Blog Posts by Parentables

Image: iStockphoto/ThinkstockRockhurst High School in Kansas City, Missouri is taking the well-being of their students to a new and ridiculous level. Starting this fall, the Jesuit school will subject their students to mandatory drug testing. The testing will be random, but students are required to participate if selected, and those selected will have a piece of hair collected from a staff member who also happens to be a barber. But the purpose of the testing is not to discipline the students, but to get them help and alert their parents to their drug or alcohol use.

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"Our point is, if we do encounter a student who has made some bad decisions with drugs or alcohol, we will be able to intervene, get the parents involved, get him help if necessary, and then help him get back on a path of better decision making, healthier choices for his life," Rockhurst Principal Greg Harkness told news channel KSHB.

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Photo: Matt Romack PhotographyWith Valentine's Day around the corner, many of us have romance on our minds. For those of us in marriages and committed relationships, there can also be a tendency to compare ourselves to other couples. "What's normal?" is a question I've been known to ask my husband on occasion, and that's exactly what researchers and psychologists have asked several thousand Americans in an attempt to define 'normal.'

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The online study, which forms the basis of a book called The Normal Bar, to be released on February 5, surveys almost 100,000 self-professed happiest couples. Co-author Pepper Schwartz explains, "This normal is different from most normals... What we want to know is which normal is correlated with happiness." In other words, they're looking for that magic formula guaranteeing marital bliss that we'd all love to find.

Read More: Utah's Abstinence-Only Sex Education Law Vetoed. Parents Can Rejoice.

So what have they found? Forty percent

Photo credit: ThreelfbyBike / Creative CommonsWhen a list of age-appropriate chores for kids appeared on Facebook, I realized my three-year-old son isn't doing enough to help out around the house. The list for 2- to 3-year-olds surprised me because it included tasks such as making the bed and unloading the dishwasher, which seem complicated for a clumsy toddler. On the other hand, he is very precise and careful when playing with his Playmobil, so surely those skills are transferable to housework.

Read More: When Are Children Ready for Chores?

So I tried it. I told him to make his bed. After initial shock, he headed into his room and did it, copying the motions he sees me do every morning. It didn't look right, so I fought the temptation to fix his lumpy result, but he was so excited to show his dad that I didn't mind. No doubt the novelty will wear off, but for the past four mornings he's been eager to make his bed.

Read More: How Many Chores Are Too Many Chores?

I think kids nowadays aren't given enough responsibility around

Michelle Duggar. Photo credit: DCLQuestion from a "19 Kids and Counting" fan on Facebook: With such a big family to care for, how do you work to save money on things like water, electricity and heating?

We have two things that really help keep our heating bills down in our house: a radiant heat floor and a tankless water heater.

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When we built our current home, we installed a radiant heat floor before we poured our concrete. The hot water runs through pipes in it during the winter, and it heats the whole house. Installing that was really something! Everybody that was old enough to help got out there and laid that PEX pipe -- even the little ones were out there tying down the pipe in the floor before we poured the concrete.

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We have furnaces and the ability to turn those on when we want them, if we need them. But the radiant heat floor saves us a lot, because it's just circulating that hot water under the

Photo Credit: Life Mental Health/Creative Commons Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is a misnomer, and as a result of it's misleading name and paradoxical symptoms it's one of the reasons I went undiagnosed and untreated for the better part of my life.

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I write this for those who may also suffer but have never before considered it as the possible root to what ails them. If you suffer from chronic fatigue, malaise, depression, moments of brilliance followed by moments of sheer incapacity- you may want to read on.

Read More: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Overdiagnosed, especially in Boys

I should begin with the admission that I was completely ignorant and thought that the term "Attention Deficit" meant exactly what it implied: that a person who has ADD is incapable of sustained focus or concentration. Herein lies the foundational flaw of naming, rather it should really be called: The Disorder Of Paradoxes. ADD is not a deficit in attention but instead

Image: eAlisa/VeerLike many mothers, I'm not one to spend a whole lot of time on my beauty routine. A quick glance at my roots is evidence enough to prove it. But in the late fall I won a raffle prize at a fundraiser to a local salon for a month's membership in their Blow Dry Club. What the heck was that I wondered at the time? But now that I've given it a go, I'm hooked, and it's actually not that surprising as salons that only do blowouts have been popping up in droves across the country.

Read More: 10 Quick and Easy Natural Beauty Treatments You Can DIY During Naptime

Remember how your grandmother used to go to the salon once a week to have her hair washed and blown out? It seems as more women started working and burning the candle at both ends to take care of their house, kids, and work that they stopped this habit. But these blow dry only salons are creating a resurgence of it. The salon that I go to is a full service salon that offers a Blow Dry Club. As it's a resort area, in the "off" season I

Kyle May / Creative CommonsI decided early in December 2012 to give up drinking for a period of one year. I wasn't a huge drinker (by my own standards), but I drank frequently: about a glass or two of wine per night on a semi-consistent basis, plus the occasional unflinching punch to the liver at a party or when having dinner with friends.

I really enjoy wine, but I had accumulated enough reasons to choose to take a break from it. Topping the list of motives are a desire to lose weight and get in shape, a wish for better sleep and more energy, and the motivation and focus to help my business, The Monarch Company, thrive.

Although I'm sure I will learn much more as my wine-free year progresses, I was very surprised to learn these five truths in only the first month:

1. I hadn't allowed myself to enjoy drinking.
Christmastime is one of my favorite times of year to get totally hammered. I enjoy sitting in front of a fire with loved ones while I enthusiastically swill my wine. This year I thought

Stephen Welstead/LWA/CorbisI have always enjoyed art and being creative, and I wish I had followed that path more closely through school and into college. There were so many signs that I should have followed that path, but I didn't, even though that is ultimately where I have landed because it really was my passion. One of the main reasons I didn't follow that path is because everyone around me had been telling me that I was supposed to be a teacher. I also love working with kids, and I come from a family of practical, service driven people who thought that that meant that I should become a teacher, and so that's the path I followed. Had I pursued my interest in the creative arts, I'm certain I would be further along in my career now. So how do we help our kids find their passion and follow the right path for them?

Read More: 3 Steps to Finding a Passion That Makes You Money

My path to becoming a teacher met an abrupt halt when after doing my student-teaching I realized that while I loved kids, I really didn't