As many of you know from my most recent parenting book, Raising Generation Tech: Prepare Your Children for a Media-fueled World, I'm not a big fan of screen time by children. In recent years, I've gotten push back from parents who say that their children learn a lot from so-called educational" media, whether TV shows, [...]
Following up on my recent post titled, 5 Dangerous Things Parents Should Do to Their Children, someone sent me this video, I Can't Believe We Made it, which demonstrates all of the so-called dangerous stuff past generations of children did (it used to be called "stuff all kids did") and still somehow survived. The video vividly shows [...]
Setting expectations for your ski racing children is an essential responsibility to help your children ski their fastest and achieve their goals. Expectations communicate messages to your children about what’s important to you and establish a standard toward which your children can strive. But expectations can be double-edged swords. They can be a tremendous benefit [...]
Competence is the most neglected contributor to self-esteem. So much emphasis in the “self-esteem movement” that began in the 1970s was placed on ensuring that children felt loved that the role of competence in developing self-esteem has either been ignored, minimized, or misapplied. Competence is so important because it provides the foundation on which children [...]
Of course you love your children and would never consciously reward your children with love and attention when they, for example, first sit up or walk, score their first goal, or get an A on a school test, or punish their failures with anger or rejection. The challenge is to become aware of the unconscious, [...]
One of the most powerful ways you can express love to your children is to give them a gift that is, sadly, in short supply for many families, namely, time. The message you send when you are with them, mind, body, and spirit, is that you love them enough to make them your number-one priority. [...]
The operative word in raising healthy children in this often-times unhealthy digital world they are growing up in is balance. A nutritional analogy works well here. A balanced nutritional diet doesn’t mean 50 percent healthy food and 50 percent junk food. Rather, a balanced diet involves ensuring that your children get adequate nutrition from all [...]