When I think back to my high school years, I’m pretty sure my main source of insecurity was my skin. I remember being at a choir concert and feeling absolutely certain that everyone in the audience was surely staring at the giant pimple on my nose. And I almost...
The Bully without a Face When I hear the word “bully,” I think of kids who corner other kids in the hallways and steal their lunches. A bully is an in-your-face offender. You know what a bully looks like, and you try to avoid confrontations at all costs. With the rise...
Fostering Commitment and Personal Responsibility in Children By Nicole Crawford Your daughter comes home from a long day of school and collapses on a couch with a sigh. “Mom, I cannot go to dance tonight. I just don’t even like it anymore.” You point out she’s only...
Last May, I graduated from my 200-hour yoga teaching training and became a certified yoga instructor. The first piece of advice our teacher gave us upon completing the training was to find a mentor. Believe it or not, in my 29 years on this Earth I had never received...
Puberty in the Brain When I was young, my family moved a lot. By the time I was in eighth grade, I had attended five different schools. You would think I would have been used to moving around, but I vividly remember driving to school in eighth grade and holding back...
Last month my two oldest daughters (ages 6 and 4) competed in the San Antonio Highland Games dance competition. As excited as we all were, I was worried about one thing: They were competing against each other in the same age group. If that’s not a sibling rivalry...
By the time my daughter was 11 months old, it was obvious she could walk on her own if she wanted to. But try as we might, my husband and I couldn’t get her to step away from the coffee table. One day we had a woman come to the apartment to buy our couch. She was a...
How Parents can help Last month, my oldest son came home from school and announced that, for the third consecutive year, he had qualified to represent his grade in the school-wide spelling bee. “That’s wonderful!” I exclaimed. An awkward silence followed. “OK, mom,...
When and how do you do it? When it comes to raising our two boys, ages 12 and 10, my husband and I often joke that we are “making it up as we go along,” especially when it comes to rules. We have always had a few of what the boys refer to as “the biggies.” These are...
I remember the Christmas that my oldest son, Jack, was in kindergarten, and, like most children, his anticipation of the big day was reaching a fevered pitch. He had made his list, checked it twice, gone to see Santa, and was full of the confidence that only a...
Kids & "Bad" Words Do you give a D@#!? There is a scene in one of my favorite holiday movies, A Christmas Story, where Ralphie utters “the queen mother of dirty words” and gets his mouth washed out with soap. While the scene is hilarious, the situation isn’t quite as...
Stragegies for keeping everyone cool and calm Ahhh, the familiar sounds of summer: the tinkling melody of the ice cream truck, the splashing coming from the neighborhood pool, the chirping of crickets and katydids as they strike up their evening serenade. And above it...
Recognizine and Handling Bullying COUNSELORS AND WEBSITES CAN HELP What do you think of when you hear the word, “bully”? If you are of my parents’ generation, you might think of that kid who was always taking the other kids’ milk money. If you are my age (40...
What to do when a relationship turns sour As parents, we spend much of our lives teaching our youngsters and helping them to navigate the twists and turns they encounter along the road of life. We share our “been there, done that” wisdom, comfortable in the knowledge...
Avoiding "the look" when you fly with children The tinsel’s off the tree and the last stocking has been stowed. Ready to relax? Not so fast! Spring Break is right around the corner, and many of us, lured by glossy travel brochures and picturesque websites, are already...
It was the shock heard ‘round the world when a scantily clad Miley Cyrus and her foam finger pranced and “twerked” her way across the stage of the MTV Video Music Awards as Robin Thicke watched lasciviously and sang about Blurred Lines. The performance was the topic...
Not so long ago, my two sons were content to play with train sets and Tonka trucks for hours on end. Flash forward a few years, and suddenly we are inundated with what I call the “iWants.” What are the “iWants?” They are the seemingly never-ending requests for the...
My sister called me recently, exhausted, overwhelmed and at her breaking point. “It’s Groundhog Day around here,” she said, her voice shaky. I knew exactly what she meant. It was a reference to the Bill Murray movie in which his character wakes every morning and has...
