As their kid became more sensitive, especially when he was around our kids, the parents saw our boys as bullies. They sought out advice from other parents. Without knowing our kids, other parents told them to jump in immediately to intervene when their kid being bullied.

Instead of coming to us to raise their concerns about our kids, they took it upon themselves to deal with our kids. If they were to use the opportunity to teach them about bullying then I would have appreciated their effort. Instead they immediately jumped to defend their boy whenever he got upset. At first they raised their voice a little. When my kid said “You are mean,” their kid didn’t get a chance to respond, the mother replied, “He is not mean. How is he mean? That’s not nice to say.” Although I did notice the tone was a bit upsetting, I did not respond. Then it continued to escalate to yelling and grabbing. In retrospect, I should have spoken up. I have too much respect for them and I didn’t want to cause any friction within the family.

Their interventions did not helped their kid because he learned that his parents will defend him no matter what he did. As he got more sensitive, the attacks gotten more vicious to our kids to the point that I needed to straighten up the parents even if it has to fracture our relationships.

Now that we recognized the issue, I hope that we can work together to help the kids have a better, friendlier relationship. Family gathering should be fun, not stressful. They are at the age now that they can play on their own. I don’t want to have to hover them all the time to make sure that no one is crying or upsetting. Since they haven’t beat each other to the pulp yet, we can still help them overcome their conflicts. We just need to step back and give them space.

The title of Segura’s latest Netflix special should be a warning. From retarded to squinting to porn, his jokes are disgraceful yet brilliant. His dark comic isn’t for everyone, but if you are open to controversial topics, you’ll love it. Watch it now before Netflix removes it.

Want to see some extremely fucked up stock photography? Follow @darkstockphotos.

Adam Gopnik:

Child rearing is an art, and what makes art art is that it is doing several things at once. The trick is accepting limits while insisting on standards. Character may not be malleable, but behavior is. The same parents can raise a dreamy, reflective girl and a driven, competitive one—the job is not to nurse her nature but to help elicit the essential opposite: to help the dreamy one to be a little more driven, the competitive one to be a little more reflective.

Gopnik concludes:

Nothing works in child rearing because everything works. If kids are happy and absorbed, in the flow, that’s all we can ask of them, in Berlin or in Brooklyn. Nothing works in the long run, but the mistake lies in thinking that the long run is the one that counts.

When a parent got upset, grabbed your son’s arm, and spoke to your kid in an angry tone, you needed to address it. For the sake of family relationship, I had stayed silence, but the progression has escalated. As soon as their kid got upset, the parents rushed in to defend. I had no problem if the parents use the moment to teach the kids about conflict. I have a problem when the parents defended their own kid by yelling at the other kids. My concern is when the parents get upset, yelling, and then grabbing. What’s next? Punching? Even though I understand that the family dynamics will change forever, I needed to intervene to avoid the violence.

I proposed that all of the parents take a step back and let the kids work out the conflicts themselves. If they can play together then they can solve the issues together. At age 6 to 8, they can communicate among themselves. When they get out of hand then we would step in. Stepping in doesn’t mean yelling or grabbing the other kids and defend your own.

I want the kids to work things out themselves and not having to depend on the parents. The other parent didn’t agree because he felt that his kid always got picked on. Isn’t the whole point for the parents to step back is to let the kids learn to defend themselves? We can’t be there for our kids every second. If the parents want to defend their own kid then I would have to step in as well. The kids’ conflicts then become the family’s conflicts. That would be ugly.

I understand that the love and the emotional attachment make it hard for the parents to step back. We are in the age of “my child is above all.” I have assessed my own emotion to see if my feeling has taken over my thinking and reasoning. Am I being too dramatic over the situation? I have come to the conclusion that I am not because I am fine with letting the kids handle their own issues. I am fine with letting the parents handle the situation fairly. I am not OK with the parents yelling and grabbing the other kids in order to defend their own. The line is drawn when the adults can’t control their emotion and get upset with the other kids. Adult can get upset, but they simply can’t channel their angriness on the kids.

Since we could not come to an agreement and the other parent could not offer any suggestion, the temporary solution is avoid conflicts. I don’t want to separate the kids because they have been together since they were born, but it is better than becoming a family issue. We can change the kids, but we can’t change the parents.

Through his observations and interactions with his daughter, Crystal tries to make sense of the English grammar. It’s fascinating to see how his daughter progressed from using one word at age two to forming complete sentences as she grew older. Unfortunately, I don’t get anything out of it as far as making sense of the rules of English grammar. If you want to learn the technicality of grammar, this is not the right book.

I was excited to see an Asian comedian on Netflix. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. Malaysian Harith Iskander’s jokes, which range from girlfriend to parents, are shallow and mundane. I could only get through half the the special before giving up. Sorry Harith, I wish you told me so.

The seventy-something bully is so stupid that he is getting fucked by a little thirty-something White Supremacist without even realizing it. The little White Supremacist pays the big stupid bully some compliments on TV and he does everything the little guy tells him to do. It’s really a damn shame the way one of the greatest countries in the world operates nowadays. If the government can’t get its act together then it needs to get shutdown. I am counting by the minute to the midterm election.

Annie Pfeifer:

Kids don’t live in a bubble, so why do we try to shelter them from conflict? One of the earliest lessons you learn at school is about the boundless cruelty of other children. And that bullies can win. Yet contrary to these early playground lessons in realpolitik, children are consistently taught to avoid conflict by well-meaning parents, teachers and caregivers because that’s how we want the world to work. We raise our children in gilded playpens, shielding them from criticism and alternative views.

Mr. Trump has convinced me to give my daughter some tough love. To expose her to critical opinions, to make her listen to views she might not like or agree with. I don’t want her to lose it when somebody like Donald Trump is elected. More than anything, I want her to be able to defend herself and fight back.

I want my daughter to learn to say no confidently and unapologetically. Dealing with conflict is also about standing up for yourself as a woman, whether a man is talking over you at a meeting or trying to engage in unwanted sexual behavior. If we learn early how to have difficult or uncomfortable conversations up front, we don’t need others to fill in the gaps, make our decisions or read our minds. But if we can’t stand up to conflict, we risk becoming the snowflakes that the Donald Trumps and the wagging tongues on the right make us out to be.

Great parenting advice. I need to have this uncomfortable conversation with the parents. We need to backoff and let the kids work out their conflicts. They are old enough now to communicate on their own without our intervention. As parents, we tend to be emotional when our kids cry even for nothing critical.

Quyển sách ảnh của nhạc sĩ Quốc Bảo chia sẻ những điều bé nhỏ của Sài Gòn qua ống kính của anh. Từ quán cóc đến quán cà phê Jaspas, từ hoa vàng đến lá xanh, từ mưa đến nắng, Sài Gòn là đời sống là tình yêu của Quốc Bảo. Tuy một bức ảnh nói lên được một ngàn chữ, những dòng tâm sự bổ sung thêm nét đẹp và cảm tình cho ảnh. Văn xuôi tiếng Việt của Quốc Bảo thì vẫn nhẹ nhàng và giản dị. Phần tiếng Anh thì còn rườm rà và ngượng nghịu. Như tựa đề của sách sao phải là The Saigon of Mine mà không ngắn gọn là My Saigon? Với cá nhân tôi thì hình ảnh của Quốc Bảo không đem lại ấn tượng lắm. Phải chi tác giả viết nhiều chữ Việt hơn (và khỏi cần tiếng Anh) thì đỡ thất vọng. Dù sao thì cũng cám ơn một người thân đã mang sách từ Việt Nam sang Mỹ tặng.