We were never a family to recite rote prayers - most of them are too scary for children. We simply gave thanks for the day and asked for blessings for family and for those in need. That "Now I lay me down to sleep" is just plain scary in it's first iteration. It's a bit better with the "See me safely through the night", but even that implies that something might happen during the night. I've never been a fan of recited prayers, and I never will be.

What if you had a lightweight sign and hung it with that blue sticky-putty stuff? I don't know what it's called but it's kind of like play-doh, and you can put little balls of it on the back of the sign and hang it that way. Now that I have answered the actual question, I'll say that I agree with funkyart that it is off-putting to encounter an order like that before you even knock on the door. If you must hang the sign, how about in a spot just inside the door? We are a "mostly shoes-free" house. My family removes shoes automatically, in the mudroom. Friends of ours and friends of our kids almost all remove their shoes automatically, too, either because they also do it in their own house, or because it's obvious that we all have removed our shoes. If KIDS don't remove their shoes, I ask them to do it before they get too far. If ADULTS don't, I say nothing. If we have adults over for a party, I never ask anyone to remove their shoes. I think if you have someone over for a social event, they have chosen an outfit that includes their shoes, and for a variety of reasons it wouldn't be right to ask them to remove them. I think when you have a party or just a few friends over, that's the risk you take -- your floors may get dirty, someone might spill a glass of wine, someone might dance with a lampshade on their head... ooops, that's a different forum. Now, back to my popcorn. I had to admit I peeked in here only because I knew there'd be some Opinions on this topic.

i'm glad there wasn't a scene for you to deal with on christmas eve! i have a few thoughts for you... christmas is the day we celebrate the birth of a certain baby, who was sent to give the world a second chance. why? love. so christmas is really about love, whether or not you believe in that baby that was born in bethlehem. that's why we give presents to people we love--to show them that we love them. sure, it's a consumer thing nowadays. but say you'd lived back on the american frontier and had NOTHING to spare but a few scraps of fabric, think of all the time you'd have spent secretly sewing that fabric into dolls or whatever for your children. THAT is the true spirit of christmas, which is why i say you shouldn't cave today or tomorrow, and get her something for christmas anyway. give her a hug, and tell her you want to bake some cookies--or do any activity you can with her where you have time to talk to her. (if you're doing something, she'll be less likely to leave, but it'll also take some of the direct focus off the difficult things you need to say.) tell her you love her, but that her behavior was unacceptable. set a ground rule now and KEEP IT. tell her that christmas is about love, not about manipulating her birth mother into getting her what she wanted AND doing it in such a way that she just knew her mom would come over and throw it in your face. i bet you made her birth mom mad when you mentioned money because she didn't think about whether she could afford the stereo--she was probably told a version of the story calculated to make her so mad at how her daughter is being "mistreated" that she would act before thinking everything through. i don't think this means your daughter is particularly "bad" or anything, but i do think such behavior is likely to continue now that she's seen that it works. that is why you need to stick to what she said and not get her anything. teach her that she cannot issue ultimatums because SHE is NOT the one in charge here. she is still legally a child, and, well, she's behaving like one. i think it's very important that you connect these things verbally for her. tell her straight out--but try to do it gently so that she'll listen--that her behavior caused this whole situation, and her behavior is the reason she is not getting anything from you for christmas. she might not care much for the example, but tell her about one of the origins of the myth of santa claus, about the orphanage children in germany (?--i think) who were so happy to find oranges and nuts in their stockings on christmas morning because they were so poor that fresh fruit was a luxury. you need to teach her that kindness and love are the reasons we give presents at christmas, NOT to pacify a selfish little girl who knows how to make trouble. and when she says "well, if you loved me, then you'd give me something," then you say, "it's because i love you that i'm making sure you learn this lesson. you will not be able to get along with others throughout your life until you learn what sorts of behavior are acceptable." the goal is to make her understand that she caused a lot of bad feelings in your family just to get a stupid little stereo. if you do it right, that stereo will give her a sinking feeling every time she looks at it for a long time. you have to make her see that manipulation is not acceptable, nor are ultimatums. it's a hard lesson to teach her, but if you succeed, you'll be very thankful when she's older that she isn't the legendary witch of the family! also, i think you need to get with birth mother and talk about this if it's at all possible. tell her that you don't like the way the girl manipulated everyone, and that you want to get together and set some ground rules for behavior. she probably won't like hearing you say that her daughter manipulated her, so if you can say it kindly the first time, that would help. but make sure she knows that the girl DID manipulate her. this is not about finances, though it's a good time for both of you to talk to your daughter about that, too. if she's old enough to play you all off against each other, then she's old enough to understand "we can't afford it." you three parents are all going to have to be mature enough to block her when she tries to play you off against one another, and that means making sure that birth mom checks out the stories she hears before she goes out in a rage and does exactly what princess wants. in order to do that, you three will have to be on good speaking terms. it might help to say that you want to do what's best for the daughter in the long run, though it might mean being deprived of a monster stereo in the meantime. she'd have survived a lesser model just fine, and if her attitude had been better, you could have suggested that she could upgrade to a better stereo in a few years. one last thing--if her behavior improves, you should reward her somehow, but try to do it in a way that doesn't directly involve money. instead of taking her to the mall for a new outfit, tell her she can invite a few friends over for a slumber party--or "movie night" if she's too cool for slumber parties. ;) you'll spot them for movies, brownies and popcorn, and let them have fun. sure, you'll have to flash some cash to pull that off, but in the end, it's more about the activity with the other girls then about what they got. after all, the movie goes back (don't buy her a movie for this!), and they ate the food. oh, and she also gets to help clean up afterward, but try to minimize that, though don't let her get out of it. sorry this was so long--i'm up with a sore throat and can't sleep! i hope something in there is helpful to you. :)

My DH uses the legal term "expectation of privacy", as in "until you are a self-supporting adult, you should have no expectation of privacy". If we are paying for the devices and the service, we own it all, just like an employer. In our house, what it means is that we need to have everyone's passwords for their devices and accounts, and we reserve the right to periodically review their activity/messages/images etc. We hardly ever do any of that. And none of it is foolproof anyway. Like a lot of parenting, there is some smoke and mirrors involved. I don't think we can compare today's world to our teen years. It's not about reading diaries. It is about real world risks well beyond their years to assess. I often tell my DH, kids get expelled today for things they text, when kids used to *say* the same things when we were teens, but there was no record of it. (at least in private schools they are very strict about tech) As is the fashion in our circles, we held off mightily on technology of all kinds. I think I related before that this once resulted in a long car ride with my son and another middle school student who spent most of the the time talking about StarWars. My son had never seen or heard of it, but he was an opera buff. LOL At what point were our good intentions handicapping him? One of my DD actually burst into tears the year she opened a present and got her phone, so belated was it in her peer group. They have become a vital means of being part of communities for kids. As a parent, I like that my kids have phones. I can reach them when the urge strikes me. I can text rather than nag or yell. And it is very handy for punishment. My youngest DD has not had her phone for weeks as a punishment, and my DH points out it hurts us more. It complicates logistics and, ironically, if she does something, I can't think of how to punish her because I already have her phone. Maybe I need to get her another one. ; )