
What are the real challenges facing parents? Author Annie Fox discusses parenting teens with emotional intelligence expert Sue McNamara — how do we talk to teens? How do we help them be people who make good choices?

Does unconditional love mean you accept people fully — without wanting them to be better? As a parent, does it mean you don’t push your kids to do better? As a spouse, does it mean you don’t encourage your partner to grow? As a manager, does it mean you accept ho-hum performance? Recently I noticed [...]

If you’re a parent, it is one of your biggest fears. You have some friends whose child makes you wince every time s/he opens his mouth. Or is known among other parents as a bully. Your friends are constantly being called into the principal’s office to discuss their child’s behavior. And, most crushingly of all, [...]

This is a list of fabulous books you should read. If you have a child, I recommend you read these books together and talk about the messages inherent within them. Discuss what the message means for your own life and share that with your child. And listen carefully to what s/he has to say about [...]
I ran away from school! Not recently – when I was six. I was in first grade and the teacher told me that she was going to keep me after school. It was the first time in my school career I was going to face a detention. It wouldn’t have been so awful had it [...]

Isn’t homework essential for getting kids to internalize skills and become solid in their new learning? Keeps them busy and out of trouble… and no harm in that, right? Research says it’s not so clear that it helps… and the social-emotional effects may be grave. Here’s an excerpt from a new article in the Washington [...]

An excellent post by Elizabeth O’Shea with 14 clear, powerful ideas about being an emotionally intelligent parent. Here are the first 3 – how would it be to put these into action? 1. Accept our children’s emotions and emotional responses ‘That must have been really frustrating’ ‘Wow, you are showing me how angry you feel’ ‘That’s [...]
Interested in what your daughter thinks about her boyfriend? Wonder how your son feels about his math teacher? What question do you want to ask your children but are not sure about how to go about it? I love charms andbout two years ago, Josh Freedman and I thought it would be fun to have [...]

The use of power is central to our interactions as leaders, coaches, parents, and change agents. To be more effective, emotional intelligence will help us understand and tune up our own use of power and the ways people react to that. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of different forms of power. All of these “work” in some sense. If they generate certain desired there are “benefits.” At the same time, each produces unwanted side effects, called “costs.” What are some of the forms of power that you have, and that you exercise? What happens when you exercise these different forms of power? What price do you pay for each such use?

I heard a tale recently that appalled and fascinated me at the same time. The tale was told to me as a funny story, a hilarious situation. But I was more circumspect. A girl, about eight or nine, had been out with her sister, parents and grandparents. While she was out, she’d visited a public [...]