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May 5, 2014
 The kind of friends you can be yourself with Since 1997 a big chunk of my email questions have been variations of…
- What do I do if my friend is nice to me sometimes and sometimes mean to me?
- What do I do if my friend is talking behind my back but then when I confront her about it she says she doesn’t know what I’m talking about?
- What do I do if my friend always has to have things his way and when he doesn’t, he gets kinda mean?”
This morning I did a Skype in the Classroom session with 14 and 15 year olds in Croatia. The topic: Real Friends vs the Other Kind. These kids were polite, respectful and appreciative of our time together. Their English was very impressive! What also impressed me were the questions they asked: thoughtful, honest, revealing. Even though they were so far away, they had many of the same concerns and confusions about friendship as the kids who’ve been emailing me for 17 years. Doesn’t matter if the letter writer is 10 or 19. Doesn’t matter if s/he lives in Detroit, London, Singapore or Zaire. It often boils down to this: “Why is my friend not acting like a friend and what can I do about it?”
We each have to learn the difference between a real friend and the other kind. Sometimes those lessons come with a lot of hurt feelings. Maybe we’d suffer less if, when we are young, we could get help setting concrete standards for behavior in a friendship. Parents and teachers could do a much better job helping us understand that when we pay attention to how we feel when we are with people we can trust, then we will know what it’s like to feel safe, respected and appreciated in a friendship. Trusted adults should also help kids understand that friendship is a 2-way street. We have to hold ourselves to the same high standard of real friendship that we hold other people to. And if they are unable or unwilling to treat us the way a real friend should, then we have the right (and the obligation to ourselves) to take a vacation from that friendship and reach out to other people who share our values.
How do we teach kids the difference between real friends and the other kind?” Watch my 3 minute video answer on Vidoyen.
May 2, 2014
 I’ve got you, sweetie. I had a great dad. Unfortunately, he died of a massive heart attack when I was 15. After that, and for a very long time, I had a massive case of “dad hunger.” So there’s no surprise I was immediately drawn to Keith Zafren’s book How to Be a Great Dad – No Matter What Kind of Father You Had. Right there, in his introduction, he talks about his own “father hunger” and personal journey of healing.
Keith is the founder of The Great Dads Project. He and I connected on Twitter (as so many do) and we swapped books. He was kind enough to write a blog about my work and a separate review of my book, Teaching Kids to Be Good People.
In turn, I read How To Be a Great Dad and interviewed Keith for my weekly podcast Family Confidential. We had a heart-to-heart conversation about how much kids benefit from having a loving, engaged, committed dad in their lives and what they sorely miss when they don’t. We also talked about practical ways in which women can encourage their men to be better dads. The interview really touched me.
Please listen to my conversation with Keith Zafren on this week’s Family Confidential podcast. Share it with the dads you know, as well as the moms. It will help kids everywhere.
April 29, 2014
There have always been kids who seem to get pleasure and a power-high from bugging other kids. Maybe there always will be. Thankfully, adults are getting wise to the fact that “Kids will be kids” is no excuse for peer-harassment. Over the past decade, we have learned some heart-breaking lessons about the tragic consequences of unstopped harassment. Our education has come through the irreparable damange caused to targeted kids and their families. These days, at least on paper, parents and educators are much less tolerant of “mean kid” behavior than we have been in the past.
Of course, we’re talking about bullying (online and off) but I’ve purposely not yet used the word because it’s overused to the point of being meaningless.
Let’s get one thing straight, the definition of bullying is not: Everything that other people do that you don’t like. A rude, one-time comment is not bullying. A friend telling you that she doesn’t want to be your friend any more is not bullying. When everything is called bullying, kids miss the point and nothing changes for the good. So let’s be clear. Peer harassment is a) ongoing b) unwanted and c) typically involves a power disparity between the two people. For example, boss to employee, coach to player, parent to child, older sibling to younger, “popular” kid to less popular kid.
In my most recent 3 minute Vidoyen video I answered the question: How can parents and educators do a better job reducing bullying?
 How to stop it? I’ve got answers
April 25, 2014
Remember what Dorothy said? “There’s no place like home!” Man, am I feeling it today. It’s been a loooong 10 days since my last blog. In that time I:
- made a killer Passover seder for 13 most loved friends and family
- hosted a baby shower (the grandboy is due in 6 weeks!)
- created three new PowerPoint presentations
- flew to Montana via Salt Lake City (Two of the “bounciest” flight of my life. Seriously, it took me 48 hours to fully recover)
- presented four sessions at a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Conference
- met a crocodile
 You can smile at this guy!
• photographed the sky
 That’s why they call it Big Sky Country • flew West (without bounces, thank you!) and photographed the ground
 Approach to Great Salt Lake City • arrived home to David after midnight.
All I can say is…. Ahhhhhh.
Sometimes we need to push, push, push. Forget how we’re feeling or what we’d rather be doing. The work needs to get done and it’s on our plate. And sometimes we really need to stop, take some delicious deep breaths, make pancakes for breakfast (even if it’s not a weekend), drink hot chocolate, and cut roses from the garden.
 Bounty from the wet garden We need to take off shoes, sink into a couch with a good novel (Certain Women by Madeline L’Engle) Get another cup of hot chocolate and snuggle with a dog who loves us.
 I’m glad you’re home, Mom That’s it. I’m done for the week. I’ve earned a rest. I’ll bet you have too.
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