Family and Home Archives

The Secret to Connecting with Your Spouse for a Lifetime

Let me ask you this: Which part of your marriage relationship do you believe will develop the deepest intimacy?

Here are your choices:

Sexuality
Emotions
Spiritual connection

They each have their place, of course, but all things considered, spiritual connection with our spouse will create a deeper, more meaningful connection than the other two areas.

Here’s why: The benefits of spiritual intimacy naturally spill over into the other two areas. A spiritually connected couple will tend to have deeper emotional and sexual connection with one another.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, marriage May 14, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

You’re Not “Just” a Mom

Here at Focus we hear from women who have an identity problem. When someone asks what they do, they say, “Oh, I’m just a mom.”

Moms often have a way of seeing their own shortcomings and minimizing the role they play in their kids’ lives. I don’t believe those perceptions are accurate, but I can certainly understand the factors that drive them.

A lot of young women don’t feel capable of being good mothers. Some had poor role models growing up, and now they fear they’ll repeat the same patterns in their parenting role.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, parenting May 11, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Three Ways to Help Your Kids Avoid Foolish Social Media Mistakes

One foolish mistake on social media can haunt a person for years. All it takes is one insensitive tweet, a misinterpreted picture on Facebook, or an unguarded moment captured on Snapchat.

Think I’m exaggerating?

A recent article in The New York Times profiled people whose lives have been derailed because of something they posted to social media.

There’s the example of 30-year-old public relations consultant Justine Sacco, who sent out a racially insensitive tweet to her 170 followers before boarding a flight to South Africa.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: kids, parenting, pop culture, technology May 6, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Two Ways Couples Sabotage Their Marriage Before It Starts

Although the exact percentage of marriages that fail is hard to precisely peg, there’s no question divorce is a serious problem.

The question is “why?”

Every couple walks down the aisle dreaming of love, romance, and a life of happiness together. In fact, our marriage team here at Focus reports that 93 percent of Americans say a happy marriage is one of their chief objectives in life.

And, yet, the statistics also show a significant percentage of relationships will end in divorce, and about half of those will occur within the first seven years of marriage.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, marriage May 4, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How to Help Your Wife Overcome Sexual Abuse

When Dawn left home, her sexual abuse ended, and she thought, “It’s finally over.”

But it didn’t take long for her to discover the ugly truth – the aftermath of her abuse was just getting started.

Female sexual abuse can be an uncomfortable topic to discuss. But keeping it quietly hidden in the shadows so the rest of us can breathe a little easier is precisely the kind of secrecy that keeps so many victims trapped in their pain.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, husband, intimacy, marriage, sex April 28, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

5 Ways to Parent More Effectively

Is your parenting style different from your spouse’s?

That’s the case in the Daly household. Generally speaking, I’m laid-back and spontaneous. When things get tense, I tend to diffuse the situation with humor. I enjoy using car rides with my boys to have spontaneous devotions.

My wife, Jean, on the other hand, likes consistency, planning ahead and routines. She appreciates the benefits of a regular, dedicated time of family devotions.

Jean and I know first-hand it can be hard work to merge two distinct parenting styles.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: family, marriage, parenting April 22, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How to Bless Your Spouse

What comes to mind when you think of pleasure?

How about temptation? Or sin? Or guilt?

Ever notice how the idea of pleasure so easily sends our minds spiraling toward the negative? It’s as if pleasure were a creation of Satan with no other purpose than to distract us from God.

But if we’ll think back through Scripture, we’ll arrive at a different conclusion.

Numerous passages remind us of times when God commanded His people to celebrate with lavish feasts.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, family, marriage April 20, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Falling in Love While Grieving a Loss

Dave Aldridge died unexpectedly just four days before Christmas in 2012. The happy husband and father of three was a strong believer who loved the Lord and poured himself into everything he did, from being a husband and father to going the extra mile for anyone who had a need. The Colorado Springs resident collapsed while running, the victim of a congenital heart defect. He was just 39 years of age.

The obituaries are full of stories of people like Dave, men and women whose lives on earth seem all too brief.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, family, marriage, relationships April 17, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How Do You Parent a Teenager?

Are you raising a child or raising an adult?

That’s not a trick question. In fact, for many of us, it gets to an idea that may reflect a complete paradigm shift in how we view parenting.

Our job isn’t simply to teach our kids to obey a set of household rules (although learning to follow instructions is important, too). It’s to empower them to use their judgment to make good decisions in life.

How do we do that?

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, parenting April 16, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

3 Signs You Might Be Having an Emotional Affair

Marriages everywhere are at risk because of one of the most powerful drugs known to man: infatuation.

Maybe you don’t think of infatuation as a drug. But pastor and marriage expert Dave Carder, who has spent the past 30 years studying the causes of infidelity, says infatuation is as powerful as any substance out there.

Do you think that’s overstated?

Consider this: if you’ve ever known someone who walked away from their family for an affair, you probably asked yourself, “What were they thinking?” And that’s the point.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, marriage April 14, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura