A young father was telling me about his two children, a seven-year-old girl and a three-year-old boy. "My daughter is an angel, but my little boy is a terror. He defies me every chance he gets. At lunch I asked him to come to the dinner table and he refused. That...
My wife has an amazing mind. She's always my first reader for feedback about my work. She catches nearly all mistakes, points out ways to improve my writing, and makes helpful recommendations. I know why she's so smart. According to her, her mother read to her while...
I know several parents whose child is fast approaching adolescence. Even raising a sweet child can be difficult in many ways, but after puberty the challenges change. Middle school-aged children don't want to be treated like sweet little kids anymore. Far from being...
I recently had breakfast with some friends who have a graduating high school senior. He's a great kid who wants to be a speech therapist and has been accepted into the right university for that training. Also, I pointed out that in addition to this wonderful outcome,...
When I was a kid there were no parenting books, unless you want to count Dr. Benjamin Spock's classic on baby and child care. Parents were guided by their instincts, sense of responsibility, judgment, and family traditions. Today, parents still rely on these, but they...
In a separate post, I quoted Dr. Jay Giedd, the pioneering brain researcher who discovered that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is still under development during a child's adolescence, that this is the "smart" area of the brain, and that wiring the PFC will vary greatly...
Is your child resilient? Do you want your child to be more resilient? A non-scientific definition: Resilience is the ability to recover or “bounce back” from loss, stress, or disappointment – setbacks that can cause someone to doubt his or her self-confidence and...
Mindful - an often-used word. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it means "aware of something that may be important." Aware - feel or experience something Something that may be important. One of the most important things you can be mindful of: your child....
When you were in high school, did you take that Parent-Child Relationship Skills course? I'm sorry - trick question. No such course has ever been included in a high school curriculum. Well, how about college? No? Any other course in your church or community or even...
What every parent knows: unconditional love is the foundation. But child misbehavior can temporarily make it hard to access this love, much less express it. In its place, your instinctive negative reaction: frustration, fatigue, disappointment, discouragement, hurt,...