Happy Independence Day!!!
Hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July celebration with your sons, daughters, and your entire family!!!
What’s Going On? Summer Edition, Part 1
Sorry that the posts have been a bit few and far between these days, but I have been unusually busy with the actual business of parenting. My children are settling into their summer routine, which seems thus far to involve a lot of road trips with me behind the wheel. Here is a hodgepodge of items I've been meaning [...]
How to Encourage Summer Reading
Want to help your son improve his reading skills over the summer? A good idea, since many children lose ground in reading over the course of the summer and start the new school year with rusty skills which can zap their academic confidence. Here are a few ways to focus on reading this summer: Public Library Summer Reading Programs: [...]
Club 2012: This Is How We Do It
In 2007, a group of Black parents in Loudoun County Maryland became concerned as they watched their middle school sons fall behind in school. These parents' expectations were high: they were raising their sons in one of the state's most affluent communities and sending them to the high performing neighborhood schools. These well-educated, well employed professionals thought they were [...]
Should We Tell Our Children They Are Special?
Have you heard about the commencement speech given by David McCullough Jr., an English teacher at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts, in which he told the graduating seniors "you are not special"? Rather than deliver the expected "go out and conquer the world" graduation speech, the teacher surprised the gathered body with comments like: You are not special. You [...]
Parenting Lessons from Ellis Marsalis
Last night I had the incredible pleasure of sitting at a friend's small dinner party for Jazz at Lincoln Center and listening to Wynton Marsalis jam with his quintet in her living room(!). As Wynton introduced their final piece, "Take the A Train", he mentioned that he had the opportunity to meet Duke Ellington back in 1971, when he [...]
The Latest Lesson from Hip-Hop…Science!
Today's news item, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal, will impress even the most anti-hip-hop parent: GZA, founding member of the renowned and revered rap group The Wu-Tang Clan, is busily working on his next album "Dark Matter", which is designed to get his fans as excited as he is about science. Yes, science. According to the article, found [...]
For the Tucks, Reading is Fundamental and Fun
Take a look at this charming NY Times story, found here, about how Giants leading defensive end Justin Tuck and his wife Lauran's commitment to children's literacy is evident in their charitable organization, R.U.S.H. for Literacy, and in their parenting of their adorable two-year old son. This is a great story on so many levels. It is lovely to [...]
Reading Matters!
Interesting article in the Huffington Post by Lisa Bloom, who has written a book called , "Swagger: 10 Urgent Rules for Raising Boys in an Era of Failing Schools, Mass Joblessness and Thug Culture". (Provocative title, no?) Bloom, a lawyer and television journalist, focuses on the national under achievement of boys across racial and economic lines, and "the cultural [...]
Financial Literacy for Children
Today's Wall Street Journal includes a story of how one family has started their son on the road to financial literacy using his allowance. The article, found here, features adorable Ryan Emah, a 7 year old second grader, who gets $3.00 a week from his parents for fufilling "basic expectations " like emptying the dishwasher and folding clothes. He [...]