An alarming number of parents appear to have little confidence in their ability to "teach" their children. We should help parents understand the overriding importance of incidental teaching in the context of warm, consistent companionship. Such carin...
But a mountain of recent evidence suggests that teacher skill has less influence on a student's performance than a completely different set of factors: namely, how much kids have learned from their parents, how hard they work at home, and whether the...
We can easily teach our kids hot to be kind, compassionate and respectful when we are kind, compassionate and respectful to them.
As you pray for your children, you will find it to be an unending habit of your heart. Being able to positively affect your children in prayer will keep you in close contact with them and actively involved in their lives, even after they leave home. ...
It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.
When I was six, my best friend's parents bought him a piano. My mother noticed that every time I would go to his house, the first thing I would say to him was 'Levester' - His name was Levester - I said, 'Levester, can I go play your piano?' So, on m...
Denial is the lid on our emotional pressure cooker: the longer we leave it on, the more pressure we build up. Sooner or later, that pressure is bound to pop the lid, and we have an emotional crisis.
I've found what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.
If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.
Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in.
You always want to break away from your parents, and you always think, 'I'm never going to be like that guy.' What I've discovered is you kind of wind up becoming your parents, which is also a cliche in itself. My father, despite the fact that he's b...
'Big Little Lies' is the story of a school trivia night that goes horrifically wrong, when one parent ends up dead, possibly murdered. I have never attended a school trivia night where a parent ended up dead. In fact, I've never been to a school triv...
Quoting an experienced school counselor: "You can't change a bully into a flower child, but you can change him into a knight.
In response to our fast-food culture, a 'slow food' movement appeared. Out of hurried parenthood, a move toward slow parenting could be growing. With vital government supports for state-of-the-art public child care and paid parental leave, maybe we w...
I would expect illegal alien parents to take care of their children. If it means the kids go back home with them, that's what happens. If it means there are legal relatives in the United States that can take care of them, that can happen to. But I be...
I don't have a regular happy family like most people. My parents are separated; my dad married someone else and so did my mom. All my siblings are from my parents' other marriages. So yes, it is complicated, and I don't like talking about it or expla...
Ask any parent what we want for our children, and invariably we say 'a better life.' To that end, we give our time, our sleep, our money, and our dreams, much as our parents did before us. We all want a better life for our children. But what we want ...
My parents both had a great sense of humor, and always laughed a lot. One night, when they were watching 'Candid Camera,' I finally understood what comedy was all about. I heard the laughter on television, I turned around and saw my parents laughing,...
You know, my parents have always been incredibly supportive. I'm an only child, so we're very close. There's just the three of us. They're exceptional parents but also great friends. My father was able to take his hobby, photography, and turn it into...
My parents are both very funny but they're also relatively soft-spoken, normal human beings while I'm just a lunatic. I don't know where this loud, ballsy, hammy ridiculousness came from. I'm just glad I followed my goals and my parents did too. It's...
I guess I want very much to be recognized for my abilities, for the work I put in, and yet it's still always there - who my parents were. As much as I love my parents, if that was the last thing ever said about me - that I was their daughter - I woul...
