4 Mindful Ways to Discipline Your Child

My recent podcast episode 5 Simple Mindfulness Habits for Better Parenting caused quite a stir. Dozens of parents reached out with thoughtful comments and questions about this hot topic.

After 25 years of parenting, it even gave me cause to stop and ponder about how life-changing this mindset can truly be in every area of one’s parenting life, but particularly when it comes to the way we discipline our children.

As stated in that episode, I equated mindful parenting to going back to basics with everything you do for your family. “Remove all the bells and whistles of today’s non-stop lifestyle and just enjoy whatever you and your children are doing at that very moment.”

As simplistic as that sounds, we all know that our crazy, overscheduled lifestyles don’t necessarily make living in the moment very easy. That’s why the term mindful is key to changing how we rush through life, going from trying to keep our heads above water to instead learning to float on top of the wave and enjoy the ride.

I’ve been living a mindful lifestyle with my family for many years now, even before it became the popular mentality that is trending today. In fact, I’d say it’s been one of the key items in my parenting tool box.

Examples of mindful parenting to me are:

• Waking up and celebrating my teen daughter’s great hair day with her rather than being preoccupied with my overflowing inbox of emails.
• Not running around the house chasing all the fluffy dust bunnies left by our adorable Golden Retriever puppy but instead observing how loved she is by all my kids.
• Even listening in appreciation to the quiet whir of our dryer while waiting for a load of towels to dry (we were without one for nearly a month this past summer—I’ll never take this appliance for granted again!) rather than griping to my family that the majority of my precious life is spent washing their clothes.

Get the picture? By shifting your conscious thoughts to what is happening in the present rather than zoning out about your daily to-do list or being swept up in events that might be happening weeks away, you’ll start to appreciate life much differently.

When practiced routinely, living a mindful lifestyle can help us focus on the many positives that surround our family on a daily basis. And as we'll discuss today, it’s also beneficial when things aren’t going so well and you need to course correct your child’s negative...

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How to Have Great Sex in a Committed Relationship

If you ever go looking for sex advice, you’re sure to be inundated with tips on positions, techniques, and whatever the grocery store magazines say is guaranteed to drive your partner wild. But that’s not really what you need. Indeed, if you’re unsatisfied with your sex life, you’re probably not looking to recreate the grapefruit scene from Girls Trip. Instead, you need some sound advice for your most important sex organ—the one between your ears. 

Thankfully, this week, Dr. Stephen Snyder is here to help. Dr. Snyder is a sex and relationship therapist in private practice and on the faculty at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. He is a frequent guest on major media and a regular contributor to Psychology Today and The Huffington Post. His new book, Love Worth Making: How to Have Ridiculously Great Sex in a Long-Lasting Relationship, turns sex therapy inside-out to discover the hidden secrets of desire for committed couples. 

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why focusing on orgasm is a misguided approach, and what to do instead.
• How traditional advice about giving your partner pleasure is all wrong, and the counterintuitive alternative that really works.
• A two-step, low-pressure “anti-technique” that keeps you present and in the moment.
• How busy couples can keep the flame alive, both in and out of the bedroom (hint: it’s not date night!)

Pick up a copy of Love Worth Making: How to Have Ridiculously Great Sex in a Long-Lasting Relationship wherever you like to get your books!

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How ‘Trolloping' Became a Word

The Englishwoman Frances Trollope, who spent two wretched years in Ohio in the 1820s, took a less good-humored view of frontier speech habits. Like almost everything else that she found in America, they affronted her taste. In her 1832 book, “Domestic Manners of the Americans,” she writes, “I very seldom during my whole stay in the country heard a sentence elegantly turned, and correctly pronounced from the lips of an American. There is always something either in the expression or the accent that jars the feelings and shocks the taste.”

Fanny Trollope, mother of the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, arrived in the United States in 1828 with her two young daughters and her teenage son, Henry. (Anthony, another brother, and their father remained at home in England.) Like many others who traveled to the frontier, she was hoping to make her fortune—her barrister husband had squandered most of his money on bad investments in land. Trollope believed she could recoup some of their losses and give Henry a start in life by going into business in a place with fewer economic and social restrictions than London.

Like many others who traveled to the frontier, Trollope was hoping to make her fortune.

Trollope’s original plan had been to join a Utopian community founded by a friend in the Tennessee backwoods. When she arrived, she discovered that the community consisted of a few unfinished cabins, so she fled with her children to Cincinnati. By the 1820s, the town was no longer exactly a frontier outpost. Ohio had been a state since 1803, and Cincinnati, with nearly twenty thousand inhabitants, was booming. Exports including whiskey, pork products, and various manufactured goods were shipped by steamboat from its bustling wharves. The town boasted a medical college, libraries, churches, schools, newspapers, and a theater.

Still, the place came as a shock to someone from London. Trollope describes the town as “an uninteresting mass of buildings” and as having “only just enough of the air of a city to make it noisy and bustling.” Only the main street was paved. Garbage was disposed of by dumping it in the middle of the street and letting the freeroaming pigs help themselves. There were no gutters, so every rain shower washed detritus from the higher to the lower streets, where it collected in unpleasant mounds. Even the hills surrounding the town were devoid of shrubs and flowers.

The Trollopes never really found their footing financially. After one or two unsuccessful attempts to earn money, they hit on the idea of presenting mechanical exhibits at the Western Museum, a natural history and antiquities museum. Their exhibit “The Infernal Regions,” portraying scenes from Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” was...

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Blond or Blonde?

It sounds like a joke, but it's actually a legitimate question: How do you spell “blond"?

‘Blond’ Versus ‘Blonde’

The word originally came into English from Old French, where it has masculine and feminine forms. As an English noun, it kept those two forms; thus, a blond is a fair-haired male, and a blonde is a fair-haired female.

When you're using the word as an adjective, "blond" is the more common spelling and can be used for men or women, especially in the United States; however, "blonde" can also be used to describe a woman with fair hair, as in “Go ask the blonde woman at table 2 if she wants pepper on her salad.”

A blond is a fair-haired male, and a blonde is a fair-haired female.

Is ‘Blonde’ Sexist?

Some people think it is sexist to use “blonde” to refer to women, but the AP stylebook currently says to maintain the distinction between the two gendered forms of the word if you use it, and The Chicago Manual of Style also seems to uphold the difference. It doesn’t say so explicitly, but it uses the E-form for women in some example sentences. 

Still, it may be perceived as especially sexist when you refer to a woman simply as “a blonde” or “the blonde,” as in “The blonde got in line to check out a book.” Garner’s Modern English Usage says that for this reason, it’s usually best to avoid using “blonde” (and “blond”) as a stand-alone noun.

Inanimate Objects

Most of the time, inanimate objects are treated as male. For example, if you have a blond wooden dresser, “blond” is spelled without the E. A recent exception though is that Starbucks uses the feminine form for its blonde roast coffee. Maybe the marketing people believe we’ll love it more if we think of it as a woman or as female.

How to Use ‘Blond’ and ‘Blonde’

1. Avoid using “...

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Easy Brain Exercises That Lead to a Less Anxious Life

Nadia Hayes is a wellness coach in the Houston area. She is also the author of "One Poem a Day" and "One Drawing a Day." Here, she discusses some of the key points in her book "Choose Calm," giving readers tips for living a stress-free life. 

Anxiety is the knot of worry that we can’t seem to unravel, the fear that builds when we lose control of a situation, and the panicked sense that there is an avalanche of danger at our heels. We can tell ourselves to relax, but figuring out how to physically and mentally unwind is a whole other matter. Relaxation feels grossly at odds with a world that seems to be passing by at warp speed. Most of us are barreling through our day trying to accomplish as much as possible in the time allotted. Choose Calm is a step in a new direction. It’s a tool you can use when you’re just not sure how to begin living better; healthier; and happier. Journaling can help you work through this modern-day conflict where outer chaos is at odds with the quest for inner calm. Each page presents a thought-provoking prompt or an inspiring quote that urges you to stop, reflect, and change your approach—or at least be honest about the effectiveness of your current strategies for managing stress and anxiety.

How do we choose calm? When we are feeling stressed, we often think we need to get rid of our anxiety or disassociate from it. We get a massage, grab a stiff drink, or tuck ourselves into bed early to escape the feeling. While that may help temporarily, most of us will find that we emerge on the other side with the same load of stress. I would encourage anyone who’s anxious to take the time to get to know their anxiety better. Therapists and mindfulness practitioners advise us to name our feelings so that we don’t confuse them for facts. Are you really going to do horribly on that presentation at work, or is your anxiety warping the fact that you are completely ready and equipped to succeed? It isn’t until we understand anxiety as a lack of confidence in ourselves that we can begin to grapple with it, pin it down, and declare victory over it.

Many of the exercises in Choose Calm ask you to confront your anxiety openly and honestly so that it no longer controls you. The whole process of journaling is about naming and accepting all of your feelings (even the bad ones) in order to work your way through to the other side. When you aren’t afraid to feel anxious and let that dark shadow of a feeling pass overhead like a storm cloud, you’re one step closer to joy.

It isn’t until we understand anxiety as a lack of confidence in ourselves that we can begin to grapple with it, pin it down, and declare victory over it...

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8 Quick-Fixes for Your Bathroom

Learn how to turn everyday items into easy cleaning solutions with these clever hacks.

Sparkling Showers And Tubs

1. Sweep Your Tub Clean
This little trick requires a clean broom, but it’s worth the small investment to make a dreaded chore easier. Here’s what to do: Squirt the tub cleaner of your choice (or just dishwashing liquid) onto the sides and bottom of your bathtub. Then use the broom to simply scrub and brush away all the dirt, grime, and soap scum—even in those hard-to-reach places! Use a pitcher, bucket, or shower extension to rinse.

No More Gross Grout

2. Reach Under the Rim
Clearing away dirt and deposits under the rim can be tricky. But a smart tool can help. Purchase a package of those cotton coils used for perms (you can find them at a beauty supply store). Soak the coil in a basin with vinegar. You might want to do this right in the shower to avoid drips. Then stuff the toilet’s rim with the coil. Allow the vinegar to work on the stains overnight, then remove and throw away the coil, and flush the toilet to rinse.

3. Take Soda to the Can
Cola contains phosphoric acid, which can lift stubborn stains such as rust. That makes it a good toilet cleaner: Pour the cola directly into the bowl, leave it for an hour, and then flush.

4. Lift with Lemonade Mix
Instant lemonade mixes like Kool-Aid contain citric acid, which works great to battle mineral deposits. Sprinkle the powder around your toilet bowl, let sit for a minute or two, then scrub with a toilet brush.

5. Trick to Dry That Toilet Brush
We all know it’s gross to stick that brush back into the holder wet. But what’s the solution? Close the seat on top of the brush’s handle so it’s sandwiched and secure, with the brush in position to drip-dry over the toilet bowl. Come back for it later when it’s dry and ready to stash away with much less ick. You can also add a little mouthwash to the holder to help fight germs while the brush is in storage.

All-Around Solutions

6. Whiten Away Rust
Rust attacked spots on your white sink? Make a paste by mixing 1 teaspoon cream of tartar with ¼ cup baking soda. Add a little hydrogen peroxide to form a paste. Rub on the rust spot, let it sit for 30 minutes, and then clean with a damp sponge.

7. Be Your Own Mr. Clean
Do you love Mr. Clean Magic Erasers? These costly wonders are made from a material called melamine foam. Melamine foam has been used for decades as an insulator and sound-proofer, which means you can buy large sheets of it for less than the cost of a single box of “magic sponges.” Buy some online...

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The Yawning Financial Gap of the Gilded Age

It was Mark Twain who coined the term Gilded Age. He made it the title of a satirical novel about corruption and excess after the Civil War. Later, the Gilded Age became a label for years from about 1870 to 1900 and highlighted the period’s excesses and inequality.

One thing to remember is that the Gilded Age was not the Golden Age. It was a time of prosperity but the wealth was not evenly shared. Although it was a time of opulence, it was also a time of great hardship and destitution. Economic growth was matched by tremendous inequality. The result was a period of contention,  turmoil, corruption, political rancor, and even doubts about whether American democracy was viable. If that sounds familiar to us today—well, our own era is often referred to as the New Gilded Age.

One of the main dynamics of the Gilded Age had to do with scale. Before the Civil War, Americans lived in a small-scale world—farms, villages, small cities. What we might call the Tom Sawyer world that Mark Twain remembered from his youth. Food was local. Manufacturing was local. News was local. People were provincial. Travel was by stagecoach, which has a romantic image in the movies but was a god-awful way to get around.

Then came the railroads. The golden spike was pounded to complete the first transcontinental line in 1869, and suddenly citizens could cross the country in a week instead of months, and the scale of America was forever changed. The frontier, which had always defined what America was about, disappeared. Businesses became national in scope. By the 1890s, three quarters of all the meat in the country came from a few enormous slaughterhouses in Chicago—our first industrial scale food.

Suddenly citizens could cross the country in a week instead of months, and the scale of America was forever changed.

We can’t overlook the great strides the country made during the period in spite of rampant inequality. The middle class benefitted. Who wouldn’t want electric lights and indoor plumbing?  Telephones and train travel? Even the first moving pictures?

The gilding of the Gilded Age was supplied by the wealthy. Having succeeded in business either by...

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