Since you’re gathering people who don’t all know one another, expect at least some awkward small talk. And, despite your best efforts as a host, you can’t ensure all adults will be entertained at all times. But if you structure the party right, you can grease the mingling, help the time fly faster, and actually make this shindig fun for the grownups too. Here’s how. RELATED: 14 Fun Indoor Activities for Your Kid’s Next Birthday Party...

“The more of them that partners notice and respond to, the more a couple feels connected to one another,” says Cheri Timko, a relationship coach and Gottman Certified Therapist. “These small moments form the culture of the relationship and determine whether it feels safe to each person.” According to researcher and relationship expert Dr. John Gottman, one way to determine the health of a relationship is to identify how members respond to bids for connection....

Why are Hyundai and Kia vehicles being recalled? This isn’t the first recall to come from the two Korean automakers. This recall is linked to fire and engine failure problems. Both Kia and Hyundai share the same suppliers and parts, which is why both brands are included in the recall. In the past years, both car manufacturers have had to recall vehicles for fire risks. The recall is coming after many reports of cars catching fire, even while they’re turned off....

I had a strong father. He showed strength in his work ethic, in his commitment to physical training, and in his love to his family and those he cared for. He and my mom were madly in love, it was obvious to everyone around them. And he was all there for my brother and I. We constantly spent time outdoors, we built tree houses and forts in the woods and life was good....

It’s not like I’m a bad husband. My wife and I had long ago agreed that my task was to earn a paycheck to support the family, and that her task was to take care of the boys and manage the home. I helped out after work, and on the weekends. Despite its traditional, mid-century aura, this arrangement always seemed fair to both of us, and for five years it served us well....

As a Silicon Valley nerd, I admit I was clueless about how to raise awesome kids in the digital age, but now, with a 20-year-old son in college, and a 17-year-old daughter in her senior year of high school, my influence in how my kids use their phones is almost done. I think we handled it fairly well along the way! Some dear friends with younger children recently asked if I had any advice before giving their daughter a cell phone....

Let this idea settle in. Since the day you were born, you’ve been fighting the planetary pull — whether with growing pains, with the good hurt of muscle gain, or with a more on-the-nose tumble off of, say, a bike. Wear and tear is normal, and it’s never going to leave us. The fight goes on. A more optimistic way of seeing this is that you’re not destined to land on the injured reserve list, you’ve just got to continue to evolve, like you’ve done since you were a tot falling off the monkey bars or a high school soccer player straining a calf....

The Sex Talk felt like a walk in the park compared to this. Despite our generational differences, we all have the shared experience of operating the hormonal nuclear reactor that is the teenage body. While I may not recount to my kid every detail of my sexual journey, I can rely on my recollections of what I was thinking and feeling and doing during my teenage years to guide the conversation....

Alang wrote, “Teachers, ur class convos are broadcasted in everyone’s homes. The # of times the teacher has said “your mom and dad” to my kid’s class is infuriating. But a BRAVE kid just said… “But I only told my grandma at lunch time because my sister and I live with our grandma.” Doyle adds in the caption, “That little language difference signals to little ones that all families are real and important and should be honored....

The ALSC said the decision was made because “Wilder’s legacy, as represented by her body of work, includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC’s core values of inclusiveness, integrity, and respect, and responsiveness.” In other words, the ALSC said Little House on the Prairie and the rest of the books in the series are racist. The question several parents who loved the books as children might be asking themselves is simply: is this true?...

According to The Wrap, Keaton is in talks to play Bruce Wayne again, this time, in a movie called The Flash, which will, presumably, star incumbent big-screen Justice League Flash actor, Ezra Miller. Apparently, this movie will focus on the concept of the DC multiverse, which means the Flash will be running so darn fast that he’ll end-up in parallel universes where all sorts of different people play Batman. This storyline is loosely based on the 2011 DC comics arc called “Flashpoint,” which, introduced several parallels universe....

I finally bought the modestly priced JBL Charge 3 ($130) after years of pining for nice speakers. I’d originally intended to buy something top-of-the-line shortly after moving my music collection to iTunes (yes, that’s how long), but then I had kids and there was always something more important to spend money on. Fast forward. My kids are now 15, 13, and 9, and while they don’t get any less expensive with age, I finally had enough of either listing to music through the tiny tin experience of a laptop or closing myself off with earbuds....

“We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest,” said planetary astronomer and UC-Berkeley professor Imke de Pater, per NASA. “It’s really remarkable that we can see details on Jupiter together with its rings, tiny satellites, and even galaxies in one image.” The image is incredible, and there are some pretty cool Easter eggs and amazing fun facts when it comes to the making of the image, too....

But there was a problem. When Louie examined her finances through Kondo’s lens, her mountain of graduate school-incurred debt failed to spark joy. Inspired by the life-changing simplicity of the KonMari method, Louie wondered if Japanese culture might offer similar wisdom for saving money. That’s how she discovered the financial approach of Kakeibo. With it, the debt steadily eroded. “We paid off almost $300,000 of debt from our graduate programs,” Louie says....

“We had to explain to them why we were getting on a plane in the middle of a pandemic when we’ve said it’s not safe to travel. We got on a plane to go and encourage other people to vote. Those were big conversations in our home,” says Washington. Washington, for the uninitiated, doesn’t sugarcoat anything. She politely declines to discuss anything tangentially related to her personal life, her marriage, or her kids but does so without ever making you feel bad for asking....

This was not an isolated incident. Experts agree that Chubby Bunny carries serious risk of suffocation, and that parents should never let their kids play such a game. “Children playing games such as Chubby Bunny might sound harmless, but the reality is that they pose serious risks of choking and suffocation,” Dr. Zubair Ahmed, a family physician, told Fatherly. “While many parents will understand that the combination of laughter and mouths stuffed with marshmallows is not a safe activity for children, others still do not fully understand the dangers of such choking games....

So what kind of advice might he have for those of us living on this increasingly imperiled planet? What are we to make of his advice when we’re raising kids through very real floods, droughts, wildfires, and storms that are unprecedented in human history? There are clues to this in Robinson’s latest release, The High Sierra: A Love Story, a memoir about the place in the natural world that he has gone back to over and over again throughout his life — to hike, camp, explore, and think....

“To be honest, I was going to the tryouts and I was trying to keep it on the down-low, because I just wanted to finish my career on my terms,” Flach told TODAY Parents. But once the cat was out of the bag, Flach ended up sharing the news on Instagram, writing that “the secret is no secret anymore” while posting photos of her baby bump at the Olympic trials....

About the nicest thing anyone can say about Bobbitt is that he’s too stupid to lie, and too much of an incompetent moron to be able to do much damage. But of course that isn’t true: you don’t have to be an evil genius to cause harm and Bobbitt clearly hurt, physically and emotionally, the women he physically, emotionally and sexually abused. If John is impossible to relate to or empathize with, Lorena emerges as an extraordinarily sympathetic, relatable figure....

Online school-status checker Burbio collates which districts are closed to in-person learning, or have their reopenings delayed or otherwise disrupted because of the virus, and the data it shows is startling, to say the least. The website was created specifically to monitor Covid-related closures and delays so the data presented does not include weather-related closures. School districts in Atlanta, Washington D.C., Chicago, and many others announced a late return from winter break, opting to start the new year virtually instead....