Emotional Training Helps Kids Fight Depression : NPR.
This is a brilliant effort at nipping the downward spiral in the bud when children are at their most formative, and it is definitely running parallel to what I am trying to work on with my son.
» Continue reading “Emotional Training Helps Kids Fight Depression : NPR”
I was daydreaming just now, thinking about a conversation I had earlier with another parent. We were discussing the issues his son was having in school, how amotivated his child was and their struggle to get him to make an effort. It got me to thinking about what motivates our children to achieve and then mentally, automatically rephrased it as what motivates our children to make an effort.
» Continue reading “An Open Letter to My Children”
Mind – When Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate – NYTimes.com.
I wholeheartedly agree. I also think it’s important to protect your children from toxic familial relationships so they learn to model healthy relationships filled with love. I have been estranged from both my parents and my only brother for several years now and it’s not a decision that I regret. I only regret its necessity and harbor some feelings of anger, resentment, and sadness about not having healthy relationships with people who should be in my life but for their inability to respect my right to my own.
» Continue reading “When Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate – NYTimes.com”
I’ve spent the time on leave from school, working hard on my project at work (summer is our busy season), spending time with my children and working on trying to declutter my house. I didn’t get all THAT far in the decluttering department, but I have made some important headway and that’s enough for me right now.
» Continue reading “It’s been quite a summer”
Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences : NPR.
I have a friend grappling with the fact that her young child identifies as transgender. She will have many decisions to make in the comings days, months, years, not the least of which is how to treat her child right now, this moment. Does she respect the preferences her child is expressing, or does she try to redirect her child to more “appropriate” forms of expression that validate the child’s physical gender?
» Continue reading “Link of the Day: Gender Identity”
“Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives (also known as Finagle’s corollary to Murphy’s Law) is usually rendered:
One variant (known as O’Toole’s Corollary of Finagle’s Law) favored among hackers is a takeoff on the second law of thermodynamics (also known as entropy):
» Continue reading “Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives”
Not in my top ten list of things I want to discuss loudly while on the pot in a crowded tourist bathroom:
“What is that thing with the blue string?”
“That’s a complicated question. Can we talk about it later?”
“What is this box on the wall?”
“It’s a little garbage can.”
“What is it for?”
» Continue reading “Mothering Dilemmas: Sharing a Toilet with My Son”
I have never been a fan of perpetuating childhood mythology. I think it comes from being a perceptive child and not prone to believing the unbelievable. My brother and I spent an inordinate amount of time attempting to debunk these myths, wheedling my father in attempts to coerce him into confessing. We caught “Santa Claus,” after staking out our Christmas tree and discovering our parents in the act of trying to sneak a rocking chair under it. We never did manage to empirically disprove the existence of the Tooth Fairy, however.
» Continue reading “I Hate the Tooth Fairy”
The other day I read an observation about how adults teach ourselves that our bedrooms and beds should only be for sleeping, but then we turn our childrens’ bedrooms into playrooms and wonder why they fight sleep. Personally, I don’t know that I have ever personally had a problem with my boys sleeping in their rooms after playing in them, but I have historically had problems with insomnia that were exacerbated by treating my room as an office or student lounge and not a bedroom.
» Continue reading “Bedroom or playroom?”
It’s a Tibetan saying. I thought it was doubly apt as the Dalai Lama is set to celebrate 50 years of exile from Tibet and the people of Tibet labor under oppressive restrictions on basic freedoms that we take for granted. But, I also found other meanings to it; I am sure that I could find a million ways to apply this saying to my life. Today, this one application trumped: I wanted to apply this idea of compassion to myself and others who tend to view themselves or others with a critical, skewed, even pessimistic perspective.
» Continue reading ““Who looks not with compassion sees not what the eyes of compassion see. “”
