The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to mom and dad are fighting.

Slates parenting podcast for Thursday, August 16th, the call

me by your screen name edition. I'm Gabriel Roth. I'm an editor at Slate and I'm the father of Leo

who is four and Eliza who is seven.

I'm Rebecca Lervoy at journalist and podcaster who lives in New Hampshire but is visiting

New York today.

I'm actually in person with Gabe.

It's very exciting.

I am mom to Henry who is 17, Teddy who is 15, and my

stepdaughter Lily who is 18. And I'm Carvel Wallace, a writer and

podcaster in Oakland, California, and I'm the father to Georgia, who who is 12 and Ezra who is 15.

Today on our show we have a question about a teenage boy who is engaging in online flirtation with an older man.

And another question about a six-year-old

pathological liar. Plus as always we'll have triumphs, we'll have fails, we'll have

recommendations on Slate Plus Rebecca will tell us some tales from the College Tour Circuit.

Let's start with Triumph and Fails. Carvel, across the country from us. Why don't you go first? Do you have a triumph or a fail this week?

I have a triumph, which is Georgia has started school. The summer is over. There is a miniature fail built into that, which is that as some of you may remember,

we have this tradition of riding the Ferris wheel at Santa Cruz in the last day of summer as a way of reflecting on all the events of the summer.

This was a really big summer for both kids and a lot of emotional stuff and travels and experiences.

And we didn't do that this year because the Ferris wheel is now permanently closed and it feels super weird and the other thing that's weird this year is that Georgia started a week earlier than usual because I guess OUSD Teachers Union voted to start earlier

this summer so she had an abbreviated summer she went back to school and

...