The Insufficient Ice Incident of September 2015 prompted Catherine to take a closer look at sports superstitions. So in this week’s Round 4, she and Charlie Zegers discussed the difference between superstitions and rituals and how they work, both in the major leagues and in youth sports. Charlie writes about sports and also about parenting kids on the autism spectrum. He is also proud to say that he's able to watch major sporting events from any seat in his living room without fear. (If you’re reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, visit http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

Join in the lament of parents everywhere: Back to school means back to extracurricular activities, and sometimes it’s all just too much. Catherine chats with Round 4 contributor Charlie Zegers, who writes about sports and also about parenting kids on the autism spectrum, about us how often they face the “two places at once” problem, whether homework ever gets pushed off the priority list, and how to know what we’re getting into with kids’ activities. It turns out that sports guy Charlie is not actually much of a sports dad—and he’s pretty fine with that. We also briefly revisit a past podcast on varsity letters and good intentions. You can visit Catherine’s site for more advice on managing schoolwork and sports. (If you’re reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, visit http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

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.

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.)

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.

Summer presents a challenging amount of time to fill for any parent, but when your child needs routine and structure to make it through the day, finding predictable ways to fill that time is a particular concern. Terri chats with Charlie Zegers, who writes about sports and also about parenting kids on the autism spectrum, about strategies for a successful summer, including camps that can accommodate your child, structured time at home, and activities like bowling, fishing, kayaking, going to movies, catching a baseball game, and maybe even taking in some theater. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

On the one hand, as parents of kids with special needs, we're desperate for them to do the things their age peers are doing. We want them to be adept at the tools of the world today and fluent in the language of our times. On the other hand, don't lie and stop cursing and don't make secret social media accounts, and get away from that computer and stop playing video games and put down that phone. Amanda chats with Charlie Zegers, who writes about sports and also about parenting kids on the autism spectrum, about how you tease out what's the condition and what's the age, and how to discipline without stamping out important developmental progress. Are we expecting more from kids on the autism spectrum than we'd expect from typical kids, as About.com's autism expert Lisa Jo Rudy asked in an article on her site? Or should we be expecting more from typical kids? Listen in for some good food for thought on parenting on and off the spectrum (and if you're interested in getting your kids coding, the sites referred to are Scratch and Game Salad). If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

Remember the story that was going around Facebook about a young athlete with special needs whose mom bought him a varsity letter jacket and whose school made him stop wearing it? Amanda had a chat with Charlie Zegers, who writes about sports and also about parenting kids on the autism spectrum, on whether buying a kid a letter to honor participation on a non-varsity team is something parents ought to be doing, however well-meaning and understandable such an effort may be. They talked about the meritocracy of sports, what a varsity letter signifies, how appropriating such a symbol may stir bad feelings along with good ones, and why there may also be unintended consequences to extending eligibility so that students in special education who get to high school a little older than their peers and stay longer can keep playing.

How do you feel about using a varsity letter as kind of an A for effort? Share your opinion in the comments, and if you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience. (And if you share Amanda's very basic level of sports understanding, listen to Garfunkel and Oates's "Sports Go Sports" right along with her.)