This is the second installment of this series on how to deal with the demand of electronic media in our kids’ lives. Part 1 acted as an introductory post based on the question: how are we as parents supposed to guide our children in an aspect of their lives that didn’t exist when we were children ourselves?…
Category: family
Circumnavigating the Media Black Hole as Parents (part 1)
I’m going to be completely honest here: I used the word “circumnavigating” purely because I think it’s a cool word. But I do think it fits pretty well with what I’d like to discuss today, so that worked out well. Another open confession: Jessica and I were not prepared to deal with the omnipresence of…
Sexual Abuse, Body Image, and The Healing Power of Dance
by Ophélia Martin-Weber You can learn more about Ophélia’s future in dance and support her by going here. Ballet requires dedication, strength, confidence, bravery, endurance, grace, hope, joy, passion, concentration, memory, self-esteem, flexibility, knowing who you are, critical analysis, adaptability, ability to learn quickly, pain tolerance, and eventually, really ugly feet. Sometimes, when I…
Welcoming the Whole Child
When parents welcome a baby into their lives, it can take them a long, long time to recognize that they haven’t just welcomed a cute little bundle of needs and smiles into their lives; they have allowed a whole other person to be a part of their daily lives. It is so easy to…
Children Must Break Their Parents
Every parent faces the reality that their children have a will of their own, which I think most would agree is a good thing in and of itself. But parents also face huge external pressure to control their children; the way your child behaves is after all a direct reflection of how good a parent…
A Conversation With My Younger Self
“Thank you for your concern. My name is Jeremy, by the way.” he said as he extended his hand. “That’s interesting.” I said as I shook his hand. “My name is Jeremy too.” We exchanged a friendly smile and parted ways. As I walked away, my mind was whirling with questions: Did our conversation…
Trampling People in the Spirit of the Season
Decorating our house for the Holidays has long been a staple of the post-Thanksgiving weekend for our family. Jessica and I have rarely had a year when we haven’t been involved in some kind of artistic production, be it a musical, choral performance, recital, a concert, or some other type of show. The Holiday…
Of Teenage Dreams and Towel Pics
Our Storyteller (13) had a dream that she shared with us just a couple weeks ago at breakfast. She was clearly perturbed by it, and being a verbal processor, she really needed to share it with us. In her dream she was in our house, sleeping in her room in the basement, when she woke…
The Perks of Helping Your Children Clean Up Their Room
Disclaimer: if you have a habit of keeping your house picked up all the time, this blog post is probably not for you. Balancing being a work at home parent, a ballet-dad, a theatre-dad, and an involved husband and parent often means something has got to give. More often than not, it’s more than…
Poop and Snot- MY PRECIOUS!
For all you who have toddlers, had toddlers, or will have toddlers, I’m here to comfort you with a story of one of my parenting fails. I fail daily but always with style. Epic style it seems, straight from Mordor. At any moment I will have destroyed at least one of my children’s hopes…