My parents never hit me or even threatened to, but I was a rule follower because they had other way worse punishments. Por ejemplo: I was being a little shit and my mother told me I could no longer go to my friends pool birthday party. BUT, she still made me walk up to the door, ring the bell, give her a gift, explain…

The timing couldn't have been better. Damn. I have a gifted nine year old girl, and I just got back from her school, after a miscommunication about the progress report meeting. In short, the child just hasn't given either her mother or myself (we're divorced; week on/week off parenting, Friday to Friday) the three…

Although when we lived in our old neighborhood, there was a particularly bumptious kid next door who was always getting into stuff and causing problems. One day he was looking over the fence at my husband who was digging out weeds and asked if he could try that. He showed him how to use the tool, and told him if he…

When we were shitty little kids, my mom sat us down and enthusiastically said, "Let's make a list of all your favorite things! What are your most favorite toys and your favorite things to do?" After we excitedly told her these things and she wrote them down, she put the list on the fridge and said, "Now, next time you…

I remember quite clearly the last time I was spanked. I had a little friend up the street with a hellion of a younger brother, who decided, for no reason whatsoever, to write my name all over his sister's walls. Naturally, his mother couldn't believe her precious angel would do something like that, so she decided I…

I feel like punishment options are nearly endless if you take into account physical labor. My parents had me doing my fair share of chores in the first place, and when I broke the rules I would have to pick up a chore they knew I hated or — even better — get resigned to some sort of Sisyphean errand. Examples: "Weed…

Everytime I hear stories like this it only furthers my belief that the rules for training young children how to behave properly are the same as training a dog.

Children are smarter than you think. If you don't think you can sit them down, look at them in the eye, and talk to them, then you're the idiot. Even at two you can talk to them. I remember Oprah giving this tip a very long time ago on her show: "Lower your tone of voice when you reprimend them. Don't raise your…

"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint".

Fill them with existential dread that their lives are meaningless when they misbehave?

LOL THIS WAS ALARMINGLY PROFESSIONAL????????????

The sealed reply envelope thing is just darn adorable.

High fives all around for the Only Child contingent.

Not a disaster story, but a tip for any of you who might be mailing out invitations at some point: Assign each household a number and put it on the back of the RSVP card. Some people don't remember to put their own names on the card, or the names are illegible. It also gives you a simple way to sort them so you can…

A few years ago some dear friends were getting married and I was their graphic designer - it was so much fun (really!) getting to do that, and they were super into having everything be branded for the wedding. We had strict graphic standards for the event.

I had a family member put the little wedding bell shaped sprinkles in there - not as bad as glitter. But the cutest part was they new I worked with invitations, so just in my envelope they put the sprinkles inside a tiny little envelope and wrote 'for professional consideration only' on it.

My crazy mother tried to do this at my brother's wedding. My sister-in-law heard about her choice of attire on the morning of the wedding and freaked out, sent my brother to find my mother before the ceremony to ask her to please NOT DO THAT. The bride had also requested on the invites that guests wear fall colors so…

My grandmother wore a wedding dress to her own (and only) daughter's wedding. How did that not make the cut?