“Always try your best” is a sage piece of advice almost every parent has shared with their kids. This saying is seemingly innocent, but in reality it’s not. When we really examine what we are saying, we’ll realize its inherent contradiction. Let’s say we are trying to take our own advice and always do…
Every once in while, the issue of spanking reignites the controversy over whether it is an effective parenting practice or should be avoided. I blogged at length about this issue once before and laid out my case for how spanking is harmful to children. I was recently interviewed by Marty Toohey of the Austin-American Statesman in his article on…
As parents, we want to guide our children the best we can. We want to save them from the countless mistakes we’ve made over the years. We want them to benefit from our wisdom. And what could be wrong with any of that? The Downside of Giving Advice One of my favorite expressions is,…
At last! Here’s the final part on the topic, Does Video Game Violence Cause Children and Adolescents to Become Violent? In this part, I focus on what parents can do about it. This is where the rubber meets the road! So, if you haven’t watched the other 7 (!) parts first, you can go…
Welcome back, everyone! This is Part 6 of the series Does Video Game Violence Cause Children & Adolescents to Become Violent? I hope you’ve seen the other parts to this series as the presentation will be more meaningful if viewed in order. In this part, I’ll be looking at the violent crime trends in the…
Hey Gang! I’m getting close to wrapping up this series on the topic, “Does Video Game Violence Cause Children and Adolescents to Become Violent?” In this segment, I cover the findings and limitations of the research on the effects of video game violence. People, including me, can toss their opinions about but what does…
Welcome back, everyone! I hope that you have seen the other three parts of this series entitled Does Video Game Violence Cause Children and Adolescents to Become Violent? In this part, which contains images and video clips, we’ll be looking at the evolution of violence in video games, starting from Atari 2600 and ending…
I have a new video blog (below) on the benefits of playing video games. I’ve been blogging about the issue of whether video game violence causes children and adolescents to become violent in multiple parts, as this is a big topic. Now, I grew up a gamer and still play video games (when I…
As parents, we all try to do our best to do a good job. But with thousands of books on the topic of parenting as well as countless articles in popular magazines and periodicals, sometimes it is difficult to know how to be a good parent. Should we be more strict? More lenient? Use…
It seems like it is common wisdom to praise our kids for things like their athletic skills, musical ability, intelligence, creativity, talent, and so on. We want them to internalize all of our praise and have high self-esteem, right? Interestingly, the research does not bear this out. Praising kids for things that are not…