Category Archives for "Parenting"

2 How to celebrate Christmas when you’re out of money

RAMBO Asks: Christmas is here in Zambia. I don’t have presents to give to the kids. Tell me what can I do. Maybe you are able to help me make the kids happy, and other people here in Zambia.

Hi RAMBO –

I have to confess, I live half the world away from Zambia, and don’t know anything about where to shop or find toys and games there.

But as a dog, I am an expert on finding ways to make people happy, without the ability to buy or make much of anything. In fact, my human friend Handsome often tells me I am the Christmas spirit, all year round (at least to him).

So let me throw some thoughts at you.

First of all, remember that the Christmas story is about people so poor they had nothing but clothes and a donkey to ride on, who were so oppressed by their government that their unborn child’s life was in danger, and who weren’t even given a room at an inn when they were about to give birth, and so had to use a feeding trough for barn animals as their newborn baby’s crib. Yes, some kings and wise men showed up with some nice gifts for the infant (though what exactly he was supposed to do with frankincense, myrrh, or even gold is beyond me!), but these folks had nothing.

Nothing but love.

There are many great stories where the most precious Christmas gifts are the ones from the poor, from The Little Drummer Boy to The Gift of the Magi. The fact is, although advertisers and media will tell you that what kids need most is lots of expensive products, what matters far more is what they feel from you. This is why they love us dogs! We give them absolutely nothing to play with (I tried to give Handsome a dead squirrel once, but he showed no interest in playing with it at all; in fact, it kind of scared him when I dropped it at his feet!). But we give them attention and goofy, boundless love all the time.

Continue reading

0 What a teen should do if they fall in love with their teacher

Akasa asks: I like my physics teacher a lot but he is married and has 2 children what should I do

Hi Akasa –

It’s funny, just today I also got a question from someone who is in love with a boy at her school, and knows he loves her too, but he has a girlfriend. So I had lots of advice about how to bide her time and be in the position to possibly get him to herself later.

I’m not saying those things to you.  For a big reason.

Crushes can be really painful, I know. And teachers can be so charismatic and exciting (and so much more mature than the boys in your class). But one of two truths exist here: A) Nothing will ever happen between you and him. Or B) Something could happen, which would be absolutely horrible for both of you.

If a teacher (even if he’s unmarried and childless) has any sort of a romance with a student, he’s likely to lose his career. And rightly so – he’d be taking advantage of your normal, beautiful, young feelings. A good teacher can be a great way for you to develop a sense of what kind of person you’d like to be involved with, while keeping safe by not in any way approaching you. Teachers who get involved with their students are accused of “using” them, manipulating them, and, yes, molesting them. You don’t want any of these things in your life.

And beyond all that, he’s married with kids. If he’s a good guy, he is very loyal to them, and would never stray, even if you weren’t his student and younger than him.

In fact, this reminds me of a beautiful movie Handsome showed me once, called The Age of Innocence. A woman with a horrible, abusive husband falls in love with a very good man, whose young bride isn’t nearly as interesting as this woman, and they almost have an affair, but the woman calls it off, because the quality that she loves most in this man – that he’s more moral and caring than the other guys she sees in her society – would be ruined if they had the affair. She’d literally lose her love by acting on it!

So while, again, I understand that your love for this man hurts, the fact is that not only are you looking at a probably hopeless situation, but also I really hope it’s completely hopeless!

And I hope that, soon, some age-appropriate, single boy, who isn’t nearly as mature or brilliant or charismatic as that teacher, wins your heart and makes you feel like you’re flying past the moon!

(Which as your teacher can tell you, is very difficult because of the gravitational pull where objects fall at 32 feet per second squared and….)

Heh heh. Hey, how often does a pooch come up with a physics joke? I’m so proud of that one I’m going to go outside and bark at a squirrel.

But I wish I could do what I really want, which is to jump on you and give you so many licks in the face that you’re able to feel better about all this.

Which I’m sure you will soon.

All my best,

Shirelle

0 Is it an insult for someone to comment you used to be thinner?

Deb asks: Sara and Alex are Aunt and nephew. Sara is 50 years old and Alex is 14. They are very close. One of the days they spent together Alex looked at his parents wedding album (29 years) and saw a picture of his Aunt Sara. Alex said to his Aunt Sara “You look thin.” This upset her because she thought Alex didn’t think she is thin now, because everyone always tells her (past and present) she is skinny, and wouldn’t that remark only be said to someone who isn’t thin in the present. Alex did tell her he was joking, then he said he was giving her a compliment and said he thought she was thin then and thin now. The day after she Instant Messaged her older nephew (21 years old, and who she also is very close to and the brother of the younger nephew). She told her older nephew the story, he related it to his mom (her sister) and the next day Sara spoke to her sister, who said “I asked Alex and all Alex was saying was you looked good in that picture, that Alex doesn’t compare what someone looked like in the past and compare it to the present. That Alex, his brother, me and their father all think of you as extremely skinny.” My question do you think Sara overreacted and read into what Alex said? Even Sara’s mother told Sara she thinks Sara is skinny.

Hi Deb –

Well of course I don’t know the people involved, and have no idea what Sara looked like 29 years ago or how she looks now. But I do know a bit about 14-year-old boys.

And what I know about them is that they have basically no subtle social skills at all!

In fact, they’re kind of like me. I jump on people, lick their faces, bite their ankles in fun, all things that a well-trained mature dog would never do.

Now teen boys don’t do that, but they might say something without remotely thinking how it would sound to an adult.

So sure, if an adult man said to Sara, “You looked skinny 29 years ago,” that might well mean that he thinks she doesn’t look skinny now, and that she looked better then. But that 14-year-old? He might mean that she looked too skinny then, not like the aunt he loves now (which could just mean that she was 21 and so shaped a bit differently). Or it could be a compliment that she looked skinnier than other people at the wedding, or other people he knows.

But my main statement to you is that it sounds like he never meant to insult her at all, and so there’s nothing for her to worry about. After all, you say that everyone tells her she looks thin now. Then who really cares what a kid thinks about how she looked three decades ago?!

But how a dog thinks her shoes smell? That’s extremely important, and everyone should care a lot about that! Always!

All my best,

Shirelle

0 How time feels different after a trauma

Salvatore asks: I have been facing this tiny problem that sometimes depresses me, so as I have come home from hostel to prepare for my 1st Professional, I thought of writing to you. I think too often about how quickly time flies…and it seems really abnormal due to: 1) how we all SCHOOL friends suddenly became UNIVERSITY going students, 2) how My mom’s 3rd death anniversary is this month though it feels like JUST yesterday she was among us, 3) one of my cousin got married last year, it feels so abnormal cuz we used to play together in our childhood (although she is 5 yrs older than me), and I always knew she was gonna get married way before me. But still it feels unreal how we all became adults from being just under 15 yrs old… It doesn’t feel normal that 4 yrs have passed since my Dad’s death and all the plants that he had planted in our lawn, are still ok and there… Why does time pass by so quickly… I can’t answer this question so could YOU help me understand if there is an abnormality with the time or with my way of processing things… I think in my brain I am standing at the same place I was 7,8 yrs ago while everyone around HAS changed.

Hi Salvatore –

I have to admit, I have a very poor sense of time. All dogs do. That’s why, when you’ve been gone from our house for two hours, we go nuts upon seeing you return – we have no idea how long you’ve been gone, and weren’t sure you were ever coming back!

When you’re young, you humans have a similar sense of time to ours. Remember when you were a little child and you couldn’t understand even the concept of it being a year till your next birthday, or how long a schoolday lasted? Well some of this is because, when you’re that young, a year (or a day) is such a big chunk of your life. But it’s also because your brain hasn’t fully developed. In fact, a sense of time is usually the last part of a human’s brain to develop in their adolescence (you might be finding that you’re more able to schedule your schoolwork now than you were a year or two ago; that’s why – your brain is actually more able to conceive of such things than it was. And far more so than mine will ever be. Isn’t that cool!).

So your sense of time would be changing at this age, no matter what.

Then there’s your recent transition. Starting a university life will change anyone’s sense of time’s movement – you move away from your old friends, and they stay the same in your mind, while their lives move on, they age, they change, etc.

But then there’s of course a far bigger reason for you, in particular, to be having this sort of confusion. And that’s the horrible experiences you went through over the past few years.

Some time back, I was in the back seat of a car that Handsome was driving, and he made a small mistake, and the car suddenly spun out of control across the highway, when we were going around 80 miles an hour (that’d be about 120 kilometers). It was amazing that neither of us was killed.

(Quick note here: the main reason I wasn’t killed was that Continue reading

0 How to deal with having a special-needs sibling

Starlight asks: My big brother is two years older than me. He has a disability that makes it hard for him to talk. He can talk but he can’t say the words right so you can’t understand him a lot. We go to the same school. He is grade 6 and I am in grade 4. Why is his schoolwork a lot easier than mine? His work is like grade 1 work. I am on a higher reading level too. He still reads books with pictures in them. His homework is so much easier then mine. The kids at school are mean to him and he doesn’t have many friends, so I some times feel sad for him. My mum and dad treat us different. I don’t know why but I feel like I am older and he is more like my little brother.

Hi Starlight –

I don’t know anything about your brother except what you’ve told me, of course, but it sounds to me like you’re right – in a lot of ways you are the older one. But I’ll change that and say, you’re the more highly developed one.

Let me explain what I mean. If you and I were born on the same day, we’d have both begun as helpless little infants. But a month later, you’d still have been a helpless, gurgling baby, while I’d have started walking already. And by the time we were six months old, you’d be maybe starting to crawl, while I was running laps around the yard, and starting training classes where I’d learn about ten words. And when we were each a year, you’d be just starting to walk, and I’d already be my full adult size. So I would have been far more developed than you.

But then, you’d have started to pass me waaaay by. You’d start talking, which I still can’t do. And while your walking wouldn’t be as graceful as mine yet, you’d have kept learning more, to the degree that by the time we were three or four years old, you could start dancing school if you wanted, or karate classes, or tennis lessons – none of which I could do. I really stopped my development by age one, except in some emotional maturity, which I reached around age five. Which is when you would be starting school and learning to read, write, do mathematics… and on and on it goes.

My point is that age isn’t really all that important. There are other differences between us that matter more, in terms of development. So sure, your brother was born first. But he has some developmental issues (though I can’t say what they are) that have hurt his speaking abilities, and have the school believing that he’s not capable of the same level of schoolwork you are.

Teachers try to give all their students work that challenges them, but isn’t too difficult for them. So it sounds like they’re giving you more advanced work than your brother because they believe you two are at these two different levels. If they’re correct, it’s likely you will continue to be ahead of him in that area, and possibly some others. It doesn’t mean anyone’s doing anything wrong; everyone’s doing their best to give you and him the best treatment they can. Including your parents.

But I will throw one story in about this. When my human friend Handsome was growing up, he knew a family where the oldest child was considered very developmentally delayed, to the degree the family put him in a special home, and raised his two younger siblings instead. But at some point, the home found out that the oldest boy just had a learning problem, and with the right help was able to speak, read, and write just as well as his younger brother and sister. And by the time Handsome met them, he couldn’t tell what problems the oldest boy had ever had.

So that’s why I can’t say what your brother’s issues are. Maybe he just has a speech impediment, and is a slow learner, and maybe there’s more going on. But for now, your job is to be a wonderful supporter of him (especially when those other kids are mean), but to also make sure you get the attention you deserve. Because whatever his issues are, you matter too. Just as much.

All my best,

Shirelle

0 How to deal with being the youngest at a college

arjai101 asks: So, I applied to that technical university I told you about, and I got in. And, I decided to dual enroll there full time. Up until now, I’ve felt confident in my decision, but now I feel like I’ve just signed myself off to two years of loneliness. See, we were supposed to have a practice class or some orientation. But, it turns out that wasn’t for us!!! So, I have no idea how I’m supposed to meet other students like me on campus. It will literally be like finding a needle in a haystack. One of the reasons I chose to dual enroll was I thought it would be a good way of finding a tight-knit group of friends. But now, it will be absolutely impossible. I’m going to be on that campus all alone, and all my friends at my high school don’t exactly have flexible schedules, and I can already feel myself drifting away from the group. It’s just a natural thing that happens. Some might suggest, just make friends with those college kids; it’ll be fun blah blah. But let’s be realistic, what college kid is going to want to hang out with a 16-year-old?! It’s like being a freshman times two. And even if I miraculously did manage to make some college friends, it’s not like my mom would approve. So, I’d just be sneaking around her all the time, which would just be a massive headache. My mom will argue that there will be some nice campus kids from church on campus. But, I don’t want anything to do with them. I don’t want anything to do with our church; I can’t wait until I don’t have to go there. I don’t agree with about 90% of their views. Plus, the campus church kids will just want to make me study the bible, and I’m not exaggerating at all. So I guess my question is, what am I supposed to do about this? I’m still in clubs at my old school, but nothing is the same now that I’m not there every day. They went back to school three weeks ago and my first day is this Monday, so I’ve had three weeks to realize how lonely it is. I thought that this practice class/ orientation would help me meet some people, but apparently, that isn’t the case. What do I do? I don’t want to go back to my school. Plus, it’s a little late for that.

Hi arjai101 –

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

I am so impressed, and, to whatever degree a loving pooch can claim connection to you, SO PROUD OF YOU!!! I’m gonna be walking around today with my chest sticking out EXTRA far! WOW!

Meanwhile, your question makes lots of sense. I think I’ve told you about my friend who started college even a bit younger than you, who had mixed feelings about having done that – in some ways great to be the youngest there, and in some ways not.

But as to your overall question, I actually have an answer. Not based on her experience, but on my own.

When Handsome first brought me home from the pound, I was only three months old, and the veterinarians told him not to take me to a dog park for another few months, so I’d be old enough to handle possible diseases that might be there. I’m a very social pup, so it was really hard for me to handle being kept away from other dogs for that long. And when he finally took me to a huge park with tons of dogs, I was ecstatic – ran around ready to play with everyone. And they were…

Well, some of them were only barely interested in me. Sniffed me, let me sniff them, but then they went on their way. Others wouldn’t even notice me. And then there were still others who barked at me and chased me away. I was miserable. I mean, I had Handsome there, who would come up and give me pats and hugs, but no one would play with me. I was crushed. And on the way driving home, Handsome told me, “I’m so sorry, puppy. You reminded me of being a kid on my first day at school. In fact, I think you reminded me of every kid the first day at school.”

But he then did something very smart. He brought me back the next day. And this time I wasn’t as eager or pushy, and a few dogs walked up to sniff me. And then, as I walked around, I found a dog who’d play with me for a minute. And then I found another. And another.

And soon, I met someone who would change my life. An Akita-mix named Kuma. Kuma had come from an abusive past, and was afraid of most people, and played so roughly most dogs didn’t like him. But he and I were made for each other! We played so hard and crazy that both of us were exhausted by the time we left the park. We did so well that Handsome and Laura, Kuma’s human, started planning to be at the park at the same time so we could beat the daylights out of each other. And then to have some play-dates outside the park, and even sleepovers when one of the humans was out of town! Kuma became the best dog-friend I ever had.

So why am I telling you all this? Because this is exactly what’s going to happen to you at college. You’re going to go and feel there’s something wrong with you because you’re young. Someone else will feel there’s something wrong with them because they’re older, or short or tall or skinny or plump or athletic or unathletic or a certain race or a certain religion or… Everyone there is going to feel like an outsider (except those who have friends there already – and they’re likely to wish they could get away from them and meet the cool new people around them). And this feeling might last five minutes or five days.

But it will end.

Somehow, you’re going to meet someone you like. Who likes you. Who is interested in the things you’re interested in. And who’s going to want to hang out with you.

And how do I know this?

Because everyone starting school there wants exactly what you want – friends, ways to have some fun, and to stop feeling so alienated and lonely!

So you have two jobs, arjai101. The first is Continue reading

0 How to deal with a shame-based parent

G-face asks: I’ve had a lot of problems over the years that I’ve struggled with and gone to counseling for, and one of my biggest problems is my mom. I love her, but she’s always been a really judgmental person to me. She nit-picks on everyone and everything. It’s like if she doesn’t approve of something, she’s going to shame it until you don’t approve of it, either. And I feel like she does this with me a lot. She judges a lot of the things I say or do and acts as if they’re the stupidest things ever, and sometimes her negative comments really make me feel bad about myself. She’s also starting to see every difference of opinion as an argument, so if I say one thing wrong she starts raising her voice and defending herself. It’s come to the point where I don’t feel safe with her anymore. I can’t even have conversations with her and if she gets upset I just have to keep my mouth shut so she can have the last word. As I said earlier, I’ve gone to counseling for this before cause it got really bad at one point and I started having mental breakdowns. She even came to a couple of the sessions for group therapy, and that just made things worse. My relationship with my mother is starting to feel like a lost cause. And it’s hard because she’s really the only relationship I have right now. I just moved to a new city and I know no one, so I’ve been isolated for a while and have no one to talk to except her. I’m not really sure what to do about this situation. How to fix things with my mother, and also how to feel less isolated and lonely. Any ideas?

Hi G-Face –

This situation you’re in is awfully sad to read about, and way more common than you probably realize. I get lots of letters – from people of all ages – about situations like this.

In fact, I guess you could say that what I see as the big issue here is really the main reason I have my website.

Let me explain. I live with a wonderful human I call Handsome. I love him more than anything and think he’s absolutely brilliant (He knows how to go to a store, get let in, and come out with bags of food! I could never do that!).   But as I’ve watched him and his family and friends over the years, I’ve noticed a quality that their giant brains have that I don’t, and which I’d never want to have. It’s called Shame.

Shame is the most awful, destructive, quality I’ve ever seen. What cancer does to bodies, Shame does to souls. It tells people they’re not good enough, that they aren’t lovable, that they’re fundamentally alone – and leaves them to struggle with that pain. Even dogs who’ve been abused don’t have Shame (They might believe that they can’t trust anyone, that no one will ever love them, but their small brains don’t follow that up with a logic that says there’s something wrong with them – they’ll just believe the world is a mean place. That’s bad enough, but Shame is even worse!).

And if all that isn’t enough, Shame makes a person see the world through a Shame-lens, and hear and speak through a Shame-Language. So the way they treat the world, and the way they see even those they most love, is all about their feelings of being unwantable and unacceptable.

Sounds like the definition of Hell, doesn’t it?

Well, to me, it sure sounds like that’s the problem your mother is suffering from.

You see, people see so much of their self-worth in their children; they feel that if their kid succeeds, that means they’re good parents, but if their kid fails at something, then that must mean they’re not good enough. (This is all COMPLETELY UNTRUE, by the way – children of great parents fail at things all the time, and children of lousy parents can be great successes in all sorts of ways. But I’m talking about the way the parents judge their children and themselves).

So when your mother sees you do or say something she doesn’t love, she’s personally offended – in her mind, you’re making her look bad. (I can only imagine how crazy it would make me if every time I pooped in public, Handsome was shocked and humiliated, feeling that it was the same as if he were doing it!) And because you’re “doing” this to her, she’s very angry with you. And if you talk back to defend yourself, you’re “doing” it to her even more!

Now you and I know that you’re not actually doing anything to her at all. But she can’t see it that way.

So what should you do to Continue reading

0 How to improve a child’s memory

Join my pack asks: I have a 9-yr-old son. How can I improve his memory power, as he always forget his stuff in the school and never completes his work? He is a very active child and very talkative. Then what is the reason that he is so lazy with his school works?

Hi join my pack –

I’m going to give you the worst answer in the world, one you’re likely to hate:

Your son is right on schedule.

You say your son is active and talkative; that tells me that he’s curious and interested in things, and he doesn’t suffer from depression or some debilitating disease. But he doesn’t complete his work, and forgets things in school. Like most nine-year-old boys.

Of course, it’s easy to say, the best way for him to remember more of what he learns in school is for him to complete his work (that’s what it’s there for, after all). But the more important fact is that we remember much more of what interests us than what doesn’t.

My human friend Handsome told me a story about this. When he was just older than your son, he had to write a report about every book he read. Nothing big, just a paragraph or two. At one point, he read a 300-page book about a family raising lions. Nothing against lions, but he barely managed to come up with three sentences about it. He simply couldn’t remember any more of it than that. Then one night he read a 50-page book about horror movies – the first time he’d ever seen a book about these flicks he loved so much. And it excited him so much, he wasn’t able to fit his report into the teacher’s form – he needed three pages to write it up! In fact, I’ll bet if you asked him about it a month after he read it, he could have easily told you a hundred facts he learned from it.

So your son needs one simple thing – to Continue reading

0 How to try veganism safely

Wooff asks: I’m thinking of going vegan. My family is not on board with this idea mainly owing to the fact they think this life style is damaging. I’ve completely cut off beef from my diet and I don’t consume pork anyway. I really want to study abroad for my university and I’ll be living alone then. I think I’ll try going vegan then. What do you think about the vegan life style? I’m willing to wait 2 more years before I can go vegan because of my parents but what do you think I should do?

Hi Wooff –

You are so sweet to always refer to me as a person, but of course you know I’m not. And we dogs are very carnivorous. In the wild, we and our wolf ancestors pretty much live exclusively on animals we catch or find. That’s the way our systems work best.   Yes, you’ll see exceptions all the time – most dogs love carrots, and of course you’ll see us eat grasses a lot when we’re feeling nauseous – but in general, we are hunters.

You humans are much more complex in this area. Over the millennia you’ve been around, you’ve developed very complex and varied diets, largely dependent on your locations and your cultures. The hunter-gatherer peoples ate somewhat the way we dogs do, though bringing more fruits and vegetables in than we tend to. The agrarian peoples developed brilliant and insightful farming skills, not only raising grains and such but even using animals in ways other than for meat, such as eggs and milk products.

These systems worked just fine in their times and in their places. But today, everything has shifted.

First of all, of course, as long as one has the economic means, they can eat pretty much any diet they like anywhere. Living in northern Europe doesn’t mean you’re stuck with what you can find or hunt, and living in Russia no longer means you must eat a potato-based menu every day. Grocery stores everywhere sell oranges and tuna and chocolate chip treats. You can eat what you like. It’s just fantastic!

On the other hand, these advances have also created lots of problems. The changes in wheat in numerous parts of the world (such as the United States, where I live) have made it far cheaper, more plentiful, and longer-lasting, but also resulted in many allergies and illnesses that we didn’t see before (Some even see a tie between wheat gluten and Autism, which, if ever proven, could really change things a lot). And while we’ve eliminated a lot of the problems people used to have with meats going bad, our factory farms have also created all sorts of horrible health issues from hormones and antibiotics in the food to Mad Cow disease.

What’s the answer?!

Well, there’s no absolute one. But I do know two things. And those are the only advice I can really give you.

One is that Continue reading

0 How to enhance spoken English skills

AHMAD asks: How can spoken English of the nursery and primary school pupils, who primarily speak other languages, be enhanced?

Hi AHMAD –

It should be clear, to anyone who has ever studied a foreign language, that actual classroom and homework instruction only teaches fundamentals.  To really master a tongue, one needs different experiences with it.  Especially because people who speak a language well tend to speak in very different ways than what’s taught in classes.

My human friend Handsome and I live in an area with lots of people who speak Spanish – a language which Handsome studied in school for years, and which he can speak fairly well.  But when our neighbors talk among themselves, he feels like he never learned a word of it – with their speed, their slurring of words, their natural colloquialisms (a long word for the ways people talk that aren’t officially correct grammar or definitions).

So while it’s a great thing for children to be taught languages at early ages (as scientists have found that human brains learn languages much better at early ages than they do later), it’s all the better if the kids can also experience the languages in other ways, so they learn to become truly fluent, and not just knowledgeable.

There are lots of ways to achieve this.  One nice thing about English is that so many of the most popular movies and songs are in it.  So a great way for children to learn to speak it well is to just enjoy some of their favorite entertainments – watching an undubbed Cars 3 or listening to the latest from Bruno Mars or Ed Sheeran are great ways to immerse kids into the language.

But my favorite way is what’s called Continue reading