Chinese Translation

July 5, 2009

My twelve-year-old’s class recently got into poetry, Zen and Tao.  They introduced us parents to this piece by M. Ward, “Chinese Translation,” that has a lot of wisdom, beauty and hope in it—things that can only help our parenting.  Maybe today is a good day to just watch this lovely video, listening to this song […]

Read the full article…

Born on the 4th of July: How Old is America in Developmental Terms?

July 4, 2009

D.W. Winnicott coined the phrase “good enough mother,” to connote the adequate mom (or dad, I hope) who does his or her best to attend to their child, and whose inevitable short-comings result in what Winnicott called “optimal frustrations,” which in turn help a child grow toward being able to soothe themselves, and in time, […]

Read the full article…

Laughing through our Tears

July 3, 2009

At the end of the film “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (which, by the way, would translate as “Treasure of the Mountain Mother”), the treasure seekers who have endured all manner of hardship, betrayal and testing of character, are making their way back to civilization with their hard-won loot strapped to their pack mules when […]

Read the full article…

Draining Depression

July 2, 2009

The main reason that depressed people are so draining is because they make us feel unsuccessful as caregivers.  We give and give, we try to be kind, to cheer them up, to make helpful suggestions, and they shoot them down and stay stuck to their negativity.  We tell them that they are negative, and they […]

Read the full article…

Depression and Dealing with our Own Limited Parents

July 1, 2009

A couple of days ago I inquired as to what readers might feel angry about, because anger can contribute to depression, which is in turn hard on kids because the influence of a depressed and disengaged parent can be to suggest to a child that he or she is worthless, invisible or depressing.  A response […]

Read the full article…

Can Depression Heal Us?

June 30, 2009

What if our “depression” were our soul’s way of saying, “You are on the wrong path—you’re not making enough art, or loving the world enough, or loving yourself enough?” What if instead of trying to stifle the voice of our soul, we paid a little more attention?  What if we asked that dark beast that […]

Read the full article…

If Mama’s Not Happy, What Might Help Her Get Happy?

June 29, 2009

Since if Mama’s not happy nobody’s happy, we begin our second week of a year of mindfully parenting with a focus on depression—in the hopes that if mama, or dada, isn’t feeling happy, we might get a little insight going, move the energy around and see if we can’t do a little something to help.  […]

Read the full article…

Is God a Cliché?

June 28, 2009

The word “cliché” is from the French and literally means a printer’s plate—something that was used over and over to say the exact same thing until it dulled and had to be tossed out, no longer able to clearly communicate its original intention.  In this sense the word “God” is a cliché—a word that once […]

Read the full article…

Death of the Puer—Michael Jackson and Child Development

June 27, 2009

Many of us are talking about Michael Jackson this week, lamenting the talented kid that he was, and the quasi-freak that he became, and now grieving the passing of an icon and an era.  In “Sympathy for the Devil,” Mick Jagger sings, “I shouted out, ‘Who killed the Kennedys?’ when after all it was you […]

Read the full article…

The Marlborough Man vs. Godzilla

June 26, 2009

We’ll finish our week of exploring anxieties in the service of better parenting by delving into the final frontier of dread:  annihilation anxiety. This psychological black hole is a “primitive mental state,” meaning a mind-set harking back to a time before we had a coherent framework to hinge together our sense of existence (i.e. in […]

Read the full article…

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →