Give the Gift of Connection
Tag gift gone awry
Focus on the Good: The Surprisingly Awesome Thing About Your Child’s Misbehavior
Focusing on the good is powerful. “No one has ever said anything like that to me!” The rough-looking teen’s tough veneer had softened. I (Jim) detected tears in his eyes. What had caused this teen, a complete stranger and one…
I Was a Critical Parent: 6 Steps I Took to Find a More Loving Way
“Mom, whenever I clean, you just notice what I missed or didn’t do good enough!” I still remember one of my kids saying that and how discouraging it was. It was a reckoning moment. I didn’t want to be a…
Is Your Child Intense and Impulsive?
84 Ways to Serve as a Family
My Child Hates Himself. How Can I Help?
Kids who are explosive with yelling, aggression, or name-calling are frequently filled with shame after an emotional outburst. They may run off, cry, or say terrible things about themselves. It can feel so hopeless to do your best to lift…
The Power of Defiance
Jesus was defiant. He defied Satan’s temptation. He defied the religious structures of the day. He defied legalism. He even defied death. One of our problems as parents is that we treat our kids’ defiance as if it is entirely…
Powerful Strategies to Fill Your Parenting with Peace and Confidence [podcast]
Recently Jim and Lynne sat down with the folks over at the Positive Parenting podcast to talk about how to discipline in a way that actually connects with kids. The full podcast is 30 minutes — Listen or download below:…
The Inspiring Parenting Behind the World’s Greatest Inventor
Thomas Edison often tops the list of the world’s greatest inventors. We have him to thank for (among other things) the phonograph, the first motion picture camera, and the lightbulb, about which he famously said of his many failed…
How to Find the Good… Even in Misbehavior!
“…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute – if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise – let your mind dwell on these things”…
Is Kids’ Misbehavior Actually Bad?
We have been trained to think in black-and-white terms about a lot of things. Kids’ misbehavior is one of them. When kids misbehave we say to ourselves and to our kids, “That was bad! It needs to stop!” The opposite…