Give the Gift of Connection
Tag grown-up misbehavior
What’s Good About Being an Angry Parent?
Anger is tough to understand. Many parents, in the name of putting a stop to their kids’ misbehavior, tend to react quickly. This reaction usually doesn’t give much thought to the deeper layers of what’s going on in both the…
How do you grow when you’ve blown it?
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…
What to Do When Kids Push Your Buttons
When kids act up, it’s a parent’s job to guide them through the difficulty. But kids’ trouble often pushes parents’ buttons. Need for control? Push. Desire for quick fixes? Push. Anxiety about what’s gonna happen with this demanding kid? Push.…
The Big Problem with Parenting…
We meet or talk nearly every day with parents. Most of them contact us because they need help. After hearing bits of their story, we usually ask, “What are your goals as parents?” In their answers we learn much about…
How Your Smartphone Can Help Your Parenting
Ever wondered how your kids view you? Check out this mom’s simple plan to see herself through her kids’ eyes: I was intrigued by a TED talk about the benefits of teachers videoing themselves teaching in their classrooms. They use…
Is “Being the Parent” Actually Good Parenting?
I just read another decent parenting book by a well-known author. It’s got some good ideas in it about how to manage kids’ misbehavior. But like so many of the parenting books I read, it is laced with what I…
Teenagers, Sass, and Life That Is Truly Life
“Are you going to help me or not?” I snapped at Daniel, our fifteen year-old-son. He’d been asking for the past hour to go to a friend’s house. I kept dodging his request while also badgering him to enlist his…
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…
Solving a Child’s Big Spiritual Problem
As parents who care for our children’s spiritual well-being, we try to teach them right and wrong and help them tackle whatever spiritual problems they encounter. However, other than the fact that they’re born into sin, it may well be…
Managing Kids’ Anger – and Ours
We parents sometimes get it backwards. Our kid acts up and we get angry. We then tend to justify our anger saying, “I wouldn’t be angry if you didn’t act up.” This means that we’ve let our child be in…