Discipling children: Spending one-on-one time
(This is the continuation of the series on Discipling Our Children.) If you are not an only child, perhaps you have felt that your parents loved your siblings more than you. Or maybe you were the one loved more. Now that you are the parent, you know that parents have enough love to go around, [...]
More on living with my mother-in-law
In my previous post on living with my mother-in-law, several of the comments indicate the sentiment that they wish they did not have to live with their in-laws. They want to get out of that situation, but have no choice. Not many of us, if any, marry our spouses wanting to invite the in-laws to [...]
How to stop siblings from fighting
If you have more than one child, chances are they fight. Well-meaning parents sometimes do more to aggravate the situation rather than help the children come to a solution. Babysitters.net offers the following “10 Solutions to Constantly Fighting Siblings.” Try these out and see if your kids will keep the fighting to a minimum. Sibling [...]
What I want for my little girl
A little humor and a timeless message from The Duke.
This is what I should’ve done
You might have noticed that I am a big fan of Family Life. That’s because the President and host of the radio program, Dennis Rainey raised 6 children. And anyone who has raised 6 successful children is someone to whom I pay close attention. So I am going to quote him again today. I read [...]
Is less than 81 minutes a day with your child enough?
According to The Telegraph, a new study found that in Britain, those who work outside the home spend on average 81 minutes a day looking after their families, and that included meal times. This also included time spent with children at weekend – meaning that on working days, the average amount of time parents spent [...]
In praise of my mother-in-law
You don’t read a title like that very often, do you? It’s not easy being a mother-in-law. I can already see myself being a critical mother-in-law. As my children enter the dating age, I can’t see how there is anyone out there good enough to marry my perfect children! Hence, being a mother naturally leads [...]
Deeper conversation starters
Rather than just talking about school, or about shopping, or about college applications, how can we as parents connect better with our children with deeper conversation? Here are some complete-the-sentence conversation starters. Parents have to answer too. Use these when you take a walk together, or on an hour drive to grandma’s house, or over [...]
What to do when children say, “We’re bored!”
“Boooring…” This word has become the ultimate putdown. If a party is “boooring”, it is a total disaster. Or if a class is “boooring”, the teacher is the epitome of failure. I recently heard that in Michael Crichton’s novel Timeline, a character made this insightful remark: “In other centuries, human beings wanted do to be [...]
Why should our homes be fun?
I noticed that I talk quite a bit about having fun and laughter in the home. I suppose this is because I hear too often from teenagers that home is not a place they want to be. They are bored at home; their parents nag them; they would rather be out with their friends. It [...]