Parenting brings a whole new range of challenges to a marriage that weren’t there before kids came along, and you won’t always see eye to eye. Each parent has well established beliefs about how children should behave, how they should be treated, and what it means to be a good parent. A lot of this is informed by your own history – the example you had from your own parents. Your parenting is also influenced by your belief system, personality, and problem solving approach. So here you have two very different people needing to work together as a…
“Say sorry!” If you’re a parent, you’ve said those words. And maybe your child mumbled “sorry” and you left it at that. But is a mumbled apology, while staring at the ground, good enough? Let’s face it, apologising is not easy. It’s awkward, humbling, and downright hard sometimes. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean kids can’t learn to apologise well. It’s a life skill that will serve them well. How to teach kids to apologise Identify the offense Some kids say sorry just to get off the hook or because they…
“I’m bored. There’s nothing to do.” Don’t you just hate those words? They mean you have to come up with something for your kids to do – and you’re already busy and frazzled! What causes boredom? Generally, boredom is considered to be caused by not enough activity. We’ve heard the saying, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop”, and that’s true. We should be keeping our kids occupied with useful things. But, It’s not good for your kids to be so busy that they never have opportunity to feel bored. Most kids today…
Helping a child process grief and loss can be tough because they aren’t always able to express their thoughts and feelings verbally. A child’s grief may seem to come and go – one minute they’ll be crying, the next they’ll be playing. Some kids will be expressive of their feelings, others not. Some kids will re-experience the intensity of the loss as they grow up, especially during certain milestones in life such as starting school, going on a first date, graduating from college or getting married. How can you help your child process their grief…
Daniel 12:1 predicts a “time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation” that will take place just before the second coming of Jesus. Have you ever worried about how your kids will face that time? Will they be strong enough – physically, emotionally, and spiritually? These are the things that keep parents awake at night, the things that create fear in our hearts. These feelings are real, but while we can’t change prophecy or avoid what’s coming on the world, we can do all in our power to prepare for that time. If preparation…
There’s nothing that wears a parent down more than continuous whining. We ignore it hoping it will work but mostly we just give in and give our kids what they want to Make. It. Stop! Why do little kids whine? A 3-4 year old’s language skills are improving but they still don’t have the ability to express what they’re feeling – so they often whine instead. It’s an irritating blend of talking and crying. And the reason they continue doing it is because it works. They get what they want. They continue the behaviour that…
“All I can do is pray for them now.” I’m sure you’ve heard someone say this about their wayward child. Hey, maybe you’ve said it yourself. Richard and I have heard it many times (and said it ourselves), and, yes, it’s true, sometimes all we can do is pray for our kids. But we want to be praying the right kind of prayers for them. Powerful prayers. Prayers that make a difference. That sounds great, but prayers that make a difference start long before your knees hit the floor or your tears flood your pillow deep…
The world has changed a lot in the last 10 years. Our kids are being raised with unprecedented access to technology. If your kids have a smartphone, they carry the entire internet in their back pocket with all its knowledge and information, but also its pornography, cyberbullying, and creepy strangers. Do you know what your kids are doing online? It’s almost a guarantee that you don’t know half of what your child is being exposed to – either on their own technology, or that of their friends. Most kids aren’t being exposed to porn for the first…
Today I am disturbed. This week I’ve seen some awful things. The devil has an agenda for our kids, and it’s evil. Read here and here to see how the world is objectifying and sexualising children. (These articles are already 1 and 2 years old). I’m reluctant to share these because I prefer to focus on purity and beauty, but maybe you need a wake-up call. How do we protect our kids yet raise them to live in an evil world that is opposed to everything good and pure? In a world that presses its…