As we approach the Winter Solstice and Christmas Day, my thoughts often turn to the beauty and majesty of the natural world. The last several years have seen a spate of books published about living a life closer to nature. They range in topic from how spending time in nature improves our health, enriches our lives and our children's lives, provides us with a sense of beauty and transcendence, deepens faith, improves creativity, and much more.  I have created a list of my favorite books from this genre that I hope you enjoy this holiday season ..read more

Most of what we know about ethics is wrong, and u nless we get our act together soon, humanity is doomed. ), a just released book by Josh Bachynski, which I've had the pleasure of reading, reviewing, and discussing on  (see the video at the end of the post). Our lack of appropriate ethics is the basis of all of our problems. Essentially we are infected with a virus which sabotages every society that we try. The problem, in Josh's estimation, lies with people imposing what he calls "objective-prescriptive," moral beliefs on others, when doing so may be sub-optimal for them. If the ess ..read more

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 ..read more

I just finished taking an in-depth 12 week parenting course,   that I have really benefited from, and I'd like to share more about it with you.  Laura Markham, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, and founder of the  website, based her approach "Peaceful Parenting." As a longtime reader of Dr. Laura's website, I'm very excited to be able to review both the course and  teaches parents to coach and connect with their children while better regulating their own (parental) emotions. Both course and book provide many strategies on how to have a more positive, cooperative re ..read more

I’m always on the lookout for new information that will help me improve myself or allow me to give my kids the best childhood possible. That means is that I’ve read a good deal of parenting books! by Waldorf educator Kim John Payne. And well folks, it’s a keeper!  In a nutshell, this book is for any parent who has watched their dreams for their kids slipping away amongst the overwhelming pace and expectations of family life today. I was aware of this book for a while after watching some of Payne’s YouTube videos. Why the book never actively made its way onto my reading list is anybody’s g ..read more

Parenting really is the ultimate time management challenge. The reason is simple. Once you become a parent, you feel you now have that responsibility, plus everything you were trying to do or maintain from before you had children.  shows us how to work smarter not harder when it comes to what we do with our time. I described how I had to take a hiatus from blogging during 2014-2015 around the birth of my first child. I simply couldn't figure out how to get enough time to work on the blog. As I learned over the years, the good news is that you can still manage your time well once you have ..read more