This is an article that explores the simple meaning of complex-seeming college dissertations. Quite enjoyable. Here's LOL My Thesis, where you can read the dissertation summaries.

We had been finding lots of spiders in our old brick house, and didn't think much of it. We stepped on some and captured others and took them outside. That was before 13 year old daughter Charlotte pointed out that these spiders appeared to be brown recluse spiders. We took macro photos of them and looked at them closely and, indeed, they mostly seemed to be brown recluse spiders. Our neighbor Joe is a pest control guy who talked about chemical pesticides, which we've never used because we don't want our children exposed to these. Therefore, Joe recommended sticky pads. You can buy a box of 50 for $20. Spiders walk on the pads and get stuck. We put 20 pads in various parts of the house and we were shocked at how many spiders we caught. Check out the photo above, a typical pad, which caught 10 big and small spiders in 3 days. We don't see any spiders any more other than those caught on the pads. Some of our pads have caught 25 spiders. I'm writing this in case anyone else is having problems with any kind of spider and wants to avoid chemical pesticides.

As one who is finding helicopter parents increasingly annoying, I appreciated the many good points made by this article by Tim Elmore. Here is his take home:

Bottom line? Your child does not have to love you every minute. He’ll get over the disappointment of failure but he won’t get over the effects of being spoiled. So let them fail, let them fall, and let them fight for what they really value. If we treat our kids as fragile, they will surely grow up to be fragile adults. We must prepare them for the world that awaits them. Our world needs resilient adults not fragile ones.