Monthly Archives: July 2009

Personality and Parenting: How your traits might affect your kids

Earlier this week, Dr. G wrote about the "Big Five" personality traits - five characteristics that have generally been accepted as the building blocks of personality. Coincidentally, the current issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology includes a ...

Read the full article »

To Have or Have Not: Psychoanalyst shares reasons not to have kids

The cover of the August 3 issue of Maclean's magazine (the Canadian equivalent of Time or Newsweek) presents, in large, bold type, "The Case Against Having Kids," noting that, 'They can hurt your career, your marriage, your social life, your bank book. Why bother?" The ...

Read the full article »

The "Big Five" Personality Traits. Who's in Your Family?

Philosophers and people in general have been interested in personality characteristics for many centuries. Over the past 30 years, psychologists have been able to arrive at a consensus regarding the main personality variables seen in most people. Factor analytic studies have led to a wide spread consensus around the belief ...

Read the full article »

Sibling Aggression: A Training Ground for Anti-Social Behaviour

Brothers and sisters learn a lot about relationships from their interactions with each other; on the Family Anatomy podcast, Dr. G and I have described the sibling relationship as a testing ground in which ...

Read the full article »

FA070 – Anatomy of Three Things

Doctors Brian and Giuseppe talk about three recent stories from the familyanatomy.com website, including: Food ads lead to snacking, and some portray drug-seeking behaviour Caffeine reduces memory loss, at least in ...

Read the full article »

Married Sex versus Single Sex. Which is Better?

Popular belief suggests that single people have more interesting, passionate and frequent sex than married people. Is this true? Sex surveys consistently indicate that married people have more sex than single people. One could conclude that, this fact alone, settles the question.  Presumably, if you are ...

Read the full article »

Tips to help your child cope with dentist & doctor fears

Lots of children feel afraid about visiting the dentist or getting an injection at the doctor's office. Although it's difficult to find statistics about the rates at which these fears occur, one Swedish study found that over 13% ...

Read the full article »

Teaching Children to Share Toys

In an earlier episode of Family Anatomy, Dr. Brian and I talked about sibling rivalry and how sharing toys gets played out in this context. Kids can become very attached to their toys. Many times, toys symbolize a sense of security. Young kids in particular ...

Read the full article »

Sharing bad news: Should parents talk to kids about their health?

When your doctor tells you that you have a serious medical condition, it's stressful. When you have kids, it can be even more so as you and your partner debate about how much the kids should know, along with when ...

Read the full article »

FA069 – Anatomy of Growing Up

Doctors Brian and Giuseppe talk about what parents go through as their kids grow up. You can't stop them from getting older, but does growing up necessarily mean letting go? Are you a parent who misses the baby stage, or do you become excited ...

Read the full article »