Parenting
Park Etiquette
Yesterday we went to the park to play and my daughter couldn't have been more excited when we rounded that last corner. She had waited so patiently while I pulled her in the wagon. That last few minutes of walking up the path wh...
In Praise of Black SheepRule-breaking children make the most self-reliant and independent adults
There’s a black sheep in every flock, and there are few of us who don’t know one, or didn’t know one as a child. Every family, every class, has one: that brother or sister, boy or girl, who’s always in trouble, who’s prone to st...
Giving Our Children What They Need
As parents we all share one thing in common - we want to give our children every advantage possible. We all want better for our children than what we had. This is a wonderful ideal, but one which can cause significant turmoil a...
When (Step) Children Fight
As a parent of a blended family, I often get people asking me how my birth children and my stepchildren get along. After seven years together, my answer is not very glamorous: "Just like brothers and sisters. They love each oth...
Steps of a Family Meeting
Family Meetings are a great way for families to communicate with one another. It provides a forum for making group decisions, assigning responsibilites, sharing positive feelings, and choosing activities for family fun. Here ...
Games Parents Play to Win
Sometimes parenting just seems like a game...that you can never win. The other team has more energy, more time, and more players. To help parents improve the odds, we've come up with some new "game plans" that might even the sc...
Parenting in the Middle Years (Ages 5 -12)
You won’t see many news reports on children between the ages of five to twelve. Hardly any magazines will do a cover story on a child’s early school years. And parents rarely complain about a child’s behavior at this stage of d...
Grading Your Child's Friends
Peer Grading is a parenting tool that parents use to grade their child's friends to protect them from negative influences. As children mature they become more other-centered versus parent-centered. They are more heavily influenc...
Communication Techniques That Work
Preschoolers are like chameleons. All day long they verbalize and act out scenes from their imaginations but when you ask them: "How was your day at preschool?" or "How was your play date?" they turn quiet and run off. Betwee...
Is Your Child Ready for an Allowance
Children think money grows on trees. Maybe not literally but they sure think there is a never-ending supply of it. They see you at the grocery store pushing a cart overflowing with the week's groceries; you hand the cashier a p...