Teaching a teenager to drive is as much a rite of passage for the parent as it is for the kid. But who does it better? Mom or dad? According to a survey from AA Driving School in England, the answer is dear old dad. In their very unscientific poll of 1,387 adults, 52 percent said fathers were better at the difficult task, while only 24 percent thought moms were better at the job. [From Seattle Eastside Parenting Examiners: Who's better at teaching kids to drive? Mom or dad?] This is clearly not a scientific study, or even anything beyond a controversy starter, but it’s funny that people are always trying to figure out which parent is “better” at one thing or another. I can’t...

The New York Times reports on parents who are foregoing the first year of school, usually known as kindergarten, for a looser, experience-based at home schooling experience. They are part of a community of like-minded parents who are opting to enrich rather than formally educate their not-yet-school-age children (6 is the age that New York City law requires parents to register their children as home-schooled). They discovered one another through the New York City Home Educators Alliance (nychea.org), a home-schooling bulletin board. …theirs is an ad hoc, day-by-day exploration into what it means to be a stay-at-home parent and child in an accelerated culture like New York. In a city where...

We had a chance to meet Julie Campbell, the force and brains behind the Kids Love Spanish series, at the ABC Kids show in Las Vegas where all the new kids’ products are introduced. Her new series, created with her sister, looks like a great introduction for kids to play around learning a language and at least basic words to help them navigate colors, alphabet, number, shapes and basic phrases. Learning a language can be a fun activity for both dads and kids, and an opportunity to show them that you’re willing to start at zero and learn something new with them. While a DVD set isn’t a substitute for real language immersion, and despite all the hype with rapid learning systems,...