Category: Parenting

Major Announcement! My New Parenting Website is Live!

1/25/2020

I've had something big in the works for a while that I'd like to share with you...announcing my new parenting website, Common Sense Mother!

For several years, I and various guests have written about philosophy and parenting here at Common Sense Ethics. However, not all CSE readers are parents, and (unfortunately) not all parents are are interested in philosophy. For this reason, I've wanted to launch a parenting site for a more "mainstream," audience. Common Sense Mother is that site.

Please head on over and check it out! If you like what you see, subscribe via the email opt-in there and share widely! You'll find helpful posts about creating a happy home, finding joy and motivation as a parent, overcoming stress, and managing the limited time that you do have well. My parenting philosophy is all about doing things intentionally, based on what you value most.

Of course I'll be continuing to publish new posts and videos here at Common Sense Ethics. This site is a labor of love that I've stuck with for more than 6 years! Thank you so much for your continued support!

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7 Common End of Life Regrets - And How to Avoid Having Them

10/29/2019

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When we are children, we can't even imagine the end of our lives. As we grow up, we are often so busy with daily tasks that we forget to notice how quickly life is passing by. We don't allow ourselves to think much about death, because we imagine that we a still have time.

But the truth is that life is short. None of us knows how much time we have. In Plato's Phaedo, he introduces the idea that philosophy is "about nothing else but dying and being dead". The Stoics were also fond of this discipline, and Seneca's letters are full of injunctions to meditate on death. Thinking about death need not be negative. On the contrary, it may inspire us to live betters lives in the here and now.

According to Bronnie Ware, a hospice nurse from Australia, many of her dying patients expressed regrets over how their lives had played out. I've gone on to list 7 of these regrets below. Meditating on common regrets of the dying can help us to put our own lives into perspective before our time is up.

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Character Education is Up to Parents, Not Schools

7/31/2019

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Albert Einstein notably said that, “Most people think that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong. It is character.” Einstein should know, because it was at his urging that Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the Manhattan Project, which would develop the world’s first atomic bomb. Though he was not personally involved in the Manhattan Project, it was a decision which Einstein regretted his entire life – he was horrified by having contributed to the destruction that the bomb made possible.

In my estimation, we are typically educated so that we will get into the right college and be successful monetarily. Far less emphasis is placed on developing a strong moral character, which is often only an afterthought. If intellectual achievement outpaces the development of moral character, we get a population of people bent on being smart and successful but not much concerned about the needs of others.

How does someone develop moral character? I'll give you a hint; not in school. The largest scientific study conducted on the subject concluded that school-wide character education programs produce no improvements in student behavior or academic performance. Moral character develops in the family and through exposure to various life experiences. Parents therefore need to be intentional about character education for their children, and in this post, I’ll give some tips for how to do it.

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Tranquility Parenting - Stoicism for Parents - Book Review & Video

3/31/2019

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Tranquility Parenting: A Guide to Staying Calm, Mindful and Engaged, a just released book by Brittany Polat, offers lots of practical help and straightforward ways to overcome parenting challenges by implementing principles from Stoic philosophy within the family. I've been using some of the thoughtful techniques from the book already.

Her mantra for helping kids and parents deal with frustrations is "Don't get upset, just solve the problem." I think this is excellent advice for parents. Brittany expands on this by helping us to re-frame our value judgments in Stoic context. For example, rather than thinking "My kids are fighting, I can't believe I have to deal with this again," we should just drop the value judgement at the end of the sentence.

When we look at the situation in a factually oriented way, we think the same thing, "My kids are fighting," but minus the negativity. Then we are better able to deal calmly with the problem at hand. With practice, we can implement this advice over and over to make our lives as parents easier...

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Parents! Cut Yourselves a Break

2/16/2019

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Welcome Holly Hamilton-Bleakley, a philosophy professor and mother of six, to my YouTube channel! Holly is the author of the wonderful blog, Philosophy For Parents.
Here she shares wisdom gleaned from 20 years of motherhood and her extensive knowledge of philosophy.

We discuss:

The difficulty of becoming a parent for the first time.
How to best handle the challenges of parenthood.
The strengths and virtues necessary for being a good parent.
How to slow down and cut yourself a break when you have little kids.
Dealing with the feelings of impermanence that parenting brings.
How the issue of raising children is ignored by most Western philosophers, and more.

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Fearless Parent: How to Raise Kids Using Stoic Philosophy

8/12/2018

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Wondering how to be less stressed as a parent? Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy that teaches us how to focus on what we can control in life. Brittany Polat of Apparent Stoic and I discuss how to apply Stoic philosophy to parenting, and how it can make both parents and kids happier.

We discuss:

Overcoming worry and parenting anxiety. Not worrying about what other people think of how you raise your children.
US culture being oriented towards adult lifestyles and careers and not very child friendly.
Thinking that you can control everything and being goal oriented does not work with kids because while you can influence them, you can't control what they do.
You will be happier as a parent/family if you focus on what you can control - the environment, how you respond, getting prepared in advance, etc.
The Golden Rule and other ways to teach kids the value of kindness.

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The Secret to Building A Close Family

4/30/2018

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This post by Annie Holmquist was first published at Intellectual Takeout. I included it here because of my focus on creating an intentional family culture:

It’s no secret how important good reading ability is. With only one-third of American school children reading at a proficient level, a student who not only reads but understands a book has a clear advantage over the rest of his peers.

It is for this reason that many engaged parents follow the 1862 exhortation of Henry Ward Beecher and surround their children with books:

“No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. It is a wrong to his family. He cheats them! Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it. And the love of knowledge, in a young mind, is almost a warrant against the inferior excitement of passions and vices.”

But while simply surrounding children with good books is a great start, we all know that the knowledge of books is not imparted through osmosis. The books have to be first ingested and then digested in order to produce students who are well-rounded thinkers.

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9 Great Critical Thinking Books for Children and Teens

3/5/2018

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Recently, a reader commented on my post How To Get Rid of the Need to Be Right asking for recommendations on critical thinking books for kids. Given my three roles as a children's librarian, amateur philosopher, and parent, I thought I should write up a helpful post on the subject.

Critical thinking seems to be a buzzword when used in the context of contemporary education, yet the skill is sorely lacking in society at large. Poor reasoning often dominates public discourse.

When I say critical thinking, strictly, I'm referring to logic, or the science of how arguments need to be formed in order to be reasonable or correct. I'm also referring more generally to skills like separating truth from falsehood, being able to accurately evaluate other's arguments, being open-minded, and thinking with greater distance (rather than from a dogmatic or emotionally driven mindset).

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Stoicism and Virtue in Family Culture: A Conversation

2/5/2018

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Common Sense Ethics is now on Youtube! Most parents struggle to get their parenting ideals to match their every day family life. In response to my post from December, Brittany Polat of apparentstoic.com interviews me about how to create an ideal family culture based on Stoic and other philosophical virtues. We discuss:

How to make your ideal family culture part of your daily routine without making yourself crazy.
What techniques have worked for our families.
The importance of norms and family culture versus parenting style.
Books for children and the importance of reading to them.
Family activities and traditions based on Stoic philosophy.

Please subscribe to the channel - we will be discussing many exciting topics going forward!

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Creating Your Ideal Family Culture

12/19/2017

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With the holidays coming up, many of us are focused on family. My recent post Why You Should Create Your Own Culture to Be Happier prompted a discussion on the Stoic Parents Facebook group about how to create a family culture. Family culture, (defined as the way that a group of people think, feel, act and achieve common goals) is tremendously influential. Creating an ideal culture for your family is something that must be done intentionally. Otherwise you will probably operate in default mode just trying to get things done each day since life with kids tends to be busy:

"Parents must decide what quality of family life they will have and then use the necessary discipline to accomplish this. Otherwise life will push the family in diverse directions...Those parents who have carefully examined their values and their view of life are going to be those whose influence on their children is most consistent. Why? Because what they believe is important to them...Our priorities are determined by our values." - Gladys Hunt, Honey for a Child's Heart.

You don't get a second chance at raising your children. Brainstorm what you ideally want for your family life, write it down, and then be disciplined enough to implement it. Build the various aspects of your ideal family culture into your routine and they will come naturally. It may help to think about your ideal family culture in terms of these four broad categories:

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<<Previous

Major Announcement! My New Parenting Website is Live!

7 Common End of Life Regrets - And How to Avoid Having Them

Character Education is Up to Parents, Not Schools

Tranquility Parenting - Stoicism for Parents - Book Review & Video

Parents! Cut Yourselves a Break

Fearless Parent: How to Raise Kids Using Stoic Philosophy

The Secret to Building A Close Family

9 Great Critical Thinking Books for Children and Teens

Stoicism and Virtue in Family Culture: A Conversation

Creating Your Ideal Family Culture

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About Me:

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Understanding and Applying Stoic Ethics In Modern Life:

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​Join the Stoic Parents Facebook Group:

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Follow Common Sense Ethics on Pinterest:

Join the Stoic Parents Facebook Group: