In order to love their school-going children, healthy parents:

·      Create a safe home environment where no topic is off limits.

·      Trust the school and their children and therefore seldom run interference for their children.

·      Have satisfying lives outside of being parents.

·      Don’t personalize their children’s missteps and encourage honest success and legitimate failure.

·      Don’t get embroiled in their children’s peer relationships.

·      Don’t do their children’s homework for them.

·      Live truthfully so their children see truth in action.

·      De-escalate almost everything and check on facts before escalating any school issue.

·      Go first to the source when issues arise.

·      Give the school the benefit of the doubt and listen objectively to all sides. Oddly, they tend to believe adults even over their children*.

·      Permit natural consequences to follow their children’s actions*.

·      Treat teachers and administrators with respect and speak highly of professions in education.

·      Are present for their children in a world of endless distractions.

·      Write affirming emails and letters to teachers and administrators to express thanks for the investment in their children.

·      Are respectful to coaches and officials at sports events if their child’s is winning or losing.

·      Say “please” and “thank you” and “excuse me” and behave like the adults they hope their children become.

·      They mind their own business and resist gossip.

*There are always extremes where these will not apply

Dangerous men are often charming in public. In private they are sarcastic and cynical, and commit private acts of control, malice, and deceit. They isolate intimates. When extended family contact is inevitable they limit, control, and monitor it. Visits with extended family are routinely bookended with intense blowups. They accuse their wives of lies, affairs, and demand unreciprocated honesty. They can pin their wives and children to the wall using dagger eyes. When feeling out of control, disobeyed, or disrespected, their malice will, without intervention, escalate to growing acts of violence.

Their acts of violence will usually start “small” and be followed by silence or shock or remorse, but they will grow until requiring the victim to avoid being seen in public. The victim will often, without pressure, cover her injuries or go into hiding.

Such men silence their children using a rich combination of charm, fear, power, threats, and a sense of exclusivity.

Women stay with such men for many reasons, primarily because their lives are baptized in fear.

Before I am flooded with emails informing me that women can also be violent know that I am aware. But, it is predominantly men. The last four very recent incidents of domestic violence I have heard about have all been men.

“My wife and I are really struggling with a miscarriage we had just over four months ago. This has broken our hearts. We were very excited and had prepared everything for our baby. What breaks our hearts even more are the horrible things people say, even close family, like ‘it wasn’t meant to be’ and ‘God is in control’ and ‘the baby went back to heaven’ and ‘you will get pregnant again.’ I think I am a little better at responding to these stupid comments (which are meant to be showing comfort) than my wife is. She doesn’t want to be out in public or even with family and friends because she is so tired of the ridiculous things people say. What do you think?”

Your letter is sufficient to inform family and friends what not to say to a grieving couple. I hope your letter will be read and result in insensitive men and women becoming more aware of the intense grief you and couples like you have had to endure.

Your parent head and your parent heart will never forget the child with whom you bonded for a brief time. You will love the child forever and part of you will grieve forever.

Hope awaits you both. The loss will ultimately transform you if you will allow. 

Regularly relating to high-functioning people (intimate or casual):

• Will give you the lasting impression that life is an exciting adventure, filled with wonderful, endless possibilities.

• Will give you the impression that questions are more important than answers and that ambiguity is an ally and not a foe.

• Will leave you feeling empowered and encouraged and that if you apply yourself you can do about anything you can dream of doing and go anywhere on the planet that you’d like.

• Will leave you with the desire to read and discover more about areas of interest you did not even perhaps know you have.

• Will inspire you to become engaged in your own life at least as deeply as they are engaged in theirs.

• Will engage you in skillful humor that has no victims.

How do you face Mondays? I hope you know you have a choice in the matter. It is up to you if it’s going to be a blue Monday or a beautiful Monday.

It’ll be blue if you see the people around you as a hindrance or as obstacles to your happiness. They are not. It’ll be blue if you see your work as a hardship to endure. It’s probably not. It’ll be a really blue Monday if you carry a load of resentments and grudges and anger from last week or from years ago into the week. It’ll be a blue Monday full of harsh surprises if you feel the world owes you something. It doesn’t.

Your Monday and your week and, if fact your entire life, will be beautiful if you treasure the people around you and regard them as your greatest gifts. They are. If you regard your work as your art you will be transformed by your career. If you enter the week free of resentments and full of forgiveness and ready for reconciliation, not only will you have a great week, you will inspire others to live similarly. Give the world your best, every day of the week and it will return the favor even though it owes you nothing.

Quick fixes to life’s problems annoy me.

The Art of Living Well is a process. It’s a life-long process. It’s a journey of joy and some sadness and many struggles.

Its challenges pivot on being willing to embrace and understand the unavoidable juxtaposition of the Beauty and the Brutality of life simultaneously occurring for most people.

And yet, there are some simple (not easy) things that we can all do that will immediately enhance the journey, make it even more meaningful, more beautiful and rewarding, despite the inevitable dilemmas that are served up most days.

· Take full responsibility for yourself – blame no one for anything at all, find your role in whatever you face – and your journey will be enhanced.

· Choose generosity at every possibility – and your joy will increase.

· Define yourself and refuse to define others (even those whom you truly love) and the respect you gain will be an immediate reward.

· Forgive everyone everything without exception – I never said it would be easy – and you will feel freedom come pouring into your life.

• Surrender control, let the natural process of living have its way – and see that much in life can be really trusted.

“My wife is constantly on her phone – not talking, but texting and checking for “likes” and seeing what her friends are up to. She takes it everywhere with her and is always distracted. She sleeps with it under her pillow. It’s getting really ridiculous. She’s more worried about how and where she will charge her phone than if we have basic necessities in the house. I am not kidding. I cannot have a conversation with her where she doesn’t have one eye on the phone and can even be texting while I am talking to her. She says women can multitask and that I am just being over sensitive. I am not. If I want to see something she’s doing on her phone she holds it so I can see – I am not allowed to hold her phone. I hate to think she is hiding something from me but I can’t help wondering. Is it ok for me to establish some ground rules for us as a couple? When I think about that I feel like I am treating her like a teenager. I would rather it come from her that it be insisted on by me. Please help.” (Edited)

This is not about phones. Seek face-to-face help for yourself first, and then for the two of you as a couple.