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Money

5-Year-Old Racks Up $2,500 iTunes Bill in 10 Minutes

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Greg and Sharon Kitchen had company coming over, so when their youngest son, Danny, asked for their iTunes password so he could download a cool new game, they tapped it in for him and left him alone to play while they entertained their guests in their South Gloucestershire, England, home.

Related: My Kid's First iPad?

"Danny was pestering us to let him have a go on the iPad. He kept saying it was a free game so my husband put in the passcode and handed it to him," his mom told the Telegraph. "It worried me when he asked for the password but I had a look at the game it said it was free so I didn't think there would be a problem."

Related: The Best Apps for Kids

On Monday morning, the mother of five woke up to 19 emails from iTunes, listing purchases adding up to 1,710 British pounds — about $2,500 — from the night before. By the time her credit card company called her to check up on the charges, Kitchen had figured out what had happened.

Find out how Greg and Sharon handled this delicate situation after the jump.

Cats

Can You Really Train a Cat to Use the Toilet?

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Yes, that's a cat on a toilet. And yes, he does look pretty pissed about it. The whole Internet has just discovered the Litter Kwitter, a potty training system for cats that was—up until this point—known only to a rare breed of ambitious cat owners.

Created by a woman who toilet-trained her own cat, the Litter Kwitter works like this: You put a color-coded litter-filled ring with a very small hole on your toilet bowl. As your cat learns to jump on the porcelain throne every time he needs to relieve himself, you switch to a ring with a larger hole. This goes on until your animal suddenly realizes he's standing on a toilet bowl, praying he doesn't fall in.

Related: 10 Least-Trendy Cat Names of 2013

It's great idea, but according to the people who write reviews on Amazon about cat toilet training, it's not that easy.

Please take a moment to enjoy some of the comments posted about the Litter Kwitter, because they are brilliant:

community

Australian Kids Banned From Birthday Tradition at School

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Celebrating birthdays at school just got a little less fun for kids in Australia. New guidelines issued Tuesday by the country's National Health and Medical Research Council say that children can no longer blow out the candles on cakes at school because doing so spreads too many germs.

Related: The Most Germy Place in Schools? It's Not What You Think

"We introduced new national standards to lift the quality of child care across Australia because we believe parents deserve peace of mind when they drop their child off they are receiving quality care to a high standard," Australia's Minister for Early Childhood and Child Care, Kate Elliss, explained in a statement. "All services across the country will be assessed and rated against new National Quality Standard which will ensure that services are meeting basic requirements including children's health, safety and wellbeing."

Read on to find out what parents think about this new birthday tradition.

community

Charm School Teaches Social Graces to the Tech Savvy

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Tech-savvy students, faculty, and staff members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may be superadvanced when it comes to science, but a campus-only charm school — where megaminds get to hone their social skills — is one of the most popular things on campus right now.

Forget high-end etiquette like whether Americans need to curtsey to queens (they don't). In the MIT program, students who usually spend their lives in the labs learn about social niceties like how to shake hands properly, how to make small talk, and the basic dos and don'ts of table manners.

Read on to find out more about this geek-chic charm school.

parenting

Restaurant Gives Family a Discount For Having Well-Behaved Kids

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At a time when airlines are charging more for child-free seats and people are routinely enraged about out-of-control kids in public, one restaurant is rewarding parents when their pint-size diners show good manners.

When Laura King and her family got their bill at Sogno di Vino, a small Italian restaurant in Poulsbo, WA, listed under the subtotal was something they had never seen before: a discount for "Well-Behaved Kids."

Related: The No-Kids-Allowed Movement Is Spreading

King was so touched by the restaurant's gesture that she posted a picture of the receipt on her private Facebook page; a friend shared the photo on Reddit with the comment.

Read on to find out why their good behavior was rewarded.

job search

The Most Common Job For Women in 2013?

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In 1950, the most common job for women in the United States was "secretary." With fewer careers open to women back then, it doesn't come as much of a surprise that secretarial work was a popular option.

Related: Can Women Have It All? What 4 Top Career Women Say

But the most-common job for women these days? It's still "secretary"—in spite of the fact that more women are earning graduate degrees than men, are rising through the management ranks, and are starting their own businesses in record numbers.

Read on to find out why women are entering and/or reentering the workforce as secretaries.

Back to School

WTF? Girls Aren't Allowed to Curse at This NJ School, but Boys Are?

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A New Jersey Catholic school wanted to make kids quit cursing, so they asked girls to take a vocabulary purity pledge, vowing not to use foul language for the month of February. But the boys? They were told not to swear, but they didn't have to make any promises.

Related: Is Chivalry Sexist?

"We want ladies to act like ladies," Lori Flynn, the teacher who administered the pledge at Queen of Peace High School, told The Record newspaper in Woodland Park, N.J.

Read on to find out more about this New Jersey school double standard.

job search

Is the Economy Causing Students to Drink Less?

We're happy to present this article from our partner site Yahoo Shine!: The US economy may be on the mend, but that hasn't stopped it from influencing a generation in an unexpected way: for the first time ever, an annual survey of college freshman has found that first-year students are more focused on their job prospects than their party plans.


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The US economy may be on the mend, but that hasn't stopped it from influencing a generation in an unexpected way: for the first time ever, an annual survey of college freshman has found that first-year students are more focused on their job prospects than their party plans.

According to the "2012 Freshman Norms report," conducted by UCLA's Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) each year since 1966, only 33 percent of college freshman reported drinking beer in 2012, down from 35.4 percent in 2011 and far lower than the 73.7 percent who were knocking back drinks in 1982, when many of their own parents were in college.

Read on to find out if college freshmen are more focused on potential jobs than partying.

relationships

Are You Planning Your Wedding — Even Though You're Single?

We're happy to present this article from our partner site Yahoo Shine!: Take a look at Pinterest and you'll find plenty of boards dedicated to amazing weddings.

We're happy to present this article from our partner site Yahoo Shine!:

Take a look at Pinterest and you'll find plenty of boards dedicated to amazing weddings. The perfect dress. Gorgeous engagement rings. Romantic up-dos. Awe-inspiring do-it-yourself decorations that would put Martha Stewart to shame. But among all of the wedding offerings, certain boards stand out: Ones created by women who are proudly and publicly planning for the big day even though they're still single.

LOOK: Celebrity Wedding Dresses -- What Should They Wear?

They're not pretending otherwise, either. With titles like "How single girls plan their wedding," "Planning my wedding while single," and "Single with BIG wedding plans," the boards are packed with Cinderella dresses, party theme ideas, and pictures of enormous diamond solitaires -- playing up the myth of the perfect wedding while ignoring the reality of real-life marriage.

Keep reading to find out more about this growing phenomenon.

Behavior Tips

Author Says Praise Is Bad For Kids. Parenting Experts Say He's Wrong

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A new book on finding one's true self has rekindled an age-old discussion with a chapter saying that praise is harmful to kids. But parenting experts tell Yahoo! Shine that praise itself isn't the problem — the issue is that parents have been doing it wrong for years.

Related: Forget Tiger Mothers. Teach People How To Be Good Parents Instead

In "The Examined Life," Stephen Grosz pulls together insights gleaned from 25 years worth of work as a psychoanalyst. He became a father at age 50, and his experiences helping troubled, unhappy adults led him to agree with an old idea — that empty praise does children more harm than good.

Do Confident Kids Have More Future Career Success?

"Admiring our children may temporarily lift our sense of self-esteem but it isn't doing much for a child's sense of self," he told the British newspaper The Sunday Times. "Empty praise is as bad as thoughtless criticism — it expresses indifference to the child's feelings and thoughts."

But parenting experts agree that avoiding praise altogether isn't the answer.

Find out more after the break.