Discipline that Connects™: Four Powerful Messages All Kids Long to Hear
0This post is part of a series on “Discipline That Connects™: Four Powerful Messages All Kids Long to Hear”. Over the next four weeks we will expand on four powerful messages that parents can focus on as Biblical goals when discipline challenges hit the fan. …
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What if We’re Doing It All Backwards?
This post is the first in the series “Discipline that Connects™: Four Powerful Messages All Kids Long to Hear.” Jeni wants her ten-year-old, Timmy, to be more obedient and responsible. What parent doesn’t want this? So when Timmy disobeys, and doesn’t take responsibility to clean …
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What’s Your Child Really Saying?
It was the first warm day of spring in Minnesota, which usually means MUD. The ground was still soggy from the snow melt, but the air was clean and fresh and the flowers were just beginning to peek through the soil. I was outside with two of our three kids…
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“How Do I Get My Kids to Do What I Want?”
“No matter how hard you try, you simply cannot control another person’s behavior. You can only influence it.” ~Dr. Scott Larson from “When Teens Stray” Parents often ask us, “How do I get my kid to do what I want them to do?” This question …
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Regroup & Resolve: How Humble Pie Can Help Your Family
Every parent fails to deal perfectly with every parenting situation. In other words, we all screw up sometimes! Along the way we’ve discovered that what’s far more important than handling every parenting situation perfectly is to regroup, and resolve well. For it’s in resolving well …
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The Best Plan for Teaching Faith!
We had it all figured out. With strong desire to be more intentional about teaching faith at home, we’d put together a little lesson plan for a family Bible study. Complete with some fun object lessons and activities, it was sure to be a hit! …
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What to Do When We Blow Up
As hard as we try to parent like God would, we are human, and sometimes we mess up. We lose our cool, we speak harshly, or sometimes we even blow up at our kids. See how one mom handled her blow-up: The boys wouldn’t stop …
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Did God Spank Moses?
The story of Moses at the burning bush is (thanks to Cecil DeMille and Charlton Heston) one of the most famous stories in the Old Testament (see Exodus 3 & 4). But have you ever read it as an example of parenting? In the story, …
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The Power of Questions: One Child’s Surprise Solution for Misbehavior
When kids misbehave, parents are often quick to impose consequences. We’ve found that when parents instead ask kids questions about how they want help, the kids often come up with some pretty cool ideas. When they contribute to solutions, children are much more likely to …
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How to Deal with an Attention Addict
Recently, on a weekend when all our kids were home, we dug out the family videos for a trip down memory lane (or, in the case of our daughter-in-law, a crash-course in Jackson family history). Their antics were rather hilarious – particularly their clumsy attempts …
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What’s REALLY Behind Kids’ Misbehavior?
Have you ever noticed that some kids argue more persuasively than others? Or that some kids’ schemes are actually quite creative? Or that some kids’ resistance to our requests is so persistent that we actually give in to them sometimes?
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Would Jesus Spank?
We learned quickly in our home that not every child responds well to spanking. When we spanked our intense son Daniel he would glare daggers at us defiantly as if to say, “What good does hitting me do?” His spirit wasn’t “breaking” the way the …
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To Spank or Not to Spank?
We often get asked, “What about spanking?” Recently it was by a parent who had explained to her pastor that her daughter’s behavior was really frustrating and difficult. She told us that the pastor’s advice was brief and to the point. He said, “When she …
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The Joy of Family Chores: A Tale of Two Moms
In a family, we all need each other. We are a team, and we share in the responsibility of the household. “God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be” (1 Cor. 12:18). Each child …
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Are We Teaching Our Kids to Bully?
I saw her coming, eyes flashing and surveying the crowded checkout lines. Her cart was full. Mine was too. I shifted my gaze to the lines as well. It was time to go and there was no way I was going to let her find …
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Consequences That Actually Work! (Part 2 – Logical Consequences)
Last week we kicked off our series on Consequences That Actually Work with a post on the importance of natural consequences. Today we look at what to do when natural consequences are not enough. Logical consequences When children are not motivated by natural consequences, they …
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Cooperation Made Easy! (…At least this time.)
A few years ago, I took my two young nephews camping. Just the three of us. One morning I got up early to think and pray about our day. The previous night had been fun but exhausting, so I enjoyed the refreshing solitude, focused my mind …
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When Kids Fight
Siblings have conflict. Even a little pushing and shoving can be normal. The fighting itself is not necessarily the problem, it’s what kids learn about conflict and resolution over time that’s important. This blog addresses physical fighting between siblings, but the principles apply to verbal …
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“I Called the Cops on My Six-Year-Old Son!”
Sometimes our kids don’t take things seriously because they just don’t understand the weight of their own actions. When that happens, we as parents need to think outside the box to help them understand the consequences now so that they won’t have to reap harsher …
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Your Kids Will Prove You Right!
Today we are delighted to share with you a guest post by our eldest son, Daniel Schulz-Jackson (yes, THAT Daniel!). Daniel has always loved to play, and he still enjoys it now that he’s a “grown-up”. He is also the webmaster for Connected Families and …
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“Why Can’t You Just Do What I Say?”
I’m often tempted to deal with my children in ways that gain immediate results. While this might get me what I want in the moment, it often leads to greater frustration later because I didn’t really teach the value behind the behavior. Forced instant compliance …
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Connection in Correction (Love No Matter What!)
Our belief is that what makes a discipline technique effective is not what parents do, but how they do it. This is where the most effective technique we’ve ever seen comes in. We call it “Connection in Correction”. It’s a way of doing discipline that communicates to …
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Working Towards Obedience Pt. 1
Eli is not quite two. He is the son of a friend that is staying with us. I experimented with him this morning – in a fun sort of way. I was trying to enlist his help bringing dishes to the kitchen from our den. I wanted …
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Connected Families | Learn to Parent with Contagious Love and Faith!