“We don’t believe it is especially helpful to ban Facebook use outright.  In fact, it would be better to earn the real trust of your child, so that when Facebook does happen, that child invites you to be part of that,” said Karene Ivonavich, a child behavioralist.  Facebook monitoring by parents is probably the best step to take, but a parent can’t monitor what he or she doesn’t know exists.

Here is an infographic on the Facebook monitoring habits of parents. Where do you stand?

Each year we seems to hear of some tragedy involving a party, hosted by a high school student’s parent or parents, in which something terrible happens to a young person under the influence of alcohol.  Typically, the parent has agreed to allow that child and his or her friends to come over and shut off the adt, and party it up, even buying alcoholic beverages for the event.  For most of these situations that we hear about, several go unreported because no one is caught and everyone makes it home in tact — but there are plenty of incidents involving parents who are so bent on being their child’s “buddy” that they neglect the fact that those children are still children, it is still illegal to provide them with alcoholic beverages or to allow them to ingest them on their premises, and that people that age are simply not responsible enough to handle social drinking in an atmosphere of partying at that level.  Could this be why it is illegal for people under the age of 21 to drink?  Hello.

Not only does a parent run the risk of endangering children who have been entrusted to their care by behaving so inappropriately, but also loses — yes loses — the respect of that child.  The child is not going to think you are “cool” or one of his crowd because you let him drink beer and other alcohol at home and invite his friends to join in the fun.  All that child will think is “I will be so popular now!  My friends will all want to hang out with me because my parents are stupid enough to give us alcoholic drinks.”  Yes, they will think you are stupid and that you are possibly afraid to put your foot down.  But when it comes to this, you need to do that.  Just say no.  Be a parent, not a “pal.”

The holidays are hectic enough.  There is the task of not only getting gifts for people, but also wrapping them and such.  Then you have the decorations that will not put themselves up no matter how much I beg and plead.  Add to that all of the holiday parties that I RSVP’d yes to and that’s already too much to handle.  Of course, that was only the beginning.  What should I have said no to?  Well, a whole lot apparently…

I agreed to bake for all of the kids holiday parties at school.  I think I baked and iced so many cupcakes I had cupcake nightmares for days.  So much for sugarplums and sweet dreams like that.

I agreed to host my husband’s family Christmas celebration.  This was not a bad thing, but I realized that I was ill-prepared to have over twenty people at my home on Christmas after the aftermath of Santa and more.

I agreed to be a bridesmaid in my friend’s Christmas Eve wedding.  I had to be there for that and rush out of the reception to get the kids ready for their play.

Overall, it was just way too much, and I am going to seriously learn to say no.  Sometimes it is the best thing to say.

“I know I do this every year, but I can never remember how to cook a turkey!”

“Me neither.  Or even how long to thaw it out, and I’m hosting a part for my home security team in two days.”

I felt sure they would both go home and just Google it, and all would be well — but many times, people don’t seek the help they need to safely prepare meal items like roasted turkey, and the results can cause illness.  The last thing anyone wants is food poisoning for Christmas, so check out the infographic below for how to avoid the risks of undercooking or improperly storing your holiday delicacies.

I love the idea of making guacamole for the party, and the more I think about it, the more spooky guacamole is to me.  The bone shaped bread sticks are also cute and look to be pretty easy to create.

What are some of your favorite things to serve up around Halloween?  Do you plan on dressing up this year or leaving that to the kids?  I am still unsure about dressing up, but I guess since all of our friends will be doing it, I will too.

After my husband and I had our first son, I left work to become a full time at home mother.  When I chose to go back to school I had not worked in years, so I didn’t have to worry about losing out on my income.  The cost of school did concern me though.  With three kids our budget was still pretty tight.  Luckily I had a good friend who had just gone back to school.  She used financial aid and grants for moms to go back to school and helped me to apply as well.  I was ecstatic when I found out it would not be as costly as I originally thought.

Time is another concern for mothers wanting to go to school.  I have friends who are not only mothers but also full time employees outside of the home so time is precious.  One way to find the time to go back to school is to look into online classes and programs.  You can complete your classwork after the kids are asleep or during naps.  I took mostly online courses and I loved it.

No one likes to fail.  Being a successful student is something that moms want to be able to do but are afraid that they cannot.  Being a success is possible no matter your situation.  You just have to be prepared.  Create a space for your studying and schoolwork, keep in close contact with professors, and find other moms who are going to school to study with.  These things may sound obvious, but if you do them you will be a success.

There is no better feeling than knowing that you have done something like graduated from college.  Mothers all over the country are going back to school and you can too!

Most parents, according to data collected in the infographic below, conduct their social network spying by subscribing to or checking their children’s Facebook status or reading Twitter updates.  This doesn’t only apply to children of a childerly age, but also to adult children, who parents either spy on with invitation or permission, or clandestinely.  One friend of mine who is herself a 42 year old mom has given her own mom instructions for monitoring her location using Apple’s Find My iPhone feature;  she gave her mom her login so that if she ever turned up missing or lost her phone, her mom could use tracking features to help out.

So, have you ever done things like this?  Would you?  Check out the stats and you be the judge.  Check out some satellite tv deals on dish2u for more great parenting help and commentary.

Read-I have not completely finished one book that I can remember in quite some time.  I love reading, and I find that it let’s me escape into a whole new world when I can dive into a great book.  The thing is I cannot go to this other world and have to be immediately pulled away from it because my kids or husband need me, or something spills, or I need to leave to pick up one of the boys.  I just want an hour or so a day where I can fully escape.  Is that too much to ask?

Workout-Sure I can keep up with my boys, and I am not in awful shape, but I can only imagine the bombshell mom of three I could be if I could squeeze in a really good workout in my day.  As of now my workout consists of lifting children and chasing them around, and that does some great things don’t get me wrong.  How wonderful it would be though to have some time to go to the gym and just really workout.

Sleep-I can get by with my four or so hours of sleep each night.  Luckily I am not the type of person who requires a ton of sleep.  There are nights however that six or seven hours of sleep would be much nicer, just saying.

What would you do if you could get a few extra hours in the day?  Would you take some “you” time, or would you end up doing more of the things that you are already doing?

When life is easier we are all happier.  So, in line with our new found love and appreciation for organization, I found this very cute craft for a pencil shaped pencil holder.  It is so cute, and since my boys and husband will jump at the opportunity to munch on junk food, like pringles (you need pringles cans for the project) this was a no brainer.  Now, the boys have their own pencil holders for their desks that they helped to create!  Here’s the video on how to do this for arts and crafts time.

Anyways back to the costs of a college education, obviously we are saving for the total tuition, but I came across something that I just had to share with you other parents.  It is this infographic about the hidden costs of going off to college.  Some of it is quite funny, but the more I thought about it, it is all true.  My head is still spinning from all of the numbers.