New Year's resolutions are kind of irresistible, aren't they? The idea that, with the proper resolve, you can make a major difference in your life. All it takes is a new day, a new year, a catchy turn of phrase, a little shopping spree of organizational items to get you started (okay, maybe that's just me). If you're up for that kind of promise-making, I've got a list of 31 Realistic Resolutions you'll want to take a look at, each with articles and recommended books to help you reach your goals.

If that's too much of a commitment, though, consider these five mini-resolutions. See if you can do them every day. Or one every day. Or a different one each weekday. Or any one, one today at a time. Sometimes the best progress is made with the littlest steps.

1. Read something that inspires you. Some sources: Love Notes for Special Parents, Weekday Reflections, and Today's News and Views.
   
   
2. Say something nice to your child. Try the technique for catching your child being good from the book Transforming the Difficult Child.
   
   
3. Say something nice to yourself. Catch yourself being good, too. An excerpt from When the Labels Don't Fit has some fun ideas on how to do that.
   
   
4. Say something nice to someone else. On the Web, it's so easy to judge and criticize and snark, getting angry at people you don't know and will never meet. But those hard feelings do nobody any good. Try making one positive post a day -- my blog comments, forum, and Readers Respond pages are always open.
   
   
5. Laugh a little. Goodness knows, we need it. Check my humor category and fun things to do for smile material.

Happy new year to all!

This post is my contribution to the All About Parenting Blog Carnival on New Year's Resolutions.

_{Photo by Brian Harkin/Getty Images}

A couple of months ago on the Parenting Special Needs forum, in a discussion about students who lash out in violent ways that may be related to their disabilities, I wrote about my (thus far nonviolent) boy, "I try to make it clear to school personnel that controlling my son's behavior is important both to protect him and to protect other people from him, which is a way of protecting him, too. I don't want him to be responsible for hurting people." And boy, is this the nightmare scenario I had in mind: According to a report on Examiner.com, an 11-year-old boy with autism was arrested and charged with felony assault after he attacked two school staff members who were restraining him after a meltdown. Said meltdown occurred after his parents spent weeks and weeks begging the school to do a Functional Behavioral Assessment, implement a Behavior Intervention Plan, and give him a one-on-one paraprofessional as recommended by his former school placement -- all in an attempt to prevent exactly the sort of thing that occurred. It's hard not to believe that the school set him up for failure. Read more...

I've been delighted to see iPhone apps designed to make life easier and maybe a little cooler for children with disabilities and their parents. I've written here previously about an app that puts schedules for kids with autism on the iPhone or iPod touch, and one that turns those handy little gizmos into augmentative communication devices. Yesterday I saw another one that has general parenting applications, but may be of most use to those of us who are always looking for a new and child-attention-getting way to do a behavior chart. Called "Earn It Stars," the 99-cent app from Reticent Arts lets you set a goal, determine the amount of stars it will take to earn it, and mark stars as earned as you go. Might be a good emergency behavior chart to get a young child through church, or for longer-term use for a teen who might be more attracted by stars on a screen than on a piece of paper stuck to the wall.

_{Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images}

While I was driving with my daughter the other day, it seemed like every time a song came on the radio that I couldn't stand, the artist responsible was Lady GaGa (pictured). My daughter's gaga over her music, but I just wanted to change the channel. So it was a surprise to see the singer's name attached to a news story that made me smile instead of cringe. According to a story in the UK Sun, Lady GaGa expressed great admiration for Susan Boyle, the learning-disabled singer whose video from Britain's Got Talent became an Internet sensation, and whose personal style is about as far from the aggressively weird GaGa's as possible. The Sun quotes GaGa as saying, "I love Susan Boyle. She is my woman of the year. She has achieved more in this year than most artists will in a lifetime. This time last year nobody even knew who she was and now she is knocking the world's most established artists off the album and singles charts." Love the sentiment, love the idea of trendy stars wanting to collaborate with Susan Boyle, but the nickname SuBo? No.

_{Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images}