The last chapter could be expanded to take up 90% of the book, and the rest would easily fit into the 10% left!

You mentioned one article I haven’t been able to track down. It was related to children lying because they are unable to control their parents’ anxieties. I thought you said it was a recent NY Times article, but I haven’t been able to find it.
Thanks

I really enjoyed hearing you speak last night at the Laguna Beach School District Coffee Break. When I came home, I discussed some of your ideas with my 17-year-old daughter.

As a junior whose mantra is balance, she has helped me become a less intrusive parent (although I am still struggling with overinvolvement). Although she carries a full load of regular classes (grade level–no honors) and works very hard to get As and Bs, she is an average kid who tries to go to bed at a reasonable hour, enjoys many close friendships, dances and sings for pleasure (not the best in the class), hasn’t got around to getting her license yet (permit still good–dad willing to help her practice), and isn’t interested in “the dark side”(her term for drug and alcohol abuse). She is concerned about the state of our high-pressure educational system and wants to study psychology in college.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but last night I think you mentioned you have formed a group of psychologists to deal with issues of balance in teens’ lives. Have you formed any teen groups to work on this issue in schools? If so, I’m sure my daughter would be interested in getting involved. Alternatively, do you have any ideas about ways she could get involved working on issues like these for a few weeks as an intern over summer break? Please let me know. If you provide contacts, she will follow up herself. (Because I am learning when to bow out.) Thanks.

The fine line you are not seeing involves TRAINING your child how to organize and manage their time and resources, THEN let them do it on their own and if they fail - learning to get up and try it again and again is the first step in learning and success. The fine line is only a misnomer or urban ledgen. I recommend you read and work through the study guide The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This book goes way beyond what is implied by the title. Good Luck! Thomas Jefferson said, ” I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

Ward

I live in Montgomery County, Maryland, which is a mostly upper-middle-class suburb of Washington, DC. I’m not at all happy at bringing up my daughters (ages 4, 7 and 9) here, and my wife and I are thinking of moving. I wonder if you, Dr. Levine, or anyone else on this site are aware of anyone who has made a move for that reason, and how they have fared?

Here is my situation. I work as a very specialized medical researcher, so I have very little job mobility in terms of where I can work. My current office is in the inner ring of suburbs around Washington, but my organization is moving to a new building further out in the suburbs. This will cut my commute from 45 minutes each way to 20 minutes each way. I’m beginning to think, though, that perhaps the thing to do is to take on a 60-90 minute commute, and get out of the metropolitan area entirely in favor of a “normal” (whatever that is) small or medium city.

Here are my most recent gripes with the staus quo…

1. When I dropped off my girls at the school bus stop this morning, I skipped out on my neighborhood’s first-day-of-school tradition. Once the kids are on the bus, out comes the champagne, and there is a champagne toast to celebrate the kids being back in school. Although to some extent I can sympathize, I think it’s in poor taste.

2. I found out this weekend that my seven year old daughter will now be playing against ten-year-olds in her soccer league, as most eight-to-ten year old girls here apparently have joined elite “travel teams” by this age, or have stopped playing soccer altogether. There are not enough of these girls to have their own division in the recreational league, so they’re being lumped into the same division as my much younger daughter.

3. When my two older girls signed up for tennis lessons last year, the instructors didn’t know what to do with them, as most children their age (then 6 and had been playing for several years, and so the introductory classes were designed for pre-schoolers.

4. Something very similar happened when we signed them up for piano lessons.

5. Almost 70% of the children in their (public) school qualify for the “gifted and talented” program. Now it’s a very good school in a very good school system, but for some reason this bothers me. It’s like Lake Wobegon(sp?) where [U]everyone[/U] is above average.

I’m very concerned that their perspective could become warpedd from growing up in such a place. does it make sense that we might consider moving, or is it just cowardly of me to try to shirk the added parental difficulty of trying to maintain some perspective for them in this unusual environment?