Whose Responsibility Is Reponsibility?
One of our kids, Veronica, is very reluctant to take responsibility for her actions. There are dozens of examples, but two recent ones stand out as typical; one involving school, and the other her health. She's getting low grades in math, because her teacher can't read her handwriting. We've tried to ...
Meet The Family
It's becoming unwieldy to refer to my oldest son, my youngest daughter, so I'm briefly going to introduce them and give them nicknames here (I'm not such a privacy nut, but I'd prefer not to use their names ... suppose I write something embarrassing and it comes back to haunt ...
Help Your Teen Manage Their Time
As our children get older there are more and more draws on their time. On the one hand I want them to keep busy, and to fill their time usefully, but on the other hand it's important that they learn to prioritize, and to get the important things done first. For ...
What Your Kid Really Wants To Know
It can be a challenge deciding exactly how much information to give a child in any given situation. When they come to you with a question, is it appropriate to give them a quick and evasive answer, whitewashing the issue, or is it your responsibility to launch into a lecture ...
Placating The Picky Eater
We're very fortunate that our children are, for the most part, easy to feed. None of them have turned out to be particularly picky eaters, although like all children they have gone through stages of being more or less particular about certain foods. And of course, they have foods they ...
When Does The Tooth Fairy Stop Being Real?
Our eleven year old just lost his tooth, on his birthday as it happens. As a result, he woke up this morning to discover that the tooth under his pillow had disappeared, and there were eleven coins in its place (no, not eleven dollars ... The tooth fairy in our ...
The Funniest Babies On The Web
Sometimes the stress of everyday life can make us forget all the fun things about children. Yes, we have to worry about curfews, and nutrition, and homework, and peer pressure, and a million and one other things, but it's also good to relax occasionally and have a laugh. It's been quite ...
Curfews For High School Kids
Curfews can be one of the most complicated issues for parents and their teenagers to negotiate ... and trust me, I use the word negotiate deliberately. Once a child is in their teens it becomes almost impossible -- and self defeating -- to tell them what they should do, when ...
Getting Sick of Kids Getting Sick
We are deep into the season of bugs, germs and viruses. In the last three weeks I have had at least one kid home sick every other day. What exactly are parents supposed to do when they need to both work, and look after sick kids? We are luckier than most ...
Does It Pay To Bribe Your Children?
An article on the NYC Moms blog got me wondering recently about giving my kids an incentive to behave. Incentive, yes, that's the word I'm looking for ... because bribe just sounds a little too desperate. Bribe implies that I'm completely at the end of my rope and can't possibly ...
Positive Parenting Brings Positive Results
One of the best gifts we can give our children is the ability to look positively at the world. I'll be the first to admit that I don't always find it easy to do that myself, but it's still a trait I'd like my kids to have. It just makes ...
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