When I decided to convert to Judaism, I knew that the transition would be difficult for my family. But I had no idea that the real war would begin over holiday gifts. The wrapping paper war began in the early morning hours. I had just gotten out of the shower and poured my second cup of coffee when my phone rang. Before I even picked up the receiver, I knew it was my mom, probably on her second cup of coffee too. She most likely had already...

I’m infuriated at seeing more and more child sexual predators get off with easy sentences. The time for justice is now. During this year, we have seen too many stories about repeat child sexual predators being involved yet again in the rape or murder of a child. I am continually outraged by our unimaginably flawed system that is supposedly designed to protect our children from further harm. These predatory animals are released again and...

As hard as it may seem to turn something as horrific as the tragic shooting at Fort Hood into a teachable moment with our kids, it can be done. And it should be done: we can’t assume that kids won’t hear about these events simply because we monitor their viewing of the television in our own homes. Our kids also live in a world where their friends may be discussing these events on the school yard, or they may hear it or see it at one...

A college soccer player was just suspended for some seriously rough play. Talk about mean girls! New Mexico has suspended soccer player Elizabeth Lambert. In a championship game, she threw elbows, took out BYU players at the legs, and finally yanked BYU forward Kassidy Shumway to the ground with a tug to Shumway’s ponytail. With such examples in the news, how do we teach our kids to be better sports than Lambert was? Teaching our children...

Have you been looking at that other mom’s Range Rover at the PTA meeting? Maternal jealousy is a common, corrosive emotion. Jealousy denotes a feeling of resentment that another has gained something that one feels they rightfully deserve. Jealousy also refers to anguish caused by fear of losing someone or something to a rival. Envy is an urge to spoil or devalue what is good in others. Envy and jealousy are born out of the pain of...

Why are we still debating whether children under the age of 13 should be allowed to walk to and from school alone? Is keeping our children safe really up for debate? As a clinical psychologist, I often counsel victims of violent crime. Given the risks that children face in our time, it is naïve and simply irresponsible to argue, as Lenore Skenazy does in her book “Free-Range Kids,” that because we were all raised in the 1970s in a...