The balance parents and children must find between too much protection and too much freedom is a challenging balance. Always making sure the kids are happy, buffered from discomfort, guided to make the right decision… is a lot of work, but for whose benefit? The parents get burnt out and frustrated, and the kids are [...]

It’s hard to be a boy these days. A boy today goes to schools run mostly by women, who are under intense pressure to get test scores up. His recess is reduced or taken away because there is so much to learn. His need to move, express, and rough house—perfectly natural activities for a young [...]

In her New York Times article “The Declining Demand for Men”, Nancy Folbre says there is something that makes this recession unique for men: The Great Recession has sometimes been dubbed the Mancession because it drove unemployment among men higher than unemployment among women. Because men tend to work in more cyclical industries than women, [...]

Are you born to fight? Maybe – you are born to hunt. As men, we are the hunters of the hunter-gathers. We are born to provide and protect. If need be, we will fight. It is in that fight we see the worst and best of men. We see what men will do in the [...]

I escaped city life to live the small town life… I escaped to Sandpoint, ID thirteen years ago this weekend. When I visited here in May that year I was not just blown away with the beauty of Sandpoint and its friendly people – I couldn’t believe it wasn’t discovered. I have traveled to all [...]

This TED video illustrates teaching our kids to be entrepreneurs instead of teaching them to be employees. Cameron Herold struggled and cheated his way through school like I did. He had me in tears with his passionate stories about how he, like so many kids, are done a disservice by putting them all in the [...]

The rescuer is the third player in the Drama Triangle, and embodies the darker qualities of the magician archetype. His magic is his attempt to fix or change someone rather than address his own emotions or needs. Image via Wikipedia The rescuer is in fear of the anger of the persecutor and the sadness of [...]

Persecutor Every victim needs a persecutor. In the Drama Triangle, the bully is in this role and is the one who blames the victim, criticizes him or her and enables the behavior of the rescuer, who we’ll discuss in the next post. Image via Wikipedia It’s easy to see the persecutor is a tyrant warrior. [...]