Setting limits for children is one of my least enjoyable ways to spend time with them. I don’t have much trouble setting limits when it comes to the way they treat me; I won’t let them jump on me, destroy my property, use things I don’t want used. They respect those limits, and don’t argue…
I’ve taken music lessons, given them, and my wife and I paid someone to give them to our children. As a student, I hated both piano lessons and voice lessons. I took them because I thought it was the price I had to pay if I wanted to be good at playing the piano and…
One of the many harsh realities of life in these United States (and other places, I’m sure) is that families often have reasons to move away from places where they’ve come to feel at home. Often, these reasons make no sense at all to children. Children make friends, get to know local favorite places, adjust…
Chapter 766 is a good law in Massachusetts. It requires teachers to pay attention to the fact that children learn in different ways, and that some children have great difficulty learning if their special needs are ignored. The first thing teachers are required to do is try some classroom modifications to see whether slight changes…
Most people aren’t very good at spelling, and most people who are good at it never had any trouble with it. There have been all kinds of studies done to find out whether there are any ways to explain why some people can spell and some can’t. The last time I checked, which was in…
Teachers often feel overloaded with jobs. They feel as if they’re forced to be parents to their students, either because parents don’t do their share, or because the job of parenting has gotten too big to be done by parents alone. They feel as if they end up doing lots of jobs that ought to…
As I write this article, spring is very tentatively poking its head through a hard winter. I know it’s superstitious of me, but I try not to welcome it too much, even though I feel like really letting go. I picture spring as a shy child, curious about a new situation, and yet quite ready…
When I told a friend that I was about to write an article about clothes, my friend did a mild double-take. I don’t have a reputation for having much to say about clothing. But I think I can wax prolific on the subject of not having much to say about clothing. I rarely spend much…
You probably already know this, but children don’t always want to do what we want them to do. They sometimes argue, procrastinate, or disobey. We may find these interactions exhausting, but ultimately they tend to be the ones to lose. We’re bigger than they are, and that can give us an advantage. We have control…
Families don’t stay together so much any more. We probably aren’t going to go back to a time when they did. My parents live in southern Florida. I have one brother in northern Florida, one on Long Island, a sister in upstate New York, and I live in western Massachusetts. If you go a generation…