Tweens & Teens

You've heard of the 7 year itch in marriage? Well, there's a 7 year twitch in parenting. Ages 11 - 18. I'm halfway through death valley, seasoned in dodging the eye roll but still learning the slang and technology....

Is it still nerdy to love the library if you have one as cool as the Orange County Library? I have always loved visiting libraries, and I have lots of memories wasting away long summer days in some corner with a...

{{Our team was inspired by one of our fellow contributor’s posts, “No More New Year’s Resolutions – Just Choose One Word”, so we decided to share our selected words and the reasoning behind them in a series called “My...

​There are so many amazing destinations from Florida's coast to coast that it would be impossible to list them all! This year I decided that as a family we would make a bucket list of local destinations to explore...

  6th grade was hell. My daughter, who had thrived in her elementary school gifted program, was a cheerful 5th grader, bright in many ways. But middle school slung mud onto her brightness. It scuffed her confidence, smoothed her smiley...

This year our daughters transferred from a small K-8 school to a large public middle school. To put the change in perspective, their current 7th grade class is about the same size as their entire old school. While the transition...

I've been harboring a Pokémon trainer in my house for a few years now. He binge watches the shows and movies on Netflix, meticulously organizes his card collection in plastic sleeves, and has the outfit to go Pokémon hunting...

I’ve been a tampon girl forever. Pads are for postpartum use only, as far as I’m concerned. So when my daughter started her period, I floundered a little on what to do. Starting with pads is the obvious choice;...

For those of you that are members of Costco, you already know the greatness that it is filled with! However, if you're like me and have minimal to no experience with Costco, (I had my first visit a few months...

  I’m conflicted about the state of my daughters’ bedrooms. They are thirteen and their rooms are a perpetual state of mess. One occasionally gets tired of her own mess and picks up. Her twin does not. I have always been...

I was intrigued by the title.  “Quit Doing These 8 Things for Your Teen This Year if You Want to Raise an Adult.” So I clicked and read the list of ways to make your teen more responsible, autonomous, and ready...

I recently attended a baby shower and found myself fascinated by some of the gifts - new baby products that did not exist when my almost thirteen year old twins were babies. I thought of my own mother, who passed...

It isn’t a topic we ever want to think about, let alone talk about with our kids, but sexually transmitted diseases are a reality and understanding them is important to everyone’s health. The education first starts with us as...

On June 11, the Orange County Library system launches another fantastic summer reading program with more than 1,000 events, classes, technology camps and more. From June 11 through Aug. 13, all 16 of our branches offer fun, fascinating and...

I caved to the pressure last Christmas and convinced my husband that it was time to get our twelve year old daughters smartphones. They were two of the few sixth graders at their school without phones. Before sixth grade they were...