Problems with Pot

January 11, 2010

A reader inquires about helping a thirteen-year-old boy who has “stopped participating in organized sports, grades are not great anymore, he’s lying about his activities, and only wants to hang out with his friends (playing video games, riding bikes).  His mom recently found weed in his room.  She is just at her wits end on […]

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Tangled up in… Aspergers Blue

January 10, 2010

A reader asked, “If you hear or read anything new about mild Aspergers or coping with it as a young adult, PLEASE let me know.  After all these years, therapists, and psychiatrists, I am still so frustrated that no one can “put a finger” on my son.  His psychiatrist who insists it’s not (Aspergers) also […]

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Handymen

January 9, 2010

When I was a kid my dad worked in an office.  His tools were the telephone and the Dictaphone, not the hammer and the nail.  So, if a cabinet handle fell off my mom called the Handyman to come and fix it.  What my dad did was abstract and I never really saw him in […]

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Parent worries, kid worries—expressing, containing and supporting each other

January 8, 2010

A recent comment by April in response to a post about parents not accurately reading their children’s levels of stress raised some excellent points: “I think sometimes it’s hard for parents to acknowledge these things for a variety of reasons.  If you’re without health insurance, for instance, you might want to dismiss physical ailments as nothing […]

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Men and their postpartum depressions

January 7, 2010

In an article last month in the New York Times (http://tiny.cc/oq6vn) Richard Friedman, M.D. wrote about male post partum depression.  While up to 80% of women experience post-baby blues, with 10% becoming clinically depressed at this developmental juncture, it turns out that this too affects men.  Research is scant, suggesting that maybe four percent of […]

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Kids’ Worries: Feeling Known, Feeling Loved

January 6, 2010

In order to truly feel loved, it is essential that one feels accurately understood.  Therefore, if our kids are worried about something, it’s important that we parents are reasonably aware of it—both for helping kids feel loved and understood; but also so that we can help provide assistance for anxiety and/or depression if this happens […]

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Helping teens mend broken hearts

January 5, 2010

A reader inquires, “Do you think Privilege of Parenting could offer some advice on how best to advise or help teens get over relationship break ups?  Last year my daughter broke off a short relationship with some kid who was so upset that she became upset and extremely depressed.  This year, her boyfriend of one […]

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Liking our own cooking

January 4, 2010

Several bloggers I like and respect (including Momalon and Motherese) have recently done a favorite-posts recap of the prior year and even though I’ve only been at this for half of a year, I thought I’d still do my top six. And in the meantime, I thought I’d share a recipe I made up yesterday […]

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Sparks and Slivers

January 3, 2010

When I worked with group home kids there was an open space down the road where Christmas Trees were sold in dark wet San Fernando Valley Decembers; in random hot dry days a cheesy carnival might roll up and illuminate the night with barker con-games and nauseating rides.  During this festival celebrating nothing at all […]

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Fashion tips for moms of 14 and 15 year-old-girls

January 2, 2010

If you happen to be a mother of a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl at present, when it comes to style for 2010 it all comes down to just one word:  burlap. Not for your blooming, multi-faceted, eight-years-old one day and twenty-eight the next, urban-outfitted, Prada-praying, skinny-jean-clad, pretty-in-punk, missed a shower dirty sweats, preppy-princess-vixen of a […]

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