Growing Up Well

  • Reducing Anxiety

    Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Every human experiences anxiety. It is 100% normal, natural, and essential to life. Anxiety is a natural force that protects human life. We are hard-wired to sense threats to our wellbeing and to protect ourselves when threatened. Anxiety rises highest…

  • Raising Countercultural Kids in the United States of Addiction (Part 3 of 3)

    The trends are not looking good for the mental and emotional health of young people, across all demographics. For instance, most people think of college as one of the happier times in a person’s whole life. However, according to a recent survey by the American College Health Association, 52 percent of college students reported feeling…

  • Raising Countercultural Kids in the United States of Addiction (Part 2)

    Raising Countercultural Kids in the United States of Addiction (Part 2) In the previous post, we looked at how young people today are growing up in a culture which encourages extreme individuality. This individualistic lifestyle discourages healthy family life and social life, and it ultimately generates deep-down detachment and loneliness. This eventually creates chronic anxiety…

  • Raising Countercultural Kids in the United States of Addiction (Part 1)

    In the late 1990s, author J.K. Rowling invented the term “muggle” as a derogative term for the normal people of modern Britain. Muggles are all the ordinary human beings in Rowling’s wildly popular Harry Potter book series. Muggles do not have any magical powers or awareness of anything magical. They live for comfort, they conform…

  • Taking Control of Your Digital Life

    Part 3 in the series on becoming “tech-wise” The first two posts in this series laid down a philosophical framework for why we need to take control of our digital devices. Now, let’s dig into the nitty-gritty details. The following is a list of strategies, tools, and thoughts to consider as you use your electronic…

  • Becoming Tech-Wise: Philosophy of Use

    Becoming Tech-Wise: Philosophy of Use (Part 2 in series) Technology continues to improve, but is our use of technology improving? Not if we use all our high-tech devices and apps with their default settings. Not if we use them in whatever way feels right at the moment. Not if we go along with what everyone…

  • 3 Skills + 1 Passion

    For young people to achieve success in their career, it is no longer enough to have a college degree. New college graduates feel like a successful, satisfying, and sustainable career is out of their reach. But there is good news for them that is not dependent on the whims of the labor market or the…

  • The Holidays Are a Magnifier

    The Holidays — the six weeks of Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, and New Years — are a magnifier. In general, happy people get happier, sad people get sadder, lonely people get lonelier, etc. This is true for children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. For some, life is going pretty well, and the holidays are the most…

  • The Social Combat of Being 13

    A New World Order for Young Teens 7th and 8th grade is when the social life of a child amps up in three ways: importance, intensity, and consequences. At 13, a child’s social standing becomes extremely important to them, as it has become more important to all the other 13 year olds. For some, it…

  • The Work Hards

    There is a strange insult on youth athletic fields these days. “Don’t be such a Work Hard” is a slam that is meant to mock the hardest working players at practice. In most cases, it’s more a tease than a direct insult, but we all know that “I was just joking” is no joke. “Yeah,…

  • Why Are All the Kids Indoors?

    In the middle-class family-oriented neighborhoods around me, I just don’t see kids outside much. It’s rare to see a kid on a bike, much less playing a game in the yard. There are schools all over the place, so there must be thousands of kids nearby, but they are invisible. I see a few at the…

  • Your Family. Your Culture.

    The most common theme among parents of young teens lately is that they want to live differently than the culture. Most parents do not want their kids to ingest the current culture of materialism, comparison, busyness, and anxiety. They don’t like what the culture is teaching and demanding. Most parents want to be connected with…

  • Living on 1 Dollar Per Day

    Young people in America need to know more about real poverty, and this video is possibly the best I have ever seen at getting kids to relate to abject poverty. It’s entertaining and educational. They pack a lot of information and experiences into just 28 minutes. Plus, it’s appropriate for kids age 11 and up,…

  • Parenting is Regulating

    Every parent should regulate their children’s behavior until they are ready to regulate their own. It will likely be a 20-year process, which starts with full regulatory control of the infant and ends with total release of all control at adulthood. What does it mean “to regulate?” In grammatical terms, it is a transitive verb,…

  • The Power of Kindness

    Josh was a normal teenager whose father died. His mother moved them from their home in the country to the city, with the hope that a fresh start would improve their lives. But Josh was ridiculed in his new school for no good reason. In fact, he was ridiculed for a horrible reason. Instead of…

  • Advice for Middle School Kids

    Recently, I asked my Facebook friends to give me advice for my 7th graders. Here’s what my friends have learned in their 30 years of growing up since 7th grade. Be cool to everyone because there’s a good chance you will either marry, work with, or work for one of them one day. “It’s not…

  • Peace in the Parenting Journey

    Being a parent is overwhelming in mid-December, when everybody’s activities and pressures are multiplying. During the holidays, our expectation of family life is heightened along with our kids’ sense of entitlement and their frustrations with school. Arguments are common this time of year. Perhaps a few lumps of coal belong in some stockings. It’s a…

  • Teach Your Kids Sportsmanship

    If more parents focused on character over performance, then we would not need signs like this.

  • Musical Instruments Build the Brain

    Consider the many benefits of playing a musical instrument. Every child should try to play some sort of instrument to create music. It does not have to be classical or even in a group, although playing in the band at school is certainly a terrific activity. Just get involved in making some music.

  • The Distance Run

    I coach middle school cross country, which is not a glamorous job, but it is uniquely rewarding. For young distance runners, the hardest part is embracing the pain that creates stronger legs and faster times. I try to make practices and meets fun, but there is no way of getting around the fact that running…

  • Tips for Motivating Young Teens

    It takes more than a poster to motivate kids. Ask any schoolteacher. Early in their careers, young teachers will spend their own hard-earned cash on motivational posters for their classrooms, and soon thereafter they realize that those stylish platitudes are only good for the companies that sell motivational posters. Motivating kids, especially teenagers, is a…

  • Motivate. Don’t Manipulate Your Kids.

    Once again, his room isn’t clean, not by any standard. Her backpack, jacket, and shoes are scattered about the floor of the hall, again. His grades are sub-par in math, again. She is making the family late to school, again. He seems to be nonchalant about his music audition this weekend. She isn’t running enough…

  • Perpetual Parenting

    It’s likely that you are being a great parent even when you aren’t thinking about it. You may be doing a heck of a job of training your children without even trying to do so. Unaware, you can parent well. Unfortunately, that door swings both ways. You can be a terrible parent without thinking about…

  • Kids in Cars Talking Life

    The car is where the best stories have a chance to run and really stretch out their legs freely. It’s where sarcasm bursts up out of nowhere and cracks everyone up. It’s where kids break into tears after a horrible day at school. It’s where questions are posed, debates develop, and problems get solved. The…

  • Why Young Kids Should Learn to Use Dangerous Things

    A friend recently posted on Facebook a picture of her three young children helping their dad build a deck. The seven year-old boy was using a power drill to sink a deck screw. Another woman posts a picture of her two kids 6 feet high up in the branches of an old oak tree. One…

  • Connect + Guide + Enjoy = Good Parenting

    You are never done parenting. There is never enough time, energy, money, or wisdom to do it all right. Parenting is incessant, and perfection is impossible. No professor will give you an A for all that you did for your children this semester. No counselor will tell you that you can now celebrate because you…

  • Take Your Kids Outdoors

    Kids spend well over 40 HOURS per week in front of electronic screens, but less than 40 MINUTES per week in nature. Screens are ruling teens. Delayed Gratification A major component of growing up is learning to deal with long waits and unexpected delays, yet nearly everything is now available in an instant. If we are going…

  • Play Well This Summer!

    Summer School. Summer Job. Summer Reading. Yes, parents need to keep kids mentally active and productive in the summer. Growing up well requires hard work and intellectual development year round. However, parents also need to help kids enjoy life fully, and that absolutely requires fun — the sort of fun that is a little dangerous…

  • Managing Social Media (Part 2)

    Dealing With Annoying Social Media Posts (Part 2)After writing my last post on how to respond to all those annoying tweets, pins, or Facebook posts, I quickly realized that I am a hypocrite in this area.Therefore, I confess that I need to be more gracious online. Just ask my sisters. They get the brunt end…

  • Five Ways to Manage Your Social Media

    Social media, like just about everything, can be a blessing or a curse. It’s usually both. It’s a #lovehaterelationship, right? When we log on, we see a picture of true beauty, like someone’s adorable daughter jumping in the swimming pool with floaties for the first time, and we are so glad that she shared it.…

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