
Cool sneaker makeovers that leave the white shoes behind after Labor Day
If you stand by the old "no white after Labor Day" fashion imperative, we want to point you to this fantastic post with 9 cool DIY sneaker makeover ideas to help you -- or your kids -- turn those plain white shoes into something that looks great all fall long. From...

Tips to resolve sibling conflict from a psychologist and family counselor | Spawned Ep 248
With everything going on in the world right now, kids are extra-stressed, they're extra-restless, they're extra-anxious, and, if they have siblings, they're fighting. Yay! So what's a parent to do to help manage it all? After a few listeners asked us to take on this...

If you’re having trouble sleeping, Dream Powder helps naturally.
This is a sponsored message from Beam If there's one thing parents can unify around it's that we could all use a lot more sleep. (Well, we all pretty unanimously like Ted Lasso too. But that's another story.) The one issue: It's hard! Our minds are busy with the...

Mask mandates, the Delta variant, and back to school: Who will protect our children?
I thought this back to school year was going to be different than last year. I think everyone did. Last year, I took all of my kids out of school and placed them in a cyber school. A couple did well. A couple did not. But we all had the hope that with vaccines, we'd...

10 ways to make the most out of the last weekend of summer, most of them free
With the final unofficial days of summer so close (wah!), we've got one more long weekend to milk the most out of the late sunsets with the family. So we're bringing back this post from a few years back, when our editor Liz offered up 10 wonderful little things that...

A clever back to school gift for young women and menstruators: A DIY locker kit
My daughter came home this morning with a sweet little gift from her friend's mom: An adorable DIY locker kit full of essentials for young women and menstruators. So brilliant, right? I had actually considered putting together a little bin with some snacks, tampons,...

How to raise kids who aren’t assholes (aka kind, empathic, awesome grown-ups) | Spawned Episode 247
We often ask ourselves what it takes to raise strong, wonderful kids who are kind, empathic (aka not assholes), which is why we were so excited to chat with Melinda Wenner Moyer, author of the new book How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes. She's a science journalist...

Parents are broken. Here are 5 things a therapist says we can do right now to manage our stress.
Over the last 24 hours, this pandemic has caught up to me. I'd been doing pretty well, navigating cyber school with my kids last year along with work adjustments and managing my mental health through it all. But this back to school season has officially taken its...

Where to find at-home rapid Covid tests, kid-sized KN95s, and other essentials you may need
At-home rapid Covid tests isn't the only thing we've been on the hunt for lately. With cold and flu and yes, yet another Covid-19 season upon us, I've been making a list of a few essentials so that my family isn't scrambling if we do come down with something. And...

Here’s the one brilliant tip that got my reluctant teen reading more. And, the books that helped.
My kids devoured books when they were little. Now that they're teens, the stars of YouTube and Discord seem to be a bigger draw than the classic characters of literature I wish they would spend their time with. (Of course, calling them "classic characters of...