Blogs and Articles

When my daughter was 17 years old, she had a freak surfing accident in which one of her fingers was partially amputated by the leg rope of a surfboard.  She was on the West Coast at the time, and it was the 2nd day of the academic program she was attending out there.

She was remarkably strong.  She insisted that she didn’t need us to fly out there from our home in New York and begged us not to remove her from the program and bring her home.  She was...

In other articles I have often discussed how important it is for parents to examine their values and to transmit those values to their children by setting limits for them. Many parents begin with good intentions in this regard, only to find that children of today are very clever at negotiating, manipulating and wheedling their way out of those very limits. In the end, the children wind up behaving in the way they'd like, and the parents wind up bewildered and helpless, at a loss to explain how they ended up "giving in" once again.

One of the most common...

Jenna's mom paid a significant amount of money for Jenna to attend day camp. Jenna was enthusiastic, but also anxious. The night before camp began, she started complaining of a stomach ache. She is so nervous each morning that she begins hysterically crying and throws up.

Max's dad thought a sports camp would be just the thing. He often said that Max was born with a baseball bat in his hand. Yet now that camp has begun, Max becomes hysterical about a half hour before the bus comes. So far, Dad has been able to coerce him on to the bus, but wonders if he's doing the right...

Historically, parents have relied upon the teachings of their elders to know how to raise their children. From breast-feeding to disciplining, the extended members of the family provided advice and support about child rearing. With the advent of the modern, industrialized society, people moved long distances away from their relatives, and thus, long distances away from the "advice" of fellow family members. Suddenly, parents were fending for themselves in the realm of child-rearing. A sense of isolation and sometimes even helplessness at how best to raise our...

If the title of this article speaks to you, then you're in good company. No matter what their child's age, one of the biggest complaints I hear from parents is that their children talk back. Why is it that even young children have "an attitude" with their parents? What is causing this phenomenon to occur at younger and younger ages? And no matter what your child's age is, what can you do about it?

We all know the part of the Constitution of the United States that states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." More and...

"Family Values" seems to be a catch-all term used haphazardly by the media to imply that values in families are lacking in our society today. A "return to family values" further implies that we've gone astray from some old-fashioned yet fundamental truth. Perhaps, it hints, if we "simplify" our lives, reject the complexities of our current society, perhaps even find a log cabin in the woods somewhere and live as a family of hermits, we will recapture - for ourselves and our children - something that is lost yet essential to family life.

I would argue that...