Funny? Fast? Anthropologically astute? Indeed! Absolutely historically accurate? Um... Enjoy! Not to beat a dead horse (think of the germs!), but the idea that kids need constant oversight is NEW. So it's not that we have all individually lost our minds and become afraid of everything. It's that lately our culture keeps insisting that kids
This excerpt is from the book Bare Minimum Parenting by Xploding Unicorn blogger/comedy writer James Breakwell, who has four girls under age 8. (No wonder he sneaks off to write books.) Says James, "I’m sick of overachieving parents trying to do as much as possible to get their kids ahead, especially when it doesn’t seem to make
The book "How Fear Works" is a gripping account of how we have come to think that whatever could POSSIBLY go wrong (no matter how extremely unlikely) has an actual PROBABILITY of going wrong. This new, emotional and often automatic leap that has made everyday life look like a minefield. It explains this response, below, to
Prompted by stats that show girls' confidence levels fall by 30% from age 8 to 14, Claire Shipman, Katty Kay and JillEllyn Riley wrote "The Confidence Code for Girls: Taking Risks, Messing Up, and Becoming Your Amazingly Imperfect, Totally Powerful Self." But their advice in this New York Times column strikes me as applicable for every kid: ...The
