Are People Without Kids Happier?
I read an article from 2016 that said people without kids, in the United States, are way happier than people who have kids. Because you are reading a parenting blog, I’m assuming you are one of those people with kids and this news is less than inspiring. Maybe it even...
How to Respond to Your Child When You Find Out the Unexpected
“Mom, Dad, there’s something I need to tell you . . .” When it comes to parenting, very few phrases strike terror at the heart of a parent. Its right up there with the question, “Are you sitting down?” Both phrases typically follow not-so-good news and imply that the...
Cultivating a Prayer Habit
When my son was about three or four years old, we started to prompt him to contribute his own prayer requests as we were getting him settled into bed at night. “Buddy, why don’t you go ahead and talk to God? You can give Him thanks for something or ask him for...
Where I Went When I Needed Parenting Help
If you’ve ever moved across the country with kids you are probably familiar with the word uprooted. Our daughter was going into kindergarten and our son into middle school when we moved from Texas to South Carolina and while it proved to be a great move for all of us,...
Ending the Homework Hassle
Any time parents of teenagers or pre-teens are in a room together, the subject of homework and education seems to be on their lips. My experience is that most of the time parents worry more about their teen’s schoolwork than the teen worries about their schoolwork!...
How to Help Your Kids Develop Good Habits
We want our kids to develop healthy habits, but if we’re honest, we probably aren’t the best when it comes to sticking with positive behaviors ourselves. So what’s a parent to do? Thankfully, there is a lot of research that can help when we fall short. One of the...
Can You Spoil Kids Without Spoiling Them?
My daughters are spoiled. And to a certain degree, I’m okay with that. But here’s what I know—there’s a line between a “spoiled” child and an “entitled” child. And that’s a line I have not always navigated with precision. In fact, I have given in to whining too often,...
I Am Not a Fun Guy (or a Fungi)
I saw myself on the screen the other night. I wasn’t on the jumbotron at the baseball game. I wasn’t starring in a home movie. No, I saw myself in a movie character. An unlikely one. And the irony is that it was the antagonist of a movie that I watched years ago....
Parenting Dangerously Close to Empty
I love to live on the edge. At least that is what I tell my kids when they are all frustrated with me. I am that person. That person that drives until the “E” light in my car has been shining at me for about 30 miles. It doesn’t help that now my car tells me exactly...
How to Protect Your Marriage from Parenting
For many, parenting can be tough on a marriage. For around 30 years, researchers have studied how having children affects a marriage, and the results are conclusive: the relationship between spouses suffers once kids come along. And why shouldn’t it? We stop saying...
Practicing the Little Things
As parents, we all want our kids to develop good habits, but good habits are never instant. They take a thousand moments of practice.
7 Tips to Help Your Teenager Develop Faith Skills
I grew up as a preacher's kid. My parents made a couple of things clear: 1. They wanted me to read the Bible. 2. They wanted me to memorize Scripture. So they did what any sensible parents would do to develop those habits in me . . . They paid me. • They paid me every...