Over the last several days I have read a number of disparate articles that leave me alternately in despair and then with a smidgen of optimism about our society.

The October 20 th issue of Life Weekend Magazine featured Johanna Scheller's great interview of Annette Bening, a beautiful, famous, wealthy, talented actress and mother of four. Often we see only big egos and multi-dysfunctional lives in our so-called Hollywood Elites. But here is a 48 year woman who seems to be completely grounded in reality. She certainly understands the important fundamentals and responsibilities of child rearing, and opines that "I do think our current child-centric culture is not healthy for kids." (Gasp!) Imagine that.

When Bening's kids say they are bored, she responds, "You're bored? Figure it out. I'm not your entertainer. Go be bored." Rules in her house include No TV during the week, and a really great one - "fight nice." It seems to me that this is a household with rules, boundaries and limitations well established and accepted. Annette Bening is an "Alpha Female" or "pack leader."

Today (Sunday) in his article titled "The waxed generation," Michael Koenigs (Colorado Voices) laments that teenagers not only obsess about beauty, but also use extreme measures to achieve it. Unnatural standards of beauty portrayed in our mass media have, he describes, uniquely affected our younger generation with such programs as "Extreme Makeover," "The Swan," and "America's Next Top Model." These standards are affecting the behavior of boys and girls, leading to eating disorders, steroid use, liposuction and other extreme measures to achieve that perfect body. Koenigs adds, "Two girls I know in Colorado proudly received breast implants as high school graduation gifts from their parents." How, I ask, can our children learn to recognize realistic standards when parents reinforce their desire to achieve unrealistic ones? Where are the pack leaders when our teens need them the most?

If I were a Psychiatrist I would ask, "How does that make you feel?" - an appropriate question in today's world, where feelings have seemingly become so important, but self discipline and acceptance of responsibility are no longer in style. But take a deep breath as I describe the next article that attracted my attention.

Penny Parker's Saturday column in The Rocky Mountain News reported on the upcoming marriage and wedding reception of Chloe Farmer Smith to St. Andrew III. Chloe, you see is pregnant. The ceremony will take place at "the couple's favorite hotel." Catering will be by Three Dog Bakery. The bride will wear an ivory wedding dress and the groom a tuxedo with a red-plaid cummerbund. Wedding rings will be tied to the couples' collars. You see, they are Scotties. That is, they are dogs. The Alpha male and female in this household are the two Scotties.

Pardon me, for I have nothing against dogs, but this is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen. Pet owners who subject their pets to these extreme anthropomorphisms (see definition below) should book themselves into a kennel while their pets go on vacation. We should reconsider proposed Amendment 43 to the Colorado constitution "specifying that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage." This "wedding" may be fun for the dogs' owners and their kooky friends, but it is outrageously disrespectful to the pets.

At the point of almost complete despair, I came across Mary Winter's Home Talk column in the same newspaper discussing her neighborhood Certified Professional Dog Trainer, or "Dog Whisperer, as she likes to call her. Mary's Boston terrier exhibited very annoying behavior, jumping on her when she arrived home. Nothing she tried seem to have an effect on Daisy's bad habit. The Dog Whisperer taught Daisy proper pet etiquette by shaping her behavior with "positive reinforcement" and by "taking charge." Hmmm, now that's an idea.

TV celebrity and dog behaviorist Cesar Millan hosts a wildly popular TV series called "The Dog Whisperer," in which he rehabilitates badly behaved dogs by applying rules, boundaries and limitations to both the animals and their owners. He teaches dog owners to become "pack leaders." Could there be a lesson here for parents? Could the same methods be applied to children and families? Again I muse, "hmmmm?"

Most of us recall the movie "The Horse Whisperer." Robert Redford portrays a cowboy who took a traumatized horse and worked to gain its trust, slowly rehabilitating it to where it could be ridden again and lead a normal life. A Horse Whisperer is described as "a trainer who adopts a sympathetic view of the motives, needs and desires of a horse, based on modern equine psychology." That may sound like psycho-babble, but the point is, it seems to be effective not only in the movies but in real life.

These days we not only have Dog Whisperers and Horse Whisperers. There are Baby Whisperers among us. Melinda Blan has co-authored a best selling book called, "The Baby Whisperer Solves All of Your Problems." I kid you not. (No pun intended.) Blan's book suggests the revolutionary idea (meaning what we use to do as parents - but nobody does anymore) that establishing a routine for infants is imperative - for both the baby and the parents. "What works for adults is just as effective for infants," Blan says.

I am lead to the inescapable conclusion that there is a common thread here. A household has rules, boundaries and limitations. Positive reinforcement, taking charge, gaining trust, setting standards, establishing routines, actually works - on children, dogs, horses and babies? I propose that we locate a few common sense people who can adapt these basic principles, adopt them accordingly and apply them to adult human beings. Slowly but surely we can begin to positively change our dysfunctional society for the better by calling in the "People Whisperers."

Definition - Anthropomorphism: attributing human characteristics and qualities to non-human beings. Example: "The dogs were married at their favorite hotel!"