You love them. They’re your kids and there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for them. If they needed a kidney or someone to snatch them from in front of a speeding car, you wouldn’t hesitate. The day-to-day moments are more challenging, however. The developmental tasks of the teen years involve learning to create successful relationships…and they […]
Are you robbing your child? Sapping his independence? Maybe you should stop rescuing. You love your kids! You give them everything you can. You’d kill anyone who hurt them…but can parenting be over-done? Are you giving them too much stuff? Doing too much for them? Stepping in to save them when they’ve done something foolish? […]
Let’s get real. Going to college on scholarship doesn’t work for most kids. While costs for higher education continue to rise and many colleges offer their students some kind of financial aid, that aid usually takes the form of loans. The scholarships that are offered do not generally cover full or even half tuition. While […]
Who do I think I am to activate a kid’s potential? Am I living the life I want to live? Parents too often get caught in the belief that its their responsibility to make sure their children grow up to be certain kinds of individuals. Its like we’re raising a garden, rather than children. If […]
It’s always a temptation to blame the guy she’s dating. She’s skipping school or lying. She doesn’t answer her phone when you call. Parents and friends always want to blame the boyfriend. She was never like this until she started dating him, you want to insist. You may have even wished bad things on him, […]
Yes, parents, it is your house. You have a responsibility to help your kids grow up into good-functioning adults, but…do you always make your bed? Ironically, the thing most parents complain about is the state of their kids rooms. They can be dealing with kids who are failing in school, kids who use alcohol and […]
Having kids is one of the scariest things you can do in this life. The urge to become a parent is strong in most, and for many people, not a lot of thought goes into whether or not to become a parent. It’s more a question of when, than if. You may find yourself planning, […]
A time comes in a parent’s life when what you think or want doesn’t matter to your kid. She’s going her own road and, sometimes, she can reject the things you hold dear. Whether it be lifestyle or religion, your child will make her own choices. I’m offering no excuses here. The job of parent […]
Denise feels horrible her marriage fell apart. It’s all her fault, she’ll state sadly. She didn’t love him enough. She harped at him too much and she was too hard to live with. It was all her, not him. Marco knows his 20 year-old son is struggling in college because he can’t seem to motivate […]
Screwing up on a project…or blowing a proposal…or earning a D on a paper can make us feel like worthless losers, but each one of these failures brings us valuable information. We actually need to learn to process failure and rejection. This sounds so wrong! Failure should be avoided at all costs, shouldn’t it? Rejection […]