Category: Parenting

What I know about finances can be written on the back of a postage stamp with a shaving brush. I know nothing about stocks, bonds, hedge funds, and derivatives—whatever those are. Indeed, I have the Midas Touch when it comes to speculating: everything I invest in turns into a muffler.

“Maggie,” a middle school child, has repeatedly forgotten to bring a pencil to math class. After the fifth infraction, Maggie’s teacher has given her a “lunchroom detention“ whereby Maggie must sit alone to eat and is not allowed to interact with any of her classmates. Which of the three parenting

Turns out one of my Running Buddies has an actual “job“ of some kind that involves her doing “work”. Apparently, part of her grown-up life entails given lectures about the widgets—or possibly grommets—produced by her company.  We’ve only been sweating together in the dark for the past 20 years so

No matter how thin you make the pancakes, they always have two sides. With the possible exception of family game night–always fun–pretty much every other parent-child interaction is double edged. What about encouragement?  Could there be a dark side to being a supportive parent? Consider the following seemingly uplifting statement

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are remarked Thomas Carlyle. We don’t pressure our children suggest parents 150 years later. Yet breakfasting with my running buddies recently, I wondered if these two statements might impinge on one another. After our seven-mile

To be fair, I have not read More. I did read several paragraphs of a review though. Here is my understanding: a couple is dissatisfied with their marriage. So in addition to chatting with a counselor, they engage in ethical polyamory. Having additional intimate partners who are also grouchy with

In this corner… in the blue trunks, just back from a six-month stint in a third-world country digging irrigation ditches and setting up micro-loans for a women’s sewing cooperative, Ms. Attitude-of-Gratitude! This competitor drives her younger siblings to school, mows the lawn without being reminded, takes grandma food shopping every

What promises—expressed and implied—have you made to your children? Have you suggested that as adults they will live in a house bigger than the one in which they currently reside? Have you communicated that they will eventually earn more money than you? Did you tell them that they would go

I bought a lottery ticket yesterday. I know. I know. I was a math teacher. I know better. I get it. The odds of winning the hundreds of millions of dollars are effectively zero. I understand the expected value theorem. And I know that games of chance are attacks on

Back 40 years ago when I started doing this work and was convinced I knew everything, I would offer parenting advice–typically of the unsolicited variety: “treat your kids like adults;” “treat your kids like children;” “pay attention when they fuss;” “ignore their tantrums,” I should have been taken out behind