Making This Your Child's Best School Year Yet

True, your child can probably survive a bad school year. Indeed, genes, parenting, and peers matter more, at least in terms of long-term outcomes.

But think back to your own schooling. Weren’t there years in which you were much happier or less so. Helping your child have a whole year of more happiness—That’s worth your effort.

And much is in your control. My PsychologyToday.com article today offers potent things you can do. No, you needn't volunteer in your child’s class. That’s just not realistic for so many of today’s parents.

Raising a Challenging Child

The Case for Eclecticism

Many psychotherapists, counselors, and coaches feel comforted by having a theoretical framework from which to operate. It’s a scaffolding onto which they can then hang their own ideas as applicable to the client. 

That’s understandable but too limiting.  I make the case for eclecticism in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

The Ridiculousness of Unconditional Love

How wonderful to be loved for just who you are. Conversely, how comforting to feel so close to someone that you unconditionally love him or her.

But how realistic is that? Is it even desirable? My essay in PsychologyToday.com today argues no on both counts.

Career Issues I've Changed My Mind About

Somehow, we’ve come to prize people who stick to their guns. But as Longfellow wrote, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Not wanting too little a mind, I have tried to remain opening to changing my views. In hopes of encouraging you to do that, my PsychologyToday. com article today describes 11 things on which I’ve changed my mind.

While I’ve changed my mind on many issues, in that article, I describe only items related to my profession: career counseling. Not only have I done the most thinking about that, offering my current thoughts on career may be helpful to yours.

An Ode to the Worker Bee on Labor Day

Labor Day honors workers. And for good reason, indeed for more reasons than we might realize. I describe them in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Fighting Your Weaknesses

Conventional wisdom says, “Build on your strengths.” And I agree, but some common weaknesses usually must at least be mitigated or you may not get a chance to use your strengths.

Of course, most weaknesses don’t succumb to quick tips but my current thinking on behavior change is that quick tips end up yielding more net good than do protracted prescriptions. 

Quick tips  are particularly likely to yield more net good per-minute of reader time. There are plenty of long articles and books on each of the following but perhaps the quick tips I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today add something to the corpus.

Becoming a Successful Employee

The advice on how to be a successful employee can reduce to: work well, fit in, yet retain your personhood. 

But in case you’d like a little flesh on that skeleton, I offer that in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Gaining Your Instructors' Respect

Whether in high school, college, or graduate school, gaining the instructor’s respect is key not only to getting a good grade but, at the risk of sounding like the fuddy-duddy I am, learning more, including acquiring attributes more important than the course content: responsibility, communication skills, and perhaps even—and the data on its teachability is equivocal—thinking ability.

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer ways to gain your instructors' respect.

What if You Lose Your Job?

Losing your job is one of most life’s more stressful events. After all, our identify may be heavily defined by how well we do at work. Indeed, compare the worthiness of a life centered about sex, drugs, and NetFlix with even an ostensibly unimportant worker bee—say a receptionist—who ends up making life easier for countless people.

But losing one’s job can happen to the best of us. What to do? I tackle that question in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

How the Media Influences Us...Perhaps Without Our Awareness

To a greater extent than we may realize, the media, even entertainment media attempts to get us to believe as they do.

My PsychologyToday.com essay  explores how that’s done, using an example: The play, The Book of Mormon.

Terry's Tale: A career saga

As the latest in my PsychologyToday.com series of short-short stories embedding life lessons, I today describe the saga of a 20-something person's career saga. .

Hands-On Careers

Career contentment depends less on a career’s coolness than on whether it matches your core ability: words, people, data, or hands-on.

To that end, here is the fourth in a four-part series. In this installment, I offer brief introductions to some hands-on careers. The previous installments were on careers for word people, for people people, and for data-oriented people.

Career contentment depends less on a career’s "coolness" than on whether it matches your core ability: words, people, data, or hands-on.

To that end, I'm writing a four-part series. In this installment, I offer a brief introduction to some data-centric careers. The previous installments were on careers for word people and on careers for people people. I hope to publish the final one tomorrow. It will be on hands-on careers.

Careers for People People

Career contentment depends less on a career’s “coolness’ than on whether it matches your core ability: words, people, data, or hands-on.

To that end, I am writing a four-part series in PsychologyToday.com. In the first one, I described 11 word-centric careers.

In today's installment, I describe some careers for people people. 

The final two installments will be on careers for data-centric people and hands-on careers.

11 Careers for Word People

Career contentment depends less on a career’s “coolness’ than on whether it matches your core ability: words, people, data, or hands-on.

To that end, I am writing a four-part series in PsychologyToday.com. In the first one, I describe 11 word-centric careers.

The other installments will be people careers, data careers, and hands-on careers.

Is Higher Education America's Most Overrated Product?

I was interviewed today to discuss the question, "Is Higher Education America's Most Overrated Product?" Here is the link:

Smart Onboarding

As they say, you never get a second chance to make a good impression, so getting off to a good start on a job is obviously important.

Of course, in an ideal world, your employer’s onboarding program would fully address that but that’s not always the case. My PsychologyToday.com article today offers some things you can do.

A Letter to New Grads: Three Questions to Ask Yourself

Should you strive more for excellence or for work-life balance? It's hard to have both.

Should you strive for big bucks or might there be a wiser career choice for you?

How relationship-centered should you be?

These hard questions are important for all of us to ponder but especially so for people just starting out. I briefly explore them in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Making Your Education Career-Ready

Identical twins can attend the same college or graduate school, even take the same classes, and one can have much better career prospects. 

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer tips for how to make your or your loved one's higher education career-ready.

7 Tips for College and Graduate Students

Whether you’re off to college for the first time or a veteran of the final exam crams, seven reminders, which stray little from common sense, may be worth the quick read I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

The Case for Not Giving Grades

A University of Georgia professor is being ridiculed for offering a class in which students can give themselves any grade they want.

Predictably, that’s pointed to as the latest example of colleges’ dumbing-down so a college degree attests to little more than having paid all that money.

And certainly, legitimate arguments can be made in favor of grades. After all, few of us would go to work every day if we didn’t get paid. Grades are students’ pay. Indeed, most students do work harder and thus learn more if the course is graded.

But underdiscussed, a case can be made not only for allowing students to grade themselves but for eliminating grades except for on a comprehensive exam given before a bachelor's degree is awarded. I make the case in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

13 Societal Trends

In understanding and negotiating our fast-changing world, it may be helpful to recognize its major trends: My PsychologyToday.com article today offers 13.

Starting Out: You've graduated (or dropped out.) Now what?

You’ve graduated or dropped out. Either way, it’s your first September without the structure of school.  There’s no MWF 9-11 class to show up at (or cut.)

Now you’re supposed to be a grown-up. Now what? I offer a bit of advice in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

"Set for Life"

The newest of my short-short stories that embed life lessons tells of a farmworker who won the lottery.  It's my PsychologyToday.com contribution today.

The Future of Work

U.C. Berkeley has invited me back to give my second  lecture there that is open to the public.  This one is called, The Future of Work." The university is sponsoring it so it is free. It's at 6:30 PM on Sep 12. Click HERE for details.

Who Gets Our Stamp of Approval?

Whom should we admire? I take an unusual approach to this question in my PsychologyToday.com article. I look at some little-known people who were eminent enough to have their picture on a U.S. postage stamp.

7 Keys to Coping With a Loved One's Serious Illness

Michael Edelstein is a psychotherapist and my friend. I have been amazed at how well he’s coping with his wife having serious cancer and cardiovascular disease. In hopes there might be lessons for us all, I asked him how he does it. He described seven keys. I post them as my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Failure to Listen: A short-short story about suppression and commitment bias

My PsychologyToday.com article today is the latest of my short-short stories that embed life lessons. This one is about a person whose commitment bias prevented him from considering important advice.

Should You Rely Just on Word-of-Mouth? The case against marketing

Self-employed people who market themselves well and relentlessly will usually be more successful, at least financially, than will even higher-quality professionals who rely just on word-of-mouth.

Yet if you can afford the possible financial decrement, it may be wise to eschew marketing, except perhaps to create a mailing list of your clients and customers and periodically give them useful bits of free content ending with a low-key solicitation. Why?

I make the case in my PsychologyToday.com article today. 

Flailing: A short-short story about an attempt to remain relevant.

My PsychologyToday.com article today is another of my short-short stories that attempt to embed life lessons. This one's about a person's attempt to stay relevant.

Older and Scared: Marty Nemko at the Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Civic Center

Older and Scared: That's the career talk I'll be giving at the Koret Auditorium in the San Francisco Civic Center's main library, THIS Sat 10 AM: Click HERE for info.