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).

In honor of Catherine's recent cross-Midwest drive to deliver a child to skate camp and many of our listeners' upcoming drive to see family for the Fourth, we chatted about road-trip entertainment, from new possibilities like audiobooks and Bluetooth and watching MacGyver on your iPad to old-school memories of melted cassette tapes and listening to DVRs you couldn't see while driving. Catherine recommended three audiobooks her kids enjoyed: Fake Mustache by Tom Angleberger, Lionboy by Zizou Corder, and Jeremy Brown: Spy by Simon Cheshire. Meanwhile, on So You Think You Can Dance, which we're watching and discussing every week, a bunch of sentimental favorites made the road trip to Las Vegas for nothin', as a moving up-close-and-personal wasn't enough to get you through to the next round. Bye, newlyweds! Bye girl who overcame a terrible leg injury! Bye guy whose family never saw you dance! Bye cute ballroom guy with a foot injury who would dance on one foot if you could! Bye all you folks we were encouraged to care about! There's always next year! At least we appear to be done with solo auditions for the next little while. Please? (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

We each have our own particular extroverted or introverted approach to our fellow humans, but what about families — can a family be extroverted or introverted? outgoing or in-staying? people people or homebodies? We discussed whether socializing charges or drains our batteries, whether you should push kids (or husbands) to be something they're not, whether families that do a lot of running around just hate each other too much to hang out at home together, and whether waiting until we're in Nicole's planned retirement home to really get out and socialize is a workable plan.

Next, with the movie Inside Out jerking tears at movie theaters and the season of small children graduating from things upon us, we thought it was a good time to talk about what's making us cry — events, songs, anger, frustration, Hallmark commercials, pretty much everything, it turns out, but the really serious stuff we should be feeling teary over. As promised, I've created a playlist of cry-worthy songs that you can listen to when you're in a mood to weep and add to by suggesting your favorite weepies in the comments here, on the YouTube page, or on our Twitter and Facebook presences.

Finally, we made our recommendations for the week: Catherine promoted the entertainment-themed Round 2 podcasts that we do here every Tuesday, as well as her list of the best podcasts for parents (present company included); Amanda gave a thumbs-up to an article on the value of Inside Out for kids with attention problems; Nicole highlighted an article on raising an introverted child, to which Catherine added a nod to the website Quiet Revolution; and Terri mentioned one article up now on her site, on helping kids recognize emotions, and another that she would have written had she not spent a day listening to sad songs on YouTube.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing the podcast and Kristin Eredics for our happy in and out music, and if you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

In honor of the dinosaurs chomping up the box office even as we speak, Terri chatted with Kathy Ceceri, who writes about homeschooling on the All About Homeschooling Facebook page and her site Crafts for Learning, about kids and scary movies. Is it a societal contradiction that we worry about kids playing alone outside but don't mind them sitting in front of shoot-'em-up video games for hours? Should Lego be making playsets for movies that kids aren't technically allowed to go to? Are making-of documentaries a good way to introduce kids to scary fare or just a way to ruin all the fun? What's more scary, slasher movies, zombies, or Fraggle Rock? Listen in for some thoughts on whether horror movies and other scary fare are going to break your kids or help them get into film school. You can find Kathy's article on a birthday-party horror spree on Wired; if you're reading this someplace without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout for the full recap experience.

Catherine's book club had another meeting, and so she's got another book to talk about, in this case The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. She sets up some of the book's storylines and themes for us -- but don't worry, no spoilers -- and gives it a thumbs-up as a novel tailor-made for book clubs. (Terri's dog, on the other hand, is clearly disturbed by the lack of canines in the narrative.) Next up for Catherine's club and our podcast is Shanghai Girls by Lisa See, so read along if you want to know what she's talking about in a month or so. And watch So You Think You Can Dance if you want to know what we're talking about when we chat about the show every week. Our audition fatigue continued with this last week of try-outs from New York City, and despite some excellent hip-hopping and tapping and duo dancing, we wished a couple of non-contenders could have been allowed to peacefully fail without all the build-up and the, you know, chasing of the shamed out into the snow. We're curious to see where the show goes from here with its two extremely large teams and how cruel the winnowing to a manageable number is going to be. Join us every Tuesday for our entertainment talk, and if you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

In honor of summer vacation and the forced sibling together time that comes with it, we started by talking about sibling rivalry -- both in our households now and in our own childhoods. We looked at the effect on sibling relationships of large age differences, different phases of life, family reconfiguration, chore inequality, and parent expectations and experiences. Then we moved on to the natural consequence of sibling squabbles: parents yelling, even when they know they shouldn't. Inspired by an article on yelling and a book urging against it, we considered the value of yelling as a way to let off steam, the comparitive virtues of passive aggression, the way strong and loud emotions discombobulate some kids and have no effect on others, and the fact that often the person we're yelling at is not even the target of our anger.

Finally, we gave some recommendations for the week: Catherine referred us to articles on her site about being a Team Mom (and getting new reasons to yell) and exercises to do at the playground (adding "Workout Mom" to our list of playground moms); Amanda mentioned the Orange Rhino Challenge, which suggests that you might want to stop yelling at your kids for 365 whole days, as if; Nicole invited everyone to join her new Google+ group, Community of Inclusive Practice; and Terri offered articles on turning down the emotional volume in your home and giving yourself a temper tantrum. One final recommendation: If all the sound issues in this week's podcast make you feel like yelling, we recommend turning it into a game! Listen and see if you can find the sounds of script-rustling, note-writing, keyboard-tapping, and mouse-clicking. Most challenging of all, see if you can figure out what Terri was saying all those times her mic playfully removed every other syllable. Fun!

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, come 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.)

We all know kids benefit from outdoor time, but it can be hard for parents to find the time to let kids loose in nature with a degree of supervision they're comfortable with. Susan Adcox, grandparenting expert for About.com, suggests letting the grandparents step in and provide some good outdoor activities in the company of loving grown-ups. She and Catherine discuss options like visiting every park in town, taking advantage of discounts at national parks, creating a wildlife habitat in the backyard, going geocaching, fishing together, tossing out some hula hoops and jumpropes, or even a friendly game of dodgeball. For more on what grandparents can do to get kids outside, read  "Nature Activities for Kids" and "What Grandparents Can Do About the Nature Deficit" on Susan's site and "Nature Play for Families" on Catherine's. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

Spoilers have become a big point of Internet etiquette, but is it fair to expect everyone to wait to talk about entertainment they've enjoyed untll you've had a chance to catch up? After a chat about the latest episode of So You Think You Can Dance, which at this point in the audition process isn't particularly spoiler-sensitive, we shared our thoughts on the notion that imparting information on a piece of entertainment to someone who has not yet consumed it is inherently awful and cruel. We discussed the old days when TV Guide was in the spoiler business, the value of stories you already know the ending to (spoiler! things do not work out well for Romeo and Juliet), the buzz-dampening effect of dumping show episodes nobody can talk about yet, and the benefit of knowing you can always look up what happened on a show so you can safely watch while multitasking. Are you a spoiler-phobe or a spoiler welcomer? Share in the comments or look us up on Facebook or Twitter.

Do kids still have sleepovers? Terri and Amanda remember all sorts of slumber parties from their youth, but "kids today" with their social media and their personal phones maybe don't need to sleep at each other's houses to get that kind of large-group together time anymore. We discussed our kids' sleepover experiences and sleepover aversions, our own anxiety about kids being away all night, and the pros and cons of having young people spread out all over your living room.

Picking up after sleepovers is a chore no parent looks forward to, so we turned our attention to what kind of chores we expect our kids to take care of, what we've managed to get our spouses to do, and what we insist nobody can do but us. We admit to a general lack of chore-charting and a tendency toward not making chores a battle we fight, but our kids still seem to find ways to contribute.

Finally, we made our recommendations for the week: Amanda pointed us toward a blog post from Motherlode entitled "Age-Appropriate Chores for Children (and Why They’re Not Doing Them)"; Terri had articles to share on chores for kids with sensory processing issues (courtesy of the book Mixed Signals) and questions to ask before you send your child on a sleepover; Nicole would really like you to check out her site The Inclusive Class, which is full of educational material, podcasts, and information on inclusion done right; and Catherine mentioned an article on sports summer camps. Speaking of recommendations, Catherine is making a list of health and fitness–related podcasts and she'd like you to recommend your favorites. Contact her on Facebook or Twitter or in the comments section of this blog to let her know what she should include.

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

With a summer full of superheroes and superhero merchandising ahead, Lexi Walters Wright chats with Amanda about the challenge of getting through a supermarket or a Target without accumulating a cart-full of pricey licensed items that really do not have superpowers no matter how much your kid believes. They talk about the lesson kids learn about advertising when the branded stuff disappoints and the financial challenge of finding the name-brand stuff your kid just has to have, and recommend these sites for parents fighting the good fight against licensed everything:

+ Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
+ Commonsense Media
+ Center on Media and Child Health

If you're reading this someplace without hyperlinks, visit http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

After live-tweeting the Tony Awards telecast Sunday night, Terri and Catherine got together for a Round 2 review, with discussion of co-hosts Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming (and the impossibility of topping NPH's opening number from a few years ago), the general dissing of plays, the "awesome" online red carpet, the relegation of too many awards to commercial-break time (including a lifetime achievement for Tommy Tune, who you really want to put in front of a mic on your broadcast, CBS, c'mon), and the need to maybe move the ceremony to a cable channel where it could be less devoted to putting people you recognize from TV and movies on your screen. From there, we tap-danced over to Fox's So You Think You Can Dance for a chat about the surprising lucidity of Paula Abdul, the reason girls are dancing in their underwear, the winnowing that must get done between the line and the stage, what Jason Derulo brings to the table, and when we can be through with all this auditioning already. (If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)

Inspired by a fairly hilarious fundraiser in which TV writer Wendy Molyneux dared people to make her go see the hated Entourage movie by donating to children's cancer research (read more in the Hollywood Reporter article Terri cited), we got to thinking about school fundraisers, those conspiracies to fill every nook and cranny of your home with gift wrap and cookie dough. Could schools find a way to put the fun in fundraising by banning packet programs with cheap prizes and inspiring us to want to put up our bucks? We brainstormed ideas, commisserated about the shrinking pool of people to sell to in the no-door-to-door age, and celebrated alternatives like restaurant meals, supermarket scrips, and the option to opt out.

Next, we looked at what happens to all that stuff we bought from all those awful sales: layers of clutter that only get excavated when we move. A New York Times article suggested that we all have a clutter set point that we will return to however many times we clear things out, and so we discussed our own personal set points, the value of having friends whose set point is much more cluttered so that we can feel better about ourselves, and the wonderfulness of big nice-looking storage bins.

Finally, we made our recommendations for the week: Catherine reviewed Gretchen Rubin's new book, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, and found an article on "UnBake sales"; Amanda passed on an article she wrote for PopSugar on refusing to do (most) school fundraisers; Nicole shared an article on creative school fundraising ideas (and also talked earlier in the episode about a presentation on inclusive education at UC Davis, downloads from which you can check out on her site); and Terri suggested some questions you can ask about whether your child is a hoarder. We'd also like to invite everyone to join us for a Tony Awards live-Tweet on Sunday night; we'll be using the hashtag #TonyPRP.

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

You'd like to think that once the school has some success with your child with special needs, that success will be heartily adopted and built upon and made a permanent fact of your child's life. Yet too often what you get is individual support rather than institutional support, and things change year to year and school to school in heartbreaking ways. Terri chatted with Robert Rummel-Hudson, author of Schuyler's Monster: A Father's Journey with His Wordless Daughter and blogger at Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords and Support for Special Needs, about how much we value the people who get it and do everything they can, and how frustrating it is to start every year wondering if such an individual will be part of our child's program or whether he or she will be at the mercy of educators who feel that kids with special needs are Not Their Job. We talk about the way options get limited for learners with special needs in the most seemingly well-meaning way; how fear of failure translates into never getting to try; the need for inclusion to involve expectations as well as environment; and the value of homework as a sign that someone, somewhere is trying to educate your kid. For more on the subject, read Rob's post "The Faith of Monkeys," and if you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

You want your kids to be able to wind down and regroup during summer vacation, but you also don't want them to lose hard-won skills. Pediatric occupational therapist Meghan Corridan, who blogs at MAC&Toys, talks to Catherine about ways parents can work with kids who are tired out by camp and uninterested in being tied to a desk. She mentions the apps Letter School, Toonia Differences, and Little Bit Studios, plus the use of a stylus as useful for fine-motor skills. For toys, she suggests games from Blue Orange Games, Discovery Putty from Fun and Function, and OgoDisc from Ogosport. For more on OT-approved summer fun, read Meghan's articles on "Summer hAPPiness" and "Screen Free Summer Fun." And if you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://specialchildren.about.com for the full recap experience.

The sparkly baton of talking about dance shows is passed from Terri to Catherine, who is planning to follow the new season of Fox's So You Think You Can Dance. The idea of DVRing that show and finding a time for your whole family to watch led into a chat on why there is still a half-season of Fringe on Terri's DVR, why she'll probably catch up on those 13 episodes of NCIS:LA first, and how whole-house DVRs force you to notice what your child is watching (and maybe even watch American Ninja Warrior now and then). Terri also mentioned an appearance by Haley Joel Osment on Marc Maron's podcast that will give you faith in the possibility that child actors can turn out OK. If you're reading this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience, and visit us on Facebook and Twitter too.

With weather getting warmer, school rules about flip-flops and spaghetti straps and short-shorts are getting parents' attention, and so we started our chat with a look at how kids dress at school and how much we ought to care. Is the right to wear crop tops and miniskirts a legitimate feminist concern? Could shorts bans force boys to wear pants in the dead of winter? And what exactly would you have to Google to find an eighth-grade dance dress that is not excessively skin-baring?

Dress codes and uniform policies tend to get people up in arms, but of course, arms get up pretty easily these days in an online culture of over-the-top shaming snark. We talked about the ways that Amanda is, according to commenters, single-handedly ruining the Internet; Nicole's extremely polite way of rousing rabble; Catherine's policy of never writing anything people could care enough about to get angry; and Terri's plan to issue everybody a reality-check buddy to prevent postings you'll regret later.

Finally, we made our (non-snarky, completely upbeat) suggestions for the week: Catherine likes the Sports section on Understood.org; Amanda directed us to a dad's opinion on dress codes on the Scary Mommy blog; Nicole thinks everybody should study up on essential Facebook etiquette; and Terri recommended a book she recently blurbed, Going Solo While Raising Children with Disabilities by Laura Marshak, who was a co-author of an earlier book she liked, Married with Special-Needs Children. Plus, we all think you need to follow @SavedYouAClick and @HuffPoSpoilers on Twitter, though sadly @AvoidComments is no longer active.

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

College graduation marks the end of many long years of getting your child through school and homework and testing and adolescence. What it doesn't end is your need to parent and worry and figure out what's next. Terri chatted with Kathy Ceceri, who writes about homeschooling on the All About Homeschooling Facebook page and her site Crafts for Learning, about independence and whether it's the top priority for every single young adult; the need for a support system even when you're off working a fabulous job; the value of living at home and saving money; and the fact that current young adults can't necessarily count on getting the kind of job that will allow them to have their own individual out-of-the-nest lives in the first place. Read the Washington Post article that Kathy found to make Terri feel better about her advance-stage helicopter parenting, and if you're seeing this somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

For their weekly entertainment chat, Catherine talks about her latest book-club selection, Me Before You by Jojo Moyes; Terri talks about David Letterman's last late-night episode; and they both talk about the phenomenon of following the end of a series like Mad Men solely through the tidal wave of tweets from critics and TV writers we like. To check out some of the links we talked about:
+ You can view That Amazing Letterman Montage in the video at left, find out more about each tiny clip in the fantastic Facebook round-up by Adam Nedeff, and view the whole episode on CBS.com for as long as it's there (and if it disappears, Gothamist has a live-blog with clips). 
+ Wondering what the dispute was about Million Dollar Baby and disability rights? Terri has a round-up of opinions.
+ The Mad Men scene with Stan and Peggy is available on YouTube, but beware: if you were of a certain age in the '70s, Stan's outfit may give you upsetting flashbacks.
Reading this somewhere without hyperlinks? Come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.

A tweet this week from Catherine about a 14-year-old in her carpool lamenting "where did my life go?" inspired this week's first chat topic -- because where did our lives go, and why do kids seem to feel their lives are moving as fast as ours? We talked about the aging properties of seeing the edgy entertainers of your youth becoming cherished institutions (happy retirement, David Letterman!) and, in your own youth, finding out that the pop singers you enjoy are younger than your own young self (it's tough being the same age as Taylor Swift). At any rate, we agreed to all meet at Nicole's retirement fantasy home for bingo and bocce ball real soon.

One way to mark the passage of time is annual traditions, and we talked about one that's common at the high school behind Terri's house: a "don't drink and drive at prom" pageant involving a cracked up car, ambulance, body bags, staged teenage wailing, and a guy on a loudspeaker. Do presentations like this really convince kids who intended to drink and drive to stop, or do they just freak out the kids who would never do anything wrong but are easily spooked? We chatted about after-graduation events, the need to talk about not texting and driving as well as not drinking and driving, and the importance of "do what I do" over "do what I say."

Finally, we shared our recommendations for the week: Catherine has an article on 22 outdoor activities to do with your family (because it's Memorial Day weekend, ready or not); Amanda thinks you should use the weekend to go geocaching (on which Catherine has two articles); Nicole suggests visiting the website www.donttextdrive.com; and Terri has gathered links to all of Noah Galloway's dances on Dancing With the Stars for those who want to view them again or learn more about the army vet who danced with one arm and a prosthetic leg.

Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristin Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. (If you're reading this description 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.