Marriage Straight Talk

Parenting Together

Raising kids is where two people find out they were never quite on the same page. These pages are about the parenting side of the partnership: discipline, play, development, and getting the two of you working as one team the kids can read.

• 10 Pieces of Marriage Advice for Cultural Differences

  What really collides when two cultures marry, and the 10 things I tell couples to do about it.

• Are You Ready to Play With Your Kids?

  The morning I played the dead king in Hamlet, why adults quietly stop playing, and what that does to a marriage.

• The Benefits of Play for Kids in Miami

  What play actually does for a child, how to do it in Miami for free, and the part about your marriage that nobody mentions.

• Discipline Tips for Miami Parents

  Why the two of you disagreeing about discipline is the actual problem, and the rules you can both hold at the same time.

• Build a Family Alliance in Your Marriage

  The two of you as one unit in front of the kids, the in laws, and the outside world, and the specific places that alliance usually breaks.

• Child Development and Your Marriage

  The disagreement about what your child needs is the disagreement about your marriage. Where the instincts come from, what children do with the gap, and how to decide.

• Marriage Problems After a Baby

  The honest version of what changes after a baby, why the usual advice misses it, and the small number of things that actually move the needle.

• When Your Kid Brings You a Problem

  The live moment, handled: the question that sorts every complaint, the handoff between the two of you, and the rule about never overruling each other in the room.

• Teaching Kids to Solve Their Own Problems

  Letting kids work out their own conflicts, and what to do when the two of you cannot agree on when to intervene.

• How to Improve Children's Social Skills

  Why children's social habits are a marriage subject, what they are actually copying, and where a coach stops and a licensed professional starts.

• Marriage Problems During Pregnancy

  Why the pregnancy months strain a marriage, the four fights that show up in almost every one, and what belongs with a licensed professional.

• Balancing Career and Marriage Life

  Why the marriage always loses to the calendar, what leftover attention actually feels like on the receiving end, and the small number of things that fix it.

• Weaponized Incompetence in Marriage

  The pattern where doing a job badly gets you out of the job. What it is, why it runs mostly one direction in houses with small children, and how to end it.