Where does peace begin? In the home! If we teach peaceful problem-solving to our children, they will bring those skills into the world. What do you think the world would be like if we had more compassionate leaders to promote world peace? Peace starts in the home and moves outward to the world.

Ahhh, the joys of air travel.

I just returned from a three-leg, five-day journey with my daughter, combining family and business on a trip I will cherish for the rest of my life. For those flying for business, a flight can be a time to catch up on work or catch up on sleep. For those traveling for pleasure, it can be a time to relax, begin the party, read, or catch up on some movies. But what about a flight for those traveling with kids?

A mom came to me in tears dreading the upcoming school year. Her 12-year-old daughter’s advanced-math skills have outstripped her own ‘barely-remembered-high-school-math’ abilities and she feels… well… stupid!

We parents today have demanding schedules, and we juggle multiple tasks all day long. There’s too much to do, and never enough time to do it. The bedtime routine often gets slotted as one more “thing to do” after which we can get on to yet another task on our never-ending to-do list.

I’d like to present you with a new way of looking at your child’s bedtime routine: as a wonderful opportunity for a nightly ritual of quiet connection and bonding. Sort of like a forced savings account – a daily slice of time out of a busy day, given to you so that you can bask in the joys of parenthood and build the foundation for a close lifetime relationship. Pretty heady stuff, when you look at it this way, isn’t it?