The school year has only just begun. It’s a time when children are excited to return to school, see their friends, meet their new teachers and feel really good about being a year older. Right? Not for all.
I received an email from a mother who said her son shoved his homework into his backpack all ripped up, said he doesn’t care or give a s*#t about his homework. She explained that the school has a color system for behavior—green, yellow, blue, and red (wonder what the blue means). Everyday her son comes home and tells her, I was good today or I was bad today.
Most schools have some form of behavior management program in place. Using punishment to manage behavior has much research supporting its ineffectiveness and shows that it can be counterproductive. In lieu of punishment techniques, many schools have taken to reward systems. The problem is that students who miss out on the rewards again and again, feel punished and resentful of the students who get them.
I’m sure that the administration and faculty of any Read more…
“If only I didn’t get so angry!” Parents know their anger causes all sorts of problems—but what do you do about it?
When my daughter Molly was nine, she and I were having a conversation about envy and jealousy. She was in one of those philosophical moods when she loved to talk about her views on everything. I asked her if she still felt envious of her older brother, Casey, as she had in the past. Molly had always struggled in her childhood, and he did not. She plunged right into the subject talking about the time in her life when she wanted to be him.
Wouldn’t it be nice if your Mother’s Day gift from your children would be their promise never to fight again and to love each other always. As much as we try for sibling love and harmony, we cannot make it happen. But we can influence their relationship, their treatment of one another and the respect and support they give each other. In her new book, Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings, Dr. Laura Markam shows us step by step, complete with dialogue, how to stop the fighting and build thoughtful, considerate connections between our children.
Peer pressure. It’s a term that provokes fear in every parent—fear that children will succumb to the negative influence of classmates and friends to behave in dangerous ways. Parents worry that being liked and a part of the popular group will be more important to their children than working hard, getting good grades, and getting their values at home. Turning into who they think their friends want or expect them to be is the stuff of a parent’s nightmare.
Ever feel that way? You try desperately to avoid the inevitable meltdown, the screaming “NO!”, the next “I don’t have to and you can’t make me” or the falling on the floor in a fit of tears—in the middle of the supermarket. I hear so often, “Everyday it’s the same thing. I can’t get my child to do anything I want. It seems as if I ask her to lift her finger and she falls apart.”
Instead of telling you what to add for the new year, I’m going to tell you what to avoid. I saw a 
When it’s “home for the holidays”, it is the rare adult who does not trip back into the role they played as a child within their family of origin. The same old feuds, difficult relationships, favoritisms, and grudges occur. Perhaps they are held beneath the surface, but active there none-the-less. Often home means nurturing, warmth, support, and familiar customs. But it can just as easily mean criticism, disapproval, discomfort, and for those raising their own children, humiliation, intimidation and insecurity as well.