Parenting From The Source

Cyber bullying hurts kids and often results in suicide (anger turned inward) or school shootings (anger turned outward). As adults concerned about kids, what can we do? In 2001, I wrote an article about school violence. I mentioned metal detectors, search dogs, and see-through backpacks. Today we’re talking about allowing and equipping teachers to carry [...]

Readiness for kindergarten, in addition to the ability to form visual images from written and spoken words, includes four essential behavioral skills. Readiness Skill #1: Listen to and carry out verbal instructions. To teach this to your preschooler, begin with one instruction and advance to a series of three or four such as “Go to [...]

High school students often expressed to me their anger about a teacher who punished them for breaking a rule, when another student doing the same thing didn’t get in trouble. I explained that their punishment was unrelated to the behavior of other students. They simply did something wrong, were caught, and were punished. I’m sure [...]

Kindness in children is a joy to observe. A three-year-old generously shares her toys with a visiting friend. A fourth-grader joins a handicapped classmate in the cafeteria, because she’s at a table by herself. A sophomore stops in a crowded hallway to help a fellow student pick up the books he dropped. Kindness is a Fruit [...]

Every day people make choices about how to live with disability. The young man sitting in my high school counseling office was there for help making just such a decision. Despite his obvious intelligence, his grades in advanced classes were not good. He worried that they might keep him out of the college of his [...]

Fairness is a “hot button” topic between kids and parents. “That’s not fair,” your child cries in protest to a situation at home or school. You may respond, “Life’s not fair,” because that’s what your parents said. And, we know we can’t treat two children exactly same. The “Unfair” Vineyard Owner Jesus told a parable [...]

Courage is a character trait we want for our children. Some people think of courage only as being able to face physical threats. However, sometimes we need courage to face an enemy that doesn’t look like an enemy. Therefore, in addition to teaching courage, we must teach our children to recognize the enemy. The Enemy [...]

Respect for authority is becoming an old-fashioned behavior. I recently overheard a boy about five years old say to his mother, “If you don’t let me have that, I’ll slap your face.” Working in the school system, I watched societal changes evidenced in the way young people speak to their parents and people in authority. [...]

Twenty-one smiling faces greeted me that morning. They eagerly waited to see what the new teacher would do. Would she make their world a good place the seven hours a day she spent with them in the sixth grade? From that classroom of twenty one would come a banker, an engineer, two farmers, a nurse, [...]

In my last post, I wrote about younger siblings who become rebellious when faced with the challenge of being as good as an older sibling. See Younger Sibling Rebels Rather Than Compete. Often rebellion takes the form of overt misbehavior such as acting out in class, destroying property, or being aggressive toward others. A Passive [...]