Search Results for: tag death of parent

Helping Your Child Through the Stages of Grief

When going through a divorce emotions are running high for everyone, especially the children. They are dealing with the loss in much the same way they would if there had been a death. They are grieving what once was. They had no say in this decision, yet it effects their lives dramatically. Some children take longer to go through the grieving process than others. But if you are there helping them and guiding them through this process it will help them get to the acceptance stage much more quickly. Denial: No child wants to believe that his parents are splitting … Continue reading →

Death of the Picture Book

There was an article in the New York Times called, Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children, on October 7th. The article detailed how picture books are selling less and many are being sent back to the publisher since they are merely taking up space. “So many of them just die a sad little death, and we never see them again,” said Terri Schmitz, the owner of Children’s Book Shop in Brookline, Mass. I was quite saddened to read this article. As a fan of picture books and children’s literature, I wondered how such a thing could happen. I … Continue reading →

When Parents Are the Pain

Did you hear that the Gosselin kids are staging a prison break? In a previous blog I detailed the physical pains that are inherent to parenthood. Yesterday I received a link to a hilarious take on how parents can be a real pain in the butt to their kids. Not surprisingly the post was about Kate Gosselin. The divorced mother of eight good-looking and articulate children (9-year-old twins and 6-year-old sextuplets) is back on TLC with a new show called Kate Plus 8. The latest episode aired Sunday night and has already been repeated ad nauseam. The intent of the … Continue reading →

Dealing With Death

The way death affects marriage partners varies. The death of a child can have serious consequences on a marriage. This could be because men and women tend to try to handle such a situation in various ways, and sometimes they don’t know enough about how the other is feeling and why they react as they do. The death of a parent can also affect a men and woman in different ways and is something most of us will experience at some point. Mick and I have gone through this twice since we have been married, first with the death of … Continue reading →

Where You Didn’t See Tim Russert’s Face Shortly After his Death

In the days following “Meet the Press” moderator Tim Russert’s shocking death earlier this month dozens of national publications honored the TV politico with cover stories and touching tributes. Noticeably missing from this mix was a legendary magazine that is devoted to Russert’s own medium—TV Guide. Were you as shocked as I was that while publishing giants such as TIME, Newsweek, and PEOPLE ran lengthy tributes and placed Russert’s jovial face on the covers of their magazines TV Guide decided to place reality TV star Denise Richards on its cover. And no, it wasn’t because editors didn’t have enough time … Continue reading →

The Food-Throwing Stage

Inevitably, just about ever toddler reaches this milestone and goes through a period where throwing and dropping food is far more interesting than eating it. Many parents get frustrated and exasperated with pick up and clean up and worry that the child will starve to death if she does not eat the food or will get something dreadful if fed the food that has touched the floor. It can take some creativity and patience to get through the food-throwing stage. First, decide what your tolerance level is—some parents can tolerate letting a child drop or throw food without response and … Continue reading →

Why it can be hard to lose a parent you dislike (1)

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Some of us are really lucky and have parents that we love pretty much equally. They may have vastly different personal qualities, but overall, we would be hard pressed to say which one we prefer. Alternatively, we may have one parent who we dearly love, and the other one is disliked for a number of reasons. So when it comes to losing one of these parents in death, we would assume that it would be far harder to lose the parent we adore. After all, hasn’t the other one been a thorn in our side for as long as we … Continue reading →

Death, Grief, and Business—Part One

If it can be downright impossible to keep business and a personal life separate when we are running our own home business, we have to accept that human realities will find their way into our business relationships and operations. This means that there will be times when our business is affected by grief and death. In this two-part article, I want to talk about how we can work and be dealing with our own grief issues AND what to do when customers, clients, vendors, etc. are dealing with death and grief issues… Years ago, I had a consulting business with … Continue reading →

Single Parent Dating—Don’t Take Things Personally

As parents, many of us are in touch with our emotions; we’ve developed empathy and understanding and have learned how to think more about other people and less about ourselves. This is a good thing! It means we are maturing and growing in our ability to be both a great parent and a great human being. However, when it comes to dating as a single parent, our empathy and well-developed emotional side can get in the way. We might be expecting too much, or taking things the other “dates” say or do too personally. I think it can be tough … Continue reading →

Serious Santa Shortage

It may be the one place on the planet (besides the North Pole) where you would never think a crisis of this proportion would arise. Anchorage, Alaska is in jeopardy of having a very un-merry Christmas. For a city where reindeer almost outnumber two-legged residents its degree of jolliness is surprisingly low. Anchorage is sending out an S.O.S. The city is in desperate need of a Santa Claus. Preferably one that doesn’t mind hanging out at the local mall and ho-ho-ho-ing alongside screaming kids. It may sound funny, but the predicament is no joke. City leaders say there is a … Continue reading →