One of the things I’ve had to learn as a step-father is “the stern voice”, the voice of fatherly authority. Nothing cuts across the cacophony of children of play or the havoc of an inter-sibling argument like the stern voice, an often it’s the only way to get through to a misbehaving child who […]

“Always leave on a good note”. This is the advice Lisa Hendry of Productivity @ Home gives in her article Building Confidence in Children.The idea is to always let children finish a project, activity, or whatever with a success, however small — a homework problem done correctly, a goal scored, etc. That way they’ll remember […]

One of my lifehack.org co-writers, Chris Brogan, wrote yesterday about Blogging for Kids. We don’t do this at my house — the kids haven’t expressed any interest in blogging, and I’m not going to press the issue — though the two “tweens” have MySpace profiles (customized by mom, marked “private”, with friend adds vetted […]

Cultivate Greatness has a powerful, long piece on current research into the role parental praise plays in encouraging children to succeed. As it happens, it’s not all about building up self-esteem by telling your children how smart they are. Instead, researchers find that kids do best when parents commend their hard work — and […]

We often hear about the marriage benefits that are denied to homosexual couples because of their inability to legally marry. This is a compelling argument — nobody should be barred, for instance, from the bedside of their ill or injured loved ones in hospital simply for lack of a marriage certificate that they cannot legally […]

With Halloween coming on strong, here’s some tips to help keep yourself organized and make the most of the craziness:

Photojojo offers some great tips on Halloween photography. Favorites: Take costume pics at dusk, before the light disappears and the sugar rush kicks in making clear shots impossible. Light the outside of your jack-o-lantern with […]

Today I posted an article on lifehack.org called “What to Do When It’s All Too Much”. We’ve been facing some difficult situations here, stuff that deeply affects the kids (which I’ll post about later when I can manage), and the post is my attempt to get down how I’m managing to keep up several writing […]

Leo at Zen Habits offers Eight Keys to a Happier Marriage and they’re really good (and applicable to any romantic relationship, not just marriage). A lot of the advice seems like common sense — communicate, be prepared to put work into your relationship, that sort of thing — but it’s surprising how many people I […]

This picture frame keychain is an amazing gift for dads (among others): the TAO 1.5-Inch Digital Keychain Frame. I got my dad one for his birthday in August and everyone oohed and aahed over it so much he barely had time to play with it himself! The software allows you to drag and drop pictures […]

One of the deepest fears a lot of parents have in this digital age is that their kids will fall into the seedy side of the Internet — or, worse, head there on purpose! When my partner decided it was time to get her kids a computer, I took a good hard look at the […]