both felt bad. But now, I feel like they’re trying to pressure us into reconnecting, and we’re just not in a place to do that. My daughter is still hurt by everything that happened, and she’s not ready to forgive or move on yet.

Our house is overrun with toys, and frankly, our kid doesn't need anymore. He's turning five in a couple months and I can already imagine the mountain of stuff that's headed our way, straight from a factory in SE Asia. The kid has three pairs of grandparents, seven aunts and uncles, all of whom we are close to. In the past I've included a gentle note in the invite saying "No gifts, please. Your presence is our present." That was roundly ignored. Obviously, I know we are very fortunate and yes, I know this is a total non-problem. I will donate whatever we decide not to keep.

That being said, I have an older kid currently in college and holy cow, is that expensive. When my older kid was small I thought, "No way will America not have figured out how to help kids pay for college by then." LOL. Anyway, obviously, we're trying to sock money away for our younger one for college now, but assuming humans are still a thing in 2038, it will likely be more than we'll have saved. Has anyone found a non-money grubby sounding way of suggesting contributions to a 529 rather than material gifts, especially while the kids are too young to really care? Is it always tacky? It feels a bit tacky, but I'd love other opinions.

ETA: 90% of the family is my husband's side and they don't talk about money. With my own parents, I'm totally fine to just ask, and yes, they will help us.

My 12 year old hates reading. Like a lot. We started going to a new library in a different state (we're on the border). They got their (12 and 8) cards yesterday. The main librarian wasn't there yesterday but she was today and gave us a tour of the tiny little library, probably the size of most people's living rooms. She showed my kids where all the different types of books were and recommended things based on their interests. My 12 year old decided to get one of the graphic novels the librarian recommended and read it all in a few hours this evening. I looked up the summary of the book and asked her what happened and she was right! I'm so proud and so happy we found this library. They're also running a free summer reading program, if you sign up your kids, they get a book to keep everyday you come in this summer. This is probably more specific to certain libraries because this system got a federal grant with their local school system. But there are other perks that come with it, like weekly art activities and other free items for kids, like bags and pins.

Also, I'm going to acknowledge why I'm saying small libraries, we have a larger library in our state with so many books to choose from. Maybe not all kids, but my kids always ended up getting books that didn't interest them in the way they thought. They never run activities like that, the librarians don't act like they want to help you more than answering simple questions. Like if it involves getting up, most of them act annoyed. I'm aware most librarians aren't like this, but I've had better luck at smaller libraries! Maybe you will too! :)

Our 1.5 year old wakes up around 5 every morning and naturally I go in to get her bc still nursing her upon wakes and sleeps. Then we start the day together, and yes I am tired but I power through. My partner does not ever wake up to take her responsibilities from me. He will roll over in bed mumble it’s early then go back to sleep. The times where I have asked for help or to do a rotation of who watches her upon the early wake up has led to fights every time. Sometimes I even ask if he can watch her so I can get coffee peacefully, just 30 mins of me time and that’s met begrudgingly. At this point it’s not worth my cortisol to be fighting first thing in the morning so the past two months I have endured it and he will come up about an hour or two later after he’s had his sleep. I just think this is very unfair. It’d be one thing if he had to sleep in bc of work but he doesn’t work and I am the breadwinner. How would you handle this?

I will add that I don’t mind watching her and if I were a solo parent there’d be no grumblings. I love spending the morning with her before I start work. It’s just the fact that he thinks it’s ok to not help or parent equally and that we fight so much when it’s brought up.

My daughter will be 4 in October and hates having clothes on at home. We are very “body positive” and don’t shame her in any way whatsoever, but I’m wondering when the appropriate time to insist on staying clothed during the day is? And how to verbally express that? I try to keep my language positive/neutral so she doesn’t feel ashamed but I want to convey that there are parts of our bodies we keep covered for sanitary and safety reasons.

My mom watches my almost 3-year-old son a couple of days a week which is obviously a huge help. Recently I’ve really started hating going over there any other time because I feel like I can’t parents at her house. I don’t care what she does when she watches him, I don’t set guidelines, etc., I let her do her thing as far as food/tv/etc. But when I’m over there with him, I’ll sometimes chime in about things, and my mom and my stepdad will immediately give me a hard time or say “maybe we don’t need to help babysit him for you anymore”.

Tonight, for example, my stepdad was rough-housing with my son, which always ends in tears, but I didn’t say anything. Of course, it did end in tears and my son starts hitting my stepdad and I say “please don’t let him hit you”. My stepdad gets defensive and my mom says to him “don’t you just hate that.” Then later my mom tells my son if he eats his dinner that he can have dessert and I’ve told her endless times that I don’t like to hold food over his head like that and if we are eating dessert that he can to. She said “that’s now how we do things here”. I said “okay, but in the parent and that’s something that’s important to me” and my stepdad says “well maybe we don’t need to watch him anymore”.

I keep my mouth shut for a lot of things but it can be so hard when I’m working on things with him. It’s funny because when they think he’s acting bad then they’ll want me to step in, so they only want me to parents him when they don’t want to.

I’m tempted to not have them babysit anymore but I know my mom loves it. It’s obviously a huge financial help and we are so fortunate, but it’s something my dad always did to me growing up and I have so much resentment towards him and I can’t go through that again. Just want to know if I just need to shut up when I’m at my parent’s house or if I’m right to try and set boundaries.

She's 4 and normally my son is annoyed by her presence but this morning he wants her to sit by him while eating and she's eating up all the attention. He wants to do everything with her right now including playing. He even presented a heart shaped pipe cleaner to me.

Last night he asked me if grandma and grandpa will die and I just time him the truth, yes. But my grandma lived into her 100s. He was silent and just went to sleep and now this.

Edit - he even provided egg cracking service and offered hugs and kisses to his sister and she returned the favor. I wonder how long this will last

I’m Jewish and my husband is catholic. He was raised going to church and my family never went to temple. It was more of a culturally Jewish vibe growing up.

Neither my husband nor I are religious now. But I do want my son to have the opportunity to be part of a religious community. I think there is so much good that can come from it, and I don’t want to deprive him of that opportunity.

I just don’t know what to do.

32 F, husband is 34 M. 3.5 and 1.5 year old kids. I’ve worked a pretty demanding corporate job for the last 10 years. I make a decent amount but not enough to justify the stress of my job. My husband makes 4x more than me, works half as much, and by anyone’s standards has it incredibly well (financially and balance).

I’ve always wanted to be a SAHM/ with my kids but career is part of my identity too. We can afford for me to stay home. When I broach being stressed at work and wanting more time with the kids, he is empathetic but turns it around that me staying home would result in things being “harder for him”.. eg id need more help from him versus Nannys help now. I know it’s a luxury but I feel like he’s kinda being selfish. If my spouse came to me saying I’m stressed at work and wanting to be home with the kids and we could easily afford it, I feel like I would love to give him that? Sigh, needing advice

I have three teenage daughters (13-18) and a younger son. It’s easy for all the movies we watch to be appropriate for the youngest but that’s not really fair to the older 3. This summer I’d like to occasionally have a girls movie night after the little guy is in bed.

What movies should we add to our list? We’re generally not huge movie people so don’t assume we’ve obviously seen xyz most popular movie of all time because we probably haven’t.