Every once in a while, a nation gets inspired. And who better than a guitar-wielding, super-geek astronaut with a groovy 'stache?

Chris Hadfield returned to Earth on Monday night, but hopefully his legacy will inspire kids and adults to continue to look to the stars.

Chris Hadfield may just be the coolest astronaut that has ever lived. He doesn't have a catch phrase and a golf club, but communicated the simple pleasures and beauty of the earth while suspended in orbit for five months, 2,336 orbits, 146 days and 16 sunrises and sunsets per day. 

Anne Frank's memoir holds up today because, even though she was in a surreal situation, she is a relateable teen girl. Anne's amazing diary has transported teens to that Secret Annex where she was cloistered with Peter's family, and of course, to her tragic end at the hands of the Nazis.

Her writing is so fresh and clear that she becomes your friend, your sister, your cousin. She learns to adapt to her harrowing experiences by being a teen girl -- embarrassments, outbursts, crushes and all.

But a mom in Michigan feels that Anne may have been a little too real, and says that a passage in the newest edition, The Diary of A Young Girl: The Definitive Guide is too "pornographic" for her daughter.

Share and share alike. It is one of the tenets of childhood. And yet, forced sharing is coming into question by some preschools and parents of little kids. 

There are preschools in the US that have written down 'no sharing' policies. They do not force kids to share their toys, instead they have multiples of popular items, or they tell kids that they have to wait their turn. They say that forced sharing creates a feeling of entitlement in the kid who wants -- and gets -- the toy. 

The Globe and Mail is reporting that a 10-year-old Ontario girl foiled a would-be kidnapping by using her smarts. A man approached her after school and told her that her mother had sent him to pick her up, she asked him for the pre-arranged family safe word and he got it wrong.

She realized that it was a bad situation and got away, catching some of the license plate letters too. According to police they are searching for a man and woman in their 20's.

You would never go with your child to a job interview, right? (Just maybe tell them what to say, and probably drive them there.) 

Would you call a professor and ask them about your child's bad grade? The thought is ridiculous, isn't it? But university professors say it happens all the time (and my Dad is one, so he knows).

My son went to bed one night and woke up in full-fledged puberty the next morning. Suddenly, he is tired all the time and we need to wake him. He is flouting a dirtstache and he seems larger, thicker and more gangly.

I'm scared.

And I have reason to be. Teens these days are subjected to a fast-paced world without rest. According, to a new study by the Toronto School Board teens are feeling overwhelmingly anxious, worried and down.

I am surrounded by love. So are my kids. You know what they don't need? Hundreds of pieces of paper from friends, frenemies and classmates with chocolates attached to make them happy.

You know what I don't need? An overpriced dinner, overpriced flowers and the further propagation of the card industry.

Valentine's Day isn't big around here.

You know when your kids are fighting about something trivial and they are both at fault; neither of them are listening to each other, they're kicking and punching and maybe even head butting. Perhaps they are fighting over who gets to cuddle with the dog, but the dog ends up getting a little beat up in all of the fracas.

You have two choices: sit between them and negotiate, or send them to their rooms. But for negotiating to work, there has to be some buy-in. So you have a choice: send them for time-outs, or give yourself one and hope that they learn to co-exist.

Welcome to Ontario's educational system. We have two sides unwilling to negotiate with each other and our kids are the ones suffering.

Five teens in Brampton, Ontario were suspended for tweeting allegedly disparaging remarks about their science teacher.

The tweets were sent on their private time and off of school property. When the Catholic school heard about the tweets, nine girls received varying levels of punishment with five of them being suspended. (The tweets were between friends, which makes them less public to the entire world but visible to anyone who followed both sides of the conversation.)

The principal said that she hopes everyone learned a lesson from this incident.

Could there be a worse idea than putting a bunch of hormonal, insecure, gawky 12- and 13-year-olds together in one building and expect them to learn something?

As it turns out, no.