After stepping away from regular GCP blogging for a while to begin work on a parenting book, I am returning to posting regularly--GCP is back! While the posts will still primarily focus on raising boys, many posts already on the site can be helpful for parenting girls as well. A lovely young friend with twins (a boy and a girl) recently told [...]
Our hearts break for the families of Alton Sterling, Philando Castle, the slain and injured Dallas policemen and their families. I used to take solace in thinking that no matter how tough/scary it may seem to parent a black child these days, it can't compare to the unsettling times of 60's and 70's when I was young, with the [...]
Over the years that GCP has been around, we have had to write an alarming number of posts with the same basic message: how do we talk to our sons about unimaginably horrible and senseless killings that they can see footage of over and over on CNN? This time it is Paris. It has been Lebanon, it has been [...]
Unless you have been sleeping under a rock, you know that the musical "Hamilton" is on Broadway, and you should also know that it is one of the most amazing pieces of musical theater ever. Ever. The story of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton brilliantly told through genius writing and composing using a mash up of hip hop and a [...]
As I talked with a good friend recently about our sons and their social lives, he quoted an old saying that rang so true: "Show me his friends and I'll show you his future." Our sons will most certainly have a lot of friends over the course of their childhood and adolescence. But at some point he will develop [...]
Another horrific shooting on another college campus. 10 dead and 7 more injured. The shooter is among the dead, leaving a nation with never-to-be-answered questions as to why. President Obama grimly commented on this most recent tragedy with concern and frustration: "[A]s I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I [...]
Hope all of your sons are settling well into the new school year. Here is a GCP Checklist of things to do/keep your eyes on as the year begins: Meet the teachers: There will certainly be an open school night or some other formal opportunity to meet teachers, and you shouldn't miss that. But you should try to meet [...]
Giving constructive criticism to our sons so that they hear and accept it can be so tough, especially when our boys are in their middle and high school years. Constructive criticism lets them know they could do something better without blaming or shaming them. Takes a lot of parenting skill to get this right! We at GCP believe strongly [...]
Did you and your family know that Sunday September 13th is National Grandparent’s Day? It's time to celebrate the grandparents in your lives!! Be sure to connect today with grandparents or older adults in the community and show them some love. Looking for more ways to celebrate Grandparent's Day? Find them at www.grandparentsday.org.
Few of us will ever forget where we were and what we were doing when we heard about the Twin Towers collapsing on September 11, 2001. Those of us who were in New York City on that day can surely remember all the events of that day fourteen years ago like it was yesterday. But many of our younger [...]