Thirteen Reasons Why & What Comes Next

You can’t venture on to the Internet these days without stumbling across some sort of editorial about the Netflix show Thirteen Reasons Why. The Chicago Tribune has called the show “highly problematic” and “dangerously wrong” (VanNoord, 2017). Vanity Fair has referred to Thirteen Reasons Why as “unsettling visual genius” (Robinson, 2017).

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Delaying Gratification is Good for Your Kids

Make Them Wait

We increasingly hate to wait. If waiting is a kind of muscle, it's fair to say we're exercising it less now that packages arrive the same or next day, Visa and Mastercard let us bring stuff home right now, and our devices cushion the waiting-in-line distress while we surf the Internet or read and send texts. Waiting is unlikely to go extinct any time soon, despite its evolution through the decades.
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It's Necessary for Your Kids to be Bored Sometimes

Invite Boredom

Do our kids' ever-present devices prevent them from experiencing in-between moments when they aren't engaged in something — bored moments when there's "nothing to do"? The idea of "nothing to do" seems quaintly old-fashioned in a world where kids busy themselves texting or online, filling every micro-moment. Once upon a time, they might instead have done a bit of daydreaming or reflecting on the past, musing about the future, observing the people and space around them, or just following their imaginations to new and interesting places.
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Supporting Children in Distress

The Power of Parental Emotion Coaching

The tenor of the emotional environment in which children are raised has life-lasting effects for them (Valliant, 2012; Waldinger & Schulz, 2016). This emotional environment influences children’s brain development and their ability to regulate their emotions (Cassidy, 1994; Perry, 2002; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). Emotion regulation can be defined as “the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed” (Cole, Michel, & Teti, 1994, p. 76).
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Tell Your Kids: It's OK to Cry

When Kids Cry

Perhaps the toughest thing when our children cry are the emotions their tears trigger in us: empathic upset and sadness, plus a sense of helplessness that comes from thinking we need to do something while unsure what that would be. If we ourselves feel uncomfortable with those emotions -- upset, sad, helpless -- our kids' tears will be that much harder for us to be around.
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Teach Your Children How to Name Their Emotions

Naming Feelings

Your daughter comes home in tears. She can barely choke out words to describe the mean things some girls said to her on the school bus. You listen to her story and try to comfort her. If you’re really skilled, you’ll offer her attunement.
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Why You Should be Emotionally Honest with Your Kids

Hiding Negative Feelings

Imagine that for twenty minutes, your 4-year-old has been fussing at the playground, crying and complaining and kicking sand at other children. Feeling growing irritation, you inch toward delivering a serious scolding. But you sense the watchful eyes of parents nearby, and so you suppress your feelings and handle the moment with faked aplomb.
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How to Talk to Your Kids About College Drinking

Tell your college-age sons and daughters that more than 1,800 college students die from alcohol-related accidents each year, and nearly 600,000 are injured while drunk.1 Tell them that over half a million are assaulted by another student under the influence, and 97,000 are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape.2

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Badmouthing Your Spouse to Your Kids May Backfire

Boomerang Effect

High conflict couples may try to keep denigrating comments out of the kids’ earshot, but angry words can travel through walls and doors before the children have fallen off to sleep at night.
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Distracted Parenting

Researchers secretly observed 55 families dining in fast food restaurants to see how often parents directed their attention to their smartphones rather than to their children.

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