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Inspıre
7 things you should say to your kids—
and 7 things you shouldn’t
T BY CYNTHIA DERMODY
The buzzer sounded in the gym in
Melbourne, Florida, and the basketball
game was over. Even though 12-year-
old C.J. Givens’s team had lost, his aunt
Melanie was ecstatic. C.J. had scored
every single one of his team’s 24
points—including a couple of three-
pointers. As he loped over to his fam-
ily waiting in the bleachers, the hugs
didn’t I do right?” His aunt couldn’t un-
derstand the boy’s reaction. She’d just
finished showering him with praise.
“The message C.J. got was that he
didn’t do enough,” explains child
psychologist Vicki Panaccione, PhD,
founder of the Better Parenting Insti-
tute in Melbourne. “His aunt was
telling him he was so fabulous, he
ILLUSTRATED BY MARK ULRIKSEN
6
you and bare her soul.” What you say “Make
sure you share.”
Y E S , B U T W H AT D I D Y O U R E A L LY T H I N K ?
Wired magazine has decidedly mixed opinions about a
particular high-end digital video camera on the market.
“It reminds us of Jessica Simpson,” reads the review.
“It’s hot but kind of annoying and a little slow.”
Critic Alan Bennett is no fan of Arianna Stassinopoulos
(aka Arianna Huffington). One of her books, he
complained, is “so boring, you fall asleep halfway
through her name.”
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