Spoil the moms in your life today. Some people consider Mother’s Day to be a trumped up holiday where prices are cranked up at restaurants that know everyone will be scrambling for a special meal not cooked or cleaned up by a mother. Certainly some of that is true: people rush out for cards and there are roses for sale on the sides of the road for those who forgot. But I say that even if it is trumped up or “Hallmarked” it is still useful to take the day to consider all that mothers do. In fact, my biggest complaint is that it is only one day. I often think I should just declare a few more …

Those of us who grew up in the time of the typewriter, carbon paper and the card catalogue might be witnessing the death of another staple of those good old days, the land line. It’s still with us. I have one and I know that most people have one, but it is no longer the reliable tool it once was. It still works just fine, but no one uses it. I’m not sure anyone in our children’s generation would see this as a necessary item when they move on to independence. It’s clearly on a short leash. In my house, I am the only one who answers it. If I am not nearby, forget it. No one else even moves, …

When my daughter was five, playing hockey at the termite level, every game ended in a tie. After the third tie, she threw her stick down in a fit of unsportsmanlike anger and stomped off the ice as best as she could with her gear and skates. When we got in the car, she yelled at her dad, the coach, who manipulated the ties. Her message was simple: Even though I am five, Dad, I can take it if we lose. I just want to compete. Winning and losing has been in the news recently as some area schools debate the merits of awards ceremonies. The topic tends to come up as we as a culture question the …

A few days ago when I told someone my children had been accepted to college, she exclaimed, “You’re done!” There is a tendency to feel a giant sense of relief. It’s as if some gigantic part of our parenting job is complete. But, is it? If you talk to any parent just beyond this point, you will hear all sorts of stories that make it quite clear, that we are nowhere done.  We all worry that we are sending our children onto the next step without sufficient preparation. There was the story of someone calling mom from a highway, driving with some friends to ask how to pay a toll. The tollbooth was…

The announcement this week that our high school principal, Layne Millington, has resigned to become principal of Marblehead High brings an opportunity for us to learn from the past and improve the process for selecting  and retaining our next high school principal. There are many things that will always remain outside our control, but other factors we can and should control. We have an opportunity here. First, we are hearing quite a bit about turnover.  People are wondering why Swampscott has so much. Is it a problem unique to Swampscott or part of trend that is occurring in towns and cities …

People are quick to malign “kids these days” for all sorts of things, and some of it is fair, but much of it is not. Kids are frequently criticized, along with their parents, for a failure to get outside and play unless there is a super structure, like a team. Parents are criticized for overbooking their children on teams and classes and not leaving enough time for spontaneous activities that children plan amongst themselves. Last week, just before the blizzard, there were cartoons on the Internet floating around equating the dinosaurs and fossils with the “neighborhood kid who shovels snow” …

Regardless of who you root for, the Super Bowl still has the power to bring people together for the shared experiences of socializing, arguing, eating and of course, football. In today’s world of On Demand, customized playlists and live streaming, we have much fewer common experiences. The days of a family gathering around to listen to a radio show are positively old fashioned and sitting down in the family room together for a show or movie is also getting more rare. I’m not necessarily saying this is bad. Much of it is great. You will not hear me complain on a long car trip when every person…

A kid is new to Facebook. He is looking to build his network so he “friends” everyone with whom he has mutual friends.  It doesn’t even matter if he knows these people. That’s how it’s done. The problem is that he might end up with people he really does not want in his network like the grandmother of a few friends or the mother. I have gotten numerous friend requests from random middle schoolers who clearly have no idea who I am, but are likely “friends” with my children and their friends.   Another problem is that fake people sneak in this way. I know of at least one or two adults who have …

When the first bit of college mail arrives on the doorstep, it's exciting. The kids wonder if they are truly wanted by the schools who court them.  The brochures are slick and glossy and it makes the next step in life look exciting. You wonder how they knew about your child and allow yourself to dream a little bit about the process of finding a college. Was it test scores that brought this bounty of colorful catalogues to your door? Was it a box your child checked off on a standardized test? Does someone out there realize that your child is special even if they have little information? Before…

  When something happens so horrifically tragic like the Sandy Hook killings, no one knows what to do, but everyone wants to do something, blame someone and solve it quickly. That’s a normal reaction, but it’s too complicated. There is nothing simple that leads to a human being feeling the need to shoot out an elementary school. There is nothing simple about preventing it from happening again or even understanding it. There is no easy way to heal. There is no way to speed up the process and no amount of grief counseling that will make it like it was before. It will be a long and winding road…

  Every now and then the film “Race to Nowhere” surfaces and a discussion ensues about how we can prevent an entire generation of teens from getting too stressed out. We worry that our children are striving too hard for perfection and they worry too much about living their lives according to what they think admissions counselors want to see. They worry that one B on a test will ruin their lives. We worry they will burn out doing this and never find their true passions. It is certainly a problem and an awful lot can be said and written about this topic. But, that’s not what I am going to do. I…

My Thanksgiving turkey was dry this year, but that’s not what anyone will remember about the day. It started when I woke up feeling emotional. Thanksgiving was going to be another  “last time” for my football playing children and the teammates they have traveled with, some since kindergarten. Win or lose, it was to be the last Thanksgiving game, the last football game in a 13-year school journey. This one was a highlight. Football has helped them focus, mature into young men, teammates and members of a community.  But, emotion aside, there was still a game to play and a turkey to cook without…

I recently attended a session at Mass College of Art and Design on student admissions portfolios. I mention this because one example of a “drawing from life” was a sweet-looking and extremely neat bedroom. The admissions representative asked out loud what the rest of us were politely thinking, “I wonder if it really looks that neat?” She seemed to imply that a messy bedroom would not negatively affect your chances for admission, but she sort of stressed the importance of being yourself in your art. Does any teen bedroom look that neat? Don’t answer this question if a paid housekeeper is …

When my children were sent home from the hospital, the doctor in the nursery gave us some advice. “Just love them,” he said. He never said anything about what sort of stroller to use or whether to use cloth or disposable diapers. He didn’t even weigh in on formula versus breast milk and he certainly didn’t offer his opinions on organic baby food. A few weeks ago, I saw a coming attraction for the “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” movie which I have not seen. It brought back memories of how silly we all were when we were new parents. We all clung to the advice in the book with the same …

As I enter the college application fray, I am frequently asked the same question. Do you think your kids will get an athletic scholarship? The process is far from over, but if anyone is asking me what I think, the answer is no. I do not think my kids or most of their friends will get an athletic scholarship. What no one asks, but what I think will happen, is that many students I know will get merit aid, a blanket term for the discretionary funds that many colleges seem to have at their disposal to reward academic performance. I am asked the athletic money question on the playing fields and …

Before I write another word, let me go on record saying that navigation is one of the best inventions ever. It is so much safer to listen to a robotic voice telling you where and when to turn than to try and read a map or directions while driving in an unfamiliar place. In fact, it seems so popular that people use it even when they know the way and the listen to it even when it makes no sense. It is this hypnotic feature that I wish was portable to other things that need doing such as waking up in the morning and getting ready for school. Imagine the Brave New World-ish disembodied voice …

  This is usually the time of year when summer has gone on way too long. It is the time when moms are ready to come home from work or anywhere they may have been and find the house exactly as they left it because everyone else is at school. It is the time when moms expect the house to be quiet at certain times of the night because children are either in bed or completing homework. We are tired of the relentless social life of our children and ready for some structure and routine to reenter all of our lives. And, we are ready for food to be consumed with some predictability rather than have …

  When my sons were in first grade, we attended a children’s Passover seder where the teacher encouraged the class to try new foods without making impolite sounds. One of mine announced that there was a bug in his parsley. Later when the teacher asked who tasted something new, he said that he ate the bug. I’m pretty sure he was kidding, but I knew then that he and the rest of my crew did not suffer from what plagues so many other families: picky eating. In our house, foods are allowed to touch each other and all of us are willing to eat things that are new, different, green or blue. I think …

  A friend with two teenage children confided in a group of parents at a recent sporting event.  It turns out her children don’t think she and her husband are cool. Her own children give the cool parent designations to their friends’ parents, but not to their own. Can you imagine? She was totally confused by this. She thought she was pretty cool and apparently some of her children’s friends think they are cool too. These very same friends think their own parents are dorks and so on.  As she was telling this story, I could see others wondering. What do my kids think of me? There are any number…

  The good thing about other people's children is that they have clean rooms. They always wake up on time for school and they do all their homework without any reminders. Other people's children tend to have higher SAT scores and lower numbers of cavities. Or at least it seems that way. Other people's children tend to show their best side to everyone but their own parents. While our own children are rude to us, the children on the team we coach are polite. The children in the store where we buy our coffee are helpful. How did other people get these wonderful children? Where did we go wrong? …