July is National Cell Phone Courtesy Month

How many times have you seen a person talking on their cell phone while at dinner with someone?  Or a shopper carrying on a wireless phone conversation in a checkout line as the cashier tries to communicate with the person. In today’s hyper multi-tasking society, we...

Kindness: It Makes a Difference

It is such a simple word, kindness.  To be kind to one another seems like such a simple task, yet on almost a daily basis we hear about peer cruelty online (both adults and kids) that will use keystrokes as their weapon of choice to hurt others. Recently I was at the...

The Teenage Online Landmine

What can parents do to keep their teens safe online? Parenting has been a frightening proposition since the beginning of time, but parents today are faced with challenges no generation has ever faced: raising children who have spent their entire lives immersed in the...

Parents Can Tweet Too: Being a Social Media Role Model

It used to be the case that parents just puzzled over their teens’ calculus homework; now parents have the added challenge of hashtags and embed codes. That’s because parents must become role models online as well as offline, since the separation between those worlds...

A Parent’s Look Inside Teens’ Web Chat

Good parents want to teach their children to walk and run, but still protect them when they fall. Healthy parenting is finding a balance between opportunity and risk. Children need to have the opportunity to grow and explore with as little risk of endangerment as...

Tips to Start an Anti-Bullying Program

Everyone talks about bullying and cyber bullying prevention and now that summer is here and school is out, kids don’t have the support of a guidance counselor or an anti-bullying prevention team at school to report bullying to or a possible peer support group to...

Parents Preach Honesty: Drunk Mom Comes Forward

  This is a guest post and the name is withheld upon request.  I believe it is a very powerful true story that can be your story or someone you know.  There is never any shame in being honest with yourself and your family–it is the first step to recovery...