Family

How good do you feel about yourself?  And what are the childhood sources of those feelings?  Clare Rabin’s new book sheds light on these questions by exploring the time-tested ideas of Donald Winnicott. Read More

 When is an ideal time to have children? And what are the consequences for your future life of that decision? Read More

 A one-day-old newborn can teach a major lesson about happiness. Read More

 Grandchildren are the privilege and delight of increasingly fewer seniors. Those who do have grandkids too often live at too far a distance to reach out and hug them. Read More

 Families can be fountains of strength. At the same time, all families are fragile. Internal factors like a parent with mental health issues, and also outside factors like job loss or economic stresses, can overwhelm a couple’s abilities to cope in good humor. One temporarily fractured couple has written profound advice relevant to all parents. Read More

 A recent study suggests an interesting relationship between the size of the family a child grows up within and the likelihood that in adulthood that child will end up divorced. Read More

 Adult children of moms with borderline personality disorders report the lifelong devastating impact of their mothers’ intense narcissism and unpredictable raging. What could help kids who have these kinds of moms? Read More

 A new book sheds light on the question of whether natural approaches to diet, childbirth, healing and the environment really keep us healthier and happier. Read More

 What are the risks and potential solutions to nourishing both time together and time apart? Here’s seven guidelines to think about. Read More

 Sustaining traditions is key to what the Maccabees, the Jewish freedom fighters of 2000 years ago, fought to preserve. Read More

 These comments from readers of my earlier postings on borderline personality disorder have useful suggestions for understanding and coping with family members who rage. Read More

 Here’s a way you can catch a glimpse of the future. Take a look at what you’ve been doing in four arenas of your life to view the kinds of connections that are likely to lie ahead for you in your elder years. Read More

 Watching squirrels in my backyard and then goats in a meadow triggered thoughts about how adult children and their moms interact. Some enjoy each other like the playful furry-tailed squirrels. Others ignore each other like goat moms and their grown-up offpsring. Does our society train our children to value independence to the exclusion of sustaining strong family ties? Read More

 Parenting, someone once said, is the art of getting kids to do what you want them to do, and getting them to stop doing things you don’t want them to do. These three ways of playing can fill your basket of parenting tricks with potent fun strategies. Read More

 Try reading this story to your children if they sometimes make too much noise. Your discussion afterwards should be interesting. The story was written by a five-year-old boy who was trying to learn to tame his volume. Read More

 Big families are relatively rare these days. It’s even rarer for multiple generations to live in the same city. Even if they do, odds are that the family members rarely get together beyond weddings and major holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving. My secretary’s family succeeds. How do they do it? Read More

 What do students need from their parents? Freud had a surprisingly solid definition many years ago. With tough economic times likely to lie ahead, it’s worth paying attention to what Freud said. Read More