Nov 27 / Simcha

Ten Reasons Not to Hit Your Kids  (Jan Hunt)

Since 1996 the Natural Child Project website has offered information and resources on parenting (with a focus on early childhood), including child advocacy documents, research articles, and parenting resources.

Director Jan Hunt, author of The Natural Child (available in multiple translations), explains in this article from the Project website why physical punishment is harmful to children, ineffective as a means of discipline, and counter-productive in educating towards humane, creative problem-solving.

Nov 20 / Simcha

Teens & Drugs: What’s a Parent to Do? (Part 2 – M. Rosenbaum)

I have introduced Marsha Rosenbaum’s reality-based approach to teen drug use in an earlier posting. In the following selection from the same booklet, Safety First, published by the Drug Policy Alliance under her leadership, Rosenbaum suggests that while there are no easy answers for parents concerned with their teens’ safety and well-being, she can suggest a few guidelines.

Nov 19 / Simcha

A Reality-Based Approach to Teen Drug Use (Part 1 – M. Rosenbaum)

A very worthwhile booklet published by the Drug Policy Alliance helps parents evaluate and discuss strategies for protecting their teenagers from drug abuse. Since the original publication of Safety First: A Reality-Based Approach to Teens and Drugs, more than 300,000 copies have been distributed worldwide.

Author Marsha Rosenbaum* is director emerita of the San Francisco office of the Drug Policy Alliance, where she spearheaded DPA’s work on youth and drugs and created the Safety First booklet; it is available (free) online in multiple languages. The following is a selection from the booklet.

Oct 28 / Simcha

Purple Hair, Purple Heart (J. Schwartz)

inkwell — Illustation: Holly Wales; NYTimes Magazine

I loved John Schwartz’s piece in today NYTimes Magazine (Purple Heart, 10.28.12). I was impressed by his readiness to first process with his son the latter’s motivations for, and possible repercussions from, dyeing his hair purple, and to then fully support his son once he decided to go ahead with the plan.

Notice (and admire!) how this parent did not concern himself (for even a moment) with how his son’s actions might reflect on him, the parent.

Oct 28 / Simcha

Empathy and the Brain

ScienceDaily published a piece this week (Area of the Brain That Processes Empathy Identified, 10.24.12) about an international team led by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York that has shown, for the first time, that one area of the brain, called the anterior insular cortex, is the activity center of human empathy, whereas other areas of the brain are not.

Oct 22 / Simcha

Parenting as an Art (M. Riera)

Michael Riera has written several excellent books on parenting teenagers, among them: Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers and Staying Connected to Your Teenagers. Several of his concepts have made their way into the public discourse about raising teenagers: Consultant as opposed to Manger; Influence as opposed to Control; Parenting Teens as an Art, and so forth. The following excerpt from the former book touches on a few of these ideas.

Oct 22 / Simcha

Your Children Are Not Your Children (K. Gibran)

The following powerful poem by Khalil Gibran (1922) speaks to the notion of allowing our children to own their own dreams. We must guide and support them, while at the same time allowing them to discover their own ambitions, identity and purpose and to chart their own life paths.

Oct 13 / Simcha

Competing Views on Competition (M. Richtel)

Competitiveness. Hmmmm… Given my particular temperament, I am inclined to feel uncomfortable even when an Olympics athlete “wins” for having completed the race a fraction of a second before another. My inclination, too, would be to view competition as neither helpful nor constructive in promoting happiness and excellence, and to insist that it sidesteps the natural joy of non-measured, non-compared accomplishment. And yet….