Avant Parenting Archives
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Avant! Welcome to my parenting blog archives
As you can see by the dates below, this blog is no longer being updated. However, there’s lots of good stuff here, much of it as true now as when it was written. Please feel free to browse, or follow these links: One last piece of parenting advice: Enjoy today even if it’s a rough…
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What is gifted? And why?
I was talking to a friend recently about my work on Examiner.com concerning gifted children. What is gifted? she asked. A very reasonable question, and one that no one has completely defined yet – to my satisfaction, at least. I’m planning an article on Examiner.com about all the various definitions of “gifted,” but here I…
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The uninvited wedding guest
In this week’s newsletter, Parmalee mentioned that she loves to hear skunk stories. Now that’s a challenge I can’t pass up! It’s a day after Valentine’s Day, thus 12 years and a day after my husband proposed to me. We were the perfect model of the modern couple: we lived together before we decided to…
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From babytime to tantrums with not a moment to spare!
My kids and I just got back from the snow. We found an amazing place that is an easy drive from Santa Cruz. Really. No, I’m not going to tell you. You’ll tell your friends, and then, well, you know what will happen. My experience with visiting the snow in California was completely confined to…
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Big cats, little cats, wild cats
When I heard that there was a wild cat show at the Rio Theater, I thought about how much I love cats, I thought about how busy we were, and I thought about how there was some incident… Then the publisher of Santa Cruz Parent asked me if I wanted tickets. What can I say?…
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Standards for everyone!
I didn’t need any more convincing that Alfie Kohn is one of the clearest thinkers about education out there. When my son was in first grade, his teacher handed out a copy of his article on why homework is unnecessary. I’ve been a fan ever since. A friend pointed me to this article that he…