28 March 2013

Let your child have a voice that can be heard

I have now seen on one too many occasions, parents who are trying to live vicariously through their children. Here are just a couple of examples. Parents who sign up their teen in a hockey school so that they can receive the best hockey coaching in the country so that they have the best chance of making the NHL. Or other parents who have put their child into every diving competition there is, because that is what mom used to do. Living vicariously doesn’t just happen with sports, it can also happen with art, academic pursuits, fashion and so on.

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27 March 2013

Perceptions and relationship satisfaction

Mark Young, a counselling professor at Gonzaga University, did research around what makes couples “healthy” and “happy.” He found there were key themes in the healthy couples he interviewed. These themes were security, perceptions, expectations and interactions. However, there seemed to be the most emphasis on perceptions.


Ones perception of the relationship informs and influences the expectations of the relationship. The expectations of the relationship influence how one interacts in the relationship. Interactions then confirm the perception. Or the interactions may reject the perception, but couples may discount the interaction to maintain the perception. The perception needs to change when the interaction disconfirms the perception, but that is an uncomfortable process.

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20 March 2013

Teaching values over value

It’s been sometime after Hurricane Sandy. This hurricane did an estimated $50 billion worth of damage to the United States, making it the second costliest hurricane in the history of the United States. However, it was not deadliest. It is unfortunate that we measure the “cost” of a hurricane by the damage it causes to human made structures, not the loss of human life. What has been under reported about Hurricane Sandy is that approximately the same amount of lives that were lost in the United States, were also lost in the Caribbean days before the storm even hit the East Coast. Why is that?

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19 March 2013

Help Create Safety and Security at Home While Travelling


One observation I am having when working with parents is that children who come from a two parent house seem to go to bed better when both parents are home and engaged in the bedtime routine. There is a sense of sense of safety and security for children that when the lights go out mom and dad are home. The same seems true for children who have only grown up in a single parent house.

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17 March 2013

The shaming behind excessive TV use



Did you see the headlines on February 18? That TV and antisocial behaviour are linked? There was a lot of attention garnered by this recent study released from New Zealand that was published in Pediatrics. This study linked “excessive” television watching to antisocial and criminal behaviour.
What is impressive about this study is that it involved a large number of participants, 1,037 to be exact. All participants were born in New Zealand in 1972 and 1973. Even more impressive is that the participants were followed for 5 to 15 years tracking their TV watching hours.
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07 March 2013

The shaming behind excessive TV use

Did you see the headlines Feb. 18? That TV and antisocial behaviour are linked? There was avid attention garnered by this recent study released from New Zealand that was published in Pediatrics. This study linked “excessive” television watching to antisocial and criminal behaviour.

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03 March 2013

Create safety and security at home while travelling

One observation I am having when working with parents is that children who come from a two parent house seem to go to bed better when both parents are home and engaged in the bedtime routine. There is a sense of safety and security for children that when the lights go out, mom and dad are home. The same seems true for children who have grown up in a single parent house.

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01 March 2013

The shaming behind excessive TV use


Did you see the headlines Feb. 18? That TV and antisocial behaviour are linked? There was avid attention garnered by this recent study released from New Zealand that was published in Pediatrics. This study linked “excessive” television watching to antisocial and criminal behaviour.

What is impressive about this study is that it involved a large number of participants, 1,037 to be exact. All participants were born in New Zealand in 1972 and 1973. Even more impressive is that the participants were followed for five to 15 years tracking their TV watching hours.

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