A few tips for you to ponder over:

1. In most cases, mowing the top one-third of the blade of the grass encourages a deep root system.
2. It is best to mow in the morning hours when the dew has dried off so you do not have some grass clumps in the blades.
3. Foot printing happens more often so how about watering your lawn. The same applies to instances when the grass begins to curl.
4. Do not let young kids near your mower until they are old enough to understand the dangers therein.

Originally Posted by mois25

1. In most cases, mowing the top one-third of the blade of the grass encourages a deep root system.

I didn't know this. This is interesting. If only for this reason, it is indeed ideal to mow frequently especially when the lawn is newly planted with grass. At that stage we would want the roots to develop as deeply and as quickly as possible.

Regularly cut the lawn and water 30 minutes per station in Spring to get in to the subsoil.
Shallow watering times ie less than 10 minutes makes the roots not go deep......thus a poor lawn.
Read up or search the net for tips.....as it will save you money and give you a nice lawn.

My lawn didn't do very well this summer, because we had watering bans. Funny thing, though, now that it has cooled down, my grass seems to be growing back, even though it is fall.

I've also heard about dethatching, but have never done it. How do you know if you need to? I would think the thatch would help protect the roots and help to keep the lawn from drying out.

The concept of de-thatching sounds new to me too. Apparently, there is plenty of resource over the internet and this is key in proper lawn maintenance.

Not all grass types have a thatch problem... check if your grass type needs de-thatching...

There is a machine that will Detatch your lawn.........its called 'Verti mowing'.
The machine is like a rotary hoe it cuts up your lawn to 2 inches deep to break up the thatch.
Most lawns require it every 10 years.......otherwise it becomes spongy.The mower nearly gets bogged on the lawn........or it is extremely difficult to mow otherwise.

Good tips here folks. Thanks for sharing. i want to add that it isn't a good idea to always mow in the same direction. I didn't realise this and was left with an uneven and kind of stripey lawn one year!