Posted today
Q: I’m new to reading you, but it appears that you don’t have much in common with other psychologists. You don’t agree much with their approach to children and parenting. Correct? A: ...
Read MorePosted 1 week ago
Q: Your recent series on punishment was thought-provoking. I agree children should have consequences when they misbehave. Nonetheless, would you please clarify when punishment becomes excessive?...
Read MorePosted 1 week ago
Q: Our ten-year-old granddaughter lives with us. We have custody of her but her father, our son, is now asking us for visitation privileges. I probably don’t need to tell you that both he and his...
Read MorePosted 3 weeks ago
This is the last (for a while, anyway) of three columns in which I take on the absurd notion that punishing children for bad behavior is bad parenting. There is commonsense and there is nonsense...
Read MorePosted 4 weeks ago
This is the second in a series on “parent-babble,” as in the same-old, same-old nonsense the mental health industry has been passing off as sound parenting advice since the late 1960s. ...
Read MorePosted 4 weeks ago
<b>Given that the new year is upon us, I'm proposing a number of parenting resolutions for my readers to consider. The list is by no means comprehensive. It's just a good beginning on what is...
Read MorePosted 4 weeks ago
<i><b>What makes a family strong? Not money or material things, but that ineffable thing called love. Love is both expressed and strengthened when a family does things together, things that create...
Read MorePosted on 12/24/2019
I am often asked how long I intend to keep this up, as in writing this column, writing books, and speaking on childrearing and family matters. My answer: As long as they keep it up; “it” being the...
Read MorePosted on 12/17/2019
With the release of “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” inquiring minds want to know: What did I think of Mr. Rogers? I never met the man, but in the early days of my...
Read MorePosted on 12/10/2019
“You’ve accused mothers of being in co-dependent relationships with their children,” she (a journalist) said, then asked, “What is co-dependency, exactly, and how does it apply to today’s...
Read MorePosted on 12/3/2019
Q: I’m already dreading the holidays. Our eight-year-old is a very excitable child and our family is expected to attend numerous holiday get-togethers at the homes of family members. When he’s...
Read MorePosted on 11/26/2019
After a recent talk in South Florida, women came up to me in droves asking, “How much should I help my children with their schoolwork?” That not one man asked the question...
Read MorePosted on 11/19/2019
Okay, it’s time to set the record straight, confront the gorilla in the proverbial room, call a spade a spade, and so on and so forth. I recently published a column on “The...
Read MorePosted on 11/12/2019
The myth of the first three years has it that whatever habits, traits, dysfunctions and so on that a child develops during this admittedly formative period are going to stay with him for life....
Read MorePosted on 10/29/2019
The Portal. It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, the gateway to an alternative universe that lures, then traps the unwary in its nefarious web of illusion, where things are...
Read MorePosted on 10/22/2019
Q: My normally happy 6-year-old son has recently started incorporating death and war-like games into his imaginative play. He isn't and has never been a mean-spirited child, but his dad and I just...
Read MorePosted on 10/15/2019
I have good news for parents: You do not need more than a few tools in your disciplinary tool-bag. One especially valuable tool, one that belongs in every modern home, is the “Doctor.” The Doctor...
Read MorePosted on 10/8/2019
“What do you do when your baby cries?” I asked the 20-something new mom who was already feeling overwhelmed and beginning to slip into post-partum depression. Her mother-in-law had suggested she...
Read MorePosted on 10/2/2019
Q: We held off giving our oldest daughter a smartphone until she was fifteen, the age at which we allowed her older brother to have one. We read your column weekly in our hometown newspaper and...
Read MorePosted on 9/24/2019
As my regular readers know, I am a certified heretic in my field: child and family psychology. To the point, I am convinced that psychological parenting theory, which began to inform American...
Read MorePosted on 9/20/2019
The term "strong-willed child" has embedded itself in our vernacular to mean a child who wants to be at the center of everyone's attention, is highly demanding (and won't take "no" for an answer),...
Read MorePosted on 9/17/2019
Q: I want to legally change our daughter’s name. No one pronounces it correctly and I think it’s going to cause her more problems as she gets older. My husband doesn’t want to, however. He says...
Read MorePosted on 9/11/2019
A New York writer named Jonathan Daniel Stern, writing in the August 7, 2019, issue of the e-zine “Fatherly,” laments that co-sleeping has destroyed his marriage. As best as I can figure, Stern...
Read MorePosted on 9/4/2019
Proving, once again, that fact is stranger by far than fiction, a grandmother recently asked me what she should do about her daughter-in-law who, despite her husband’s increasingly meek...
Read MorePosted on 8/27/2019
I’ve always promised myself that this column would never get “academic,” but I see no choice with respect to the issue at hand, so here goes…as simple as I can make it. ...
Read MorePosted on 8/21/2019
Q: A Christian (but very liberal) adoption agency recently turned down our application because they disapprove of our parenting approach, which is your parenting approach. We told them we...
Read MorePosted on 8/13/2019
Short questions I’ve been asked of late (mostly by journalists) and proportionately short answers: Q: Is there a single most important thing parents should be teaching during their children’s...
Read MorePosted on 8/6/2019
Q: Some friends of ours who’ve read a couple of your books and attended one of your talks told us that they solved some major discipline problems with their 4-year-old just by using what they...
Read MorePosted on 7/30/2019
As I crisscross the country in public speaker mode, I poll people in various demographic categories. I ask how they were raised, what their parents were like, how their parents disciplined, how...
Read MorePosted on 7/23/2019
My recent column pertaining to a 12-year-old who told his parents he’d thought about suicide several times over the past six months stirred a fair number of folks to respond. Feelings toward the...
Read MorePosted on 7/16/2019
Q: We recently discovered that our 12-year-old has been visiting pornography sites of all sorts on the Internet. When we caught him red-handed, he began crying and said he is addicted. Apparently,...
Read MorePosted on 7/9/2019
I am perennially asked whether I do or do not “believe” in autism. I suspect that on most occasions, it’s a test. Nonetheless, it’s a fair question that usually takes this form: “I know you don’t...
Read MorePosted on 7/2/2019
Q: On several occasions over the last six months or so, our 12-year-old son has told us he’s been thinking about suicide. Apparently, he’s been the target of a couple of school bullies and...
Read MorePosted on 6/25/2019
Q: We have two married daughters, one of whom is adopted. The biological daughter has two children who, we recently discovered, have been told that it is wrong to call our adopted daughter “aunt...
Read MorePosted on 6/18/2019
Q: Our son is 13 years old and in the 7th grade. Last week he came home from school complaining about how a few of his friends have been bullying him. These same boys were at his birthday party...
Read MorePosted on 6/14/2019
I recently spent some time with a friend who has three children. My buddy is a college-educated responsible guy who has never failed to do right by his family. He's masculine but not macho,...
Read MorePosted on 6/11/2019
Q: Our 14-year-old (he’s going into the ninth grade at a public high school) has taken up with a bunch of kids that we don’t exactly approve of. They have reputations as troublemakers and at...
Read MorePosted on 6/9/2019
I am the father to two grown children, so I know a few things about fatherhood. I know, for instance, that fathers are just as important as mothers to the raising of children. I also know fathers...
Read MorePosted on 6/4/2019
When children were raised, reared, or simply brought up, they emancipated “on time.” Upon high school graduation, children went to college, into the military, or became employed. Some, like my...
Read MorePosted on 5/28/2019
Q: I appreciate your traditional, call it old-fashioned approach to child rearing, but I’m a tad confused and hope you can help straighten out my thinking. I’ve been reading your column for maybe...
Read MorePosted on 5/21/2019
Concerning major behavior problems, parents often tell me they’ve “tried everything.” In more than forty years of doing this “parenting expert” gig, I’ve never run across a parent who was telling...
Read MorePosted on 5/14/2019
Q: My 7-year-old son, an only child, is giving me fits. He’s overly active and will not cooperate in any instruction I give him. In addition, if I tell him not to do something, it’s a guarantee...
Read MorePosted on 5/8/2019
With Mother's Day upon us, I’m going to talk about mothers—one in particular. To begin with, assuming one believes his or her mother is worthy of admiration, then said esteem ought...
Read MorePosted on 5/7/2019
“When are you going to write a book on grandparenting?” is a question asked of me by lots of folks, most of whom – no surprise here – are grandparents. My stock answer: “I...
Read MorePosted on 4/30/2019
My wife and I spent two days in my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, recently. As we always do, we walked around my boyhood neighborhood – the South-of-Broad historic district (back then,...
Read MorePosted on 4/23/2019
There is child raising and there is “parenting.” America replaced the former with the latter in the 1970s and it’s been downhill ever since. My mother – a single parent during...
Read MorePosted on 4/16/2019
Julie Jargon is a reporter with the Wall Street Journal. Heretofore, she has written about food companies like Starbucks and McDonalds. As of April 2, however, Ms. Jargon is writing a WSJ column...
Read MorePosted on 4/9/2019
“We’ve tried everything!” is one of the more common testimonials I hear from parents who’ve just described persistent and highly vexing discipline problems with a child or children. ...
Read MorePosted on 4/2/2019
The Wall Street Journal recently (3/16/2019) printed a letter-to-the-editor in which Upland, California psychiatrist/psychoanalyst Charlene Moskovitz promotes the alleged benefits of medication...
Read MorePosted on 3/26/2019
To the many readers who recently asked: Yes, I do take requests, and yes, I will riff on the Perpetually Beautiful People Who Laid Out Mega-Bribes to Guarantee That Their Beautiful and...
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