In a society where our motto is “In God We Trust”, love for others should be relatively easy. Yet we all know that nothing could be further from the truth. We have a tough time with this one. Sometimes it’s relatively easy to love “certain people” but tough to love those “other people.” If we’re going to make a…
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The Cost of Lies
Lies are terrible things. They erode personal trust. They erode social trust. They can set us up for disaster or they can impede our recovery from disaster. They harm our relationships and hurt our self-esteem. Let’s look at the way lies will affect us going forward—by looking at the various stages where they come into play. Purposeful untruths at any…
IS IT BETTER TO USE A MAP OR GPS WHEN PARENTING?
Parenting is sometimes considered an innate process to raise one’s children to be capable adults—that everything is straightforward and will easily fall into place over the years from birth to adulthood. Conceiving children does not properly prepare us for the nurturing, physical and emotional, needed to raise healthy children. So when we need help where do…
YOU WILL BE FOUND
How can Antonio Basco carry on? He just lost his wife, Margie Reckard, of 22 years in the El Paso Walmart shooting. They lived a plain life and had no children together. Antonio had no other family of his own. He considered his wife “his saint.” He envisioned that he would be saying good bye to his life partner on his…
SSRIs are no substitute for SSNRs
Let us state our premise upfront—safe, stable nurturing relationships (SSNRs) are crucial to early childhood development and later adult health. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), commonly prescribed anti-depressant medications, can be very important for children and adults—but they will never be a substitute for the SSNRs that are necessary for adequate, and hopefully far exceeding adequate,…
Lessons from DEAR EVAN HANSEN
I continually go through life trying to learn from the events of everyday, whether that is a sporting event, TV show, movie or Broadway musical. I must admit that Broadway musicals particularly “speak” to me and force my introspection. In my book MY CHILDREN’S CHILDREN: RAISING YOUNG CITIZENS IN THE AGE OF COLUMBINE, I devoted a chapter…