One of most difficult things for teens to do is ask for help. Most of the time, the emotional struggles they face at that age prevent them from treating the adults in their life as resources.
Read Resourceless Teens »
One of most difficult things for teens to do is ask for help. Most of the time, the emotional struggles they face at that age prevent them from treating the adults in their life as resources.
Read Resourceless Teens »
This month, my 7-year-old daughter invited her friend to sleep over. Her mom, who had told me before she did not allow sleepovers, explained that she did not think the kids were ready for a sleepover until the age of 10. I then started to wonder whether there actually was a “right” age for a sleepover.
Many kids spend nights away from mom and dad and stay with other family members, right? If they are lucky (my kids are not), they have Grandpa and Grandma around the corner to make the sleepover a very special outing. If they are even luckier, they have cousins of the same age to spend holidays and weekends with.
But if kids have none of these, they depend on their parents’ perception of the “right” age for them to be able to sleep away from home.
In previous parts of the “Save Your Marriage” series, I discussed some of the problems that arise in relationships. This week, I will cover another one of the disturbing conflicts in any relationship – being trapped by stereotypes about gender.
In married life, there will always be obstacles threatening the stability of the marriage. Working through personal perceptions and interpretations is the key to overcoming such challenges.
Shortcut to divorce
Men and women perceive emotions, communication, sex, fidelity, work and money differently. They think the way they do because of the way they have been socialized and because of the way they have been shaped by their parents’ perceptions. From a very early age, we are “programmed” to believe that there are such things as “typical male” and “typical female” behavior. If you want a demonstration of how early this starts, look at your kids playing “shop” and consider how you choose baby clothes. Is it true that all baby girls love pink and baby boys love blue? No. Yet, most parents, when buying clothes, do not want to risk going against the grain by swapping colors.
Endless messages such as these are received during childhood and turn into beliefs and values that couples take into their marriage later on in life. Each party to a couple has his or her own “programmed” definition of what is typical, what is acceptable, what is tolerable and what is intolerable in a marriage relationship. Each of them may think that there is a particular way to show love to men that is different from the way you show love to women or that all men love sports and all women love jewelry and, without knowing, such gender beliefs can become a shortcut to divorce.
Read All Men Are… All Women Are… »
Even though most people think that being the eldest in the family is stressful, being the middle kid is tough and being the youngest is pleasurable, in actual fact, to be the youngest kid in a family is not all fun and games. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that out of my three kids, the youngest one gets less of me than the others do.
There’s a famous saying “Two’s company, but three’s a crowd”. When you’re a parent, and you want to help your kids with their social life, it’s a good one to remember. Other odd numbers of kids are tougher than even, but three can get downright nasty.
Ronit and I grew up in small places, where life was fairly simply and people were very friendly. So whatever we did, we did with our friends. We rode our bikes with them, played sports with them, and splashed with them at the pool or in the puddles. We swung with them at the playground and very often invented new and exciting games and adventures with them.
So it’s only natural for us to want our kids to have friends too and enjoy similar warmth to what we felt as kids. We want them to develop their social skills and imagination (come on, say it with me “instead of spending all their spare time in front of the computer or the TV”).
Children’s behavior is the concern of many parents. Kids can be diagnosed with ADD, ADHD or ODD, when in fact, it is the various choices their parents have made throughout the course of their kids’ lives that make kids act the way they do. Yes, I know this is hard to accept, but I believe that if you were to give me a normal child – boy or girl – I could, by making a simple choice to act in a particular way, single-handedly turn this child into a problematic beast with social problems, difficulties with authority, declining academic achievement, lack of motivation, depression, anger and anxiety, just to name a few.
Read Recipe for Teen Disaster »
Luke was definitely not a regular kid and his mom was going nowhere with her attempts to help to him. Since birth, he had had physical problems that only increased the family’s frustration and when his brother had been born, the extra attention Luke had received from his mom had made things worst. He had acquired one more enemies. When Luke had reached his teen years, things had gotten out of control and the family had been on the verge of nervous breakdown.
Yesterday evening, Noff and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. As we were walking, Noff told me she was going to have a “book character day” today and she had decided to dress up as Pippi Longstocking. She was very excited, as kids often are, and wanted to know every little detail about Pippi’s character, so that she would do a good job at school.
Read Pippi Longstocking »
Opposition Defiance Disorder (ODD) is another name people who like labels use when they need a budget for helping children. Someone has worked very hard and probably spent many dollars to research kids and teens (they say ODD can start as early as 1-3 years of age) and come up with a nice label. Since ADHD worked so well, ODD should work quite well too. Labels are a good way to attract funds, but I am not sure they are good to make things better.
Some time ago, we visited our good friend Neil, who is married for the second time and lives far away from his son from the first marriage Nathan. Neil had last seen Nathan 11 years before. He had some Photos of Nathan in an album created by his younger son Ben. When Neil had said goodbye his son and moved to another country, Nathan was just 9 years old.
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