April 11th, 2011 11:54am

Merging families without marriage

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Sound off: Is an unmarried merge of families setting a bad example for the kids?

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TAGS , , , , , | CATEGORY Adventures in Single Parent Dating, Blending families, Marriage, The Love Front

September 8th, 2010 10:21am

Tackling Bullies

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As kids age, the reality of bullies gets even larger. So what can we do to save our kids? (read the article…)

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TAGS , , , , , , | CATEGORY Kid Issues, School

August 24th, 2010 10:31am

The age of the boomerang

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I posed a question recently: “Would you move back in with your parents if you had to?” and I received several very emphatic answers on the SR Mom Facebook page… (read the article…)

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TAGS , , , | CATEGORY family, Single Parenting

March 25th, 2010 05:01pm

No Kids Allowed

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“They just lifted the ban on kids in hospital,” my friend, a local nurse, informed me. “And let me tell you, it’s madness.” She went on to describe situations where people were crowding hospital rooms, bringing the whole family to visit their loved one who had the misfortune to end up in the hospital. “With this economy, there are no private rooms,” she went on. “Families are coming into a shared hospital room, crowding up the whole place. And that person’s neighbor has to also share a room with all these strangers. People are trying to get better, attempting to get some rest, and there are screaming children in the rooms.” Just this past week, a mother had left her crying baby in the hallway while she visited. A patient in another room pulled my friend aside, pleading with her, “I just need to get some rest.” (more…)

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TAGS , | CATEGORY Kid Issues

March 5th, 2010 01:56pm

Feeling Clingy

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Over the summertime, my son started becoming extra clingy. I would be in the next room, and he would call out to make sure that I was still there. He wouldn’t go to his dad’s house without a fight because he didn’t want to leave me. He was constantly worried that I was going to abandon him, or that I might die. So I wrote an article about it, and got a lot of feedback from other parents that were going through the same thing. And it appeared that it was going on with kids around the same age as my son.

Here’s one comment in particular:

My 8 year old daughter seems to be going through this. There was no event that seemed to have caused it aside from turning 8. She refuses to go to her dad’s house, and hasn’t been able to have a sleep over. She has tantrums about going to her father’s a week in advance. She constantly asks to sleep in my bed. She can’t be on the second floor of the house without someone else being there unless she is somehow preoccupied. It’s hard to help her cope because I feel suffocated. I’d love to hear some advice. by Kim (more…)

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TAGS , , , , , | CATEGORY Kid Issues

January 26th, 2010 12:00pm

The difference between moms and dads

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Growing up, I was fortunate to have both my parents in the home. My dad is a real estate appraiser, and though he worked a lot, we were often able to accompany him on local road trips when he went to look at houses. Sometimes we’d ride along with him, fascinated by the beauty of some areas that we never would have seen otherwise. Other times he would drop my mom and us three girls off at the park so we could have a picnic. He’d join us when his appointment was done.

Dad was the one who had the ideas for fun places to go and things to see. Who knew that sitting in the lobby of a fancy hotel, as if we were guests, enjoying hot chocolate by the fire could be so much fun. But with Dad, it was his way of instilling make-believe in us. (more…)

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TAGS , , , , , , , , , , | CATEGORY As a Parent...., Kid Issues, Single Parenting

January 15th, 2010 10:38am

Teenagers and Technology, pt. 2

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Matthew Gollub of Tortuga Press wrote me this morning in response to “Teenagers and Technology”, the article that ran in the newspaper today. Here’s what he had to say:

I read with interest your article this morning, “Are teens in tech overload?” I’m a local children’s author, performer and reading advocate. (I’ve spoken at over 900 schools and continue to visit around 60 schools a year.) Tech overload is a topic about which I speak during my school assemblies. Here are some suggestions which may help your readers….. (Read more…)

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TAGS , , | CATEGORY Kid Issues, teens

December 21st, 2009 02:02pm

Teenagers and Technology

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“We had to take away the Xbox again last night,” a friend lamented to me. She had caught her son in the wee hours of the morning, plugged in with his headset on, chatting with friends across the country as he maimed opponents in his latest game. It wasn’t the first time, and she was aware that it wouldn’t be the last. And short of taking the game system and throwing it in the Russian River, she wasn’t sure what to do. (Read more…)

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TAGS , , , | CATEGORY In the news, Kid Issues, teens