Making Peace with Your Kids
Have your kids ever hurt your feelings? I don’t mean their critique of your clothes, cooking, or stupid jokes. I mean the thing they say that just cuts to the quick. A couple of weeks ago, one of my boys said something and it hurt so much, it felt like the wind was...
Surviving Parenthood
If you knew what was involved in parenting, would you still go back and choose to do it? I’ll be honest, most days I would say, "no." I would say that I’m clearly not cut out for this. In fact, parenting isn’t in my strength-finder results. If I had a boss in this...
4 Meaningful Ways to Celebrate Easter with Your Preschooler
One of the things I wrestled with when my kids were growing up was how to make the true story of Easter the most important part of Easter while participating in all the fun around us. I loved watching my kids dig through their baskets and run through the grass looking...
Fast Forward and Looking Back: Parenting Adults
Parenting is not for the faint of heart. It’s a marathon of endurance to parent through each age and phase. Just a few decades ago I had the pleasure of being called “Mom” to four kids, ages six and under. I quickly learned that this parenting had questions that books...
Whenever Possible: Avoid Arguing with Your Kids
You can't effectively discipline your kid or teenager if you continually find yourself in the middle of an argument with him. When disciplining, conversations may become heated, so use good communication skills and agree to walk away until you've both calmed down. The...
Parenting Isn’t a Formula
I’m not going to pretend that this parenting thing is easy. That if you do all the right things, everything works out great. Because people don’t work that way. Relationships don’t work that way. If you combine A+B, you don’t always get C. That’s the way algebra...
The Art of Discipline: Making It Helpful
Shepherding the hearts of our kids is one of those daily behaviors that does more to refine and challenge me than anything else in my life. In my interactions with my kids, God reveals more to me about my own humanity than I care to know. Particularly in disciplinary...
Overcoming New Parent Anxieties
The words “new parents” and “anxiety” seem to be synonymous. If you Google the phrase “parent anxiety,” you’ll see titles such as “49 Parent Fears And How To Ease Them” and “Top 10 Fears Of New Moms.” As a relatively new parent myself, I can tell you I feel anxious...
Rules or Relationship? A Simple Maxim for Parents
My guess is that in your house—like my house—there's a constant tension between rules and relationships. Your nine-year-old is supposed to help wash the car, but instead decides that riding his bike is a far more important to the functioning of the universe than...
Looking for the Good in the Not-So-Good Behavior
"But I HATE chicken nuggets!" My 5-year-old daughter screamed these words in McDonald's and the blood rushed to my face. It felt like everybody was staring at us. At me. The mom with the brat. “You just asked for nuggets last week because they are your favorite,” I...
How to Help A Kid Get Unstuck
We all know what it’s like to struggle with a bad habit or be caught in a destructive cycle. Oftentimes, we don’t even realize the cycle we’re in until our world comes crashing down. It’s much easier to identify a damaging habit in other people, isn’t it? So as...
The Problem With Time
I could write one thousand articles about parent guilt. The topic is wide and ever present in the minds of most parents. It’s the underlying dread that maybe you’re not a good enough parent. Maybe other parents have it together and you don’t. Maybe we’ve all got it...