Lisa Endlich's Blog, page 367
January 20, 2018
Great Big World: How to Nurture Your Kid’s Interest in Global Affairs
It’s never too early to become a global citizen and start doing what you can to make the world a better place. If you’re worried about nurturing your child’s interest in global affairs because you’re afraid they’ll rush off to a Bangladeshi refugee camp, I empathize. At one point, I was in eastern Congo on a conflict prevention work trip for the State Department and my brother was in Baghdad on a detail with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.
Now being a mom myself, I totally empat...
January 18, 2018
What Your Kids are REALLY Saying: 36 Popular Expressions
We live with them. We take care of them. We love them to distraction, but we are often completely in the dark about what exactly they are saying.
Here are thirty-six words and phrases that you’ve heard, but haven’t quite figured out yet.
Parents Guide to Their Kids’ Favorite Expressions1. THICC(QQ) Looking good in your skin no matter your size or shape; fat but in a good way
Parent: Looks like Jane packed on a few pounds freshman year.
Child: Mom, that girl looks great, she is thicc.
2. WOK...
January 17, 2018
Hunger is a Problem at College That You Need to Know About
Perhaps it has come up in conversation that your child has shared dining room “swipes” with other students, especially near the end of the semester. You don’t see it as a problem. Full meal plans are often generous, so much so that many students stock up on snacks at the end of the semester in an attempt to “use up” their allotted food budget. But you may wonder how other students ran out of meals while your child had a week or more surplus.
Perhaps your kid has been skipping meals or eating...
Why Every Mom Loved This Sweet Son’s Idea
About a week ago, Cheryl Gottlieb Boxer dropped off her son at the train station to return for his second semester, freshman year at college. She says that the thing she misses most with her son gone is missing out on, “the little details of his day.” Distance made staying in touch with her normally talkative son more difficult. She wondered what he ate, who was he hanging out with, what he wore, all of the details that add texture and substance to a relationship.
When she returned home from...
January 15, 2018
Mom With 3 Sons Imagines Life With Her “Perfect Daughter”
Anna approached our car flipping her ponytail back and forth against her neck. She was skipping. She was smiling. My son was smiling, too, but not flipping his ponytail. He doesn’t have a ponytail. He also wasn’t skipping. He was sweating, big swaths of sweat.
Anna is my friend’s daughter. Recently, my husband and I gave her a ride home from a middle school dance; my son attended the dance, too, although I am fairly certain he did not dance, with Anna or anyone else. He’s not the dancing t...
Dear Son, Here are 19 Things I Want to Tell You About Dating
The smell of his cologne swirled through the air and traveled down the stairs a few minutes before my son physically did. It was a tip off that he was about to head out the door to meet up with his friends for the night.
As he rounded the corner and walked into the kitchen, I casually took note of his appearance. He was decked out in his finest khakis, had on a zippered pullover sweater, leather Sperry’s, his hair so perfect it looked airbrushed, and it meant one thing — this was not going...
The Good News About High School Kids and Sex
Parents worry about everything their children do, but perhaps the thorniest and most challenging issues we parents face are related to our childrens’ burgeoning sexuality. A recently released study, published by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suggests that these days fewer high school students are having sex, particularly 9th and 10th graders and black students.
The study which analyzed data from national Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (The national...
January 6, 2018
To Romania With Love: A Surprise Gift After 36 Years of Marriage
More than 36 years after they got married, a Romanian couple has finally received photos of their wedding. Matthew Hills of Newton, Massachusetts came across the pictures when he was showing his children an album from a trip he had taken following his graduation from Brandeis University in 1981.
Hills and three of his friends had been traveling through several countries in Europe, including Romania. They happened to be outside the Stavropoleus Church in Bucharest, Romania when a bride and gr...
January 5, 2018
In the Push for Perfection are We Wounding our Kids?
We feel the stress everywhere. Our teens and college kids seem to be bombarded by impossibly high standards of educational, physical and social attainment. They are expected to be academic, athletic and social stars, all while making is seem so easy. Effortless perfection has become the goal.
But, it is an unattainable goal and as we look on we know we never felt pressured like this when we were their age. Are our perceptions rooted in reality or are they merely the impressions of sympatheti...
What to Remember if You Have the Post-Holiday Blues
I love the holidays. In my house, as in many, December is a month of joyful anticipation. Everyone is scrambling around, trying to figure out the perfect gift for one another, crafting, shopping and wrapping in a flurry. The house is filled with the smell of baking cookies, pine needles and crackling logs. There are festive gatherings to host or attend, and holiday greetings to write and send.
The only problem with the holiday season is when it’s over. Some of us get the blues when it all wi...
