I am sitting here fuming. My wife has had an incredibly rough year, laid off after 15 years, then underemployed for a year, finally got a new job back in her field last week, and then her stepfather passed away 2 days later. She’s currently out West supporting her mom.

To surprise her and bring some joy back, I spent a ton of time, effort, and money on a meaningful surprise gift. A few minutes ago, we had a video chat. I stepped away to let the dog out, and my 8yo immediately blabs the entire surprise and chuckles about it.

We've taught him the difference between bad secrets and good secrets, but he just cannot hold it in. I told him how disappointed I was, but he just went right back to playing like nothing happened. This isn't the first time. I'm furious and completely lost on how to make him understand why this hurts. He is normally a genuinely soft and gentle kid almost too soft most of the time. I am a jokester father and he does struggle to understand when to turn it off. We also have times where we have to tell him to "read the room" like yes we were being silly in the car but now we have to straighten up.

Any ideas?

I am struggling with the idea of telling my 5 year old about her 9 year old cousin dying in an accident. She loved him and was pretty close to him. We have had the death discussion before when her great great grandfather died, and she has asked questions here and there about it ever since.

My main worry is that I don’t want her thinking that it can or will happen to her right now. She understands that with her grandfather, he died because he was old and it’s a natural part of life. But the circumstances are different and this was not natural.

Lying to her doesn’t feel like the right move either. What do I do?

Since becoming a mom I stay up as late as humanly possible even though I’m exhausted. Night time is the only time that I am completely alone and can watch my shows, scroll on my phone etc. I wish I could be one of those people who values sleep more than that time.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids more than life itself and I have a great relationship with them. We do hobbies together, we talk about anything and everything, we share interests, we spend so much time together, and I love it.

HOWEVER. I find that the most energy draining thing about being a parent is forcing kids to do stuff they don't want to do. It can be small or big things, but they happen every day and it's one of the biggest energy drains for me personally. Of course, it's worse with young kids, but even older ones (tweens or slightly younger) can be very stubborn sometimes.

Endless debates! They just won't stop talking. They know they're wrong, but of course, it's about emotions, and those can't be debated away. And often, not doing the thing isn't really an option. Repetition works in some cases (chores), but of course that means reminding them every time, because even if they're willing to do the thing, they will forget unless reminded.

Do you agree that this is draining, how do you handle it, and do you wish you handled some of these situations differently than you do?

Examples of things kids might not want to do:

- Go outside

- Brush their teeth

- Move slightly to the left so they don't start a fight with their sibling because they're in each others' space

- Wear shoes outside

- Clean up after they made a mess

- Eat food they usually love but absolutely NOT today

- Lower their voice

and so on

Is anyone else facing this problem? I caught my daughter having conversations with ChatGPT. It wasn't bad or anything, but it was incredibly casual - like talking to a friend. I asked to stop, but this would be the third time she's violated that rule. Ive tried telling her it's a machine and that it will only get her into trouble. Her claim seems to be that she has no one of her age to talk to at home.

Please allow me to preface this by saying that I am endlessly grateful to the mother of my daughters. She is their rock. She has done all of the hard work. I was her first husband but now that she’s on husband #4, I feel like we have a very good co-parenting relationship.

We all get along. He’s a good dude and we can go golfing together, borrow tools from each other, host bbqs together, etc. I treat his kids like my own (but, side note, there’s no word for the step siblings of your own kids when you’re the divorced dad! I joke with my daughters’ step sister that she’s my “spider daughter” because I’m not a god father, less than a Thor father, but maybe a spider father.)

My daughters are now 19 and 21 - the only thing I’ve wanted to do was help them make the move to adulthood and feel independent. They are both humble, grateful, and always willing to work!

However, I recently got chewed out by my ex wife because I’ve given them “too much money.”

I decided to check the account of my older daughter to see how much I’ve given her and between transfers, her insurance, and her car payments, it added up to around $55k during the last 3 years.

My younger daughter is ready to move into a new apartment and I paid for her car in cash, paid for her hair school, and helped her with $5k when she moved out to get her business started.

For context, I’m not an extremely wealthy man by any means. I don’t buy new clothes for myself. I got most of my appliances from the landfill and then fixed them up. I drive an old truck and I eat a lot of ramen.

But, helping my daughters is the thing that brings me joy and makes me feel like I’m still a valid part of their lives.

I realize now that perhaps that is a co-dependency of my own to validate myself as a divorced dad, but I’ve kept most of that money to myself and never tried to use it as a reason to become a “favorite” or anything like that.

It stings a bit when my girls refer to their mom and stepdad as their “parents” but I know that they have a half brother and multiple step siblings. They always treat me with respect and gratitude.

I’ve gradually lowered the amount of money I give them every month when they hit certain milestones. My goal has always been to give them enough to support their dreams but never enough to become entitled, spoiled, or lazy.

At this point, I’m just surprised to find myself getting yelled at. My ex tells me it is because the step kids don’t get the same advantages as my biological daughters, but I also let the step kids work at my house for money when they need it.

What am I doing wrong??

I have an 18 month old daughter, she has super fine silky hair that’s wavy in the back.

It’s gotten so long and she’s started to actually look like a girl which elated me after everyone always thinking she was a boy.
It had grown so long that it kept getting in her eyes and she didn’t really like wearing clips or having her hair up. I figured I’d cut some bangs only up to her eyebrows.

FML.

I cut it but she was looking down when I did it, so it ended up being WAY too short. Like mini bangs.
She looks like she has a mullet now.

I genuinely felt so sick to my stomach and was fighting back tears when I saw the hack job I did. That was the first time her hair has ever been cut at all, so I felt a million times worse because that was the hair that has been there since she was in my belly.

Obviously I’m just going to have to wait until it grows out again, and accept the situation, but I seriously am kicking myself for this.

Praying that her hair grows quickly, but not so sure about that lol

I’m afraid we are about to shoot ourselves in the foot. My son is 4.5 yrs, will start kindergarten in fall 2027. He has been in a very nice, educational (pricey) daycare for the past two years. But now my husband is losing his job, and it will take a while to find a new one due to his field of work. So we are going to cancel daycare next month and my husband will watch him most days of the week while he works on getting situated with his next form of income.

Our current daycare doesn’t offer part time, so that’s not an option to cut cost. I’m hoping in a few months we’ll be back in our feet and can start looking for a part time daycare/preschool, but seems like everywhere near us has already closed applications for 2026-2027 year.

So there’s a good chance my son will end up going from no daycare/preK directly into starting kindergarten.

We’re going to utilize all the learning opportunities we can like library story time, weekly play dates with friends, workbooks and educational time at home.

But I’m worried my son will be really behind come next fall. Are we totally screwed?

I'm sorry if I used the wrong flair, but I need to know how to get my son to stop breaking my eggs!!! As the title says, he's 4 and has a learning disability. He struggles with communication both ways, he has trouble understanding what people say and he has trouble talking. Anyway, he really likes eggs. He thinks all eggs are easter eggs and will have a treat inside, and no matter how many eggs he breaks he will check every single one. I have tried sitting him down and explaining that's the eggs in the fridge aren't for him to break, Ive tried time outs for breaking them, I even put child locks on my fridge and he figured those out in 3 days, We had a metal baby gate blocking off our kitchen and he broke the gate after a month of us having it, and I am not able to keep eggs in the house.

Also want to note we do watch him, but he wakes up at 4AM almost every day (still trying to get him to stay in his room if he wakes up before us and no matter what we try he's always up at 4) and sneaks into the fridge while were asleep and breaks them. I just want to have eggs and not have to clean yolk off my floor all the time. Any tips are appreciated!!

ETA: Thank you guys for all the suggestions! I'm going to contact my landlord and let her know I'm installing alarms and locks on my front door, and I'm looking at the egg that's already beat up to start using those instead. I'm also working on a visual aid for the fridge today and see how he responds to that. I'm grateful for all the tips and constructive criticism, I don't have mom friends to ask for advice and have no family so me and my bf have been sort of winging it tbh

My daughter, 5, is non-stop. It is exhausting. She constantly makes a noise whether it is talking, singing, shouting, whistling, screeching.

She does not sit still and it’s not an exaggeration. She cannot eat without moving about, watching TV she is upside down. Bedtime, she is flipping herself on the bed, climbing where she shouldn’t be. We have her out of the house A LOT for this reason as she obviously needs to move her body constantly.

I am so overstimulated by it all. I have a 7mo baby (I know that some of this is to do with attention seeking due to new baby) and she decides to shout or sing top of her lungs when he is crying. If I am feeding him or changing him, she is climbing on top of me. If he is in his highchair eating, she is in his face, when he wakes up she is in his face (she is always kind to him, never shown any nastiness)

She repeats herself constantly, more so if she is told no. I.e ‘no you can’t have another story’. She will ask and ask and ask and sometimes can go on for over an hour. I have tried ignoring it, I have tried being stern and saying ‘I will not change my mind, please don’t ask me again’. She just replies with ‘but can I have a story?’. It makes me want to rip my hair out 😭

When she comes home from school we get meltdowns. She has occasionally lashed out at me when I’ve told her no (example, no you can’t have another snack your dinner is almost ready). Teachers have no concerns and they said her concentration is good and she isn’t fidgety!!! She listens and is a model pupil.

I snap far too much. I do not know what to do and I worry about how it is affecting her. Her behaviour has become difficult to be around because I am EXHAUSTED. She now refuses to sleep in her own bed (this is ever since baby was born) and she will cry & cry, could be hours. Once she made herself sick from crying and I felt so bad because I was trying so hard to hold the boundary. Again, this means the baby cannot get to sleep because she disrupts the whole house. And I feel myself bubbling inside. I do very well not to actually raise my voice (have a few times can’t lie), but I sometimes have to leave the house (their Dad is there obviously). She will not see her Dad for anything, she will not go to bed with him, she won’t ask him to do anything for her it is all on me. I dont know how much more I can take before I feel like I have a breakdown. I feel like I’ve failed at being her parent and I’ve ruined everything.

I love her so much she is my whole world, so why can I not cope?? Where am I going wrong???

My son has been friends with my friends daughter since they were both toddlers, he's 10 now and she's 8. They play Minecraft together, him on his computer, her on her device.

Yesterday he told me a friend of hers joined them in the world they were playing on. Knowing what I know about internet safety, I asked for clarification on *who* this friend was, I know the kids at school will share their gamer tags but I wanted to be sure.

Well no, apparently this is a friend she only knows through Minecraft. He told me her mom knew, but again I wanted to make sure. And she does know, they met through some voting thing she said, and that there is ground rules like letting mom know when she's playing with this person. I normally trust her judgment with parental stuff because we have a lot of the same opinions on things, but I don't think this is one of them.

So my question is, would I be an overprotective helicopter mom if I said I don't want my son playing Minecraft with her daughter while this other person is on?

At what age is it appropriate to let your kids swim unsupervised.
We live on a lake and my husband thinks I’m judgey because I was not impressed the neighbours sent their youngest son (9 or 10) down to swim with 3 younger kids. I was down there with my own son who are a grade older than the neighbour.
Currently my rules are, if it’s my own kids and adult neighbours are out enjoying the lake side my kids can be swimming (11, 13, and 14) they are all competent swimmers so I do not ask my neighbours to watch them, but if something were to happen there would be help.
With guests I need to know how well the kids swim first. Yesterday my son had over a friend who cannot swim. So there was absolutely no touching the water until I was down. I also did not let my daughter go swimming with her friend (13) while I was at work.
When did you let your kids go swimming unsupervised and what are the conditions?

So much response so quickly. Buddy system is a must, I prefer 3 to 2, one to stay with and one to get help if there is a problem.
Also when I say I let my own kids stay I mean if they are there together, and it’s only that I no longer make them get out so I can run to the house to pee or grab a snack or a floatie or to search for goggles they couldn’t find, but I also let my neighbours know my kids are in the water and I’m going up to the house for 5 minutes.

Parenting is staying absolutely still in a contorted position for 9 hours while thinking “I want to sleep but not as badly as I want YOU to sleep.”

That’s all.

I have a 15mo daughter and she is the love of my life.
But every night I just cry bc I feel like I’m doing such a shit job at being a mom. I’m a SAHM mom so she is quite literally my only priority but I still catch myself prioritizing chores and myself over her. I get so over stimulated so quickly and I don’t know why. My husband works a lot (50-60 hour weeks) but when he’s home he’s so patient and loving towards her and seems to truly enjoy playing with her. Why do I get so frustrated after a few min? Why is every spill a big deal for me. Why am I not letting her be a kid and scream and explore and make a mess. I was raised in a way where I would be getting yelled at for everything and my emotions were suppressed so why am I doing the same to my own baby.
she throws tantrums now and I find myself yelling at her a few times a day and I hate it so bad.

Why can’t I dive into this role of a mother why do I still feel like I’m losing myself and need to find myself when I have a little girl looking up to me all day long. Why can’t I be happy and cheerful and fall in love with motherhood. I feel like I’m always looking for a life savor or helping hand to come and save me from dealing with the hard parts of motherhood when it’s been over a year and I should know by know that this is my life. She is my baby no one will come and do my job for me.

To keep it short-ish...brushing teeth for my SS12 is a twice-daily ordeal. That isn't surprising but I get frustrated with the reminders, listening for the brushing, watching the brushing, checking that toothpaste was used, etc because I'm the only one doing it. My husband doesn't care if his kid brushes.

When I complained to 2 friends, one said that she only brushes her preschooler's teeth 1x per day, and the other said that she lets her kid face natural consequences of having fuzzy teeth.

I'm not interested in natural consequences because I want my SS to build habits & routines. I honestly thought this was basic & now I feel so alone in my principles! My husband says I'm the only person that cares about this and I should just let it go, but obv I'm not going to. But it would be so great to have support.

Can anyone out there please confirm that they feel like brushing 2x a day is really important?? 😭 ​

**Edit** - thanks for everyone’s inputs on best practices when one parent is away and the other is solo parenting. What makes me sad is the number of downvotes and accusations I received for “spying” “not trusting my husband”. I still stand by me looking at my kid on the camera (and not my husband. I literally wanted to see my child!!!) . My husband knows I do this. We both do it! It’s easier to check in than text each other “hey is he asleep”. We have nothing to hide and I don’t doubt my husband for a second. We’re both obsessed with our kid and when we are away we have major FOMO so we like to watch him get ready for sleep since it’s such a special time! I just wanted the group’s opinion on if I should suggest a different approach to my husband but I totally get how he’d be annoyed by it. I’m upset that so many people make me seem like a villain in this story.

My husband is a very present father and we both love spending time with our kid. He does work longer hours so I try to give him a rest from night time duties most nights.

Well last night was my first night away from both my 3 year old and husband. They video chat me me to say goodnight and I can see my son is already upset and asking for me as soon as he sees me.

Fast forward 15 minutes where I get a notification from my Nanit that there is motion so I connect to see my kid getting ready for bedtime. Instead I hear loud crying “I went mommy I want mommy” and he’s facedown on his room floor. My husband is saying “look at me. Look at me let’s go take a shower and get ready”.

My son’s screaming escalates so then my husband screams back at him “LOOK AT ME!” then walks away. My heart breaks watching my son cry on the floor. But I’ve also been in those high stress tantrum situations where he’s just inconsolable. But somehow my husband screaming didn’t sit well with me. I just wished he had held our son and comforted him because he was clearly having a hard time with me not being there.

Should I say something to my husband? I don’t want to micromanage his parenting but I also don’t want him to yell at our kid if he’s (frankly both of them) are deregulated. I’m not perfect and get irritated in such situations but I always try to comfort and save the loud voice for when I need to enforce discipline. Thoughts?

My oldest have had some coughing problems for some time and her GP prescribed asthma meds and a inhaler with a face mask. All good and dandy.

But she hates it. Full on crying and being scared when seeing it. I'm single so I don't have someone to help me, so I need all tips and tricks there is to make this work!

There is one dose every morning and evening, plus extra if needed during daytime. I was told i can try do it in her sleep in the evenings, not an optimal position but better than nothing according the the pharmacist. But I dont see that working at other times 😭

We've been thinking about checking out one of the local World Cup fan zones this weekend because it honestly looks like a fun atmosphere.The only thing I'm kind of on the fence about is how loud it's going to be. Between the giant screens, music, commentators, and a crowd of people all cheering at once, I imagine it could get pretty overwhelming for a little kid.Our 2 yr old usually does fine in busy places,I don't want to skip it if I'm just overthinking things, but I also don't want to get there and realize it's way too much for him. Has anyone taken a toddler to a fan zone before?

I have an upcoming LONG journey to take alone with my kids. I will be traveling from Singapore to New York with my 2 year old and 5 year old sons. The 5 year old is pretty chill and easily contained with TV and snacks. The 2 year old on the other hand....he's a friendly menace. He's cute and happy but he's got boundless energy. "chill" is not a word one would use. He's also been screen free so TV doesn't really get him occupied for long.

My options are:
1) Fly direct (Singapore Airlines): Strap in for a non-stop 19 hour flight and pray for the best.
2) Fly with a layover (Emirates): Flight broken up with 7 hours on first leg, layover, and 14 hours after that. The layover would be in Dubai which is an amazing airport. I imagine the break could potentially help both kids not go stir crazy in the airplane.

Thankfully I expect to be able to fly business. So I'll have some comfort on the flight.

If you were me - which option would you choose and why?

So right now we have the whole row except one seat, so I’m trying to figure out how to configure it so that it makes the most sense (and not end up with a random person in the middle of our family where we will be passing toddlers around).

We have 3 kids, one of them will be in a car seat. The other 2 will both want to look out the window for takeoff and landing because this is only their second flight ever and they will be very excited. It’s only a 3 hour flight so it really isn’t the end of the world either way, but I figured others have done this before and might have good ideas.

I have a 15 yo boy who I coparent with his dad who lives about an hour away. My kid’s school, friends and activities are close to our home so he is mostly here during school but mostly with his dad during summer. He got into a summer leadership program recently and was very excited, but he hasn’t been going while he’s at his dad’s. He has been with his dad for three weeks now. He had summer activities and stuff, but my kid didn’t even attempt to organize going to any leadership group events. We’ve had a trip planned for months that is coming up and now he’s saying how is he going to go to the leadership event when we’re away? I said well you have known you wouldn’t be here during those dates, and you could’ve asked your dad to take you over the past three weeks but you didn’t, so I’m sorry but all I can do is take you if there is an event on while we are in town. He got pissed and snapped at me.

Edit: I do try to communicate stuff like this to his dad where possible, but I feel my kid should be taking at least some responsibility at this age for his own extracurriculars.

I know how this sounds but my kid really isn’t entitled. He is not materialistic or whiny. He is reasonable about going out with friends and doing chores, and does well in school and does what I ask of him. This is part of a pattern where when anything goes wrong, it is my responsibility, never dad’s. He never blames his dad for anything and has zero expectations of him. Whereas I’m the one who is expected to always be there, take him places, help him with you name it, etc. I get it that this is “safe parent” stuff. There has been past trauma between my kid and his dad. However in the past 3-4 years his dad has legitimately been listening to him better and is trying hard. While there was past shitty behaviour on his dad’s part, there has never been abuse.

Is it a realistic expectation that by 15 my teen should start to understand that it isn’t fair to hold me to these kids of standards while not doing so with his dad? I love my kid so much and love being his safe harbour. But it’s exhausting being blamed for things that aren’t my fault and aren’t entirely even my responsibility. How do I balance these things? I also want to be aware of the gender dynamic of my male child expecting more of me as a woman than his dad.

Hi all, I have a 10 year old girl who is really sweet, funny and kind but she also can be a total nightmare emotionally.

Typical scenario: She was in a school play last night and after getting home she asked me "What was the funniest part?" I mentioned a couple of things but couldn't remember the specific names of the characters. I see her twitching, she angrily corrects me on the names of the actors/roles I got wrong.

This one didn't blow up, we got through it without major incident, but they often do. Sometimes she will make some obscure reference to something that happened a year ago then grill me about if I remember it, or lead me down a conversational mine field. It's like she constantly looking for evidence that I don't like her or care about her

She is constantly laying traps for me and I don't know what to do. As a result of this I probably give her more thought and attention than her 3yo sister just because she is more emotionally needy but she absolutely does not see it that way.

Any tips???

My baby is 9 months old! My husband and I said we thought we’d like 2 kids when we first started dating. Once we were married and talking about starting a family, we decided to be open to being “one and done” and talk about our family without the pressure of multiple children. We have now said that we think by the time our son is 3 we will know if we want another kid or not. People talk about “feeling complete.” What age was your (youngest?) kid when you felt this? I do not have the urge for another kid right now, I have worked hard to be present in my baby’s early life and not wish for more already. I feel like our income will provide the best life for us and him if he’s our only, I don’t miss post partum, I won’t miss daycare sick season again, or sleeplessness.
I love my son and our little life! I struggle because as adults we love our relationship with our siblings and I worry about not providing that, even tho it’s not a guarantee. Are other people wanting and imagining their other children? I am not sure what it feels like to feel complete. I don’t feel a rush to have it figured out, but I’m just curious to hear other parents line of thinking.