Articles about: "school"

Turning parenting fails into successes

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It’s back-to-school time! Is everybody excited?

Well a couple of weeks ago, the Doctor and the Dad got a little too excited for our daughter’s first day of school.

First day of school! (Take one.)
First day of school! (Take one.)

We woke up early, made sure everyone had a good breakfast, unsuccessfully tried to convince our preschooler not to wear seventeen multi-colored clips and bows in her hair all at once, took a bunch of pictures outside our front door, and loaded the whole family into the car to go drop our big girl off at school.

The only problem?

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Happy parents give a s***

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Over the past few weeks we’ve given you some cool, research-based tips for pumping up your parental happiness, like this one and this one and this one too. Today we’re giving you one more tip…because giving makes us happy!

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You know how it feels to give someone a really great gift? You’ve gone out of your way to pick something you know they’re going to love. You anticipate them opening the gift even more than you anticipate opening any gifts of your own. And when they finally tear through all the tape and tissue paper and feast their eyes on your amazingly thoughtful surprise, the joyous look on their face makes you feel amazing!

That is exactly what today’s tip is all about.
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Spoiler alert: Almost every kids’ book ends the same way!

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If you have little kids, then you probably also have lots and lots of children’s books all over your house. (If you don’t have lots and lots of children’s books all over your house, check out this big, important reason why you should get some!)

nightnightbooksRead a sampling of these tiny tomes, and you’ll probably get the feeling that they’re all pretty much the same. Or at least the very last pages of them are. That’s because tons of modern kids’ stories end with the main character going to sleep. Olivia, Fancy Nancy, When We’re Together, I Love You, Daddy, Bert & Ernie’s First Book of Opposites, and Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late are a few such books that we just happened to close our eyes and pull off one of our shelves at random. We haven’t actually performed the calculations, but we’re pretty sure the Books That End With Sleep vs. Books Where Everyone Stays Awake ratio falls right around 97 to 1.

But it wasn’t always like this.

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Kids’ art: our latest excuse to talk about butts and farts

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You don’t have to be the Princess of Pretentionland to appreciate the fine arts. But it doesn’t hurt, either.
You don’t have to be the Princess of Pretentionland to appreciate the fine arts. But it doesn’t hurt, either.

Like looking at art, but don’t like feeling pressured to come up with a bunch of insightfully pretentious stuff to say about it?

Just do what the Doctor and the Dad did this week – skip the museum and go check out an art show at your child’s preschool instead!

When your kids work on art projects, they can boost their creativity and develop fine motor skills. And when you view works of art created exclusively by tiny children, you won’t be expected to say one intelligent word about negative space, the avant-garde or “what the artist was trying to say.”

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7 lessons ‘The Simpsons’ can teach parents about bullying

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Did you know that bullying can start as early as preschool? D’oh! As if maintaining a three-foot-high beehive hairstyle or avoiding nuclear contamination at work every day didn’t give you enough to worry about, right?

Even if you haven’t yet had to deal with your kids getting picked on (or picking on someone else for that matter), it’s a good idea to brush up on your bullying knowledge now. That’s why The Doctor and The Dad have teamed up with The Simpsons to bring you some useful bullying DOs and DON’Ts.
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5 reasons you should bring back Family Game Night

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On Family Game Night, EVERYBODY'S a winner!
On Family Game Night, EVERYBODY’S a winner!

Whatever happened to Family Game Night? Did it go out of style right along with hair scrunchies and Hammer pants?

Or did we just get too old for our parents to force us to stay home and play games with them anymore?

Well, whatever the reason, now we’re the parents, so we get to force our kids to do all the super lame stuff we want. And as it turns out, playing games is totally not lame for your kids’ development – plus it’s pretty great for you, too!

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Happy (Family) Meals

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If you’re like most Americans, you’re making plans for a pretty important meal later on this week. And no, we’re not talking about 4 a.m. corn dogs in the Kohl’s parking lot Black Friday morning.

Eating together won’t make your family look this pretty. But it will give you some pretty sweet benefits.
Eating together won’t make your family look this pretty. But it will give you some pretty sweet benefits.

Thanksgiving dinner is a wonderful time to sit down and connect with family and friends. But if holiday meals seem to be the only times your family ever sits and eats together, you might want to rethink your family’s dining habits.

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