Archive for 'Behavior'

Road Hog! The Unwritten Rules of the Road

Posted 16 September 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior, guest posts | 10 Comments

This is a guest post by Mely “the Wife” Wilcox.  She came back from a run one day in a state of apoplectic rage at pedestrian discourtesy.  She doesn’t write often, but when she does you know it must be important.  This is what she has to say.                    It has been said in the [...]

Dancing: Attracting a Mate and Staying Fit

Posted 08 September 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior | 7 Comments

   This is a new one.  In findings published in the Royal Society Journal Biology Letters (whatever that is) Dr. Nick Neave has associated our ability or inability to dance with mating dances of wild animals, and he’s demonstrated a link between good dancing and better health and virility.  Dr. Neave got men to dance [...]

Baby Picture Cuteness Contests: Recipe for Failure

Posted 07 September 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior | 26 Comments

      I know why parents enter their kids in beauty pageants, and it’s weird.  I’m not alone in that feeling; most people consider little kid beauty pageants to be over the top wrong.  Almost equally quixotic and wrong though are baby picture cuteness contests where parents submit baby pictures for judging online or by a sponsoring corporation.  Either way, beauty pageant or [...]

First Girlfriend or First Friend who’s a Girl?

Posted 05 September 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior | 6 Comments

     Boys can enter puberty anywhere from about age 9 to 13.  Obviously it stands to reason that’s when they’ll become interested in girls.  But, a boy doesn’t have to have a physical attraction to girls to enjoy being around them.  My 7 year old is evidence of that.  He’s the first of his male [...]

Too Strict? It Depends on the Kid

Posted 02 September 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior | 8 Comments

   I saw a questionnaire in this month’s Parent magazine (which I read for amusement while hanging out at the bookstore) that purports to be able to discern the effectiveness of your parenting method by way of a 10 question quiz.  Like many half baked, self scoring, magazine based personality quizzes this one asks questions [...]

How to Get Engaged: Keep it Simple

Posted 28 August 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior | 8 Comments

      Getting engaged is nothing more than a resolution between two people to get married.  You can’t very well show up at the church one day without agreeing with your partner on a date and time, right?  So that’s what an engagement is – you agree that marriage is something you both want to do, and [...]

Being a Parent: Marcus Aurelius Gives Advice

Posted 24 August 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior | 15 Comments

   “Men seek retreats for themselves – in the country, by the sea, in the hills – and you yourself are particularly prone to this yearning.  But all this is quite unphilosophic, when it is open to you, at any time you want, to retreat into yourself.  No retreat offers someone more quiet and relaxation [...]

The In-laws

Posted 22 August 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior | 15 Comments

  What’s the matter with in-laws?  Mine like me, and my mom, mom, and dad really like Mely, too (mom, mom isn’t a typo.  Read about that here).   The only whiff of a problem I ever had with an in-law was 6 years ago when my father in-law called me a girl.  He’s a great guy, [...]

Beating up the Weakling

Posted 09 August 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior | 13 Comments

   Non conformity is one reason some kids get picked on.  Like I talked about yesterday, peer pressure causes school kids to try their best to act and look the same as one another.  The kids spend so much time worrying about looking like their neighbor that education takes a back seat.  But, the question [...]

Peer Pressure: The Only Cure is Self Confidence

Posted 08 August 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior | 10 Comments

     Peer pressure is part of growing up and it’s hard to avoid.  While writing yesterday’s article about school supplies and excessive branding I reflected on some of the things peer pressure demanded of me as a kid.  What was cool when you were a kid?  What things, if seen with (or without), would make [...]

The 7 Deadly Sins: Fabricated Nonsense

Posted 01 August 2010 | By | Categories: Behavior | 9 Comments

     A lot of people think the 7 Deadly Sins are written indelibly in the Bible.  Well they aren’t; they came from the mind of a 4th century Greek monk named Evagrius of Pontus.  Evagrius even came up with the notion of ranking the sins in order of seriousness: gluttony, fornication avarice, sadness, anger, listlessness, vainglory, and pride.  [...]