I have shared my feelings about the death of my father, the struggle to save my marriage and the daily ins and outs of my family life. Now with sadness, and not a little relief, it is time to say goodbye

Running a successful household requires kindness, respect, intimacy, shared meals, phone-free times – and the ability to improvise

Women are more unhappy than men, and men are blamed for this. But perhaps men aren’t the real culprits

Mistreatment of reindeer and elves, phallocentric crackers and sexually suggestive wreaths – Christmas has to be stopped

The 25th on your own can be the loneliest day. Just make sure you’re good to yourself

We need to take responsibilty for our mistakes in choosing our partner rather than simply justifying it to ourselves

We should stop telling kids how wonderful they are and instead teach them to accept life’s injustices and become resilient adults

Couples who live apart together appear to be on the increase. We did it for two years and it didn’t achieve its objective, but it was a worthwhile experiment

A plan to open a school with annual fees of £2,700 sounds superficially appealing – it wouldn’t be a place just for the rich

The classical Greek idea of learning how to live a good life by studying ideas is one we should adopt – but only if we put the right thinkers on the curriculum

Raising kids can be difficult, worrying and upsetting for all concerned – but life is about more than the pursuit of happiness

Remote Scottish islands and monocultural English villages lack the nourishing racial diversity and cultural richness that big cities offer

Goody bags, glossy brochures – these events are more about making a corporate sales pitch than addressing the gritty realities of education

Naming children is tricky. Now a Swiss company will do it for you – for a fee. Meanwhile, I’m just grateful my parents didn’t call me Sixtus or Cyanide

We need to teach children that an element of risk in everyday life is inescapable, and how rare terrible events such as those in Las Vegas are, to establish some kind of resilience

As a victim of bullying at school and at home, I think the best way to prevent it is to use the same peer pressure that brings it about

I’m fine with schools suggesting ‘We hope for peace among all nations’, but ‘We trust and obey our government’ sounds like very un-British sucking up, writes Tim Lott

Their parents are concerned with providing food and shelter, and ‘class migration’ means those kids who do well feel alienated from their birth culture

Buddha wasn’t exactly an attentive father and Jesus wasn’t big on family. Muhammad seems to have been the most impressive dad

Children who are unloved by their parents often try to please them with the aim of winning their approval – a recipe for depression later in life