What is the difference between love and acceptance? Between disease and personality? Between difference and identity? Andrew Solomon takes up these and other questions in this moving talk on the challenges that face parents of extraordinary children – extraordinarily different, bright, difficult, and more. But as you listen, you’ll realize he is speaking about all parents, all whose destiny is held captive by the fate and fortunes of their children. Based on the research and interviews he conducted for this remarkable book Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity, Solomon challenges us to reconsider the ideals we...

“You can do this yourself.” These were the five words I most disliked hearing from my parents. Oh, I know, you can probably think of five worse words to hear. But these words meant that something I had asked them to do for me got turned around into something I had to do for myself. And that, obviously, wasn’t what I wanted. If I had wanted to do it myself, I wouldn’t have asked them to do it in the first place! Like calling a coach to ask why I wasn’t playing as much as I thought I should be. Or settling an argument with a sibling. Or asking someone for a job. The very point of my asking is that these were things that...

Ask most parents what they most hope for their child, and one of the immediate answers will be that we want our children to be happy. Sometimes that’s intensified, as in, “While I hope they find a good job and lead a good life, all I really want is for my child is happy.” That goal and desire, as Jennifer Senior explains, is so ingrained in current parenting culture that we don’t even question it. But maybe we should. Just as we were willing to ask whether happiness is a goal or a by-product, so also might we question what the primary role, responsibility and goal of parenting is. Because if you believe that...

Parents do a lot of things. We try to teach our children values. We provide them with home, clothing, education, and more. We protect them whenever necessary and possible and – often much harder – try to let them to struggle when that seems more important. And, of course and most importantly, we love them…deeply, truly, more than they will ever know until they have children of their own. But I wonder if another thing we do – whether we know it or not – is also frame the world for them, provide them with a sense of what is possible and real, and prepare them to accept — or reject — the terms of the world in which they...

I don’t have a lot to say about the following poem. Sometimes that’s the only fit response when you encounter sheer wisdom. There is nothing say, just a great deal to ponder. William Martin’s counsel isn’t only for parents to children, I believe, but for all of us. For how can we give or ask for that which we haven’t experienced ourselves. And so before we can invite our children to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, we ourselves need to practice that discipline. A meal cooked by a friend. The quiet fidelity of a spouse. A warm fire to banish for a moment the chill of winter. A good book. A shoulder to cry on. A hand to...