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From the mouths of babes, sometimes the truth is surprising
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My kids make up a lot of stories, but the time a bunny moved into our yard and almost got eaten by a hawk is no lie. - photo by Amy Choate-Nielsen
Every parent knows kids lie sometimes.

It starts innocently enough, when theyre really young and they dont understand what theyre saying, but they want to say it anyway, like, Look Mommy, theres Bigfoot! or A squirrel came and ate my cereal. Deep inside, as a parent, you know thats just not true, because A, bigfoot isnt really real, and B, there are no squirrels inside at the breakfast table.

But even though you know its a lie, somewhere inside you still want to believe it could be true. Because kids have a sixth sense for these kinds of things, and maybe they can perceive things hardened old adults cant anymore. Maybe there wasnt really a squirrel there, but I sometimes wish there had been, just for the delight it would have brought my toddler at the table.

As my kids have gotten older, their lies usually come as a way of getting out of trouble. One kid drew on the table and blamed another. Another kid made a mess and blamed the first.

No, I didnt steal my sisters special birthday chocolate out of the fridge and eat it, one of my sons said when we discovered a half-eaten candy bar still in its torn-open wrapper. Later, he fessed up, saying, At least I didnt eat all of it!

Eventually, we parents become jaded. At least, I have, anyway. When they exclaim, Look, theres a dinosaur on the side of the road! I sometimes humor my kids, and say, Oh thats nice, or something, but Ive gotten to the point where I hardly even look.

Maybe thats not true. Maybe I look all of the time, but I rarely see what I am looking for, and so I forget.

Anyway. Liar is a harsh word, so Ill just say this: my youngest child, the one with the brightest imagination and most colorful of worlds, is a fibber. He tells me stories all of the time about how he died one time and then came back the next day because I was sad. Hell one-up you, too. Like if you told him you just got a new bicycle, hell tell you he just got a new bicycle, too, and actually it wasnt just one, it was five.

Coming from a 4-year-old, its pretty funny. Not so much if he was 9.

With all of this in mind, last year my husband and I were working in our backyard, near a gazebo, when our children told us there was a bunny living under there. They made a big deal about it, describing its fuzzy white tail and how cute it was with such excitement and squeaky voices we actually did go over to the gazebo, get down on all fours, and peered into the darkness with flashlights to glimpse the little thing but all we saw was darkness. There was no bunny.

Nevertheless, the kids put out some carrots and a bowl full of water for the bunny, in the hopes that it would come back out. It never did.

The snow came, and went, and when the kids found the empty bowl of water, they were sure the bunny had finished it off, like Santas milk and cookies. I didnt think much of it until one day this summer, when my fibber son looked out the window and exclaimed, Theres the bunny! and I ran to see, and there it was: a cute little grayish, cotton-tailed little bunny, right there in my grass. Had it been living in the gazebo this long and I never knew? Were my kids right all along?

The bunny comes out to play every morning these days. The scene usually looks like this: a little squirrel comes down the trunk of the pine tree, moving with short, furtive steps as he watches the bunny. He starts chittering in the bunnys direction, and the bunny turns, rears onto its cute little haunches and then charges toward the squirrel like a devil, scaring the little rodent back up the tree. Any time theres a noise from inside our house, the bunny turns and runs back to its hideout.

One night this week at dinner my son looked out the window and calmly said, Look, theres a bird from the zoo. I immediately pictured a parrot of some kind, until I walked over to the window and looked up in the trees to see some kind of hawk, perched on a low branch, close enough that we could see the pupils in its eyes. The bird was clutching something small in its talons, and tearing something off of the small thing with its sharp beak. A little piece of fluff floated off of the thing, and down to the grass below, and I looked away from the hawk eating its dinner.

I mouthed to my husband across the table, noiselessly so the kids couldnt hear, What if thats the bunny? His eyes grew wide. It was a fascinating, dangerous, exciting thing to live in the truth of our childrens fantastical world.

And the next morning, guess who we saw nibbling our grass in the backyard? Little cottontail, alive as can be.
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How to avoid 'sharenting' and other paparazzi parenting habits
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A recent study revealed parents often spend up to two hours staging a single photo of his or her child to post online. - photo by Amy Iverson
Before having kids, some people just dont appreciate their friends baby posts. But after having a child of their own, three fourths of new parents jump right on the parental social media bandwagon. If you have become a member of this group, there are some rules to follow for posting responsibly.

Much of a parents worry is how to teach their children to use social media responsibly. We talk with our kids about privacy, oversharing, and setting restrictions on their devices to keep them safe. But parents themselves need to look in the digital mirror once in a while. Before having children, it doesnt take as much effort to think about what to post online. Its up to us to decide what we share about our own lives. But once you become a parent, there are many questions to think about regarding what is appropriate to post about your kids on social media.

In a recent survey, kids clothing subscription company Mac and Mia surveyed 2000 new parents to find out how they are documenting their kids lives on social media, and what concerns they may have.

First of all, people without children seem to feel a bit differently about the onslaught of baby pictures online than those who are parents. 18 percent of people say before they had kids, they were annoyed by their friends baby posts. But after having children of their own, 73 percent admit they post progress pictures of their little ones every single month.

Not only are new parents letting the world know each time their baby is a month older, but they are posting about their kids every few days or so. Men and women report they post 6-7 times per month about their baby.

And while 70 percent of new parents say the benefit of using social media is how easy it is to help family and friends feel involved, there are some downsides. Here are a few tips to avoid the pitfall of becoming paparazzi parents.

Dont miss the moment

In the Mac and Mia survey, some parents admitted to spending up to two hours to get the perfect shot of their baby. That seems a little extreme. New and old parents alike should be careful about spending so much time taking pictures and videos that they dont enjoy the moment. Years ago, I decided to never live an experience through my phone. A study by Linda Henkel, a psychology professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut, found that when people took pictures of objects in an art museum, they didnt remember the objects as well as if they simply observed them.

This photo-taking impairment effect can happen to parents as well. If we are so consumed by getting the perfect photo, we can miss out on the moment all together, and our memory of it will suffer.

Dont forget about privacy

60 percent of couples say they have discussed rules and boundaries for posting their babys photos, according to the Mac and Mia survey. Even so, men are 34 percent more likely to publish baby posts on public accounts. If parents are concerned about their childrens privacy, keeping photos off of public accounts is a given.

In the Washington Post, Stacey Steinberg, a legal skills professor at the University of Florida, and Bahareh Keith, a Portland pediatrician, wrote that sharing too much information about kids online puts them at risk. They write that all that sharenting can make it easier for data thieves to target out kids for identity theft. Check that your privacy settings are where they should be and never share identifying information like full names and birth dates.

Dont be paparazzi parents

36 percent of parents say they take issue when their childs photo is posted online by someone else. Responsible social media users will always ask permission before posting a photo of another child. But parents should also think about whether their own children will take issue with their own posted photos a few years down the road.

When parents are constantly snapping pictures and throwing them on social media, it can be easy to forget to pause and make sure the post is appropriate. I always use the billboard example with my kids. I ask them to picture whatever they are posting going up on a billboard in our neighborhood. If they are okay with that, then their post is probably fine. Parents should ask themselves this same question when posting about their children. But they should also ask themselves if their child would be OK with this post on a billboard in 15 years. If it would cause embarrassment or humiliation, it might be best to keep it private.

Once children reach an appropriate age, parents should include them in the process of deciding what pictures are OK to post. Researchers at the University of Michigan surveyed 10- to 17-year-olds and found children believe their parents should ask permission more than parents think they should. The kids in the survey said sharing happy family moments, or accomplishments in sports, school and hobbies is fine. But when the post is negative (like when a child is disciplined) or embarrassing (think naked baby pictures or messy hair), kids say to keep it off social media.
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