How to handle life when it is not fair
Last Sunday at church, I was called in to talk to a crying 8-year-old boy. “It’s not fair!” He told me in frustration. Another boy had grabbed a Pepsi bottle from his hand, and in anger he started to swing at the boy and the teacher. It wasn’t fair that he got in trouble, and [...]
Teaching children to give offering, and learning from them too
(This post was posted last week, then accidentally deleted. So happy I recovered it!) In my Sunday School class, a 9-year-old boy saw my iPhone and excitedly told me that he was going to get one next week. *Jaw drops* A 9-year-old gets an expensive iPhone? “I got $200 from my grandma,” he said. I [...]
Making sense of hard times
Are you familiar with the life of Joni Earekson Tada? A swimming excursion with friends ended up in tragedy for Joni when she was only a teenager. She dove into a lake not knowing how shallow it was. She hit bottom, and broke her neck, paralyzing her body from the neck down. Joni was a [...]
Rites of passage, III
This is the third and last in the series we started on Monday on Rites of Passage. (Click here to read the first in the series, and click here to read the second in the series.) My guest blogger is Pete Aldin who just took his 13-year-old son through a rite of passage into manhood! [...]
Rites of passage, II
Yesterday, we started a series on helping our children transition from childhood to manhood/womanhood (a scary thought, I know!). My guest Pete Aldin began the series with an introduction to the artificial lifeform – the teenager. He points out that the adolescent angst is often due to a lack of two factors: First, solid mentoring [...]
Initiation into manhood/womanhood: Rites of Passage
The title Rites of Passage, sounds strange, doesn’t it? Let me give you a little background. Just yesterday, my sister-in-law asked me for some ideas to transition her daughter from elementary school to junior high school next year. Wow! It’s hard to believe my little niece is going to junior high!! This is a big [...]
Congratulations to Subway gift card winner!
Thank you all for participating my giveaway of activity toys and gift card sponsored by Subway, to encourage TV Turn-Off Week. The winner chosen by Random.org is Rhonda Hoy! I hope everyone is encouraged to participate in TV Turn-Off Week this week – April 20-26, 2009. What do you do when the children says, “I’m [...]
Letting go of failures
Family Life Today is one of my favorite radio programs. (You can listen to it online, or download the podcast to listen to it any time.) On the program few days ago on “Launching Your Teen into Life”, Dennis Rainey, the host, said something that resonated with me. “…I think there’s a tendency with all [...]
Parenting is an instinct and other myths
Myths often have a bit of truth about them, and that’s why we often buy into them. The problem with living with myths is that we end up frustrated with expectations that do not become reality. We beat ourselves up for not having a Martha Stewart house, or not having a HGTV landscaped garden, or [...]
5 ways to prepare for Baby #2
A reader asked me how she can prepare for Baby #2. Is there anything she can do within the next few months before Baby #2 arrives, perhaps get her life organized in a way that will make it easier when she has to take care of 2 instead of 1? My son and my daughter [...]