Family

NPR host Scott Simon may have interviewed all kinds of actors, authors and artists, but he was no different from any other perplexed parent when he tweeted: “OK to watch ‘Emily in Paris’ with my 14-year-old?”

A little-known fact about me is that, in addition to being a connoisseur of grocery store-grade chocolate and an expert at wasting time online, I also fancy myself as a bit of an interior decorator.

Cupid has lots of help this year. More than 300 Inland Northwest children entered this year’s Valentine’s Day coloring contest. And, boy, did the judges feel the love. In the 0 to 4 age group, there was lots of color.

In the eighth grade, Beryl Lester wrote love notes to Mel Fitzpatrick even though she’d never met him. Technically, they weren’t from her. “I wrote them for my friend, Shirley, because she liked him,” Beryl said. The romance never got off the ground.

When Holly Jones of Spokane Valley began working from home during the shutdown last March, she wanted a project that would keep her hands busy and be of use to others. “I needed to feel like I was helping,” she said. 

Stories have an incredible power to help us relate to one another. This makes them a great avenue for learning during Black History Month, especially for younger audiences. Here are some children’s books to try out for Black History Month.

When she was growing up in southern China, Lunar New Year celebrations were joyful and noisy affairs, said Weiling Zhu, president of the Spokane Chinese Association. "It's a big thing," she said. "It's a family gathering and celebration."

There are more than 34,000 species of fish on our planet. It can be tricky to tell the age or gender of a fish, but biologists have come up with a few different ways to find out. My friend Paul Wheeler, a fish biologist at Washington State University, told me all about it.

Working from home has its benefits. Before the pandemic, it was one of the most popular perks organizations could offer. Of course, this was before the pandemic sent millions of school-age children home and disrupted child-care arrangements.

A is for arrow, aspen or above the fog. V is for vine, view or valley. These are just a few of the submissions we received last week as part of the A to Z Scavenger Hunt sponsored by The Spokesman-Review and Dishman Hills Conservancy.

Yolanda has three children, two jobs and one goal, which is to make everything work for her family. My son Milo played on a baseball tournament team with her son, Javy. I always marveled at how this single mom, who worked as a secretary by day and cleaned offices at night, was able to make ends meet and keep her sanity

A couple weeks into December, my kids started asking me what I wanted for Christmas. “I want all of you to be nice to each other for an entire day,” I said. “Ugh, boring,” they replied. “How about a day with no whining?” I offered. “Come on, Mom,” they said. “Be realistic.”

“This story was always in the back of my mind,” said Lola StVil about “The Year I Flew Away,” her first novel for middle-grade readers. The book draws from her experiences as a young immigrant in the United States. wrote the book under the pen name Marie Arnold.

Two sisters who grew up in Spokane covered 31 miles of Portland's Wildwood Trail on Oct. 3, raising $10,150 from pledges in the "Xtreme Hike" challenge for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s research. Nicole Jonak and Amanda Nelson on Jan. 28 received recognition for their fundraising.

Hundreds of care packages recently were sent out statewide to support at-risk mothers and their families, with the bags holding pandemic safety items and pamphlets. Molina Healthcare partnered with Family Education & Support Services by donating 750 care packages.

Black History Month presents a great opportunity to learn, but a lot of the topics of conversation can be a bit nuanced and serious for young kids to digest. If you want to share some Black history with your children but need fun and accessible ways to do so, here are a few YouTube videos that may help.

Each year in Washington state, about 1,800 young adults find themselves unstably housed within a year of leaving a publicly funded system such as foster care or a criminal justice facility, a new agency report says. That too often leads to another problem: homelessness. 

There's a new kid in the YouTube neighborhood, and she's from North Idaho. Mopsy was created by Matt and Lily Edwards to be the feminine answer to Blippi, a YouTube personality their children love watching. The family moved to Hayden from Los Angeles.

Flying squirrels might not really fly, but they do have flaps of skin on their bodies that act like parachutes and help them glide through the air. My friend Todd Wilson told me all about it. He’s a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service.