Family Fun
Hey, kids, let’s put on a show! New book shows benefits of play acting for kids
Your kids are out of school for spring break. How about putting on a show? Carol Bouzoukis, a child drama specialist with 25 years of experience, has developed a way to take children’s natural affinity for play acting and use it to further their all-around development. When children use their imagination, they can work through [...]
Make fun felted egg for Easter
Easy to make (with the help of your washing machine), these vibrantly colored eggs will brighten your Easter year after year. You will need: – Plastic eggs – Electrical tape – Wool roving(ASTERISK) – 100-percent wool yarn (optional) – Panty hose leg – Twist ties 1. First, seal the eggs with electrical tape. For each [...]
Family guide to new movie releases
21 JUMP STREET Rating: R, for crude and sexual content, pervasive language, teen drinking and some violence What it’s about: Two young cops are shipped back to high school to infiltrate a drug gang. The kid attractor factor: Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, misbehaving in high school. Good lessons/bad lessons: “You never know what you [...]
Mom confession: I cheat at Candyland
I know a dirty little secret about mothers. It involves Candy Land. We cheat. “Yeah, I admit it, I used to fix the deck in Candy Land,” says my friend Kelley P, whose two daughters are teen-agers now and old enough to hear the truth. “You know how you always get up near the top [...]
Is quiet play possible?
Q:My kids, 4 and 3, are very loud. They yell and run inside the house. They bang toys, get into loud conflicts, and my son likes to scare his little sister by growling like a dinosaur. I know most of this stuff is normal, but I’ve got a new baby on the way, and I’m [...]
Happy faux-lidays: Extended families create their own reason to celebrate each other
Every year, Marie Puskas and her extended family put all of their eggs in one basket – along with their Valentines, New Year’s noisemakers, Christmas gifts, Thanksgiving fixings and Halloween treats. Naturally, they call this annual family gathering “New Valeastweengivingmas,” a contraction of several holidays, and it is celebrated in July or August at her [...]
When is your child old enough to travel without you?
Your 10-year-old is invited on spring break with a pal. Is that too young to travel out of town with another family? Parent advice (from our panel of staff contributors): Are you kidding? Getting the kid out of the house for an extended period? Perfect! If you know and trust the parents and you’re confident [...]
Parenting: Tiger Mom has a few regrets
If you have only heard about “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” and decided you hated it, the Tiger Mother has a request: Read it. All of it. And then decide. The memoir, a global bestseller that has prompted anger, scorn and vitriolic e-mails, is Amy Chua’s account of raising her two daughters “the Chinese [...]
Fast and fun room fix-ups
Add a major dose of personality to your child’s bedroom – and do it on a budget. We’ll show you how to dress up a dresser, create a headboard, customize bed linens, and jazz up those tired old walls. Make-a-Face Dresser An assortment of drawer pulls and a little imagination can revive a plain old [...]
Parents guide to new movie releases
RED TAILS Rating: PG-13 for some sequences of war violence What it’s about: African-American pilots prove their mettle to their white superiors, their peers and the Germans as members of a famed fighter group of World War II. The kid attractor factor: A young cast, including both actors and rap stars, and a lot of [...]
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