Parenting

What will it take to convince parents that playing a game with their young children is better than watching TV. Maybe a few complaints and a refund will do the trick.  Read More

Families in every neck of the woods pay homage to the matriarch of their family every May on that lovely Sunday we've come to know - and expect (at least my mother has) - as Mother's Day. Read More

Imagine an old-fashioned sandlot game of baseball. A bunch of kids of various ages show up at the vacant lot. They've come on foot or by bicycle. Someone brought a bat and ball (which may or may not be an actual baseball), and several came with fielders' gloves. They decide to play a game.  ... The lessons intrinsic to this kind of game are the lessons intrinsic to real life: (1) There is no real difference between your team and the other team. (2) To keep the game going, you have to keep everyone happy, including those on the other team. (3) You and the other players have to make the rules yourselves, and you have to change them as conditions change. (4) Conflicts are settled by argument, negotiation and compromise, not by appeal to a higher authority. (5) Playing well and having fun really ARE more important than winning. Read More

Why do I feel so sorry for a former porn-star and drug user who might lose custody of her five-year-old daughter? Too bad the custody "catfight" between Sandra Bullock and former porn star Janine Lundemulder is letting dad off the hook... Read More

In the Brother's Grimm fairy tale, "The Old Grandfather and the Grandson," a young married couple has grown tired of the husband's father, who lives with them, and who has become increasingly feeble. They stop inviting him to the dinner table and begin feeding him small portions from a dishpan. Read More

This is the fourth in a series of five posts about the big drivers of threat and reward in the brain. Read More

There is a ubiquitous message we send to youths, over the ownership and use of guns in our society. That message is an eye for an eye.

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Virginia Woolf in "A Room of One's Own" wrote passionately about the need for women to have a place of their own to write and to be creative.

Eighty years later, women across the country still have the same lament! Mother's whether they live in mansions or apartments eventually all will get driven to the smallest room in the house, the bathroom. Read More

I was once told that I shouldn't have kids, because the child could be born with Asperger's, like me. I answered with a question - "Would you have given the same advice to my parents?"

Interactions like this often prompt me to ask: What is life about? Is life just about avoiding pain, or something more? Read More