Warm, dry, and beautiful most every day. It will be a season long remembered. As the days grow shorter and the nights cooler, September comes into view. School will be starting in a few weeks. When I was a child, I loved getting school supplies—pencils, paper, crayons, and binders. Like most kids, I liked school with its predictability and structure. Read more about What a great summer!

Lately, I have been hearing more from friends, colleagues, and my patients about how hard they are working!—and how tired and discouraged they sometimes feel. It’s not that they don’t like their job, they just feel like they have too much of it, not enough time to do it in, and by the weekend they are out of gas. They have the impression that the assembly line has been slowly speeding up—and now it feels impossible to keep up. Read more about Working Harder and More - Left Feeling Tired and Worn?

A Family Talk reader sent me a delightful email last week. She shared a text message she received from her daughter, a college student. It went, “Hope you have a wonderful day mom. I love you so much and you are truly my best friend! I can tell you anything. I can’t wait to come home and see you every day. Love you so much….”. Her mom wrote to me, “It does not get much better than that as a parent. In my eyes that is true success!” Read more about The Successful Parent

Staring at me with a look that could kill, Jenny argued every point. I didn’t even have a chance to finish my sentence before she started her tirade. As our conversation wore on, my blood boiled. I was her supervisor---but she treated me like I was a maid that couldn’t do anything right!

We all have had friends, co-workers, supervisors, neighbors, and relatives that we would label as “difficult people”. What do they have in common? They trigger a powerful, negative response in us! Mostly we want to avoid these individuals when we can. But mostly, we can’t. Read more about Dealing With Difficult People

Vickie’s parents were jumping up and down while they watched their powerful 10-year-old daughter slam the softball into left field. “Go for it Vickie!” they shrieked. Vickie was flying towards third when the left fielder made a great throw to the third baseman. Vickie went down for the long slide, but she was too late. The umpire called her out. Read more about Promoting healthy competition for kids