As a child abuse and neglect therapist I do battle daily with Christians enamored of the Old Testament phrase "Spare the rod and spoil the child." No matter how far I stretch my imagination, it does not stretch far enough to include the image of a co...
Ms Finney shared an office on the third floor with several other court reporters. Their software system was called Veritas. Theo had hacked into it before when he had been curious about something that happened in court. It was not a secure system bec...
The reality for teachers is we don’t know if we’ve been successful or not. It takes years to see how a kid turns out, and it’s impossible to know what role we’ve played, for better or worse. It’s why so many teachers burn out—our successe...
There is something deeply hypocritical in a society that holds an inner-city child only eight years old "accountable" for her performance on a high-stakes standardized exam but does not hold the high officials of our government accountable for robbin...
Mandy smiled cheerfully at an overweight kid in a gold sweater and pink skirt who was chasing her little brother around along the boardwalk. When she was that age, on sunny days she’d be out on the boardwalk with Jud and Wendy, buying rainbow sorbe...
Have you ever noticed how as an adult, all the bright colors go out of your life? Now that I’m not a kid anymore, things always look gray, like a clothesline draped with laundry that’s been washed too many times and left to stand in the wind. I g...
How am I going to tell the kids? How do I tell the man that I love, the man that I swore I’d grow old with that we won’t have that happy ending that he and I have worked so hard for? How do I say goodbye to all of you? How do I let go?
Part of the genius of (Nick) Sabin's system was that he understood that no matter the skill set, he was inheriting vulnerable kids from various backgrounds. For those times when they made poor decisions, as they invariably did, the safety net must be...
Family is not disparate relationships between individuals and machines, in separate rooms of a house. Childhood is not a race to accumulate all of the consumer goods and stresses of adulthood in record time. Simplification signals a change and makes ...
we can learn to trust our maternal selves and to have faith in the innate goodness and purity of our children - even when we feel overwhelmed and the kids are pushing all our buttons. we can support one another....we can be understanding of each othe...
A twisted, pale figure writhing in agony, chest bare and hideous. Tight, rigid cords of sickly green veins webbed across the boy’s body and limbs, like ropes under his skin. Purplish bruises covered the kid, red hives, bloody scratches. His bloodsh...
We're still family-owned, which keeps life a whole lot simpler. When my wife and kids and I decide to make a business move, we don't have to ask Wall Street about it.
It's funny how when you're little, you miss all the little lies. They float right past you, but you don't wonder about them much. For a long time, you think this is just something adults still do after being kids - pretend. Then one day you wake up a...
They needed a reason why a little kid would commit murder, someone or something to point the finger at, and I think they were relieved when they hit upon horror movies as the culprit. But there's no reason a child commits murder, just as there's no r...
The last time Assistant Principal Parker called, a girl in the school's locker room had accused Julie of being a whore during the two years she'd spent on the street. My kid took exception to that and decided to communicate that by applying a chair t...
How much better it would be if they weren't so damn understanding--if they kicked me out of the house. To find yourself out in the street with two dollars to your name, to catch the streetcar downtown and get a job, perhaps as an airline stewardess. ...
The recent spate of magazines for "parents" (i.e., mothers) bombard the anxiety-induced mothers of America with reassurances that they can (after a $100,000 raise and a personality transplant) produce bright, motivated, focused, fun-loving, sensitive...
My best day ever. Got up. Had breakfast. Came to school. Bored, as usual. Wishing I wasn't there, like usual. Kids ignoring me, suits me fine. Sitting with the other retards—we’re so special. Wasting my time. Yesterday was the same, and it's gone...
You must take the time to do something that brings you joy. If you are saying to yourself, “I can’t do that because I have to pick up the kids, and run my business, and … and … who’s got time for fun? Are you insane?” If you don’t have ...
KIDS. They know a BRIBE when they see one. They want a PARENT, not a PAY-OFF. They don’t care if you’re Jack-King-Rodeo or Mister-You-Own-New-York. All they understand is time spent WITH YOU or WITHOUT YOU. It’s that SIMPLE.
Love your kids and just be there for them. You don't have to eyeball their every moment or to orchestrate all their comings and goings. They know this. They know that's too much. All they want is to be assured that there's a home fire cooking, that t...
