First off: HAPPY etfbnybfha MOTHER’S DAY! Is this way way WAY too tacky? I hope not. I am fresh out of great Free Range fodder for a sec, so here is an interview with me that is up now on the cool website Motherhood Later than Sooner. (Yup. I’m an older mom.) I promise not to keep self-promoting, […]
Archive | Fun
Dealing with the “What If?” Folks
May 8, 2009
Hi Free-Rangers and Others! Below you’ll find a post that I just loved from the blog Rancid risbdrffhi Raves.   It’s about my book, but it’s also about the big issue of, “What if?” I.e., how come so many parents immediately try to conjure up the very worst case scenario whenever we give our kids an […]
Let’s Not Worry Quite So Much About What Our Kids Eat
March 7, 2009
Organic? Whole wheat? Whole Foods? Who cares? A lot of us. But maybe we shouldn’t. Or at least, maybe we shouldn’t burden our kids with all our nutritional correctness.  When my older son (now12) was in kindergarten, he came home with a keen interest in cans. Not to build towers with, or roll down the […]
Are We Overprotecting Our Kids to Death?
February 27, 2009
Two scenes from Mexico, where my family just spent a week’s vacation. (Skip the envy. Nice weather, yes, but my husband slipped before we left and spent the whole time on crutches. Meantime, this was the general tenor of our kids’ conversation: “I just saw a stingray.†“No you didn’t.†“I did too!†“You just […]
If mom loved you best, do you end up a happier adult?
February 2, 2009
Last eeybenryse night I helped one of my sons do the dishes, but I didn’t help the other son clear the table. Time to reserve a shrink appointment for the table-clearer sometime around 2017? Or perhaps an appointment with the parole board? Turns out: No. Neither. A brilliant study by researchers at Temple University looked […]
Too much self-esteem?
January 10, 2009
Turns keeinetkea out children are feeling pretty good about themselves lately. Maybe a little too good. As reported on the website Connect with Kids (http://www.connectwithkids.com/), a  study by researchers at San Diego State University found that high school seniors are bursting with more self esteem than a generation (or two) ago. For example, in 1975, […]
WORD OF THE YEAR!
October 21, 2008
So tkykryrayd in England a woman named Susie Dent publishes a book, “Words of the Year,†every, well, year. The latest edition just came out and in addition to winners like “boytox†(Botox for men) and “momnesia,†defined as “a mother’s forgetfulness in the first year after a child’s birth,†(which isn’t nearly long enough), […]
A GREAT DEPRESSION FOR KIDS?
September 19, 2008
Not kidrrnfkdy that I want this to be a Great Depression. I hope it’s not. But if it is, I see kids emerging from their dens when their X-Boxes break and their parents can’t afford to replace them. I see kids dropping out of travel soccer, when their parents can’t afford the gas. I see […]
Parenting tips from Mad Men
August 7, 2008
One diahniztkt of the many joys of watching “Mad Men†is seeing how worried — not — the parents were about their kids, at least in this fictional portrayal of the early ’60s. The kids are told to run off and play in another room so mom can have coffee with a friend. They’re put […]