parenting - Everyday Family (Page 2)

Teaching Kids to Do Their Own Laundry (and Living with the Results)

I taught my ten-year-old to run the washing machine last spring, and the first load she did entirely on her

My daughter campaigned for her first sleepover for about six months before I finally caved, and then the night before

We don't have screens built into our car, which was a deliberate choice and also a decision I

The first summer I worked from home with both kids, I made the rookie mistake of having no plan at

My son spent most of August before second grade convinced that the new teacher would be mean, the work would

By the middle of May, our family calendar looks like someone spilled a box of pushpins on it. Field day,

Every year the script runs the same way. Somebody asks what I want for Mother's Day, I say

I spent years as a broken record about manners. "What do you say?" after every gift, "elbows

By last fall my nine-year-old was doing soccer twice a week, piano on Wednesdays, scouts on Thursdays, and a Saturday

I used to think kindness was something you taught with words — the talk in the car after your kid was

When my mom started watching the kids three days a week, I thought I'd hit the jackpot — free,

The first time my son flipped a Candy Land board because he drew the wrong card, I genuinely didn'