An Often Overlooked Motivator of Good Behavior…

Many parents think that some sort of painful punishment is the best motivator for kids to improve their behavior. Other parents “focus on the positive”
How to Make Sure Your Kids Will Want to Stay

What if the way you disciplined your kids had the power to turn their hearts toward or away from the safety of your love, your home, and even God?
5 Ways to Communicate Love No Matter What (Even in Misbehavior!)

This is part of a series on “Discipline that Connects®: Four Powerful Messages All Kids Long to Hear”. Communicating “love no matter what” when kids
The Most Important Time to Love Your Child

What might happen if every time we disciplined our children we remembered this powerful message of God’s love for us: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1).
Four Powerful Messages All Kids Long to Hear

Every parent wants their child to choose good, right behavior. Every family consists of real, mistake-prone people. No one is perfect. How do we
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…
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
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
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?
The Gift of Not Giving:

Have you noticed that Christmas aisles seem to be stocked earlier and earlier these days? Commercials for Black Friday “doorbusters” are rampant, and there is even controversy about some


