Giving New Meaning to Parenting

My middle schooler seems to be down in the dumps.  Nothing specific, but a general sense of tiredness.  He says everything in school is fine, and his grades are okay.  He says he has a lot of work to do, and he isn’t crazy about school because of the work.  When prodded, he says that [...]

Recently, a friend mentioned that their kid (early elementary school age) forgot to pack their homework, thus said homework did not make it to school. The response from the friend was a plan of being stern with the child, to give them a firm talking-to (my paraphrasing). My reaction was a slight cringe (on the [...]

Both my sons, 11 and 14, have a variety of reading projects for over the summer.  Not only do they have to read 2 books, but there are writing assignments that will allegedly be incorporated into early semester projects once school starts. Some years this happens and some years, it doesn’t seem to, depending [...]

I’m a Step-Father and the primary caregiver for my kids (and my wife). As such, I feel a certain obligation to be excellent at my job, to be faithful to my obligation, to do my best. Unfortunately, being good at my job means, in part, reminding the kids to do their chores, to do their [...]

My kids have, as of this writing, about 2 more months of school left in the semester. As is my custom (or parenting technique, if I’m feeling jaunty), I leave them to their own devices for most of the year, then start pressing them once spring break has broken. So here it is, time to [...]

My nine year-old is a smart boy.  He loves to read and write.  He is a fantastic artist.  He watches videos on cartooning on the internet and replicates the drawing exactly.  He scored a perfect score on the language portion of our state standardized test, this past fall.  But, to him, school is something that [...]

Asking for help is one of the most difficult things to do, because it gets tricky. First, you have to admit to yourself that you are in over your head. Second, you then have to tell someone else that is the case, and third, you have to ask them for their time and [...]

My son is sixteen years old, and I try to give him as much leeway as possible. I do my best to give him the opportunities to try out different methods of living, letting him make mistakes, hoping he learns.
But I recently ran into a situation that had me compelled to take action, to rein [...]