How No-Drama Discipline Helps Me Communicate With My Toddler
My toddler daughter, Arden, is very toddlery these days. And by toddlery, I mean I can’t help but look at the clock and wonder how in the world I’m supposed to make it to bedtime without us both collapsing in a puddle of tears. I’ve always been told the age of three...
Why You Should Go on an Adventure with Your Family
I come from a family of campers. Tent campers, to be exact. I suppose it’s always been in my DNA, with parents who loved National Parks and toured us all around the great American West. I can still vividly remember that cold, foggy campsite on the Sonoma coast, with...
High Hopes
We all have high hopes for our future, especially for our kid’s future. We all want the “perfect” family and we even try to fake it to the world through social media. But the truth is, we are not perfect. Our lives are filled with imperfect moments. But even in the...
What Every Tween Girl Needs From Her Mom
Do you remember the year you turned nine? How about twelve? I remember. I remember playing outside with my friend Erin. I remember my Cabbage Patch Kid dolls. I remember my mom’s chocolate cake and watching Auburn games with my dad and roller skating in the street. I remember when my brother was born and thinking I had the best life ever. And then something started shifting. A transition.
Hope Boomerangs Back
“Pray for others that you may be healed,” (James 5:16). These words wouldn’t leave me alone. I really needed some encouragement––a prayer, a note, anything. From somebody. From an “other.” Six months into my Josiah’s autism diagnosis, I was enticed by waves of despair.
I needed someone to listen, to ask about “it,” but more importantly, to really understand. But my usual support system was eerily silent and I felt like we had been relocated to the Island of Misfit Toys. I put on my smile every day, but I was a wreck inside and dismayed that few seemed to pick up on my need.
Special Needs Parenting is Too Big to Do Alone
Families affected by disability are in chronic need of supportive community to do life together. But friends and even family—all with the best of intentions—can sometimes express comments that land more hurtful than helpful. Or they withdraw, intimidated, shushed into silence for fear of getting it wrong.
The Myth of the Perfect Kid
We parents are an emotional, neurotic mess, aren’t we? Sure, some of us are better at hiding it than others, but push the right button or confront the right issue, and every one of us comes to a point when we feel . . . helpless. clueless. lost. We thought we knew so...
Nothing Will Change How Much I Love You
Before becoming a parent I thought I would do best with having a teenager right off the bat. If I could skip the sleep deprivation and toddler tantrum-ing and bedwetting, I’d be good. I wanted to get right to the place where I could have a conversation and reason with...
How to Communicate in a Way That Values Your Relationships
I think it's kind of fun that God puts families into a little box called a home—where they bump into each other daily for years on end—and tells them to love each other. Nice experiment. It's always amazed me that many of us have a tendency to communicate least...
Your Preschooler Doesn’t Have to “Like” It
If we can teach our kids how to face the things they do not like, we prepare them to be gracious, patient, and experience more out of life.
A Safe Place to Land
My oldest daughter is 10, and for the past year and a half, she spends most of her free time at the farm. She has always had a great affinity for horses. When she isn’t riding, she’s working at the farm—cleaning stalls, catching horses in the field, or bathing them....
The Temporary Car Lot at My House
I’m not exactly sure how to say this without it coming across like I’m bragging, so I’ll just come out and say it. I’m overly considerate. Before you nominate me for humanitarian of the year, let me rephrase that. I’m overly . . . conscious of inconveniencing anyone....