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Passing the Test
“Training moments occur when both parents and children do their jobs. The parent’s job is to make the rule. The child’s job is to break the rule. The parent then corrects and disciplines. The child breaks the rule again, and the parent manages the consequences and empathy that then turn the rule into reality and […]
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TBT: You Have Power in Every Moment
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment” (Marcus Aurelius Antonius ) Often it’s the meanings that we attach to events or conversations that cause us the most pain. Think […]
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Into the Woods
“The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.” (Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder) I’ve always been amazed at how much we humans like to talk about the weather. Especially now, as we observe the change from Summer to Fall. Yes, […]
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Shaming Never Works
“Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?” (Jane Nelson) Few things are easier than being critical. Judgments and disparagements […]
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The Birth of Adolescence
“Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.” (Virginia Satir) One of the unintended consequences of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of adolescents, if not adolescence itself. See, before all the dads went off […]
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They Think the World of You
“When people think the world of you, be careful with them.” (Margaret Cho) Caring for a child is a tremendous financial responsibility, to be sure. But it’s the emotional responsibility that is even more significant in the long run. Even though your children would probably not ever tell you this truth, it still exists: you […]
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TBT: Ignore the Gloom of the Room
“Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.” (Robert J. Sawyer) (I wrote this one about 5 years ago, at the beginning of my daughter’s attempts to set world high jump records just to clear the mess and get into bed. I still stand by this advice, but admit my […]
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ScreamFree Politics?
“Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.” (Ambrose Bierce) Ahh, the season of rampant reactivity is upon us. There is nothing quite like U.S. Presidential elections to elevate the volume and escalate the tensions. I’ve been approached on numerous occasions to develop a program, or write a book, on ScreamFree […]
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Why I’m Not Proud of My Kids
“I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others, as what I am in my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing.” (Michel Eyquem de Montaigne) The most controversial thing I’ve ever said on TV, or anywhere for that matter, is how I don’t tell my kids […]
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Until When?
“The more I encourage a child to think for himself, the more he will care what I think.” (Unknown) I am still a bit surprised when I hear parents say that they aren’t interested in teaching their children to think for themselves. Their line of thinking goes something like this: “Children can’t be trusted to […]