simcha's postings about love, connection, parenting & personal growth
When parents divorce or dissolve their relationship, they are well-served in raising healthy, well-adjusted children by communicating clearly, cooperatively and respectfully about parenting issues.
While these tips are intended primarily for divorced parents, they are most certainly helpful for all parents – as very few parents share the exact same style or approach.
Mental health counselor Debbie Pincus reminds us that when we know where we stand as parents, it is easier for us to figure out what we will and won’t put up with from our child. If we define our boundaries and try to stick to our principles rather than reacting to our moment-to-moment emotions, we will create a home environment that benefits both parent and child.
In a Washington Post piece (7.18.14) entitled “Are You Raising Nice Kids?“, Amy Joyce helps us focus on raising kind, caring children, rather than over-emphasizing achievement. She shares recommendations from Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist with the Graduate School of Education, and the Making Caring Common Project about how to raise children to become caring, respectful and responsible adults.
Several clients and friends have asked for recommendations for good books on parenting adolescents. I hope you find this list helpful.
Many couples struggle with the giving and receiving of criticism. Often framed in ways that shame, blame, belittle or humiliate, criticism is rarely well-received and usually results in defensiveness and disengagement. A helpful way to get around these pitfalls is to think in terms of constructive, honest and engaged feedback.
100 Conversations is an online resource to help parents and adults conduct important conversations about sex, relationships, values and safety with the young people in their lives. I learned about this valuable resource this morning at a fundraiser for King County Sexual Assault Resource Center (KCSRAC) here in Seattle, and I would like to share it with parents and educators.
I love the following piece by author and clinical psychologist Harriet Lerner — so simple and so wise. It is an excerpt from her latest, easy-to-read and very worthwhile book, Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and Coupled Up. This specific piece (from a chapter on the challenges that parenting presents to couple-hood) offers ten tips for survival.
I loved my Barbie doll growing up in the sixties. My daughter loved HER Barbie doll growing up in the eighties (offers to play with Barbie were made to my sons as well, but they weren’t interested). Did I fail to live up to my excellent feminist college education in the seventies by not banning Barbie from my home?
Author Sloane Crosley*, in the following article from Smithsonian Magazine, suggests that it’s time we cut Barbie some slack, and asks whether the doll really represents such a menace to society.