“President Obama” and “school” have been coupled together in a number of news headlines this month.  First, he gave a perfectly harmless, but peculiarly ill-timed, speech to school children about non-controversial topics, such as “staying in school”.  Then, some knucklehead teacher in New Jersey decided to have her class sing creepy praise songs to the president, substituting “Barrack Hussein Obama” for “Jesus” in some instances.

Now, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is proposing longer school days and a longer school year for American kids, an idea that the president had put forth months ago.  There are two distinct parts to this…

Danny White with AnointedFighter.com has decided to take the best of two worlds, martial arts and religion, and combined them into a very unique system called ChristJitsu.  The lessons and life principles of the Christian faith now have the excitement and recognition system of the martial arts world.

ChristJitsu plays on the popularity of martial arts, especially mixed martial arts and their Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  Relax parents, kids won’t be learning to prize fight in a cage.  Instead, Danny claims they will be learning to fight in the cage of life.  ChristJitsu translated means, ” the way of Christ.”  The students will…

Tonight, I am going to my middle school’s first dance of the year, and I’m so excited.  Earlier, I was talking with my mom, and we were talking about what I would consider the dos and don’ts (mainly don’ts) for parents of middle schoolers going to dances, and I decided that you should know, too….

Parenting is the greatest job in the world, no doubt about it.  As we the parents blog and talk and debate about parenting, what do the kids think?  Isn’t a vital part of parenting listening and responding to our children?  Or is that just my cheesy rationale for letting my son write half of this article?

Anyway – My son Max recently decided that he wants to be a writer like his dear ol’ dad.  This is, of course, in addition to being a meteorologist (quite unlike his dear ol’ dad), which has been his lifelong goal since about a year…

Do you have a child with a birthday that falls in the autumn? Here are some party ideas that work wonderfully in the autumn for many ages:

Pumpkin picking and decorating: Get a few parents to help you carpool the children to a nearby farm. Then, let them each pick out a pumpkin of their own. (To avoid spending too much, mention a maximum weight or show them an example of the perfect size.) At home, have some decorating supplies (paint, glitter, glue, googly eyes), and you’ll have many decorated pumpkins that can double as party favors. Older kids could try…