Did you know that if you were really worried about whether or not your teen might be on drugs, you can do more than threaten them and pray to God that they don’t overdose? Good news, right? Because in the past those were basically the only two options parents had.

But now, there is a service available for hire; a handler can now bring their drug-sniffing dog to your home and search for the scent of illegal drugs. Sound crazy? It's not. Parents are REALLY doing this.

Ready for your dose of stupid for the day? A mother in Missouri is facing criminal charges after cops say she smoked meth with her 13-year-old daughter not once, not twice, but at least five or six times! And that's not the dumbest part (yeah, I know ... ). The mother's excuse for abusing a highly illegal substance goes down in bad parenting history. She told cops that "the girl would throw a fit if she didn't get what she wanted."

Funny. You know what happens when my kid doesn't get what she wants?

As Amanda Bynes' bizarre public meltdown continues, comparisons to Lindsay Lohan are inevitable. Here is yet another once celebrated starlet clearly on a dangerous, downward spiral. So, of course LiLo's mom Dina Lohan feels qualified to give parenting advice to the Nickelodeon star's undoubtedly stunned folks.

That's right, Dina. The mother who partied at clubs with her daughter. And let us not forget her recent, disastrous Dr. Phil interview where she seemed to be blitzed and completely out of it. I can't imagine any words of so-called wisdom from her would be appreciated by Bynes' low-key, suburban dentist dad and office manager mom.

What would you do if your 15-year-old developed an obsession with spray tanning? Hang on, let me define "obsession" for you: 4 hours of spray-tanning every morning. $600 spent on spray tanning supplies every month. People shouting, "Oompa Loompa" on the street.

I'm guessing you would've somehow addressed the issue before your kid turned burnt orange, right? See, 15-year-old Hannah Norman's parents didn't do that. And I don't get it. As the mom of a tween (so help me!) daughter, I'm beginning to understand the tricky parental balancing act of raising an adolescent: You want them to express themselves and encourage their individuality and make their own mistakes, but sometimes you HAVE to step in, don't you? Before things get too out of hand?

Think fast: would you give your child an illegal drug? If you said "of course not," hear, hear! But I've got another question for you: would your answer change if an illegal drug was going to help ease your teenager's pain?

Sharon Letts has done it. The California mom admitted in a recent piece for Toke of the Town that she let her then 16-year-old daughter smoke pot. Then she brewed her a cannabis tea. And if she had it to do all over again, Letts says she would even make her a salad with marijuana leaves to help with her fibromyalgia pain.

As the mom of a text-happy tween, I know I'm supposed to respond with a hearty, "Hear, hear!" to reports about how texting is a teen epidemic and our kids are never going to learn how to have a proper conversation or write in complete sentences or speak out loud.

But you know something? I don't. To be completely honest, I'd rather have my kid texting than talking on her phone 24/7. And not merely because I don't buy into all the hype about how these kids today won't know how to make eye contact with other human beings or that there aren't actually any words spelled with both numbers AND letters.

I prefer my daughter let her thumbs do the talking because I actually believe there are benefits to texting. 

Leave it to Stephen Colbert, i.e., America's Voice of Reason, to put the latest parenting panic into hilarious perspective.

Last night's episode of The Colbert Report addressed the current behavioral "epidemic" threatening to destroy our nation's youth: Getting drunk on hand sanitizer.

"It's a national crisis!" warned Colbert, adding that according to the Los Angeles Times, "6 local teenagers have gone to emergency rooms in the last few months!"

"Our kids are getting sani-tipsy!" 

(Well, 6 of them are, anyway.)

The segment was more than merely funny, it made an extremely relevant point:

There’s some good news about your teens and there's some bad. First, the good: Teens ages 13-15 exercise more than any other high-wealth nation in the world. The boys rank #1 and the girls rank #2. Yeah for the gym! The bad news: Teens are probably drunk and high while they work out. American teens rank #1 for pot smoking and #3 for binge drinking. Dude, where's my treadmill?