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The Junk Drawer

Spoiler alert: Almost every kids’ book ends the same way!

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!) Read a sampling of these tiny tomes, and you’ll probably […]

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Research For 'Rents

7 lessons ‘The Simpsons’ can teach parents about bullying

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 […]

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The Junk Drawer

The Berenstain Bears theme song makes either no sense, or more sense than you could ever hope to comprehend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJKpcfm1qD4 Here’s what happened when a family of four waxed philosophical over the most cryptic lyric in children’s television. If you’re like most parents of young children, you’ve been subjected to way more kiddie cartoons lately than you care to admit. As a result, your brain is now completely filled with shows and shows’ worth […]

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Research For 'Rents

5 reasons you should bring back Family Game Night

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 […]

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The Junk Drawer

What ‘Gremlins’ can teach you about your little monsters

While you’re setting your DVR for Christmas classics and digging through your old holiday DVDs, we want to remind you of one festive flick you may have forgotten – Gremlins! In addition to a wintry backdrop and sweet ‘80s hair, this holiday movie also gives us a great analogy for how to parent our kids.

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Research For 'Rents

First-borns are smarter Part 2: Act your age

Our last post gave you the real deal about birth order: First-born kids tend to have bigger vocabularies and higher IQs (mostly because they got a lot more one-on-one interaction with Mom and Dad back when they were the only game in town), while later-born kids tend to develop more creative and less verbal ways […]

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Ask The Doctor and The Dad

Ask D+D: Why does my kid sound like he speaks a different language?

Marla asked the Doctor and the Dad the following question, and fortunately, we could understand every word of it: Why does my 14-month-old sound like he speaks a different language? What is he saying? How can I know? Should I repeat the sounds back? Or just keep talking to him normally? Or both? – Marla […]