There've been times when I've had the urge to use a taser on my son. Oh, have there.

Like last night when I told him to go to his room after he batted his sister in the head with a light saber and he matter-of-factly said, "No. No, thank you, not happening," cloaked in that irritating 6 year old attitude of his ...

But I can't imagine I would ever really do that ... or even ask a police officer to!

An Arkansas mom did! Last week, on Veteran's Day, she called police after her 11 year old daughter refused to take a shower. She gave the responding officer permission to "tase" the unruly girl if necessary, according to a report in the Huffington Post.

The officer did tase the 11 year old girl -- a quick pop on her back -- but only after the girl kicked him in the groin when he tried to take her into custody.

Photo by Nadine254

If my house had a hallway like this, it would be my son in this picture. I have to be careful not to let him see this on the computer because he'll definitely get ideas.

Nadine254 snapped this shot of her 5 year old son, Jordan.

And then, look what her 3 year old Jayden did ...

My oldest child is in first grade, so I'm new at this, but I think I understand pretty well the term zero tolerance. It means that schools take guns and weapons super seriously. No second chances. You bring one, you're out. Seems fair enough.

I didn't realize that zero tolerance was the result of a 1994 law in which public schools accepted money from the federal government in exchange for automatically expelling all students who brought guns on the property.

As we know, schools have taken things to the extreme. Kids who are involved in non-gun offenses that were once considered normal childhood behavior or simply the result of bad judgement are wrongly getting suspended, expelled and even arrested in the name of the policy.

Remember the 6 year old suspended for bringing the Boy Scout fork to school?

Crazy things like this happen all the time. Which is why all eyes are on a better system that's currently being used in a school district in Georgia ...

I'll always remember when we had the car seat technician install our very first child passenger safety seat. This was before our baby was even here.

He looked around the car, and started collecting various items from around the back seat: an empty thermos, some hardcover books, a screwdriver.

"Missiles," the police officer told us. "This is your first lesson. You should remove all hard objects from the car, because they become dangerous projectiles in an accident."

In fact, in 2001, an estimated 13,000 crashes occurred in which an unrestrained object caused injury to an occupant of the car.

Ever since that first lesson, I've been pretty good about putting my kids' soft cover books only in the back seat cargo flap, making sure no stray water bottles got left under the seat, and banning all die-cast cars and hard sports equipment from the front or back seats.

When you think about teens and drugs, pot and alcohol come quickly to mind. But if you take a peek in Answers, you'll see that teen prescription drug abuse is also a huge problem. It's scary to read some of the comments from moms who are living it.

"I knew a girl who overdosed and died on methadone two years ago. She was 17."

"I'm dealing with it now. My 16 year old and three of her friends were caught exchanging pills."

"I'm 18 now. When I was maybe 13 or 14 I knew A LOT of people that would take like five Lortabs and other crap. I wasn't into that crap but had some friends that did and knew a lot that did."

Right now I'm thankful for the temper tantrums and fights over toys.

Too dangerous for a kid?

CafeMoms are already starting to talk about holiday shopping and when it comes to Big Kids that means toys. Most of the gift guides out there tell you which toys to get -- but a recent post at Momversation lists 20 dangerous toys NOT to get.

Bummer. Some of these were my all-time faves as a kid. Here are three in particular that I played with constantly. Tell me if you agree that these are really hazardous. I promise I won't tell my mom what you said.

Then click over to Momversation for the full list.

Photo by abjbrewer

They're safe!

They work!

Okay, so you knew that. But here's some other stuff  you may not have known from a recent Children's Hospital of Philadelphia study involving 7,000 children ages 4 to 8 involved in real-world crashes:

• Children ages 4 to 8 who are restrained in the rear seat of a car in a belt-positioning booster seat are 45 percent less likely to be injured in a crash compared with children using a seat belt alone.

• There was no difference in the level of protection offered by backless versus high back booster seats.

• Of those riding in booster seats, children involved in side-impact crashes saw the greatest reduction in injury risk.

I love hearing stories like these. Not stories about people choking -- I'd never wish that on anyone. But stories about the heroes who save them from dying, especially when they are children with special needs.

It reminds us that they can do anything and everything that typically functioning kids do.

Here's a clip of Kyle Forbes, an autistic child who saved his teacher from choking on an apple by delivering the Heimlich maneuver he learned in Cub Scouts.

Thanks to the ladies in the Newcomer's Club for pointing this one out.

Days after the Balloon Boy hoax, authorities are now deciding what charges they are going to levy against the 6 year old's parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene.

Two of the four proposed charges are class four felonies including lying to the government, each carrying possible sentences of six years in jail and fines up to $500,000.

But even more charges are possible due to the fact that they involved their child in a fraud or criminal activity.

Truly, what type of parents would tell their children to lie for them? I can't imagine sitting my own 6 year old down, after spending all his years trying to instill honesty and ethics, and saying, "It's okay to tell a fib if it will help Mommy and Daddy make lots of money, but you can't do it any other time, okay?"

Photo by rockerchic

It's hard enough deciding whether our kids will get one shot of the swine flu vaccine, let alone two. But that's what the makers of the inoculation are saying most kids under 10 will need for it to be effective.

It's like the first time your baby got the seasonal flu shot. The pediatrician has to administer two doses of the flu vaccine about a month apart for full immunity to develop.