Family and Home Archives

Giving Teen Girls a Brighter Future

For 20 years, Jessie Minassian has been a spiritual “big sis” to teen girls and young women. She offers encouragement about love, dating, loneliness, purity, and living out faith in relevant ways.

She’s joining me on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly to help teen girls create a godly identity – from which comes a well-balanced and happy life.

Jessie and I discussed how navigating family conflict can be like a paintball battle, why you may need to turn down the volume in your busy, noisy life so you can hear from God more clearly, and the positive impact of smiling more.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, family March 11, 2025 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How to Take Your Family Through a Digital Fast

Here’s an eye-opening stat for you: research shows that children spend an average of seven hours and 22 minutes on their phones every day!

That’s even more troubling when you consider studies that show a connection between pervasive technology use and rising levels of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts in children and teens.

How much technology is too much? Maybe a better question is, “How can parents help their children navigate technology well, especially since it’s become integral to how we manage our lives?”

On Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, I’m talking with author Molly DeFrank about how parents can reset technological boundaries and behaviors for their children.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: family, parenting March 6, 2025 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Spiral Upward

When things go wrong, we say, “Life spiraled downward.” What we mean is that bad choices quickly multiply.

But good choices multiply as well. In the same way that life can spiral downward, it can also spiral upward. How? One small step at a time.

Nobody likes being told to be patient. Suggestions like, “Take it slow” or, “Just stack one good choice on top of another” are never popular. We’d all rather go from A to Z in one leap.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, family March 4, 2025 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

What I’ve Learned

My dad left our family when I was five years old and died an alcoholic a few years later. My mom died when I was nine. Hank, my stepdad, walked out on my siblings and me the day of her funeral. After that, I lived with a foster family for a year, but they were so toxic that my life got worse, not better.

Given my broken childhood, hosting a nationally syndicated radio show about all things family has been an unexpected gift to me.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, family February 28, 2025 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Healing My Marriage and Life After an Eating Disorder

According to the National Association of Anorexia and Associated Disorders, someone will die from an eating disorder every 52 minutes.

One in five women experience an eating disorder by age 40, and 95% of eating disorders begin before age 25.

Those shocking number underscore the serious nature of this tragic problem. Eating disorders are complex issues with no quick solutions, affecting men, women, and children.

Author Krista Dunham developed an eating disorder after struggling with perfectionism for years.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, family February 27, 2025 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How to Build Moral Courage in Your Kids

Respect, humility and courage – foundational to a happy, healthy society – have been diminished in our culture.

My wife and I aimed to instill those values in our boys, Trent and Troy, by enrolling them in Cotillion, an etiquette class that prepares children to interact with each other with manners as mature young men and women.

The boys were apprehensive, but I assured them, “Don’t worry, guys. They’ll mostly teach you table manners.” Boy, was I wrong.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: parenting February 25, 2025 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Praying for Unsaved Loved Ones

Let me ask you three questions.

First, if God said to you, “I will answer every single prayer that you pray this week,” how many people in your life would you pray to receive Jesus?

Second question: Are you praying for them now?

Christians often grow weary of praying for someone – or give up entirely – because nothing seems to be happening.

Which leads me to my third question: What if, as we pray for others, God does something in us?

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, family February 24, 2025 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

A Light in the Darkness

My childhood was tough. My mom died when I was nine years old. My stepdad walked out on my siblings and me the day of her funeral. After that, I spent almost two years in foster care. When I think back on those days now, I have to search through the darkness to find bright spots.

One of them was when I was 11 years old. My dad and I shared an afternoon I’ll never forget.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, family February 20, 2025 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Finding Hope in an Unexpected Pregnancy

Each year, about six million women in the United States become pregnant. Of those pregnancies, nearly half – 45 percent – are unplanned.

Most of the time, teenagers are the focus of such conversation, but many married adult women with children are surprised by unexpected pregnancies as well. They watch their youngest child enter elementary school, or their oldest graduate from high school, then discover they’re pregnant and starting over at stage one. They feel shocked, exhausted, and embarrassed.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, kids February 18, 2025 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Push Ahead

What do you want out of life? A good career? A good marriage? Kids with good character? Whatever you’re after, success won’t come easy. You gotta stick with it until you get where you want to go.

If your dreams seem out of reach, don’t be dismayed. You’re in good company. Colonel Sanders, the man who started the KFC restaurant chain, was rejected by over 1,000 investors before he got a single yes. KFC now operates almost 20,000 stores around the world.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith February 13, 2025 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura