This fall my 18 year-old son, my first-born, my newly minted young adult, will be leaving home to start university.  I have never been an overly protective mother.  Over the years, he has often left home, even for extended times.  At 8 years old, he spent a week with members of our extended family whom he barely knew. After that there were...

Teach your kids to cook so you don't have to! Here's my philosophy in a nutshell: Each year after age 10, they learn to make one meal per year. So at 11 they can make 1. At 12 they can make 2. At 13 they can make 3. And so on, and so on, and so on. That way, when they move out at 18, the goal is that they can make seven different meals well,...

Publishers’ note:  This article was originally published Spring 2010, that will be evident in the details here, however due to the important nature of timeless truth this is being published here for our readers again. I love the Ontario Catholic School Boards. We all owe them a debt of gratitude, whether we’re Catholic or not. They took one...

#1 Parents must have the password The password is the key to unlock the door for full access into your child’s Facebook profile. It must be shared with the parents and only with the parents! This is essential for accountability and building trust in the relationship as it allows parents to spot check the News Feed and Inbox from time to time....

I have my meals planned this week. But rather than posting my plan (it's just pasta Monday, fish Tuesday, meatless on Wednesday, frozen leftovers on Thursday), I thought I'd post my rationale for eating together.  When I was out walking recently, my daughter Katie said to me, "You know what I like about our family, Mommy? We eat together. It's...

One of the most difficult parts of marriage is agreeing how to discipline. When one parent is more lenient, and one is more harsh, often parents fail to back each other up, and instead form emotional bonds with the kids. Here's a situation that happened in our family recently: One of our daughters, who had been very compliant, hit puberty, and...

I turned on CNN this morning and there was more news of bullying and suicide and it broke my heart. In the past couple of weeks we’ve lost Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas and earlier this year Phoebe Prince.  I wish that was an exhaustive list but there are others.  Bullying sometimes gets passed off as just a part of...