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Crib notes: Should parents police the behavior of other people's kids?

Hey, mom, your little sand-flinger's behavior is not appreciated at this playground. Citing the old "it takes a village to raise a child" philosophy, one dad defends his right to reprimand other people's children on the playground. After sternly telling a stranger's child to stop throwing sand, he then resorted to taking the child's shovel away and threatening to take him from the sandbox in sear

Hey, mom, your little sand-flinger's behavior is not appreciated at this playground. Citing the old "it takes a village to raise a child" philosophy, one dad defends his right to reprimand other people's children on the playground. After sternly telling a stranger's child to stop throwing sand, he then resorted to taking the child's shovel away and threatening to take him from the sandbox in search of his mother, if he continued his un-sandboxmanlike behavior. The child's mother did not appreciate the intervention and yelled at the dad while she scooped her child up and out of the park. What do you think? Do we have the right (and perhaps even the obligation) to correct the poor behavior of other people's kids? Or, does this father have no business declaring himself the elder of our collective village?

Here comes the... child bride. Is Saudi Arabia supporting a disturbing practice of marrying child brides? Some say that girls as young as eight years old are being entered into marriage with men who are well into their sixties. Parents, who are struggling financially, are tempted to offer their children's hand in marriage, because the dowries they can fetch for such young girls can reach $40,000. It is said that the country doesn't have a legal age for marriage and that children as young as one-hour old are eligible to become a bride. There are claims that Saudi Arabia has the highest number of child marriages in the Middle East.

When your little one's not feeling well, you want nothing more than a magic pill to make them better right away. However, if what ails them isn't a bacterial infection, an antibiotic won't fix it. Regardless, pediatricians write more than 10 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions every year, contributing to potentially dangerous drug resistances, according to a new study. It is said that nearly 25 percent of antibiotic prescriptions written, were given to kids whose conditions were probably or definitely unlikely to be treated by antibiotics. Health experts are concerned by this pill-popping epidemic, because when kids are unnecessarily given antibiotics, it raises both their individual risk for drug-resistance and the risk for society as a whole.

Is YouTube the new happiest place on earth? It's been said that the Mouse & Co. hasn't kept up with today's digitized youth and that the company has been losing its online market share as a result. Knowing that kids love YouTube, Mickey's looking to partner up with the online favorite to create a new, original video series.

Dana Macario is a TODAY Moms contributor and Seattle mom to two sleep-depriving toddlers. She is currently developing an alarm clock that will start an IV coffee drip 10 minutes prior to wake-up time. Once properly caffeinated, she also blogs at http://18years2life.blogspot.com/.