Body Image and Shopping With Your Teen
As New York’s fall Fashion Week closed down last week, parents nationwide wrapped up another September high-pressure fashion ritual: back to school shopping. Few parents would describe this particular custom as fun. But for those of us with plus-size kids, it can be especially excruciating. As parents, we want our kids to feel good about…
How Kids Can Use Ride Services Like Uber and Lyft Safely
“Mom, can I Uber home instead of you picking me up?” Eight years ago, this sentence would not have made sense to any parent anywhere. These days, “Uber” is both a noun and a verb, and a way of life for people in urban and suburban areas from San Francisco to Sydney. Some parents consider…
How Chessy Prout Stood Up For Herself and All Victims of Rape
A 17-year-old girl named Chessy Prout is a teenage superhero. Two years ago, when she was a freshman in high school, Chessy accepted a date with a senior, an 18-year-old athlete named Owen Labrie, who was headed to Harvard in the fall. Both Labrie and Chessy Prout were students at the prestigious New England boarding…
Pros and Cons of Joining a Sorority or Fraternity
Now that college has started, the question for many is should they, or shouldn’t they, rush a fraternity or sorority? The decision can define many students’ collegiate experience – and the rest of their life. About 16% of college students sign up for Greek life, which translates to roughly 700,000 undergraduates across 800 campuses in the…
Taking on Back Talk
Last week, I reread the family diary I kept faithfully years ago when my first two children were little. The entries stop rather abruptly after my third child entered the picture. For ten years, I haven’t had time to look at these notes. Most amusing: examples of the back talk problem I used to have…