Good news for over 50 teens in Indiana: Suspensions are being lifted for those behind the Cascade High School senior prank involving 12,000 Post-It notes stuck on the walls and windows of the school (in a variety of colors and patterns, many of which were quite lovely, actually), as well as the dozens of other kids who staged a sit-in to protest the prankster's punishment in the school gymnasium.

Even better? The custodian accused of helping the kids stick it to da man apparently will NOT be fired after all.

This is like a fairy tale! The school administrators actually came to their senses! That almost never happens!!!

Perhaps the seniors' explanation for their "offense" put the matter into perspective ...

If you ever browsed World Star Hip-Hop, you would really think our youth are on the fast track to self-destruction. It is depravity on display, to the point that I’m not so sure some folks don’t act a fool just so they can have their video clips featured on the site. But sometimes, it really captures trending behavior that’s both outrageous and appalling. And these doggone Twitter beefs are probably the most troubling. 

Do you ever look at photos of "kid-friendly spaces" in design blogs or magazines and marvel over their cleanliness, lack of clutter, and artful presentation of lovingly hand-crafted wooden toys? Do you ever wonder why your own house, in comparison, is an eternal shitpit filled with broken Happy Meal figurines and unwashed laundry?

I don't need to wonder, actually, because it's clear why my house is a disaster zone: I live with pint-sized human versions of the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes. I'm generally okay with the fact that my home will never be featured in a fancy lifestyle magazine, but there are a few things that consistently drive me up a wall. No matter how much I nag, or how much cleaning I do on my own, these messes are always there. ALWAYS.

Behold, my biggest kid-clutter irritants:

When I woke up this morning and caught news of the instantly infamous Time Magazine cover featuring a young mom breastfeeding her nearly 4-year-old son, I thought it had to be a joke. Time Magazine. Time. Freaking. Magazine. 

So that happened. And then the Internet exploded. 

What’s up with the provocative cover, Time? I mean aside from the desperation for people to buy your magazine? The coverline reads, “Are You Mom Enough?” and the associated article by Kate Pickert talks about the Attachment Parenting trend brought to us in recent years by Dr. Sears.

I have a theory about teachers. Some people get into it because they truly love the job and are made to mold young minds. And then there are teachers like the so-called "educator" who is facing dismissal from her post for forcing misbehaving students to wear Elizabethan dog collars when they misbehave.

Physical science teacher Laurie Bailey-Cutkomp may lose her job for allegedly treating kids like dogs. Let's only hope. Because teachers like her put a pall on the whole profession.

Stephanie Ann Broten and Darnell Alan LandrumI definitely fall more into the tough love camp than the one that coddles and panders to children's demands lest their precious feelings get hurt. Even the increasing number of cases in which parents publicly punish their children don't leave me as outraged as they do many. In my mind, it's much better that they feel the sting of a little humiliation than just letting them run wild with no discipline; let's face it, sometimes talking and reasoning only get you so far.

A couple in Minnesota, however, has taken public shaming as a means of discipline to a whole new level that looks a lot more like abuse than anything else. Mom Stephanie Brotena and her live-in boyfriend Darnell Landrum have been charged with malicious punishment after the cruel public regime they forced their 12-year-old daughter to endure for getting bad grades and not doing her homework.

Since so many of the men and womenfolk who read The Stir are vehemently opposed to spanking, unlike me, I’m interested to see what the verdict is on public punishment. 

Case in point: a picture recently posted on bestselling Christian chick lit author ReShonda Tate Billingsley’s Facebook page is going viral, showing her D.I.D. (that would be daughter in distress) clearly upset after what can only be described as yet another instance of bad decision-making on—what else?—social media. I swear these kids can’t get their Facebooking, Twittering, and Tumbling acts together, so I’m all for her creative form of discipline.

When my first son hit the toddler stage I was convinced I had given birth to the most stubborn child on the planet. However, now that my youngest is four years old, I know I was wrong: the older child has the honor of being the second-most stubborn child on the planet. Somewhere along the line a particularly scandalous ancestor must have taken a Tijuana donkey show a little too far, because exotic DNA is the only explanation I can come up with for the mulish streak I've managed to breed into both of my offspring.

I'm kidding, of course, because it's actually incredibly obvious where my kids get their unreasonably unyielding nature: my husband. He's obstinate, fixed in his convictions, and tends to dig his heels in when he's told to do something he doesn't want to do, just like our children.