Growing Up Well

  • 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…

  • The Power of No (Part 3)

    Young teenagers often “cross the line.” It’s inevitable, so it should not surprise us. Yet, we should not just acquiesce to the lowest common denominator: “Boys will be boys.” It’s our job as adults to help young boys and girls to live well and to move towards becoming young men and women. Adolescence should be…

  • The Power of No (Part 2)

    Sometimes a bad example is as motivating as a good one. I had just such an experience last Saturday: Guitar Center is now my son’s “candy store.”  There are so many flavors to sample: Stratocaster, Telecaster, Les Paul, and Gretsch to name a very few.  Saturdays are the worst day to shop there because there…

  • How to Negotiate with Children

    In a recent panel discussion about parenting on National Public Radio, “When No Means No” (11 minutes of audio), some moms and a family therapist were debating the extent to which parents should negotiate with their children.  It is an interesting discussion about how children need to learn to negotiate at home so that they…

  • The Value of Pain

    As I walk through the halls after school, there is a barrage of faces along my path.  Some I know well; some I don’t know at all.  Some are happy; some look very frustrated.  But all of these kids have stories inside.  Some of their stories are silly — full of joy from a life…

  • Prepare Them for Life

    Protection and provision are not enough. “Here’s the paradox: If we protect our children too absolutely, we actually end up exposing them to other risks.  And leave them without the skills, experiences, and minor life lessons that they’ll need to handle the big challenges as they grow up.” (Perri Klass, M.D.) When children are very…

  • Mean Moms

    Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me: I loved you enough to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home. I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover…

  • Healthy Adults, Healthy Kids

    Being healthy as an adult will yield both direct and indirect benefits for the kids in your care.  Take care of yourself, for their sake. This video is thought-provoking and interesting, even if you think you know everything about being healthy. Here’s proof that we need help in this area:  Super-Fatty Menu Items

  • Delayed Gratification

    Very few things anymore take a long time to happen.  Nearly everything is available in an instant.  Instant messaging.  Movies on demand.  Cell phones with internet access.  Instant winners.  Ultra-fast food.  Five-minute total-body workouts.  You name it, and America can make it faster, so we can fit more into our days. A major component of…

  • Avoiding Alcohol in Adolescence

    The following is an excerpt from “A sobering time for parents” by SHEILA WAYMAN (printed in the Irish Times 9-01-09) “Our approach to drinking in Ireland is not normal; we drink to get drunk,” says consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Bobby Smyth, who specialises in addiction. Every day, through his work at the Drug…

  • Teenage Media Addiction

    Children of the Screen As much as I like FaceBook and text messaging, I know that it needs to be limited a great deal in my life.  Like so many things, I have learned over the years to balance good things like FB and texting so that they don’t take up all my time and…

  • Training Up Independent Kids

    Embracing Mistakes; Developing Problem-Solvers Thomas Edison believed that failure was not a bad thing; it merely directed him closer to success.  He embraced his mistakes as opportunities to learn, and he ultimately succeeded as the greatest inventor of all time. The truth is that you want your children (or students) to learn from their mistakes,…

  • The Power of Choice

    Children lack power.  They can control very little in their lives, until they get a license to drive and the keys to the car.  So, when they don’t get choices, they seek power; they just find ways to push our buttons, in the hope that perhaps we will give them choices.  You can’t blame them…

  • Don’t Baby Them

    BENEFITS OF STRUGGLING “A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as…

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