Advice
At Graduation, What Will You Say to Your Child?
When our children graduate from high school, it’s every parent’s dream to bestow a pearl of wisdom that can somehow help guide them forward in life. What will you say? “Graduation is a milestone event, and parents may begin to get nostalgic as they think about the important transition their children are getting ready to [More…]
Inspiration from Annie and Helen
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” – Helen Keller The Miracle Worker is a play written by William Gibson; it is the story of Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan. The play opens with a [More…]
When a child is disrespectful…
Recently a mom wrote to us saying, “I’m having difficulty turning a deaf ear to the insulting disrespectful things that my child says to me repeatedly…” and asking for our advice. When disrespect is a problem in the family, look first at who might be modeling this. Is mom disrespectful to dad? Is dad disrespectful [More…]
When Your Child’s Effort Falls Short of Expectations
A parent question about high expectations… “How do we manage the high expectations and praise the effort even if it falls short?” One of the things I love about the 10 Priorities is how they work together in parenting, as well as life, situations. They give us a framework for how to work out parenting [More…]
Let The 10 Priorities Be Your Map And Compass
“Any time we tackle a complicated challenge, we often need to be reminded to ‘get our priorities straight.’“ Malcolm Gauld And what can be more complicated, more challenging, more worrisome than the job of parenting? After all, it’s the biggest job we’ll ever have. When we hit a challenging part of parenting, most of us [More…]
Starting Difficult Conversations With Your Teen
Parent Question: My biggest problem is beginning the conversation to start with, especially as our son is not eager to participate in a difficult conversation. Although this question is similar to a recent one about how to have conversations with our kids without them resenting the questions and feeling like they are being interrogated… I [More…]
Getting Our Kids to Look to the Future
Parent Question: How can we get our kids to see the long view, to understand how to look past the current temptations and distractions so they can get to the future in one piece? The key players in a family who need to take the long view are the parents. I’m not sure we can [More…]
I Feel Like I’ve Failed As A Parent
Parent Question: I feel like a failure as a parent that I had to send my son away to boarding school at Hyde; I couldn’t fix the anger, disrespect to teachers, us, coaches, etc… lack of motivation except for computer games… This letting go has to do with feelings about oneself that we need to [More…]
Child: “I won’t respect you until you respect me”
Continuing our focus from the parenting webinar on December 15th – Take Hold and Let Go – I thought I would publish some of the answers to the questions that did not get answered. If you have more questions as you look at taking hold and letting go in your life and with your kids, [More…]
Help with Letting Go
In our webinar on December 15th, (hope you were with us!) we talked about Priority # 7, Take Hold and Let Go. I promised all participants I’d put this poem in the next newsletter. It’s been a very powerful reminder for me of the depth of meaning and challenge in letting go, no matter how [More…]
