In a coaching session, Karen shared that their family’s weekly schedule seemed to take them captive every Sunday night. Lilly, their third-grader, unofficially declared it “Moan and groan about Monday morning” time. The whole family would get drawn into her…
Sometimes it can be hard and scary to start something new, especially with a blended family, and especially with teenagers! See how Tom and Shelly handled things when their first family meeting blew up in their faces… literally!
Is dinner at your house a bit crazy? Perhaps it needs a little injection of purpose. When the meal is all about getting kids to settle down and eat their food, it’s bound to be a struggle. But when it’s…
Our family likes to have plans in the works for the upcoming year. A possible Florida trip this spring to see family? What about our family’s favorite summer vacation spot in the Colorado Rockies? In order to make these dreams a…
Last Christmas I pulled out God’s Word to read the familiar passages of Luke 2:4-20 to my niece and nephews and extended family. The version I read from was the Hawai’i Pidgin Bible (“Da Jesus Book”), a Wycliffe translation of…
Zeke and Andrew are two teenage boys in a family that started building a tradition of reading the Bible together during Advent when they were pint-sized. Each night they lit the candle, read that day’s page from their advent book,…
“Do you think we should tell the kids what really happened? What they don’t know won’t hurt them, right?” Recently we received these questions when a parent accidentally ran over the sleeping, aging old family cat. What would you say…
When it comes to family rules, a common mistake parents make is not clearly defining the rules! What is acceptable and what is not in a family can be a moving target depending on the whims of a parent’s mood,…
Research has shown that being bored is not such a bad thing for kids. Boredom can foster creativity and patience. Yet, when a parent hears that tired phrase again and again, we may feel the need to “fix” the…
