Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert, advice columnist and author of the New York Times bestselling book, My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag ... And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha. Her flagship column, “Ask a Clean Person”, debuted in 2011. Here on Lifehacker, we’ve launched a new iteration of it, focusing on parenting and all the messes it brings. 

You may remember watching a VHS tape as a teenager that showed the very, very bad and gruesome things that can happen when you drive too fast on highways. To raise safe drivers, it seemed to be believed, you needed to give them nightmares for months.

Growing up in the ‘80s, my childhood was filled with such scare tactics — car accident remnants displayed on the school lawn, police officers giving lectures about gaol time, and that damn fried egg commercial that aired in between all my afternoon cartoons.

As a kid, Mallika Chopra’s father, Deepak Chopra, would ask her to explore four questions: Who am I? What do I want? How can I serve? What am I grateful for?

Now as an entrepreneur, public speaker, and the author of the new children’s meditation guide Just Breathe, Mallika uses those questions to help others know their intentions and improve their lives. She has taught meditations to thousands of people around the world, including her two daughters, Tara and Leela. Here’s how she parents.

It’s fine and very sweet for kids to engage with new dogs, as long as they do so appropriately (Rule No. 1: Approach the owner first), but there may be times when a dog greets them with too much affection or even aggression. Doggone Safe, an organisation focused on dog bite prevention, teaches kids to “be a tree” if an unknown dog comes near them. Why? Trees are boring to dogs.

Video: Don’t know how to plunge a toilet? Still taping Scarface posters to your wall? Not sure whether that shirt really needs to be washed or if it can last another few days? We’ve been there, and we’re here for you. This is Lifehacker’s Adulting series, where we’ll guide you through some real-world basics to help you take charge of your life. Now clear away those beer pong cups — we have work to do.

There’s a problem in the city. A dump truck has dropped her bin full of bowling balls all over the street without realising it — the balls that were supposed to be delivered to the bowling alley. Stinky, a garbage truck, and Dirty, a backhoe loader, see it happen and decide they will get the balls to the destination themselves. But how?

"This is like... date night", I said to my husband as we were sitting in the bleachers, watching our four-year-old at her weekly evening swim class. Maybe that realisation should have made depressed — with so much going on, I couldn't remember the last time we had a proper date night — but it didn't. We were nestled hip to hip, talking about our days, with no child asking us to adjust her sock or turn on PJ Masks or spoon-feed her because she lost her arms.

When I read the statistic from a University of Maryland study that children between the ages of six and twelve spend only 24 minutes a day doing housework, a 25 per cent decline from 1981, my first thought was, "Where the heck are these kids finding 24 minutes?!"

Mums and dads have thanked Pokemon GO for getting their kids to explore the great outdoors — even if it means they’re taking their screens with them. Now, parents will be better able to manage their children’s privacy in the game.

Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert, advice columnist, and author of the New York Times bestselling book, My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag ... And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha. Her flagship column, “Ask a Clean Person”, debuted in 2011. Here on Lifehacker, we’ve launched a new iteration of it, focusing on parenting and all the messes it brings. 

When Amanda Sloane went home from the hospital two days after delivery, she left her newborn daughter, Emerie, in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). As Sloane was wheeled out the front doors empty handed, she passed wheelchair after wheelchair of women leaving with their newborn babies. And every time she returned to visit, she passed a new line-up of mums.

Parenting, I am learning, is like being the belayer to a roped rock climber — you have to know when to hold on tight and when to give some slack. (No, I’m not a rock climber myself, but I once took an intro class using a Groupon.)

You want to make sure your kids are safe and not making bonehead decisions, but you can’t follow them around throughout their lives, whispering, “Eh, you sure about that move there, buddy?” For them to reach new heights, sometimes you have to let go.

Kids are born innovators. Any parent who’s caught their child building pyramids out of restaurant creamer cups knows this. KiwiCo helps them channel their creativity with monthly subscription boxes of STEAM-focused activities — with these hands-on kits, little makers might build an arcade claw, design their own pinball game, or create a paint pendulum. The company was founded by Sandra Oh Lin, a mother of three in California. We asked her how she parents.

Picture books can be magical for readers of all ages, even adults. But when it comes to reading aloud to young kids, I've learned not to ignore chapter books and novels. It may seem daunting to open up a hundred-plus-page tome when your audience has an attention span the length of a Peppa Pig episode, but the experience of making it through the story can be deeply rewarding.

Much has been written about the importance of the family meal. There's something about setting aside time every day, away from the distractions of work to-dos and house chores and Instagram notifications, to connect over food with your clan. Kids who grow up with the ritual will be fundamentally different from those who don't — science backs this up.

When buying school supplies for your kid, know that not all wooden pencils are created equal. Some break constantly. Others have erasers that smudge whatever they touch. The worst ones are basically sticks of agony that deserve to be left deep in the junk drawer along with those godawful knock-off crayons.

Getting kids to brush their teeth eagerly is a heroic task — goodness, why should they have to do it again if they just did it yesterday? I’m all for a good hack that’ll make children more invested in their oral hygiene, and this one from Agnes Hsu of Hello, Wonderful comes though.

Frickin’ Fortnite. Your kids won’t stop playing it, and you’re fed up. What do you do? You could join one of the many parent support groups, or make a musical parody to vent your frustrations, or try locking the game consoles in the car and hiding the key (yes, this is really happening).

Or you can play, too.

Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert, advice columnist, and author of the New York Times bestselling book, My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag ... And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha. Her flagship column, “Ask a Clean Person”, debuted in 2011. Here on Lifehacker, we’ve launched a new iteration of it, focusing on parenting and all the messes it brings.