EmpoweringParents.com

Grandparents in Lagos, Florida are fighting to keep their 6 year-old grand daughter Kimberly from being evicted from their retirement community.

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A Nielsen Co. reports kids are watching more television than ever and television viewing for children ages 2-11 is the highest since 1995.  Kids ages 6-11 watch 28 hours a week with about 4.5 hours on DVD.  And worse, kids age 2-5 are watching 32 hours—yes, that’s even more than the 6-11 year-olds, presumably because they’re not in school.

I’m not surprised about the Nielsen numbers.

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I got a call from my son’s teacher last week. Apparently, he used an inappropriate word and perhaps a hand gesture to accompany it to another child. That child’s parent had called the principal. The principal asked my son Builder’s teacher to handle it. She did. Builder denied it ever happened.

I know better.

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I have often quipped that middle-aged women and their twenty-something year-old kids don’t belong under the same roof, but the reality of this statement hit home this summer when our son moved back home temporarily.

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There isn’t any better time than Halloween to pay tribute to the ghosts of our childhood past.  Becoming a parent provides the unique opportunity to revisit these ghosts and see them in a whole new way. What do I mean by this? Many of us struggle with images from our childhood of parents or relatives who were very strict, very permissive, or just plain ill-equipped to parent. For some of us, our ghost may take the form a strict disciplinarian. We might struggle with setting limits in our own families for this reason, in our attempts to not be the same way.  Or maybe you come from a family of certified yellers, and it’s difficult for you to keep calm and in control while you parent.

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I have just come from our therapist’s office and am feeling much calmer.  You read that right:  Dr. Joan is in therapy.

It all started when my husband and I began struggling, badly, with one of our kids who was displaying signs of Attention Deficit Disorder:  lack of focus at school, outbursts at home, blaming others for his problems, lying about homework.  My husband and I knew that this was an ongoing problem, but it all came to a head as our 10 year-old child entered a grade at school where everything gets moved up a notch and he began to struggle.  Being a psychologist, you’d think I would have gotten everything under control immediately, right?

Wrong.

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I’ll admit it — I yell at my son more than I’d like. Take yesterday, for example. We were on our way out the door (it always seems to happen when we’re in a hurry) trying to make it to Alex’s first Parent-Teacher conference of the year. Getting out of the house is challenging for us, but it all started out well, with me laying down the ground rules: “OK, I need your cooperation so we’re not late today.” This swiftly devolved into shouting at the top of my lungs, “Come on! I said we needed to hurry. I’m starting to get angry now!”  In fact, I went from the Calm Mother voice to the Crazed Mother voice in, oh, about 30 seconds.

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As a parent of two children who have gone through a bullying episode, I can tell you that the emotional, mental and physical stress can be overwhelming for both children and parents. After all, as a parent your natural instincts tell you loud and clear to protect your children against the forces that cause them pain — whether it’s mental, emotional or physical.

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