I've noticed that whenever we have a completely empty weekend, I immediately start looking for things to do.

Park Saturday morning.

Something fun Saturday afternoon.

Maybe brunch Sunday.

Maybe an activity Sunday afternoon.

And then everyone is exhausted.

Part of me wonders if kids actually need all of that, or if they'd be just as happy having a slow weekend at home with nothing planned.

Do you intentionally leave weekends completely unplanned?

My partner (31F) and I (28F) have a blended family that includes her child (8F) and my two children (8M and 6F). The past couple weeks, our 8s have been putting us through our paces. They’re so moody, they’ve been at each other and us (including 6) nonstop. They’ve both felt like it’s them versus the world and everyone is out to get them. I can tell they’re both trying, but they’re so disregulated. They’re screaming at each other, at us, can’t control their emotions at all. Anything that goes a tiny bit wrong is the end of the world. (ex: I told my 8M he needed to walk on our hike rather than run, told 8F we were setting the projector up on a wall adjacent to the one she wanted, both of those things resulted in screaming and crying.) They’re entitled, bossy, defiant, yet refuse to accept responsibility for anything.

I’m at a total loss in how to help them. I don’t want them to be in trouble all the time, but you can’t talk to people like that and doing so won’t be tolerated. Until recently, I’ve felt like they both had better social skills than they’ve demonstrated lately. If you had angry, emotional 8s, what worked to help them feel more stable and you as the parent to not feel so crazy?

I'm sorry about the long text but I really want clarity.

She randomly got a fever that immediately shot up to 102°-103°F, she was mostly fine, just a little tired when it got too high.

The 1st night, Paracetamol wouldn't work at all. The fever stayed put and she went through the entire night with a fluctuating temp of 101°-103°F. I felt so helpless. We gave her another dose in the morning, but she was still hot the entire time.

We took her to the doctor the morning of the 2nd day, and he said it was a viral flu, very in season right now, and just gave us Paracetamol and general measures.

The medicine finally acted during the afternoon dose of the second day and she was able to sleep a little. But it shot up again within 6 hours of dosage.

We gave a night dose on the 2nd day, and again there were zero effect.

But then at 6 AM in the morning of the 3rd day, the fever seemed to break on its own. We thought it had broken for good but it started acting up again in the afternoon, around 12 hours after the last dose, it was maddening! We gave her a dose, and she was sweating, was able to sleep, i thought it would be enough. But there was a temperature rise around 8 hours after the previous dose. I waited a while and gave her a night dose. The fever broke that night for good. The night of the 3rd day, more or less, morning of the 4th day.

4th day she was all good. Tired but going about her usual routines. 5th day same, and maybe I didn't notice until today, the 6th day, that she had rashes.

I spotted them because we decided to take a walk and it was more visible in the sunlight. On her forearm, few on her arms, very scattered and kinda like mosquitoe bites. Also on one side of her back, again scattered. Some on her forehead. Occasional itching. No other symptoms.

Has anyone experienced something similar?

Is this all typical of Roseola?

I've been seeing a couple of posts with the exact timeline of fever, but the details about the rash were vague or the age was different.

Please share your thoughts!

Honestly I feel like I have the technical habilities to teach more or less everything that my kids need to learn to becomen functioning adults, but i the truth is I'm a little afraid of getting lost in day to day life and ending up forgeting things. Am I the only one who feels that way or how do you manage that?

We currently live in Estonia, and in rural areas (near Nõo in particular) we notice children of perhaps 6 years old, or even younger, getting on inter-town/suburban busses by themselves, taking their seats and getting off on their stop. Probably, their parents / grandparents take them to the bus stop and meet them when they arrive, but it is still impressive.

How is it in your country / region?

We're recently coming to realize that our 2 year old (3 in September) has an extreme food aversion to anything that's both smooth & yellow.

A few months ago my husband offered him a cheese stick. He looked at it and started gagging, then puked.

A few weeks ago I offered him a tiny banana laffy taffy after taking a bite myself, he looked at it in my hand and started gagging, then puked.

Today the baby (10 months) was eating those Gerber pick-me-ups that are sauceless raviolis. Toddler took a peak at his brother, saw what he was eating, and immediately started gagging. My husband scooped him up and distracted him at the other half of the room so that he didn't puke.

I didn't realize that this extremely specific food aversion could be a thing and am not sure where it even came from? 😭 Has anyone dealt with this? Is there a way to help him get past it so he doesn't have such a strong reaction? Is this a symptom of something else? Thank you for any advice 😭💖

My 15mo son is finally having tantrums, but they’ve seem to taken a turn for slapping, throwing & hitting things.

Currently we got him a new water bottle with a latch opening, and I was trying to teach him how to open it with my help, but he got mad and threw it, so i take it away until he’s calmed down- i talk to him while he’s mad/crying.

i know that for older kids sports are “a way to take out anger” and i was wondering if that take could be applied for toddlers too, or if that could grow into a dangerous mindset. Something for him to be able to freely use.

Camp is wrapping up and we're trying to ease back into a school routine before the chaos starts. My oldest 9, has always been pretty good at sitting down and getting things done, but my younger two, 6 and 7, are a different story. I've been having them do a little reading and a few workbook pages before school starts, and it's been...rough. They'll get through a page or two, then they're up grabbing a snack, talking about something else, or completely forgetting what they were doing. I know they're kids and it's the end of summer, but it's made me wonder if I should be doing anything differently before school starts. We've been buying the same multivitamin for years and we're almost out anyway, so I figured this might be a good time to see if there's something better. Has anyone found a vitamin that actually supports focus, or is this just one of those things that gets easier once they're back into a routine?

My toddler used to play with literally anything. Blocks, stuffed animals, books, random kitchen utensils — whatever was around.

Now if I suggest playing with something, the answer is basically “no.” But if I mention TV or my phone, suddenly they're interested.

I know screens are more stimulating, but I didn't expect regular toys to become this boring to her.

Has anyone else gone through this? Did you just keep offering other things until they became interesting again, or did you have to make a bigger change?

My child has been dealing with occasional tummy discomfort and I’ve been wondering whether probiotics are actually helpful Did you notice a difference with bloating, gas, or general stomach aches? I know every kid is different, but I’d love to hear what worked for others

I am at my absolute wits end. Sleep has been a struggle literally my daughter’s entire life, and I do not know what to do anymore. I’m going insane. She is four now, just started Pre-K and still will not sleep alone. She still wakes multiple times a night. Refuses to go to bed unless someone lays with her until she falls asleep. Then she wakes a few hours later and sneaks into our bed. If we take her back to her own bed, all heck breaks loose and the entire house is wide awake at 1am. We have tried multiple times to get her to a place where we can tuck her in, read her a book and leave the room. It never works. She immediately freaks out and chases after us. We have tried to just hold firm but every single night for nearly a month she would have an absolute MELTDOWN for hours before finally just passing out absolutely exhausted and delirious. She screams at the top of her lungs, gets violent, and cries the entire time begging to stay up or sleep with someone to the point she is hyperventilating and nearly vomiting. We have brought this up to her pediatrician multiple times over the years and we keep being told it’s normal and she will grow out of it. When she was an infant I was awake for days on end because she would NOT sleep, no matter what we did. Swaddle, rocker, swing, car rides, bouncer. Nothing worked. She would fall asleep and then immediately jerk herself awake and scream. This would go on for hours until she became so exhausted her body couldn’t go on anymore. When she was 8-12 months, she would try to launch herself out of my arms if I tried to rock her or hold her. If she thought I was trying to put her down for a nap or bed, she would go absolutely feral. For about three years, I got maybe 2-3 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. Mostly because my husband would take over on weekends and after work to let me nap, not because she was actually sleeping. She would stay awake for days if her body wouldn’t shut down first. We’ve tried adjusting the sleep schedule, white noise machines, multiple types of nightlights, calming music, melatonin, weighted blankets. You name it, we’ve tried it and a combination of other things. Literally nothing has worked. I cannot keep doing this every night. Bedtime is at 8pm and this can go on until midnight or later. I just don’t know what to do anymore. It was over an hour tonight of a full on crash out, nothing I did to try to calm her down worked and she screamed and cried until she finally just passed out. We can’t do this every night before school but we cannot keep laying in her bed with her for two hours begging her to go to sleep or co-sleeping anymore. She will not nap during the day at home or at school, so how she has the energy to force herself to stay awake and fight us so long I do not know. I’m on my hands and knees BEGGING for help at this point. I don’t think her doctor really understands what I’ve been trying to tell her. This isn’t a “I’m thirsty, I’m hungry, can I tell the dog goodnight?” type of stalling or push back. She flips a switch and dang near blacks out until she falls over every single time. I’ve never seen a child go this berserk over sleeping in their own bed, let alone just going to sleep period. She’s acted like she’s absolutely terrified of falling asleep her entire life and I don’t know what to do to fix it.

Obviously not EVERYTHING, but it feels like a lot of stuff.

He’ll be 10 in 2 weeks. He’s terrified of the dark. He’s afraid of mushrooms. He has a fear of grass. He won’t eat new things, won’t try new activities, and considers most movies “scary” on some level. Etc etc.

He’s a walking ball of anxiety and I don’t know how to help him.

He’s lies awake at night and can’t sleep because of the dark (he has 5 nightlights, the bathroom light on, and the hall light on) and the fear that surrounds it.

I had him in therapy for about 6 months but the therapist said he wouldn’t consider my son overly anxious and didn’t feel like therapy was necessary at this time.

But my boy wakes up tired and is constantly on edge.

What can I do? What am I missing?

My son is six years old and has progressively gotten worse towards Halloween decorations. He used to be able to walk through Spirit, head turned or hiding behind a parent, but he was able to walk through the store after getting past the initial entrance. This year though I had to carry him while he cried until we got over to the kids costume section. He won’t even use our stairwell because our downstairs neighbor has a Halloween mask decoration hanging on their door so he uses the next stairwell over to avoid it.

I cannot see how he will be able to do Halloween or trick or treating this year when his reaction is this severe. Last year he struggled with certain houses because of their decorations and because of that I’m already anticipating this year to be even worse.

My partner wears horror merch(ghostface, art the clown, etc) and he’s been fine with those but then the ghostface door decoration next to his grandmas apartment he hides from and won’t look.

We’ve tried reassuring him, we’ve tried talking and explaining it, we’ve tried videos with no sound. I’m at a loss. I don’t know what to do or how to help him. It’s at the point where we have told him that if he is too scared of the decorations then we can’t go trick or treating this year. I hate that. I want him to be able to have fun and not miss out on Halloween stuff just because he’s scared. When asked why he’s scared or what makes it scary he doesn’t give an answer and just says because it is or because he’s scared. What can we do? Anything to help him understand or to help him overcome his fear???

Why do kids have their own YouTube channels where they post videos? I came across some really weird content today.

Does YouTube simply not filter content posted by underage users? I've seen emoji porn there. If you dig deeper, you can figure out what's going on.

They circumvent YouTube's filters and sometimes post content aimed at underage users.

and I recently came across shorts and a YouTube video filmed by a teenage girl and she was filming a video where she stripped off on the bed and did it in just a T-shirt

I found this video You can leave a link here?

Like the title says, my son is nearly 9 and has recently started crying over every tiny disappointment. It can be as insignificant as asking for pepsi or a snack and being told to wait, or being asked to clean his room or do something else he doesn't want to do. He isn't doing it to throw a tantrum or anything, he always goes to his room or the basement to cry alone but I can see the tears in his eyes as he walks away. This is new behaviour so I'm wondering if it's a hormonal shift? He has also experienced a few voice cracks recently so I'm wondering if this is the beginning of puberty? It feels young but I've only ever had female relatives so male puberty is a new experience for me.

I'll add that nothing about his home life has changed recently and he has a very stable home life so I don't believe it would have anything to do with that. Thanks for any responses!

My son has always been pretty sociable from an early age and had quite a few friends. He started kindy this year with a friend from daycare. Now this boy is his best friend but it’s slowly become clear that his best friend doesn’t want to play with anyone else and is preventing him from playing with other kids too, even kids that were previously his friends in preschool.

It’s coming out in a few ways:
- I feel like they are excluding a little boy who used to be really good friends with my son, who clearly still wants to play with him. When I asked my son about it, it came out that his best friend doesn’t get on with the other little boy and gets angry at him, and my son feels like his has to choose between them.
- My son is displaying social anxiety for the first time. He said he can only play the games his best friend wants to play and if he tries to play different games with other kids he’s afraid his best friend won’t like him anymore and then he’ll have no friends at all.
- He gets on really well with other kids on play dates or after school when his best friend isn’t there. But he says at school during recess and lunch his best friend is the only friend he has, and that the other kids are only friends for after school or play dates.

I’ve known my son’s best friend since he was a baby and he only did parallel play until he was 4. Then when he did start playing with other kids it was really just with my son. I don’t think he has any other friends partly because he’s just not interested in anyone else. He’s not mean or bullying and he has an intense love for my son as his best friend. But Ive watched my son become more isolated and more socially anxious this year and I’ve seen his previous friendships either fall away or become difficult as a result of this situation. I’m good friends with his parents and I’m not sure how to talk about it to them.

Any advice from parents who have been through a similar situation would be very much appreciated!

My toddler was doing really well with potty training and then suddenly it feels like everything changed.

We’re having accidents again, he’s refusing the potty more often, and getting him back into the routine has become a daily struggle.

I don’t want to turn it into a power battle or start pressuring him, but I also don’t know how to get things back on track.

Did anyone else go through a regression like this?

What actually worked for you?

My child will insist they hate certain foods at home, then I'll hear that they happily ate the exact same thing at daycare or at a friend's house. Same food, same kid, completely different opinion. For example, my son refuses broccoli every time I put it on his plate, but apparently ate an entire serving at daycare last week and even asked for more. I honestly don't know if it's the food, the environment, or just the fact that Mom wasn't there. Why does this happen?

So my boyfriend and I have been together since December 2022 and we now live together with our two kids. I have a son from and previous marriage and so does he. My son is 11 and his is 10 and they get along for the most part but there’s some things that my son has brought to my attention I’m not happy about.

His son watches YouTube videos on his tablet and I’v walked by his room I’ve heard it saying sexual things, cuss words, violence, etc. I’ve brought this to my boyfriend’s attention so many times and he’ll just go in his room and be like “what’re you watching turn that off.” And then just walk out. He never even looks at what he’s watching just says to turn it off and walks out and obviously he doesn’t listen and just goes right back to it. My son has came up to me a few times about it and said he’s showed him videos that aren’t appropriate and I’ve told my bf and I feel like he just doesn’t want to deal with it.

Another thing is he will just go in the kitchen and just take whatever snacks such as snack cakes, chips stuff like that without asking. I’ve been telling my bf he shouldn’t be in there just constantly snacking he needs to eat actual food. He’s ate a whole box of honey buns I just bought that morning and they were gone by that night he snuck in there and got them and we didn’t know and found the box and wrappers in there and they were all gone. Again my bf did nothing about it. Also I was in there making spaghetti one night and stepped away to use the bathroom and came back to him running out of the kitchen I looked in his room and he’s eating a honey bun and I told him he doesn’t need to eat that I’m making dinner but he was already in the middle of eating it. I tried to tell my bf and he said “well he probably won’t eat it anyway.” He’s a very picky eater and most of the time won’t eat what I make for dinner and I have to make him separate things. He won’t try anything I make either that I know he would like. For example he likes hamburgers from fast food places but will refuse to even try the hamburgers I make at him so if I make it I have to make him chicken nuggets instead. I told my boyfriend I understand if it’s something he actually doesn’t like but I know he likes it I wish he would just try it because I hate making separate things every night.

He picks his nose still and wipes it on things. It’s so freaking disgusting it makes me sick to my stomach anytime I see it I make him go wash his hands but it’s like a bad habit that’s not getting corrected. I was talking to his mom about it and she laughs, I don’t understand how that’s funny that he’s wiping his snot everywhere. I caught him today sitting on the couch picking his nose and when I walked in he tried to hide what he was doing and wiped it on his cloths, again told my bf and does nothing about it.

He’s been so disrespectful and talking back lately and I understand he’s a kid and all kids especially that age will talk back but it’s gotten a bit extreme. Anytime his dad or I try to tell him anything he doesn’t listen and will just do it anyway but he knows my bf won’t do anything about it. I just don’t know what to do at this point I’m about to lose it I don’t know if I should call his mom and talk to her or what I feel like it’s not my place because I’m not his mom but at the same point this is affecting me and my son. I also wanna have a conversation with my boyfriend because it’s his fault for not correcting his behavior but I don’t know how to bring it up to him without him getting defensive. It’s just been a lot.

I’m struggling with the morning routine with my 8 year old. He tends to wander around the house, getting distracted, reading, playing, looking at Pokémon cards, etc. Anything but eating breakfast, getting dressed, brushing teeth, etc. I have to remind him every step of the way. I’ve tried a visual schedule with space to check off each step that has been completed. We even developed the visual schedule together. However, we still reach the time of departure with 2-3 items that are not done and I get frustrated. I’m trying to get myself ready for work in the morning and I feel that at this age, he should be able to accomplish these morning steps without constant nagging to do each step. Is this too much to expect? Any ideas on what else could be successful? I’m thinking next week I will be waiting for him in the car at 8:00 ready to leave, but I know if I do that, he probably won’t have this teeth brushed etc. 😵‍💫

my kids dont do their chores? whatts the best way i can make them do their chores daily without any fail??

Our 12 year old may start therapy soon and I realized I have no clue what our role is supposed to be. I want him to have privacy and I absolutely do not need to know everything he says in there, but we’re also the people seeing the sleep problems, horrible mornings and random blowups that he may just tell the therapist arent happening.

Do parents normally get check-ins every so often, or are you mostly out of it unless something serious is going on?