In an article that appeared in Domestic Intelligence (1.19.2009), psychologist and writer Dr. Terri Apter suggests that recent discoveries about the still-developing adolescent human brain and traditional explanations about raging teenage hormones do not sufficiently explain the teen’s experience of parents. And they therefore do not sufficiently help us understand why teenagers fight so much with their parents.
This article by Tara Parker-Pope appeared in The New York Times Magazine (3.25.2012). I found it most interesting and thought I’d share it in its entirety.
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Once during a disagreement with my husband, I complained that he wasn’t helping enough with our daughter, and I gave him a long list of the parenting chores I was shouldering on my own. “But you like doing all that stuff,” he blurted in his defense. read more…
Terri Apter, PhD, a University of Cambridge researcher and leading authority on mothers and teen girls, offers a four-point plan to improve your next conversation. These ideas are taken from the May 2009 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.
I would only add that many of these ideas are equally applicable to speaking with your teenage sons about sex.
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Image: Rutu Modan (NYTimes 2.18.12)
Real-estate mogul Barbara Corcoran describes how she struggled to pay attention in elementary school. She hadn’t learned to read by third grade, and accepted the label of “stupid” that the nuns had assigned to her.
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Parenting with Love and Logic® is a nation-wide program founded by Jim Fay and Foster W. Cline, M.D. to help parents raise happy, responsible children (and to make parenting more enjoyable as a bonus). The following are some of the program’s key concepts, guidelines that can help parents take control of their home life in loving ways.
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NCH Statistics: 1970-2009 (Click image to view graph enlarged)
Adapted from For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage by J. DeParle and S. Tavernise (New York Times, 2.17.2012)
“It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage.”
Adapted from Are You With the Right Mate? by Rebecca Webber (Psychology Today, 1.1.2012)
Are you with the right mate? Is there some MORE right person waiting for you somewhere? And if you could find that one special person, would you then, finally, find fulfillment and happiness?
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Although we cannot always anticipate or avoid situations that we know have the power to undermine relationships (such as chronic exposure to non-marital stress — medical, financial, and so forth), much can be noticed and considered when we set out to make our choice to commit for the long haul. We know, for example, that couples who share core values and goals have a greater chance for a happy long-term relationship.
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This blog aims to share interesting items or insights I come across in newspapers, books and magazines that may be helpful in dealing with everyday personal and interpersonal challenges. It is not intended as a substitute for individual or couples counseling.