Parenting

• A Date With Delinquency

  Parenting an adolescent isn’t a particularly easy thing to do even under the rosiest of circumstances. Having a healthy, well-adjusted, top-performing, polite, well-groomed, socially conscious teen would certainly make the process more enjoyable for everyone, but what if, despite all the wonderful things you’ve done for him, he turns out the very opposite?

• Tips for Parenting the Only Child

  Parents with one child face common dynamics. Being aware of these dynamics helps us to approach parenting prepared, able to “head off” the negatives that might lead to full-blown issues in parenting our only child. Let’s look at three dynamics common to parenting one child.

• Educational Options for Students with Learning Disabilities: Maximizing Potential

  Is your child struggling in school, or has he or she been diagnosed with a learning disability? While initially this may be difficult to accept, it is imperative that as a parent, you reach an understanding of your child’s academic needs. This will help you ensure that the current school is offering your son or daughter the best opportunity for success.

• Exercise for Busy Moms

  Exercise will improve your cardiovascular health, strengthen your immune system, and help prevent obesity and adult-onset diabetes. It brings vitality, energy, and relaxation, lifts depressive feelings, and keeps you trim.

• Running on Empty

  Millions of American families are running on fumes. Start with the typical strains of working and raising children—then add today’s pace, the need for two incomes outside of the home, lengthening work weeks, frequent inequities in workload (typically stacked against women), and the breakdown of traditional supports like extended families and a stable community—and you have got modern family life.

• Dealing with Summertime Stress

  Summertime means long, sunny days, no school, lazy weekends, family vacations and lot’s more time with the kids. Most parents LOVE having their children around more. But it’s a mixed blessing since it also means that we’re dealing more with day to day child management (if kids are spending less time in school or daycare), and with hassles and sibling quarrels and schlepping kids to and fro. Plus long car rides and standing in lines at amusement parks and taking care of sunburns and . . . and . . . Plus arguing more with our mate, maybe, about how to deal with all of this. Yikes!

• Divorce Mediation as an Alternative to Litigation: Avoid Legal Battles and Help Your Children

  Divorce mediation, a form of third-party intervention, has become an increasingly popular alternative over a traditional divorce that is settled through both parties use of lawyers. The nature of most traditional divorces leads the two parties toward an adversarial approach, with both people arguing over assets, future financial arrangements, and children.

• Step Parenting Power Tool: Using Family Rituals and Traditions to Create Identity

  If you are in a step family and struggling for some sense of family identity, don’t despair. You can enhance your feeling of togetherness with the use of family rituals and traditions.