I suppose I could have assumed that I hadn’t heard the whole story when my tween told me that a friend had been bullied at school and that my daughter had defended her.  But, to be honest, the topic of bullying has become so common these days that I’ve become a little desensitized to it.  Today’s [...]

I’m in the business of thinking.  Positive thinking.  Both personally and professionally, I study, teach, and utilize the power of thoughts and words.  Yet still, my mind takes off like a dog in heat at the first scent of temptation. At 19:00 hours, husband, anticipating the need to have sheets on the bed (he’s so [...]

A fellow mom and I commiserated while volunteering at a school event. Her daughter had just ‘asked’ for a ride in the way a teenager can – with an air of entitlement and self-centerdness. My friend lamented to me, “All I need is a little gratitude and I’m good for the next six hours. Would [...]

   “My teacher is mean. It’s going to be a terrible year.” “None of my friends are in my class.  I’m going to be alone.” “I don’t think I took the right classes to get into college (4 years from now.)  Like a tropical storm, the deluge of stressful thoughts made landfall as predicted in the [...]

 Following is a guest post by Vanessa Van Petten, creator of RadicalParenting.com a parenting website written from the teen perspective to help parents understand them. She is also the author of the parenting book, “Do I Get My Allowance Before or After I’m Grounded?” (http://www.radicalparenting.com/books-and-products/book-youre-grounded/)   When I was 16 I thought it was my [...]