Latest news with #JerrySpringer
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Here's How to Deal with Sibling Rivalry, According to a Clinical Psychologist
As someone who grew up with four sisters and has two kids of my own who are roughly two years apart, I can tell you with some authority that sibling rivalry is rough…but if you're reading this then you probably already know that. But why are your kids turning your home into a Jerry Springer episode on the daily? And what the hell are you supposed to do about it? I spoke to a clinical psychologist to learn more about why this dynamic develops and get some advice on how to deal with sibling rivalry so, you know, all hell doesn't break loose. Here's what you need to know. Dr. Bethany Cook, PsyD, MT-BC, is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of For What It's Worth: A Perspective on How to Thrive and Survive Parenting. She's a sought-after therapist and quoted media expert who brings accessible, real-world guidance to families of all socioeconomic and mental health backgrounds, based on over 20 years of clinical experience in the Cook tells me that sibling rivalry is 'a perfectly normal side effect of kids sharing the same parental resources,' but the psychological reasons for it, as outlined below, are rather complicated. One of the widely accepted explanations for sibling rivalry comes from Alfred Adler, who argued that kids jockey for parental time and validation to avoid feelings of inferiority. This dynamic is exacerbated by factors such as social comparison and self-evaluation: 'Kids measure themselves against their closest peer group—often a brother or sister—using successes and failures to calibrate their own worth,' explains Dr. Cook. The expert also tells me that Parental Differential Treatment (PDT) is often a factor. This is when there are differences in the amount of warmth and/or the kind of discipline and privileges the siblings receive, and 'even small discrepancies have been shown to reliably predict more conflict and resentment between siblings.' To make matters even more complicated, Dr. Cook says that 'individual differences in impulsivity, emotional reactivity, and social skills mean some dyads ignite more easily than others.' Bottom line: There are factors that you can control (i.e., try to be consistent with how you treat your children) and ones that you can't—like the fact that siblings are hardwired to compare and compete. Plus, our love for our children is limitless, but some resources (like time!) are actually scarce…and they know it. Jose LuisAccording to the expert, collaborative parenting has its merits. 'Instead of deciding who's 'right,' guide children to negotiate and find mutually acceptable solutions. Teach them to state feelings, propose fixes and compromise,' advises Dr. Cook. In other words, I probably shouldn't have settled my kids' morning argument by snatching the remote from my older one and telling her that I know she never lets her brother have a chance to watch what he wants, before handing the remote over to him. Instead, I should have said something like: 'Oh no, you guys are fighting over the TV again. Why don't you take turns telling each other how you're feeling and what you want, and see if you can come up with a solution that feels fair?' Choke down that outrage when bad behavior surfaces. Per Dr. Cook, 'emotions are catchy—if you keep your cool, the kids will cool down faster and the fight will fizzle out.' (Psst: you can find some more advice on how to keep your cool here.) In order to be an effective teacher in this department, you will need to have mastered tip #2 first. Remember that kids are still developing emotional regulation skills and the best way you can help them is by modeling it yourself. 'Practice labeling feelings, deep-breathing or taking a pause before reengaging. And grab the feelings wheel if needed,' says Dr. Cook, adding that you should do this on your own and with your kids when conflicts arise. Not all rules can be the same across the board. After all, you are parenting two or more different people with distinct needs and abilities. That said, the expert advises that you 'explain your reasoning for any rule differences (i.e., later bedtime for teens) and offer comparable one-on-one time to each child.' RichVintage/Getty Images 'Give siblings a shared goal—building a fort, baking, completing a puzzle—so that success depends on collaboration,' says Dr. Cook. I'm not going to lie: I got chills when I heard this bit of advice—namely because my kids are currently fighting so much that I avoid collaborative projects like the plague. But I'll give it another go one day when I'm in a really, really peaceful, happy place. The expert emphasizes the importance of 'highlighting each child's unique interests and abilities, while avoiding labels like 'the smart one' or 'the athletic one.'' And if children have similar areas of interest, that's great, too…but you might have to make an effort to ensure that they each get to explore and develop that interest at their own pace without unwanted interference from a sibling. It's basically therapy 101: I feel…when you…could we? 'Simple say-it-like-this phrases give kids an easy way to speak up without hitting or yelling—and they give parents a ready-made script, since most of us are winging it, too,' says Dr. Cook. AJ_Watt/Getty Images The expert recommends that you clearly state non-negotiable rules (i.e., no hitting, no name-calling, etc.) and come up with logical consequences, ideally before the breach has occurred, that are consistently applied to everyone. Let's be real, it's very difficult to perfectly divide your attention between children on a day-to-day basis. For this reason, Dr. Cook suggests that you carve out alone time with each child in a way that works for your schedule. 'One-on-one time fills each child's attention tank, so they don't have to compete for it.' Finally, if sibling rivalry is chronic or violent, the expert recommends that you seek professional help in the form of a solutions-focused therapist (i.e., Strategic Family Therapy) who can help realign patterns. It is absolutely possible to deal with sibling rivalry, though Dr. Cook advises parents to think in terms of less chaos, not no conflict. 'Research reviews consistently find that when parents learn mediation skills and kids practice social skills training, sibling fights happen less often and get less intense, and those improvements stick around over time.' In other words, the buck stops with you, friend. Help! I Can't Compliment One of My Children Without the Other One Getting *Super* Jealous
New York Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Democrats Must Embrace Their Inner Jerry Springer
Given that Hollywood is often caricatured as a hotbed of liberalism, it's surprising that Republicans seem so much better than Democrats at the showbiz side of politics. Two Republican presidents have stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: Presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, as does the former Republican governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yet among liberals there persists a sense that running celebrities for public office is somehow déclassé, cynical or simply not something a serious party does. The Democrats need to reckon with a new reality: The electorate wants to be entertained. Instead of continuing to run highly credentialed political lifers, the party needs to embrace the idea of the celebrity candidate — and find someone with sincerely-held progressive beliefs, sky-high name recognition and experience winning over the kinds of voters who've supported the MAGA movement. In other words, they need to find someone like Jerry Springer. Mr. Springer, who died in 2023, is best known for his gleefully distasteful TV show, which for nearly three decades featured a parade of cheating spouses, incestuous siblings and rowdy strippers who routinely erupted in brutal onstage brawls. With his glasses, jacket and tie, Mr. Springer would hang back at a safe distance, an unlikely instigator standing amid a jeering crowd and politely asking questions. Yes, that Jerry Springer should serve as a model for the kind of standard-bearer Democrats should be looking for: a professionally famous person with an intuitive grasp of attention, a flair for drama and conflict, and a proven ability to communicate with a broad audience regardless of its political affiliations. As a celebrity, Mr. Springer had none of the glamour of, say, a Beyoncé, a George Clooney or a Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson — some of the names occasionally mentioned as possible political recruits. But that's the point. For Democrats, the issue of being perceived as talking down to voters is one that the party continues to struggle with. Many of the voters who improbably regard Mr. Trump, a gilded billionaire, as an everyman with a common touch, cheered for Mr. Springer because he seemed relatable and never condescending. That kind of figure, coupled with a talent for showmanship, might prove a recipe for success now, even more so than it did for Mr. Springer during the political career he began in advance of rising to fame as a talk-show host. Before Mr. Springer became an icon of bad taste, and before his name — Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! — became a kind of tawdry war cry, he had a promising career in government. He was an idealistic and ambitious progressive reformer elected to office in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the 1970s as a city councilman. He appealed to countercultural college students and blue-collar workers alike. During his time in City Hall, he opposed the Vietnam War, led a successful campaign to create a city-owned bus system and advocated reforms at the local jail. He resigned from the City Council in 1974, following a prostitution scandal — a seeming career ender at the time, though one he came back from, successfully reclaiming his seat and then serving as mayor of Cincinnati. Both his political gifts and his nose for spectacle would contribute to his rise as a big-tent TV celebrity. That tent included many of the kind of people Hillary Clinton would later label 'deplorables,' an infamous slight. Even as his studio audience — and many critics — sneered at Mr. Springer's guests and judged him for putting them on his televised circus, he always managed to seem genuinely interested in them: their feelings, their decisions and occasionally their hopes for the future. After Mr. Springer ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in the Ohio governor's race in 1982, he essentially stumbled into a career in media — first as a pundit delivering commentaries on the news, then as an Emmy-winning evening news anchor, then, starting in 1991, as the host of a daytime talk show focused on current affairs and human interest stories. After a stretch of incurably low ratings, 'The Jerry Springer Show' began its transformation into the shocking free-for-all that we remember, and he became an international celebrity. But he spent the rest of his life looking for ways to get back into politics, even as his infamy made the prospect less viable. He seriously explored running for statewide office again in Ohio during three separate election cycles, starting around the time of his show's commercial peak in the late 1990s. He found that neither voters nor party leaders were willing to look past his TV show: A University of Cincinnati poll in 2003 found that he had an unfavorability rating of 71 percent. Many found the idea of Mr. Springer in the Senate not just implausible but offensive. Representative Ted Strickland, who would later become Ohio's governor, denounced Mr. Springer as someone 'who abuses damaged, vulnerable people for his own purpose' and swore he'd never share a stage with him. Mr. Springer ended up not running in 2003, channeling his passion for politics into a radio show on Air America, the short-lived experiment in progressive talk radio. His radio show — on which he talked about issues like abortion, the death penalty and public education — aired alongside that of another entertainer turned political aspirant: the former 'Saturday Night Live' comedian and future senator from Minnesota, Al Franken. It was in 2017, the year after Mr. Trump's election, that Mr. Springer and his inner circle of supporters thought perhaps his moment had finally come, and they began kicking the tires on a campaign for governor of Ohio. If Americans could be convinced to vote for one famous guy they'd seen on a cheesy TV show, why wouldn't they embrace another? As Mr. Springer said of Mr. Trump, 'His constituency is basically mine. These are fans of the show.' Several of Mr. Springer's advisers told me that, in a general election, they had no doubt he would have won the Ohio statehouse, by bringing home the kinds of lifelong Democratic voters who had switched to Mr. Trump in 2016. An Ohio State senator, Bill DeMora, told me of Springer fans: 'They related to somebody like Jerry Springer, because he talked to them, not down to them.' In hindsight, Mr. Springer's story lends credence to the notion that politics and entertainment have more in common than we like to admit. If nothing else, Democrats must get past their aversion to the unseriousness of celebrity and treat it as a selling point, not a stumbling block. Why not Oprah Winfrey? Or the ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith? Or the 'Shark Tank' personality and billionaire Mark Cuban? Just pick someone who's willing to run, who's good at their job, and who lots of people like. Democrats would do well not to let the next Jerry Springer slip away.
The Guardian
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Jerry Springer's scandalous backstory laid bare: best podcasts of the week
Long before he was a chatshow titan, Jerry Springer was a plucky young politician who held the post of mayor of Cincinnati before setting his sights on the state of Ohio at large. Slow Burn's Leon Neyfakh goes all the way back to those beginnings for this nine-part series, marrying excellent journalism with some unbelievable source material – not least when it comes to Springer's 70s sex scandal. Hannah J DaviesAudible, all episodes out now Listener discretion is advised as Yinka Bokinni examines legal cases where the perpetrators – often well-liked and respected in their fields – offended in plain sight. The first is about paedophile football coach Barry Bennell, with insight from Ian Ackley, whom he abused, and experts who explain how his crimes went undetected. HJD Audible, all episodes out now The snappy satirical mystery series returns with a new case in the fictional Beavertown – where residents are unfailingly nice, in that famously Canadian way, despite the bonkers crime rate. In the first episode, Frenchie, an ice-hockey rink cleaner, is arrested for murder. Hollie Richardson Widely available, episodes weekly Actor Paul McGann hosts this podcast about the world's most infamous shipwreck, featuring contributions from his brother Stephen. Both are nephews of a Liverpudlian named Jimmy McGann, who survived the disaster. They build a vivid picture of nautical near-misses and class separation that contradicts Hollywood's more romanticised version of events. HJD Widely available, episodes weekly Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion 'I try really hard to maintain my control,' says Kellie from Utah of her rocky relationship with money. This series is perfect for nosy parkers, with producer Courtney Harrell dissecting one American's spending each week. It's sensitive, too, particularly when it comes to topics such as mounting credit card and student debt. HJD Widely available, episodes weekly
Sydney Morning Herald
30-04-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
It's a Morrison slug so awful that Dr Evil would be proud. Labor won't touch it
Its stated intent was that by doubling the student fees for arts, communications and social science degrees, hiking by 28 per cent the cost of law and business degrees and halving the fees for science and engineering, it would provide a price signal to shift prospective students into courses whose graduates were in higher job-market demand. Loading University records show declining arts enrolments and increasing science and engineering enrolments were trends occurring before the changes were introduced. The review found the policy barely shifted a soul. While providing no discernible benefit to the national economy or higher education funding, it saddled arts students with debt disproportionate to their likely future earnings. 'The review finds that this deterrent approach did not work and is in fundamental conflict with the need to grow the number of people with higher education qualifications significantly to meet the nation's future skills needs,' the accord review concluded. Despite this, Labor is not promising to immediately scrap the changes if re-elected. Instead, the Albanese government is offering to wipe 20 per cent off all HECS debts, regardless of when you finished your degree, what you studied and how much you owe. The federal opposition, for reasons that would take a Jerry Springer episode to interrogate, is having none of it. It insists that reducing the debt of people with university degrees, even those working in relatively low-paying jobs, is elitist. Monash Business School professor of higher education policy Andrew Norton says unwinding the impact of the changes, both on the cost to students and funding for universities, requires complex, politically sensitive surgery. He notes that the structure of the policy, which he describes as 'conceptually, a very untidy package' makes it difficult to remove without unintended consequences. If Labor is re-elected, this future task will fall to the Albanese government's proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission. Norton is cautious about what to expect from a government commission but says it is only fair for students and graduates at the sharp end of the fee hikes to get some relief in the meantime. Labor's approach to this fraught area of public policy is typically incremental and risk-averse. Nonetheless, it is difficult to see how a once-off offer to slice 20 per cent off government student loans can hurt its re-election prospects. Loading At the start of this week, this masthead's elegantly understated chief political correspondent David Crowe reported a series of figures that should make Tehan and his fellow Morrison-era survivors blanch. They show that a clutch of seats the Coalition must win to have any chance of forming government – Kooyong, Chisholm, Menzies and Goldstein in Victoria, Ryan in Queensland and Werriwa in NSW – are in the top dozen electorates nationally for people with HECS debts. In Kooyong, where Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer is trying to dislodge teal MP Monique Ryan, there are nearly 22,000 people under the age of 35 with HECS debts averaging $31,299. When you add parents or grandparents living in the electorate who don't want their kids lumbered with big debts at the start of their working lives, that is a sizeable chunk of voters. In Tehan's seat of Wannon, an electorate that stretches from the western edge of Greater Geelong all the way to the South Australian border, there are 13,920 voters with a combined HECS debt of $324 million. In a local contest where independent candidate Alex Dyson is pushing the Liberals to the brink, Tehan is opposing a policy that would instantly wipe $64 million off the debts of his electors.
The Age
30-04-2025
- Business
- The Age
It's a Morrison slug so awful that Dr Evil would be proud. Labor won't touch it
Its stated intent was that by doubling the student fees for arts, communications and social science degrees, hiking by 28 per cent the cost of law and business degrees and halving the fees for science and engineering, it would provide a price signal to shift prospective students into courses whose graduates were in higher job-market demand. Loading University records show declining arts enrolments and increasing science and engineering enrolments were trends occurring before the changes were introduced. The review found the policy barely shifted a soul. While providing no discernible benefit to the national economy or higher education funding, it saddled arts students with debt disproportionate to their likely future earnings. 'The review finds that this deterrent approach did not work and is in fundamental conflict with the need to grow the number of people with higher education qualifications significantly to meet the nation's future skills needs,' the accord review concluded. Despite this, Labor is not promising to immediately scrap the changes if re-elected. Instead, the Albanese government is offering to wipe 20 per cent off all HECS debts, regardless of when you finished your degree, what you studied and how much you owe. The federal opposition, for reasons that would take a Jerry Springer episode to interrogate, is having none of it. It insists that reducing the debt of people with university degrees, even those working in relatively low-paying jobs, is elitist. Monash Business School professor of higher education policy Andrew Norton says unwinding the impact of the changes, both on the cost to students and funding for universities, requires complex, politically sensitive surgery. He notes that the structure of the policy, which he describes as 'conceptually, a very untidy package' makes it difficult to remove without unintended consequences. If Labor is re-elected, this future task will fall to the Albanese government's proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission. Norton is cautious about what to expect from a government commission but says it is only fair for students and graduates at the sharp end of the fee hikes to get some relief in the meantime. Labor's approach to this fraught area of public policy is typically incremental and risk-averse. Nonetheless, it is difficult to see how a once-off offer to slice 20 per cent off government student loans can hurt its re-election prospects. Loading At the start of this week, this masthead's elegantly understated chief political correspondent David Crowe reported a series of figures that should make Tehan and his fellow Morrison-era survivors blanch. They show that a clutch of seats the Coalition must win to have any chance of forming government – Kooyong, Chisholm, Menzies and Goldstein in Victoria, Ryan in Queensland and Werriwa in NSW – are in the top dozen electorates nationally for people with HECS debts. In Kooyong, where Liberal candidate Amelia Hamer is trying to dislodge teal MP Monique Ryan, there are nearly 22,000 people under the age of 35 with HECS debts averaging $31,299. When you add parents or grandparents living in the electorate who don't want their kids lumbered with big debts at the start of their working lives, that is a sizeable chunk of voters. In Tehan's seat of Wannon, an electorate that stretches from the western edge of Greater Geelong all the way to the South Australian border, there are 13,920 voters with a combined HECS debt of $324 million. In a local contest where independent candidate Alex Dyson is pushing the Liberals to the brink, Tehan is opposing a policy that would instantly wipe $64 million off the debts of his electors.
