Everyone of a certain age remembers “In Living Color” – the great 1990’s weekly comedy TV show that helped launch the careers of the Wayans family—Kim, Shawn, Marlon, and Dwayne as well as Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx, and David Alan Grier. In one skit Jim Carrey plays a teenager who literally has not been disconnected […]
Episode 72: Parenting College Aged Kids
As we concluded this series of conversations for WNPR, we turned to Parenting College Aged Kids”. Joining me for this episode were an expert in the field – Dr. Alan Kazdin from Yale – and several parents: Duo Dickinson, Susannah Bailin, Susan Jacobs, and Jon Crane. We met over wood-fired pizza at Da Legna, a new […]
Parenting Twilight Zone
When you are in the thick of being a parent you forget that your parents never leave you, and have no clue that your children inevitably do. As Bruce can tell you, I had a Draper Childhood, most about 7 miles south of the Draper homestead in Ossining, and later left on my own in […]
Episode 62: Parenting
Out of all the things that confuse me (and there are many), parenting has to be at the top of my list. It’s something I really, really, really don’t want to screw up… but the correct path often seems so murky. To narrow down the list of parenting topics that we might explore in the […]
Slow – Children at Play
How much time should we, as parents, put into our kids’ extracurricular activities? Gerry McGuire raised this question during Episode 49 of Real Life Survival Guide as he and fellow conversationalists savored the excellent estate-grown wines, panoramic Connecticut hills and unspoiled air atop Gouveia Vineyards. Moved to speak freely, perhaps, by the atmospheric openness and […]
Duo Dickinson: Confusing Effort and Control
This week’s Real Life Survival Guide touched on the issue of control, or rather the lack of it. Like the rest of the largest demographic bulge in history, the Baby Boomers, born between 1945 and 1965 were considered by contemporary social evaluators to be the “best and the brightest.” As a generation, we drank in […]
Mary Elliott: Photoshopping Eternity – Real Talk with Our Kids about Afterlife Survival
The conversation in Episode 47 took a more serious turn as our real-life survivors—guest editors who’d survived cancer, the loss of a spouse, the loss of young children in their church or schools—asked the big question: How to talk to our children about mortality—theirs and ours? “Tell the truth” surfaced as the consensus. “Be honest.” […]
Joanne Kahan: April Fools
For Episode 40 of the Real Life Survival Guide, the stage was set for the discussion to enter rare and undiscovered places. Would the exotic spices permeating the air at Sitar in New Haven lead our intrepid conversationalists into exploring the themes of truth and virtue found in the epic tale, “The Ramayana”? Would the […]
Should you treat all of your kids the same?
In our conversation at Geronimo, Paul Schatz noted the fact that it used to be common to treat all children the same way, but wondered if there needs to be “different ways to raise each kid to make sure they excel the most”. Great question. This is one of the most confusing things for me […]
How are we supposed to be raising our children?
This extremely important question was pitched by provocateur (or should it be ‘provocatress’?) Danielle Ginetti from one of Duo and my favorite New Haven watering holes, 116 Crown in New Haven. In Episode 3, Danielle shared her concern that “…there’s no set standard”, and I have to agree. How are we supposed to be raising […]
How can I help my teenager find a good summer job?
There don’t seem to be any job openings for XBox players this summer, which is unfortunate, because I have a couple of highly qualified applicants living with me: my two teenaged sons. I learned some valuable lessons while working on my own summer jobs: the fine art of getting a lot done in the morning, […]
What should you do when your toddler throws food?
This question comes from comes from Erik: “My 21 month old son … loves to throw his food while sitting in his high chair. I’m sick and tired of finding food all over the dining room wood floor. So what do [I] do? Need some answers … Debating whether or not to break out the flip […]