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Blogs and Articles

Setting Up For School Success

Of all the myriad aspects that make up the school year -- routines, extracurricular activities, early mornings, pick up and drop off plans -- the one that challenges parents the most is homework. And most parents (and children too!) close their eyes to its inevitable occurrence thereby finding themselves ensnarled in power struggles and tantrums with each other once homework passes through the portals of their previously calm home. Let's look at an alternative to the closed eyes route and see how you might be able to set your child up for success even before...

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Enforcing House Rules With Playdates

How can I enforce the rules of my house with my son's friends?

Truthfully, enforcing "house rules" should not be so different with your child's friends than enforcing them with your child. The key in both cases is to communicate your expectations respectfully, honestly and clearly, and to set up ahead of time some well-defined consequences for rules that get broken. Let's look at the different components as they might apply to a child who takes out too many toys at a time.

* Respect. Many times parents feel doubtful about enforcing "house rules"...

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Teaching Your Child How To Budget Money

One of the biggest problems facing parents today is curbing the sense of entitlement that children feel. From designer jeans, to extended curfews, to credit cards, many children have an attitude of "I deserve to have the things my friends have" or simply "I deserve to have stuff as well as money to spend." In part, this attitude is encouraged and reinforced by the media, whose primary message is "you gotta have it or you're not cool." However, parents also play a part, often overindulging their children by buying them material things whenever they want them or...

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I Don't Have Any Friends

"I took my daughter to school for her first day. We got to the schoolyard, and her class isn't very big, and the girls were all huddled together, chatting. My daughter walked up to greet them, and they were so mean to her. Catty and cruel - you know how girls can be. I was furious. My daughter came home crying that day, and I just don't know how to help her."

"I watched my son in the schoolyard and it was so clear that he was having difficulty breaking into a group. Several boys were playing basketball, some others were looking through their Pokemon cards...

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Does anybody REALLY know what time it is?

7:30 a.m. this morning: buzz, buzz, buzz. I hit the button on the alarm and it stopped. Well, I thought, I feel pretty good! That extra hour of sleep really makes a difference! Quick back story: my son, Dan, has been sick with the flu for 5 days. Last night he woke us up three times for various reasons, one of which was that he still has a 99.7 fever and couldn’t go to school today. That is when I reset my alarm from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m. I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and stretched, looking back at my husband as I did so. Still asleep. My eyes rested momentarily on the alarm...

A Year And Change

In a recent conversation with an old friend that I haven’t spoken to in years, she alluded to my “recent” blog, “The Empty Nest,” saying “How is it having your son away in college?” It shook me up to realize that a year-and-change has gone by since I wrote that blog and that for people reading it for the first time, it’s as if time stood still. I’m reminded of numerous examples in our lives as parents when we haven’t seen each other’s children for a while and we exclaim, “Oh my God, look at how tall you’ve gotten!” It’s as if we can’t envision time moving forward unless we, ourselves, are...

How Can I Stop Misgendering my Friend / Child / Co-worker?

I received an excellent question to my article “My Child is Non-Binary and I’m Confused.”  Someone wrote in and asked, “I have friends and work colleagues who are transgender. [Sometimes I slip up and misgender them.] Interesting that I am slipping more with my friends. It upsets me when I do it. I immediately apologize and try to validate what I imagine is pain, anger and frustration. I would … like to identify steps I [can] take to not misgender again. I have not asked my friend if he has suggestions as I don’t know if that would be more upsetting.”...

Kids and Allowance

I'm always astonished when I hear a parent proclaim, "I don't believe in giving my child an allowance." Sometimes this is accompanied by, "I'd rather just hand him cash when he asks" and /or "I don't want to spoil him." Either way, I'm puzzled by this attitude. Our job as parents is to raise our children to be functioning adults some day and adults need to know how to handle money. Children of all ages are experiential learners: they don't learn well if they're lectured about something – instead, they need to experience things themselves. This includes making mistakes and learning...

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?...

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