Have you ever been so invested in a family vacation that you're determined to make your family stay through a hurricane? Or brought an extra set of parent-like adults along with you on a trip? Well, we have. This week we talked about our recent trips and our upcoming trips. Nicole even brought an extra kid home from Canada on her vacation! Find out how that happened and also why Amanda keeps butting in to plug her new book in this conversation.

Then, of course, we made the natural transition from talking about family vacations to talking about sleep deprivation. Have you ever felt so tired you just want to cry? Or wanted to make everybody else stay awake when you have insomnia so they can feel your misery? Well, maybe you haven't, but don't judge us for for being exhausted! We even have a new word for it: Crierd.

Finally, we gave our recommendations for the week: Amanda was interested in the idea that snoring kids who have sleep apnea might be misdiagnosed with ADHD. Catherine wanted you to know that if worrying about your kids' activities is messing up your sleep, she's written about when quitting is for the best, and she also recommended some "Healthy Eating Tips for Travel," while Nicole recommended Field Trip, a cool app to help you find landmarks as you travel. Terri shared "Where to Watch the 2015 Special Olympics World Games" and reminded us that the Americans with Disabilities Act just turned 25, which reminded Amanda of an interview with Rep. Sensenbrenner on Understood. (Did we mention we're sleep-deprived?) Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristin Eredics for our happy in-and-out music.

How do you keep kids learning over the summer without tying them to the table with a pack of workshieets or a copy of Homer? Nicole chatted with Kathy Ceceri -- who writes about homeschooling on the All About Homeschooling Facebook page and her site Crafts for Learning -- about fun ways to keep kids' minds active and expanding, including robotics, outdoor science experiments, life skills, online coding courses, Maker Camp, and maybe just lying about school being out for the summer. For more ideas, read Kathy's article on Summer Enrichment for Homeschoolers. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, go to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

So you think you can choreograph something besides contemporary? That's what Terri's wondering about the ongoing rounds of So You Think You Can Dance, which feature about 75% more thrashing about than she's really comfortable with. She and Catherine discuss a fairly meh episode in which Catherine liked Kate and Neptune's number, Terri didn't think Asaf's was so awful, and they both felt bad that somebody thought a dance in which Jim and Moises were supposed to swagger was a good idea. Moving on to Catherine's latest book-club pick, Lisa See's Shanghai Girls, which is as full of tragedies as #SYTYCD is of contemporary emoting, but sparked some interesting conversation about immigration. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

Did you see that viral story making the rounds about a diner owner who screamed at a toddler who wouldn't stop screaming, and then kept up a NSFW social-media battle with the tot's similarly unable-to-let-it-go parents? Yeah, us too. Did you refrain from reading the comments that you knew were going to make you feel like everybody is judging you and your family and maybe you should just go hide in a dark room? Yeah, us neither, even though we all know better by now, don't we? We piled on with our own observations about the situation, and wondered why we can't just all live and let live and let dine and let read the Internet without feeling under attack.

Moving from kids who are out of control to other family members who don't always obey, we talked about our beloved and often noisy-at-podcast-time dogs, sharing whether and why we're pet people. Finally, we gave our recommendations for the week: Catherine mentioned an article on "Activities for Dogs and Families to Share" and another on stopping with the parent shaming already; Amanda thought an article on "What to Say When Other People Interfere with Your Parenting" by one of our Round 3 contributors, Lexi Walters Wright, was apropos; Nicole suggested a survey on "What Kind of Pet Is Right for Your Family?" from Parents.com; and Terri passed on articles about taking kids to restaurants and other community trouble spots and creating the best chance for success — as well as a rant she wrote when she got riled about this sort of thing in the past.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristin Eredics for our happy in-and-out music.

For a special Round 3 this month, our two Round 4 podcasters, Robert Rummel-Hudson and Charlie Zegers, got together to talk about the experience of being the father of a child with special needs. They chat about articles on special-needs moms that could just as well be dad-inclusive, stereotypes of special-needs dads and dads in general, the way the father narrative is evolving, and their frustration with dads who do not step up. For more on the subject, read Rob's book Schuyler's Monster and his blog posts on Fighting Monsters With Rubber Swords and Support for Special Needs, and visit Charlie's site Parent Spectrum.

So you think you can dance more adorably than Jim and Jaja (left) in the lastest episode of So You Think You Can Dance? Probably not; their hip hop routine was pretty awesomely cute. In our weekly chat about Fox's dance competition, Catherine and Terri checked on the progress of dancers they like; worried about dancers who are poorly served by choreography, costumes, or camera work; wondered how West Coast viewers felt about that live Twitter-save business; pondered whether Asaf is as big a jerk as he's being edited to be; and wished Cat would put on some flats already. Next, they took a look at this year's Emmy nominations and asked why Kimmy Schmidt herself is missing from the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt nominations, how exactly Allison Janney is a supporting actress on Mom, and whether we really need to be honoring so darn many reality shows. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience. And if you're watching the SYTYCD special tonight, look for us tweeting about it at @mamatude, @AboutFamilyFit, and/or @RoundAboutChat.)

[This is an encore presentation of a Parenting Roundabout episode originally released on January 14, 2015. If you listened to it the first time, this is your second chance to follow up on all the resources and ideas mentioned that you just never quite got around to. And if you didn’t listen to it the first time -- hey, it's new to you! Either way, please listen and enjoy.]

Seems like once a month or so, our Facebook feeds fill up with links to an article on Why Parenting Is in Crisis and Parents Today Are the Worst. Are they really the worst? Or just parenting in a time when there are more parenting experts trying to produce more content than ever? We talked about the ways different parenting styles, life experiences, and types of kids make it hard both to parent and to judge parenting; how there's still no judging like in-person judging to make you feel awful; the likelihood that the audience for heck-in-a-handbasket articles is parents who want to feel superior to bad parents rather than the bad parents themselves; and the way that Pinterest is in fact the most judgey feel-bad-about-yourself spot on the Internet.

Then we looked at a place where parents are, perhaps, not judged harshly enough: online support groups, with their dedication to being a safe place where anyone can say anything, and their protected environment for saying things that maybe should not be said. As we discussed our personal experiences, it appeared that in-person support groups were less likely to go bad, maybe because you have to actually put on clothes and face people to participate in them. Amanda and Terri attested to the way that online groups can turn into minefields the longer you participate and the more you care about expressing your opinion

Finally, we shared our recommendations for the week. Catherine pointed folks toward two articles on sports parents: "9 Signs of a Sports Mom (or Dad)"and "Are You a Crazy Sports Parent?" (no judging, you understand); Amanda mentioned an article she wrote for Understood.org on using praise to build your child's self-esteem; Nicole invited listeners to a webinar she hosted; and Terri offered help in deciding if your support group is toxic.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristin Eredics for our happy in-and-out music.

It's everybody's favorite summertime activity: homework! Or maybe everybody's summertime misery. If your kids aren't just raring to read, write, and do 'rithmetic, you'll need some strategies for dragging those young brains through their summer assignments. For this week's Round 4, Terri chatted with Charlie Zegers, who writes about sports and also about parenting kids on the autism spectrum, about the summer-homework situation for kids both with and without special needs, how parents can organize that work to keep everyone on track and out of last-minute panic, and what accommodations you might want to ask for to keep summer homework from ruining your summer. For more on the topic, read tips on homework help, math worksheets, and reading routines on Terri's Parenting Special Needs site. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

Susan Adcox, who writes about grandparenting for About.com, joins us on the third Wednesday of every month to chat with Catherine about grandparenting issues. This time, they talk about ways grandparents may be called upon to help with the grandkids, both fun -- Grandparent Camp to give the kids some outdoor and active bonding time with Grandma and Grandpa -- and serious -- helping out when a family member has cancer. For more on these topics, check these articles on Susan's site:
+ Things to Do at Grandma Camp
+ When a Family Member Has Cancer: Help Grandchildren Cope

(If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

So you think you can dance in the style you're comfortable with for one more week? That's the question asked on this week's episode of So You Think You Can Dance, which Terri dutifully watched and Catherine will catch up with eventually when she is reunited with her DVR. After Terri filled Catherine in on what she missed, Catherine shared a New York Times Magazine article about two pairs of twins separated at birth, and Terri plugged TV critic Dan Fienberg's "Take Me to the Pilots" series of articles that look at each of next fall's pilot episodes and consider whether there's a season's-worth of TV there. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

The US women's soccer victory in the World Cup got us thinking about sports and women's sports and whether our daughters will be inspired by this sort of thing ... and then realizing that out of the four of us, two of us had nothing to say about sports and one had fled the country. So we sent Catherine as our ambassador into Sportsland to chat with our Round 4 contributor and resident sports guy Charlie Zegers about whether this means people are finally going to start caring about soccer and women's sports.

She returned to join Amanda and Terri in a little ranting in the style of Amy Poelher and Seth Meyers' "Really?" rant about the dissing of women's sports. Terri wondered why, really, online job applications for minimum-wage gigs require endless pages of psychological questions; Catherine asked her kids if really, they have to be in her face all summer long; and Amanda marveled that, really, special-education departments can just close over the summer and leave new students with IEPs to scramble at the last minute? 

With all that out of our system, we made our recommendations for the week: Catherine has an article on "How (and Why) You Can Support Women's Sports"; Amanda liked an article by Katherine Lewis on "What If Everything You Knew About Disciplining Kids Was Wrong?" (really?); and Terri shared some links to stories about sports programs for kids with special needs and ways to adapt sports for inclusion and start an inclusive sports program. 

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristen Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, go to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

[This is an encore presentation of a Parenting Roundabout episode originally released on April 8, 2015. If you listened to it the first time, this is your second chance to follow up on all the resources and ideas mentioned that you just never quite got around to. And if you didn’t listen to it the first time -- hey, it's new to you! Either way, please listen and enjoy.]

Are superheroes good role models for little boys? And how much should moms worry about that? Amanda chatted with her Understood.org colleague Lexi Walters Wright about violent comic-book covers, mom-created vulnerable superheroes, and the rite of passage from obliviousness to obsession when it comes to the great wide world of superhero merchandising. What do you do when your child moves on from things like space and rainbows and brown -- things you can understand and share -- to a fascination with a huge and detailed universe you know nothing about? How do you convince him that Batman pajamas don't mean you can fly, dressing up like the Hulk doesn't mean you can hit your friend, and doing the dishes is superhero-worthy work? For more on the topic, follow these links mentioned in the podcast:

+ Marvel cancels two upcoming covers following uproar over new Spider-Woman
+ Violent 'Batgirl' cover pulled after Twitter uproar
+ Mom creates a coloring book to show son that superheroes CAN cry
+ PDF of the coloring book
+ Let Toys Be Toys

What's the superhero situation in your house? Share in the comments, and if you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

This week's entertainment episode started with our weekly look at Fox's So You Think You Can Dance, which winnowed the field down from a seemingly huge number of dancers to 10 on Team Stage (including one of our mutual favorites, tap-dancer Gaby, left) and 10 on Team Street. We're glad to be moving on to the real post-audition part of the show, but wondering why most of the folks we got to know and root for have fallen by the wayside. Good luck to all you dancers we kind of maybe recognize! Catherine has also been enjoying Chef's Table on Netflix, and Terri has been wincing over a raunchy song selection on Spike's Lip Sync Battle. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

We started our weekly group chat with a look at a Buzzfeed survey on when kids are the right age for various social milestones, from drinking coffee to getting tattoos. We checked in with our own preferences for our kids on things like pierced ears, staying home alone, walking to school, and dying hair, and applauded Amanda's son for pursuing Facebook membership with the intent of being an annoying little brother prototype for the digital age. 

Speaking of age, we felt ours when we talked about tech that was common in our youth and incomprehensible to our kids. Remember pay phones? Cassette tapes? Turntables? Rotary phone dials? Typewriters? Even just first-generation iPods and cell phones without keys on a screen? You're closer in age to us than your youngsters, then. But some things, like sturdy old Legos and rugged toy trucks, never go out of style.

Finally, we made our recommendations for the week: Catherine suggested a visit to About.com's Kids Food and Fitness section; Amanda's been enjoying the Kids React YouTube Channel, a dial phone episode of which inspired today's second topic; Nicole invited us to her Google+ page; and Terri mentioned Parenting Roundabout's Google+ page and our YouTube Songs That Make Us Cry Playlist.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristen Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, go to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

Pixar's latest offering, Inside Out, has been drawing rave reviews from critics and moviegoers and particular recognition from parents of kids with special needs as a way to make abstract emotions concrete. Robert Rummel-Hudson, who blogs about special needs at Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords and Support for Special Needs, has seen the film, and shares his thoughts on what's great about it and how it can help you start a useful dialog with your child (and maybe help you understand yourself better too). For more on the subject, read "Unspoken Stories of the Secret Heart" on Support for Special Needs and "Special-Needs Perspectives on Pixar's Inside Out" on About.com Parenting Special Needs.

The Fourth of July should be a fun and exciting holiday for kids, with its picnics and parades and fireworks, but for youngsters with sensory issues it can be an unendling onslaught of noise, crowds, and stressful situations. Catherine talks to pediatric occupational therapist Meghan Corridan, who blogs at MAC&Toys, about what parents can do to help kids find a comfort level with all that flash and festivity without withdrawing from it completely. Strategies include noise-canceling headphones, sunglasses, a safe spot a little away from the action, and coloring supplies to provide a distraction. For more on that last idea, read "Coloring ... Not Just for Kids" on Meghan's site, and for some additional Fourth of July thoughts, read "Four Hard Things About the Fourth" on the About.com Parenting Special Needs site. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, go to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience).