We've all got to remember to pick our battles carefully, to be prepared to lose small ones, and to hold out for big ones.

Hard though it may be to accept, remember that guilt is sometimes a friendly internal voice reminding you that you're messing up.

Parents, whether or not we believe in a deity, know that to witness a child's mind searching for meaning is a miracle.

One of the silliest lines ever said in a feature film came from Love Story, the 1970s hit, which immortalized the phrase, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." There are few people who would actually want to share a life with someone who held that concept near and dear.

We've all got to remember to pick our battles carefully, to be prepared to lose small ones, and to hold out for big ones.

Too-broad questions, such as, "What's on your mind?" are apt to be answered "nothing" nearly one hundred percent of the time. Be careful of slipping into ""psycho-speak," however. Kids pick up instantly your attempt at being a pseudo-shrink. Most resent it and are apt to tune out anything that sounds like you're reading a script from the latest child-psychology text.

Our kids are not here to comfort us, to entertain us, or to validate us. Those things need to come from ourselves and from other adults.