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Blogs and Articles

School Days, School Days, Dear Old Golden Rule Days...

For most children going back to school almost always involves a certain amount of anxiety. As adults, the transition from summertime to school time seems relatively easy. After all, the date for the beginning of school has probably been part of our planning for the summer...we had to keep it in mind to plan vacations, many of us made alternate child care arrangements for the summer and now must release others from that responsibility. For children, however, the summer days flow endlessly one into the other and summertime is eternal. Thus, as school approaches in...

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Different Ages, Different Rules?

Although the idea of having different rules in your household for your children who are different ages might seem self-evident, the actual implementation of those rules can be troublesome. Any parent who has tried, for example, to institute an earlier bedtime for their 6 year old when they have an 8 year old who stays up later will have heard the popular refrain "It's not fair!" more than once. In fact, the uprising that can occur when younger ones rebel often causes parents to crumble, allowing their younger children to have more flexible, lax or lenient rules...

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Friendship

Many parents express intense concern over the way their children treat and are treated by friends. From "my child's so bossy, I'm worried that she'll never have any friends," to "my child doesn't stand up for himself, he always does what his friends want," and including "my child came home crying because his friends wouldn't let him join the soccer game," children's social lives, the form that they take, and the way in which they develop worry and distress parents.

"Kids are so cruel, won't that affect my child's self-esteem?" "My daughter was treated...

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The Parent You Want To Be

If you've been reading in these articles you have beguan to come up with ways to make yourself a more effective parent. Perhaps you've used some of the tools with success, and if so, congratulations. It's also possible that some of the tools have been difficult to implement...maybe you've read them, thought they'd be helpful, but in your rush to get the kids off to school that morning, you threw the paper out. Or maybe you just felt too tired and irritable that day to try something new, and yelling was easier and at least seemed to work -- after all the kids did...

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The Unexpected!

At 18 years of age, I had already owned my first car for two years. Growing up in Texas, most individuals needed a car, and families often bought one for their teens to avoid scheduling snafus. I was in my first year of college and had always been adept at managing my money so as to never find myself in financial difficulty. Yes, I was a bit of a tightwad! But it served me well in terms of having money when I needed it. One morning I went out to start the car, turned the key and … nothing. Not even a click. Oh no, I thought to myself. I’m going to have to get someone to jump start it...

Parenting 101: Epic Fail

Ok, in my defense I was asleep. Or at least I had been just moments before when I was awakened by my 17 year old son who said (in a neutral tone of voice), “Hey Mom. I got accepted into the Film department at UT.” To backtrack a bit before confessing my parenting sin, you should know that my son has three top choices on his college list. The order in which he preferred one over the other seemed to be semi-fluid for a while, but University of Texas at Austin had risen to the top with two contingencies: 1) He would be admitted to his major – Film -- and 2) He would get into Plan II which is...

Momma Mouse and Me

Last night at around 9:30 p.m. my nineteen year old son, who is a new and enthusiastic runner, decided to go out to Central Park for a run. My fingers knitted together and my brow was close behind. “Running? Now? It’s 9:30.” I said. My son looked at me with a gently benevolent and only slightly patronizing expression, “Mom, I’m six feet tall, it’ll be fine.” So he left. And I got ready for bed. And fell asleep the way mothers do – with one ear open waiting for him to come home. Which he did, of course. But it got me thinking about motherhood and the demon of worry that we seem to...

A Female Voice?

I recently got an email from someone who wanted a “female voice” to read at an event.  The subject of the email was “Ladies.” I found myself tremendously bothered by the email, but not initially sure why.  After reflecting on it for a day or two, I came to some realizations.

First, it rankles me to be called a lady.  Even though I am a cisgender female, I don’t identify as a “lady.” When someone calls me that I immediately disconnect. It conjures up specific images of parasols, cinched waists and luncheons with others...

How to define “needs” vs. “wants” and teach our teens something about spending and saving in the proces

While staying with my grown daughter during part of our vacation, I noticed that she seemed to have a clear financial plan with regard to spending money on items that she needs as well as on things that she wants, so I asked her how she creates a balance between the two. Interestingly, while I thought there was a clear differentiation between “needs” vs. “wants,” she asked for clarification. I explained that “needs” are things like toilet paper, food, gas money, etc. “Wants” are things like a new pair of shoes if you already have perfectly serviceable ones. She nodded and replied, “I make...

"Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away With Another Spoon"

I just finished reading the most marvelous coloring book! I know, I know, reading? A coloring book? How does that happen? It happens when the words are as charming, brave, bold, humorous and touching as the pictures. It happens when the coloring book makes you not only want to go out and buy yourself a shiny new box of colored pencils to color again, but also when you want to quote the words you read to all your friends. The coloring book, “Sometimes The Spoon Runs Away With Another Spoon” re-imagines the gender biased world in which we live and celebrates the true complexities and...

The "G" word

Andrea, the mother of three year old Max, was stressed when she called me. “He’s driving me crazy,” she said, “he insists that I drop everything to look something up about the Tigris River and when I tell him that he has to wait he has the most explosive temper tantrum you’ve ever seen. Then, when I put him in a time out, just to calm him down, he writes me a note of apology, so that was sweet, but I just can’t take the irrational behavior!” Another mother, Joan, called to tell me that her daughter, Suzanna, was in danger of being kicked out of preschool for being argumentative. The most...

It’s Not My Monkey

I’m going to admit, for better or worse, that when my children (ages 23 and 28 - both of whom are married or partnered) have a problem, it causes me anxiety.  Their problem may be with work, or insurance, or with their spouse or partner.  It may be with their feelings of sadness or anger or anxiety.  It may be with finances or their car.  It doesn’t matter, because the moment I hear of it I want to fix it.  In fact, I often take on the feelings as if they are my own.  I begin internally brainstorming about how to solve the problem....

Financial Lessons for Teens

If I had to choose just one financial lesson for teens to learn before they head into young adulthood it would be the lesson of how money works in real life. In my last post, I said that I don’t believe you should pay your teen for doing chores or getting good grades. In fact, I don’t believe your teen should have to “earn” his allowance in any way. How, then, do we reconcile that with the fact that in “real life” money is earned, not just handed to you? I believe this question arises from a misconception about the definition of allowance. As I stated last time, I define allowance as...

Outside the Box

When my son came home from his first day of school this week, I asked him how it went with regard to using his AmEx PASS card to purchase lunch, since this was one of the things he was wary about when switching from cash to card to receive his allowance. “The place we went to wouldn’t take my card,” he said. “Oh. How did you handle that?” I asked. “I just borrowed money from a friend,” he replied. Ok, but how are you going to pay your friend back, I wondered. Presumably, his friend doesn’t take AmEx either! But I bit my tongue and didn’t ask. I wanted to, I really wanted to! But I...

The Empty Nest

It’s summer. My time is a little less restricted than it usually is because a lot of my clients are away on vacation with their children. I’m spending my free office hours throwing away papers that have accumulated during the past nine or ten months. Earlier in the year, making a decision about throwing these papers away seemed too Herculean a task. Now, they’re just papers and I wonder why I was keeping them and why it was so hard to think about throwing them away earlier. I do this every year though. It’s so predictable that now I laugh at the way I repeat these annual actions....

“Firsts” and Teen Independence – Part I

This past weekend represented a “first” for my husband and me in the parenting department: we went away and left our son home by himself for two nights. We did not come to this decision easily, mind you. While he’s a “rising senior” in High School and a really reliable kid, he’s only 16. We questioned ourselves: what if there was an emergency? Would he know how to handle it? What if he got ill: who could he call? How would he eat? Would he turn the flame off the burner on the stove if he cooked for himself? How would we know where he was? What if we text him and we don’t hear back?...

Illicit dealings?

I recently asked my son how he thought things might be different this Fall, using his AmEx PASS card rather than being given his allowance in cash on a weekly basis. Deadpan, he quipped, “It’s obvious. Cash is virtually untraceable so all of my illicit dealings will now have to be under the table or I'll have to go to the cash machine and pay a fee. I’m just going to have to be more thoughtful about what I do illicitly.” So much for a straight answer! It did, however, get me thinking. One of the advantages of giving your child his allowance on a card rather than in cash is that you can...

A Parenting Expert's Response to "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior"

Since many people seem to be posting and re-posting the article by Amy Chua (Wall Street Journal, 1/8/2011) about how Chinese mothers are superior to Western mothers and appear to appreciate her point of view, I decided to share my thoughts on her article. As a well-known parenting expert who has not only raised two successful, happy children of my own, I have also extensively and intensively studied and taught parenting strategies for the past 21 years. With regard to Chua’s article, it was initially difficult for me to get past its decidedly racist slant. I couldn’t help wondering if...

From Empty Nest to College Dorm

I’m not complaining. Let me say that right up front. It’s just that I didn’t expect to go from an empty nest to having not one but two college students living with us this summer. I knew that my son would be coming home, of course, and was rejoicing in that news. The unexpected part occurred when one of his best friends from high school asked if she could live with us this summer. (And no, they’re not dating. They really are just friends. No, I don’t have my head in the sand. And no, I’m not giving you a “wink, wink, nod, nod” as I write this. They are truly a testament to the fact...

Family Meetings and Teaching Financial Literacy

When we gave our son his American Express PASS card, he immediately made a bid for more allowance. My reply: Let's sit down at a family meeting and we'll discuss it. In the meantime, I told him, he should think about what extra financial responsibilities he wants to take on with the additional allowance. Family meetings are a great way to maintain an ongoing discussion within which you can both support and teach your teen about money. I highly recommend that you have a family meeting once a week (at least in the beginning) to check in and see how things are going; to determine whether...

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