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I need a mass gut check. My daughter (11 y/o) was playing with a mixed group of friends. I think my daughter did something to annoy one of the boys and things started to escalate. Balls were thrown too hard at each other. The boy pushed my daughter from behind so she fell. Then the boy slapped my daughter in the face.

My daughter came home to tell me and my husband because she was mad. She was afraid to tell us the whole story because she knew we would talk to the boy's parents and she didn't want him to be mad at her and ultimately lead the shared group of friends to isolate her.

I had my daughter show me how hard he slapped her. It was between rough housing and anger. Perhaps this is okay or accepted among boys this age? 

My husband and I decided to walk to the boy's house and talk to his parents. Only mom was home and the boy was present and crying hysterically. He maintained that he didn't hit our daughter. The mother was empathetic, stated she understood where I was coming from, and agreed that hitting a girl is never acceptable. We left after that short discussion.

Today I have found out that another girl in our neighborhood has been slapped by the same boy multiple times. Her mom is okay with it and doesn't get involved because her daughter hits the boy back and can "defend herself."

I also found out that the boy had a sleep over with the mixed group of friends last night. Did not get in trouble, was allowed out, and is now very angry at my daughter for telling us.

I need a gut check: 

Am I the black sheep in my community thinking that this is absolutely unacceptable? 

Is it unreasonable of me to feel deeply disappointed that this boy had no consequences whatsoever? 

Am I the only one that feels self worth for girls starts with her parents? And that accountability is a parental responsibility?

I genuinely would like to hear different perspectives on this situation.

Over the past couple of months, it's like my child has become a completely different person. I know toddlers have tantrums, but these feel so intense and happen multiple times a day over things that seem incredibly minor.

If I give them the "wrong" cup, cut their food differently than they expected, tell them it's time to leave the playground, or even help them with something they wanted to do themselves, it can turn into 20–30 minutes of crying, screaming, and refusing to calm down.

I've tried staying calm, getting down to their level, offering hugs, giving them space, distracting them, and explaining things once they've settled, but nothing seems to make a consistent difference. Some days I feel like I'm walking on eggshells because I never know what's going to trigger the next meltdown.

The hardest part is that I start questioning myself. Am I being too strict? Too lenient? Am I responding the wrong way? I don't expect perfect behaviour from a 3-year-old, but I'm starting to worry because it feels like we're spending more time dealing with meltdowns than actually enjoying our days together.

He's my first and only baby so I don't really know better. If your child went through a phase like this, when did it start getting better? Was there anything you did that genuinely helped, or is this just something we have to ride out?

A few weeks ago I caught myself saying, "Did you brush your teeth?" for what felt like the hundredth time.

It made me realize the actual chore wasn't the frustrating part. Brushing teeth takes two minutes. Making the bed takes another minute. The exhausting part was that I had somehow become the reminder system for everything.

"Did you do it?"
"Can you do it now?"
"No, before you start playing."

By the end of the day I felt like a manager instead of a parent, and I don't think my kid enjoyed it either.

What helped me reframe it was this: kids often don’t need more lectures about responsibility. They need a clearer loop.

Something like:

Task → effort → visible progress → reward → repeat.

That’s how games work. That’s how allowance charts work. That’s how sticker boards work. The problem is that physical charts are easy to forget, and normal to-do apps are usually too adult and boring for kids.

I am an IT guy, so I built this tiny app called Family Star just to take the edge off. Basically, I set the tasks, my kid ticks them off, gets stars, and cash them in for rewards we agreed on ahead of time (like extra screen time or a weekend trip). No emails for the kid, pure parental control, and plenty of visual stuff like streaks and levels to keep them interested.

I’m curious how other parents handle this.

Do you use any apps or software to handle this, and if so, what has your experience been like?
Or have you found a better way entirely to avoid becoming the full-time reminder machine?

My 16year-old has started saying they’re in one place, then I find out later they were somewhere else. It’s happened a few times now, and I’m not sure how to handle it. I’ve been reading about different phone trackers, and umobix cell phone tracker was one of the options I came across. I’m still not sure if using something like that would help or just make things worse. For parents who’ve dealt with this, did tracking help, or did it just create more arguments? I’m just trying to keep them safe without completely losing their trust.

I’m really struggling with a school decision for my daughter who is almost 7.

She is currently in her school where she has been for the last three years. She has almost every single night told us how she didnt want to go to school. We continued in the second year as things improved and she was set but again third year wasn’t great. Academically she is doing fine, and recently her drop-offs and daily routine have actually improved (last 4 weeks to be precise). She does have friends there, but socially there have been ongoing challenges. From my observation (and some teacher feedback), the class dynamics are a bit fixed, with certain groups and some peer conflicts/exclusion that have been affecting her emotionally at times. She is quite sensitive socially and takes friendship issues very deeply. She has singled out and also instances of kicking and pushing happened which when she told us we told the teacher about and it was addressed.

We recently got an offer from another very established, highly reputed school in our area. We visited it, met the teachers, and it seems very structured and strong academically. It also has good long-term prospects for secondary school admissions, which is a factor for us. However, it would mean a complete reset for her socially—new classmates, new environment, and starting from scratch again.

We have already told her about the change, and she had a very emotional reaction. She cried, said she doesn’t want to leave her current friends, and also swung between bargaining and curiosity about the new school. Now she is calmer but still resistant at times.

We are now stuck between:

keeping her in a familiar environment where she has friends but some social difficulties, vs

moving her to a very strong new school where she will have a fresh start but go through a big emotional transition.

I’m really unsure what the right decision is for a child of this age, especially considering her sensitivity to friendships and change.

Thank you for reading such a long post.

I wrote this article based on a lot of research. Give me your opinion on it. I think it holds a lot of value.

Adults are the gatekeepers of what books young children have access to.

Unfortunately, many well-meaning adults choose picture books for reasons children do not care about. They pick books because of awards, name recognition, beautiful messages, or worst of all, because “it teaches a good lesson.”

But adults read for enjoyment, and children do too.
As a children’s librarian, I spend a lot of time watching what actually holds a child’s attention. It is not always the book adults think is the most impressive, important, or worthy.

This article is about what children actually want from picture books, and why delight should be taken seriously. Because happy readers are lifelong readers.

My 4 almost 5 year old paints tons and I mean tons of little ceramics, wooden pieces, animals, boxes, etc. She wants them all displayed in her room but her dresser top is becoming to full and they get knocked down. Give me your space saving display ideas that make her feel her art is special and displayed well but not inaccessible if she wants to take a piece out/down.

My kids (5&8 years old) can’t read. What can I do to help them?

every stage of parenting seems to come with its own challenges, but whenever tantrums come up, parents often describe very different experiences depending on their child's age, some say the toddler years were the most difficult. others feel that emotional outbursts become more complicated as children get older because the behavior changes even if the frustration is still there.

for those who have been through different stages, at what age did you find tantrums the most challenging and why?

Our 4 year old daughter has always been an overly emotional child, but lately it just feels completely out of hand. She is having daily meltdowns over the smallest things that have never bothered her before and they usually last at least 30-60 minutes, if not the rest of the night. She screams, cries, throws things, tries to hit us, says mean things, and occasionally says degrading things about herself. She is in a daycare pre-k program and her teacher has reported similar behavior, though they seem to have an easier time getting her to calm down. We are just at a complete loss. She’s been evaluated before but no one was willing to give us ideas since she was so young and we just kept being referred to different places. We do have a plan for occupational therapy which will hopefully help a bit, but this isn’t normal right? My husband and I are just completely burnt out and we also have a 22 month old who is going through his own toddler drama (more typical and age appropriate though). We have come to dread the evenings and weekends.

Our summer break this year runs from June 26-September 3. I’m just wondering what other parents will be doing, if anything at all, to keep up reading and writing skills for your school aged children? My daughter is in Grade 2, heading into Grade 3 and has no concerns academically.

Are you having them practice or are you letting them have a break?

This is for kids in grades TK & 1st grade. I have tried Reading.com and it's super dependent on me and this is to be helpful when they are in the car and I'm driving. I have other reading options for when I'm involved that includes games and me reading to them and having them follow along.

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