Is there any question? In the war about a neat versus clean house, it should be obvious that clean wins without a struggle. After all, even the Torah praises "seder v’ nikayon" (order and neatness). For all the years of my children’s growing up, I encouraged, prodded, coaxed, and,…

 "I swear," he said to me, shaking his head, "she is so stupid!"

I cut him off quickly with, "Stupid? Is she stupid? Didn’t she graduate college?"

"Well, yes," he stammered, "but please, how could someone do something like that?"

"Okay," I answered, "that’s a different question. To figure…

What do anger and anxiety attacks have in common? The answer is: physiological arousal. Both the angry person and the one suffering from anxiety have heightened responses such as blood pressure, heart rate, shallow breathing, perhaps clammy palms or cold hands, all of which go along with difficulty thinking…

Lewis and Margie are having another one of their awful fights. Per his pattern of 20 years, he’s screaming at her. If you were to tell him that that is verbal abuse, he’d deny it. He’d tell you he was a good guy—and that would be true. He’d tell…

She was plainly annoyed with me. "Why should I have to be assertive?" she complained. "Why should I have to ‘get’ him to behave properly with me when he should be doing it on his own? I’m not his mother. I don’t have to teach him right from wrong.…

MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, LiveJournal…blogs, social networking… "What does this all mean?" parents wonder. "And do I really need to learn about this?"

MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, LiveJournal…blogs, social networking… "What does this all mean?" parents wonder. "And do I really need to learn about…

I used to visit the mental hospital when I was in college. Somehow the crazy people seemed real, maybe more real than my professors who talked ethics in class and had affairs on the side with students. Certainly more real than the doctors who attended the patients with…

I have recently read an article that pointed out the fallacy of parents who follow the trend of being "friends" with their children. According to a recently released survey, 60 percent of parents admit that they have a hard time discussing important topics with their teens.
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A Quick Exit (Part 1)

Living with a teenager in your home often feels like living in a war zone. Everything feels like a battle and "winning" or succeeding one day has no bearing on the battles of the next day. A national…

The most aggravating thing about current world affairs is that just when you’d think that the world should realize that we Jews have been fighting all along with real enemies, not "martyrs" in the Middle East, now that each set of "martyrs" is killing the other set—but it…

If my article, Medication Boomerang, threw you into a tailspin, I apologize. I believe the requirement for clarity rests on the writer, not the reader. Let me be very clear: The notion that there is a lack of serotonin in the brains of depressed people and that they…

You check off the mental list: You’ve never been abusive. You remember anniversaries, birthdays. True, you never seem to get the right gift, but you’re head and shoulders above the poor sucker who forgot all together. You do your share of household chores. True, you don’t have the…

We take medicine to feel better, right? If we, God forbid, are diabetic and diet can’t get it under control, we can take medicine for it. For a headache, have an acetaminophen. For a tricky ticker, there’s an array of cardio meds your doctor will prescribe. For depression,…

Over my stay in Chicago for my son’s recent marriage, not only did I keep hearing how wonderful my son is from what seemed like everybody in that great city, but, even more, those same people couldn’t stop raving to me about my three other children, now adults:…

 overheard a snippet of family conversation between one of my adult children and her Life Partner which went like this:

I Life Partner: So, do you have our flight number and departure time?

Adult Child: I couldn’t find it. It’s…

Allowing Jewish kids to enjoy Christmas glitz isn’t a problem

In a second-grade classroom I visited recently, the children were comparing how many presents they were going to receive for Christmas. When they finished Sarah announced, "I don’t celebrate Christmas, I celebrate Chanukah.…

Look," I said to Lawrence a week after he decided to quit drugs for good, "this is going to be really, really hard because eventually, you’re going to be in pain and you won’t wanna stay there. That’s when you have to stick to your commitment to stay…

Scene 1

The old lady shuffled into the room, wanting desperately to be helpful, wanting to be noticed and appreciated, something that hadn’t happened often in her life. Her eyes darted around the room, wondering what she could do.

Eight pairs of eyes were starring at me, their expressions serious. "So, Miss Hirschhorn," they continued their interrogation, "what would you say are your strong points?" I was being interviewed for graduate school and I knew I had to sell myself.

"I’m…

We were making progress, this new couple and I. Eli was getting it. He realized that his sarcastic remarks, his put-downs, his glares, and his barely-controlled anger all constitute abuse. He was starting to work effectively with his tools, too. He had downloaded the mp3 file from my…