Okay, so we’ve established that painting your own crosswalks is a terrible idea, but there are other ways to decorate your driveway and the street in front of your home. If you’re a kid, anyway. Or very eccentric. Chalk can get expensive, though, especially if your kid shares with the entire neighborhood. Is there a cheaper way to get it? Yes, there is. [More]
children
Grocery Store Workers Replace Child’s iPad After It’s Stolen Inside Store
By 4.9.13
While his mother grocery shopped, someone stole an iPad out of the hands of a 6-year-old boy with Down syndrome. The store’s security cameras didn’t capture anything, and the only information the family had was the testimony of his twelve-year-old sister, who also has Down syndrome: “The blonde lady took it.” The story could have ended there, and made everyone sad. Mean person steals expensive but important educational tool from special needs child. Only that wasn’t the end of the story. [More]
Lunch Ladies Teach Middle Schoolers About Debt, Trash Their Lunches If They Owe Money
By 4.5.13
It’s never too early for kids to learn that living in revolving debt is bad, but how you get that lesson across is a tricky thing. For example, let’s say that you’re the contractor that serves school lunches in a middle school, and you take away the trays of children whose parents owe the lunch vendor money and toss a few dozen perfectly edible meals in the trash. This would be a bad way to teach kids about debt. [More]
Warning: Kids Might Eat Expanding Polymer Balls That Look Like Candy
By 4.3.13
Here’s the thing: if you make something that’s brightly colored and looks like candy, kids are going to eat it. Water Balz and other similar expanding, water-absorbing polymer toys seem pretty fun, and are also bright and shiny and look like candy. The problem comes when a pet or a child who is too young to understand gets hold of one of these delicious treats and eats it. [More]
Delta Passenger Accused Of Slapping 19-Month-Old Across The Face, Using Racial Slur
By 2.15.13
Slapping another passenger on an airplane is bad. When that passenger is a baby, it’s even worse. But if you go that far in being a terrible human being, might as well throw in a racial slur just in case you hadn’t offended everyone on the plane. [More]
4 Years Later, Toys ‘R’ Us Won’t Remove Dead Kid From Their Birthday Club
By 1.24.13
The Toys ‘R’ Us Birthday Club is a cute program for kids 10 and under: they get a card, small gift, and coupon from company mascot Geoffrey the giraffe. The problem comes when the unthinkable happens, and a child’s name needs to be taken off the list. That happened to Lyndsey’s family, when their middle daughter Kamryn died before her second birthday. The problem was that Toys ‘R’ Us kept sending birthday cards. For four years. Nothing the family did could make them stop. [More]
‘It Really Is A Business’: Why Taking Your Own Santa Visit Pictures Makes You A Cheap Jerk
By 12.26.12 — Updated: 12.21.16
Last week, we ran a post with advice for families bringing kids to visit Santa, written by a former mall Santa who got the job despite being skinny, thirtyish, and Jewish. He explained how to keep your children from melting down on Santa’s lap. One former elf, who we’ll call “Holly,” took offense at one of that particular Santa’s tips for saving money, and wrote in to explain how things worked at the mall where she served as “elf,” or manager of the Santa set. The main thing she wants our readers to know: if you don’t buy any photos and insist on only taking your own, you’re a Grinchy jerk who is figuratively yanking money out of every employee’s pockets. [More]
NJ Lottery: Gambling Addiction Is Not A Merry Holiday Gift For Your Child
By 12.10.12
Sure, you can’t take your favorite 10-year-old niece with you to your favorite casino to feed electronic quarters into a dazzling slot machine until her eyes glaze over and she enters a gambling-induced trance. That’s generally illegal. What’s perfectly legal, though, is buying her a nice pile of instant lottery tickets to play. You have to be 18 years old to buy scratchers, but not to play them. Which is why the New Jersey State Lottery and the state Council on Compulsive Gambling put out a statement this week warning that giving lottery tickets to kids might just win them a lifetime of gambling addiction. [More]
JCPenney Shuts Down Portrait Studio Due To Broken Camera, Forgets To Tell Us
By 11.28.12
We keep hearing about how desperate JCPenney is to get customers and their wallets inside the doors these days. Well, they’re not going to get reader Kristen and her family’s money anymore. It’s too bad, too: Kristen and Mr. Kristen have twin babies. Do you know how fast kids outgrow their clothes? In duplicate? They had made an appointment at their local JCP’s portrait studio, and found the studio abandoned. The ostensible reason: the camera was broken. You’re running a portrait studio without a backup camera? [More]
I Didn't Buy A Ticket To An R-Rated Movie So I Could Entertain Your Toddler
By 8.13.12
Baby-sitters must be hard to come by these days. That’s the only possible explanation for why Kelly found herself entertaining the small child next to her during a showing of the R-rated movie “Ted.” The encounter raised all kinds of questions. For example: why was this child sitting in a stroller that was positioned to block Kelly’s seat? Why didn’t Regal Cinemas staff do anything about the stroller? Why didn’t the child’s mother notice or care that the kid was yapping to Kelly? Then, of course, there’s the key question on which this entire problem hinges: why bring a toddler with you to an R-rated movie? [More]
LEGO Piece Crammed Up Nose For 3 Years Causes Child's Chronic Health Problems
By 8.7.12
The six-year-old Utah boy was sick for no clear reason. Just bad luck. For years, he had terrible sinus problems, and doctors assumed that it was bacterial, prescribing antibiotic after antibiotic that never solved the problem. Then one physician looked outside of the box (outside of the nostril?) a bit and noticed that there was some kind of foreign object up the child’s nose. Did he remember putting anything up there? No, of course not. A specialist removed the obstruction, which turned out to be a “ball of fungus” surrounding a tiny, flexible LEGO tire. The child’s health problems abruptly disappeared. [More]
Why Do You Disapprove Of My Capitalist Kid’s Lemonade Stand?
By 7.27.12
Writer Helaine Olen has a young son, and he engaged in a classic American summer activity: he started a lemonade stand on his quiet suburban street. He earns some spending money and probably learns some important lessons about customer service and profit, and the neighbors who patronize his stand get a refreshing beverage. But, Olen writes, her son’s customers want more than that. They ask what charitable cause his lemonade stand is raising money for, and disapprove when they learn that his stand is a for-profit venture. What the heck? [More]
United Books Unaccompanied Minor On Flight That Bans Unaccompanied Minors
By 7.3.12
United Airlines has a simple enough policy regarding children flying alone (unaccompanied minors, as airlines call them.) They cannot travel on the last flight of the day. This makes sense: no one wants an unaccompanied minor to become a stranded unaccompanied minor if their flight is canceled. But when Hannah booked a flight for her 12-year-old son to travel unaccompanied, no one mentioned this rule, and United phone agents placed him on the last flight of the day. This meant that he was turned away at the airport, and his departure delayed until the next day. Hannah thinks that the family deserves some kind of compensation for this inconvenience due to United’s screwup. [More]
Olive Oil ‘For Kids’ Is Apparently A Thing
By 5.22.12 — Updated: 11.20.13
Marketing material for Zoe brand organic extra virgin olive oil targeted at kids brags that it is “at the forefront of the burgeoning children’s health food market.” While it’s good news that there is food targeted at children that doesn’t contain alarming shades of food dye, high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, or even “cheez,” it’s still Olive Oil For Kids, and we’re still going to snicker at it. [More]
How To Properly Bribe Your Kids Into Obedience
By 2.3.12
Parents who don’t admit to bribing their kids either aren’t being honest or are missing out on a crucial technique that can bring peace and satisfaction to their households. Bribes, which can be described more charitably as reverse threats, can help parents get work done at home, delegate household chores to completion and preserve general sanity. [More]
Should Companies Advertise To Kids At The Library?
By 1.19.12
Who doesn’t like stuffed animals? Free stuffed animals, even! E. isn’t happy, though. At storytime at her local public library, people representing Wells Fargo brought stuffed ponies with the Wells Fargo logo to distribute to the children, and donated a large pony to decorate the children’s section. [More]
While Mom Gambles, Repo Man Takes Away Car With Kid Inside
By 10.25.11
A Florida woman who allegedly left her kid inside her car while she gambled at an internet cafe found her vehicle and child missing when she got back. It turns out a repo man had swooped in and taken her car, unaware of its precious cargo. Now the woman faces charges of neglect. [More]
Target Recalls Frog Masks That Could Suffocate Kids
By 10.24.11
Some early bird parents who indulged their kids’ wishes to dress up as frogs for Halloween will have to re-do their costume shopping. Target recalled 3,400 products called Children’s Frog Masks due to a potential suffocation hazard. [More]
