I watched this video this afternoon, and I realized that Craig Ferguson, although a comedian, is absolutely right. We are living in a society that idolized youth (American Idol). Speaking of American Idol, does anybody remember a few years ago when Taylor Hicks won the thing? He was something on the order [...]
”We find that bullies have a strong need to control others. Their need to be dominant masks an underlying fear that they are not in control, and they mask the sense of inadequacy by being a bully.” – Dr. Lochman, Duke University Medical School. We all know a bully or two. We dealt with them [...]
My family and I have been on the road for almost three weeks; and, in that time, our routine has been thrown entirely out of whack. Eating patterns, sleep schedules, school routines – they have all just gone right out the window. When we began the trip I tried to maintain some semblance of [...]
Children have minds of their own. They do inexplicable things and, at times, they are frustratingly incompetent. But kids are supposed to be that way. They aren’t supposed to know to write code, bake a four layer cake, or know what a limited slip differential is. Youngsters are ignorant of many things, and they [...]
One of the first things I investigated when I started being a stay at home parent were playgroups. My kids were two years old and six months old. Playgroups seemed to be all the rage. They still are. Unfortunately, as I thought, they were not for me. See, I am a man, and these groups are [...]
I don’t like to see my kids fail. But they do. Their feelings on the matter are what will either guide them to success or see them struggle later in life. What we can do as parents is to teach our kids that failure is healthy. Parents should impart a few eternal truths about [...]
Boys like things that go “boom”. They delight in being implements of destruction, facilitators of collapse. They love playing with swords, guns, boxing gloves, maces, crossbows, rocket launchers, tanks, and air-craft carriers – preferably the real thing. Boys play with dangerous things and involve themselves in reckless activities. There is a good reason why [...]
Before my wife and I had kids we had lives – I had a life. I had friends, attended public events, and even traveled. Our lives have undergone a remarkable change, mine more so than hers. At first I was too lost in the novelty of parenting to care that my everyday activities [...]
I talked about this a bit in the past, about kids having the freedom to make their own mistakes. This week I found a book called “Free-Range Kids”. The following article is a brief synopsis of the book and is what has really sparked my interest in this subject. There is an emerging [...]
I am not an expert potty trainer for all kids because I don’t think there is such a thing. I’m pretty sure it’s not anything like the dog whisperer. What I do know is that I got lucky and both my kids accomplished it with minimal travail. I dealt with the occasional accident in public and [...]
We raise our kids in our own image. Our dreams for them are to grow into better versions of ourselves. It’s pretty much the only way we know how to parent, and that’s what we do. They’ll eventually be molded into close approximations of us because we teach them our values and the things that [...]
