Kids usually do the best they know how to express their feelings. The best they can do is usually quite immature and unrefined. A problem occurs when, instead of validating our kids’ best efforts to express their feelings, we minimize,…
Recently we received this question from a mom in response to one of our posts. Q: When I watched the video about Jim and daughter Bethany’s conflict I realized that Lynne answered the phone but didn’t intervene. My impulse would…
Q: "Why did my husband and I turn out to be respectful, well-adjusted, polite adults even though we were raised with spanking and yelling?"
Great question, and one we hear often.
A pediatrician friend of ours once had parents bring in their child and request a diagnosis of Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD) so they could get a prescription. But our wise friend took a look beneath the surface to what was…
Sometimes conflict with our kids can seem to arise out of nowhere. Or, a conversation that seemed to be over something relatively minor can explode with little warning into a full-fledged battle. Why does this happen? A lot of the…
Dads often joke about what some young lad will have to do to get past dad to the daughter. But it’s no laughing matter. Most dads with daughters, having lived through adolescence themselves, are irrationally suspicious or even downright…
Are you wondering what to do when you blow it? Overcoming parenting mistakes isn’t so much about not making them (which is good because we made TONS of them), but about being intentional to develop three specific things that will help…
Lynne and I blew it a lot. We had a lot of great moments as a young family, but we also had a lot of bad moments – the kind of stuff that over time can lead to growing disconnection…
Parents, are you struggling with how to address the recent racial tension that has exploded across the United States? At Connected Families we are on the side of Justice, Grace and Peace, without any judgment about how to legislate those…
Parents usually have good desires for their kids. They want kids to be respectful, responsible, faithful, obedient, and so on. But when parents make these behaviors their primary goals for parenting, their kids tend to resist. Why? Kids tend to resist because…