The Rules of Life

Keep Quiet I have a friend who has three small children. She told me recently that before she had children, she didn’t really ge ...

this was a terrible thing to do. But once I had children of my own, I realized that I had no way of assessing whether what she d ...

There Are No Bad Children There are no bad children. Yes, there may be children who do bad things. There may be children who do ...

It is awfully detrimental to say to a child, “You are a bad child.” It sets something up in their mind that is hard to shift. Be ...

Be Up Around People You Love Yo u r j o b f r o m n o w o n , a s a R u l e s P l a y e r, i s t o b e u p a r o u n d people yo ...

Successful people, those who have got it licked, are invariably cheerful. They care more about what people around them are going ...

Give Your Kids Responsibilities Children grow up and leave home. They go from helpless babies to mature adults who have sex and ...

behind our back waiting for them to spill stuff. We expect them to be able to keep their room tidy the first time. But they’ve n ...

Yo u r C h i l d re n N e e d to Fa l l O u t w i t h Yo u to L e a ve H o m e Yo u r k i d s h a v e n e v e r t i d i e d t h ...

find a grown-up friend comes back, and you can share a whole new relationship with them. Hold them back, and they’ll resent you ...

Your Kids Will Have Friends Yo u D o n ’ t L i ke “Oh no, not Mickey Brown—again!” This was my mother’s cry every Saturday morni ...

weren’t looking. I didn’t like guns particularly—and we are talking cap guns here—but I did love getting him into trouble... One ...

Yo u r R o le a s a C h i l d So, you’re a grown-up now and probably don’t recognize your- self as a child. But you are still a ...

To b e p l e a s e d w h e n t h e y c o m e t o s t a y a n d h a p p i l y l e t them watch whatever TV program they want wit ...

Yo u r R o le a s a Pa re n t Gosh, this is a tough one. You have a role and it is important, but how do we define it, make it r ...

Yo u w i l l s t r e t c h t h e i r i m a g i n a t i o n s a n d f e e d t h e m w i t h s t i m u l i so they grow up creativ ...

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Part IV Social Rules ...

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Every day we come into contact with real live human beings— at work, commuting, in shops, out and about—people we might have met ...