Your child just got sent home from school with the swine flu.
Your twelve-year-old hockey player was just suspended for two games for using inappropriate language with the referee.
Your teen-age daughter just informed you she is pregnant.
So what? Now what?
Does so what, now what seem a bit callous to you? Do you want to suggest you [...]

I recently overheard a mother instructing her young child to “use the magic word.” My ears perked up at the instruction. I listened closely as the mother continued her direction, “I won’t give you a piece of gum unless you say please.” The child immediately replied, “Pleeeeease, can I have a piece of gum?” The [...]

Musing #1: Did the “Balloon Boy” incident reveal how easily manipulated and gullible we are? No it didn’t. Maybe it pointed to our limited knowledge base about homemade flight balloons and the amount of weight they can carry. Maybe it showed that we don’t really understand the properties of mylar. Big deal. What our national [...]

On October 16th my wife, Valerie, and I will be celebrating our sixteenth wedding anniversary. Yes, sixteen years ago we were married on Sweetest Day. When we chose that day, we didn’t realize that we were actually picking what many consider a greeting card company’s answer to Valentine’s Day.
Truth be known, Sweetest Day dates back [...]

Hold on to your hats. Better sit down. Gird your loins. Here comes a big one.
News flash from a research team at the University of Alabama: Children who chat on cell phones while crossing the street are more likely to be in an accident than those who are not on cell phones! They recommend we [...]

I recently dedicated an entire hour of my radio show to the topic of spanking children. I wanted to talk about the dangers of using spanking to correct a child’s behavior. I was prepared to provide listeners with a host of alternative discipline strategies. Instead, I spent most of the hour defending my position to [...]

Judgment reveals more about the judge than it does about the object being  judged.
What you say about me, says more about you than it does about me.
Do you believe the statements above? I do. And they help me remember not to take judgment personally.
I presented a full-day seminar recently. Two people used the evaluation form [...]

High-profile examples of rudeness seem to be coming in bunches.
Congressman Joe Wilson shouted, “You lie!” at President Barack Obama in the middle of a speech before a joint session of Congress. He apparently didn’t like what the president was saying.
Tennis player Serena Williams recently delivered an obscene comment to a line judge telling her she [...]

It took me forty-eight years to fulfill my father’s dream of fishing in northern Canada with his sons. I remember hearing him say, “I want to go north and fish on a lake where the only access is by plane. I want to see the northern lights with my own eyes. I want to sit [...]

I stopped for lunch the other day at a Big Boy restaurant.  As the young greeter took me to my seat, I notice the florescent writing on a white board that announced the day’s luncheon specials.
“Try are Whitefish,” the sign suggested. I noticed the incorrect use of “are” right away. It’s a lot easier for [...]