Family and Home Archives

Helping Our Kids Manage Technology Well

It’s ironic, but true. In an age when technology connects us more than ever, teenagers are lonelier and more disconnected than any previous generation.

In the five years prior to the pandemic, the number of high school seniors who said they felt lonely dramatically increased – from 26 percent to almost 40 percent. In the past year, that percentage has increased to well over 50 percent.

Even taking Covid restrictions into account, today’s kids don’t engage face to face as much as past generations did.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: children, technology April 19, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Does Living Together Help or Hurt?

In 2021, it’s more common for young adults to live with a boyfriend or a girlfriend than to be married.

One of the main reasons for this (for non-believers and believers alike) is the desire to be certain that the relationship is rooted in love. After all, you don’t buy a car without first test driving it. Why wouldn’t you take a relationship for a spin before making a lifetime commitment?

Perhaps the best reason to avoid cohabitation is that the data suggests that doing so significantly increases the possibility that a relationship will end badly.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: dating, marriage April 16, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Fighting for Joy as a Special Needs Parent

What do you do when you’ve prayed for a miracle … and the miracle never comes?

Jason Hague faced that situation after his son Jack was born. Like any father, Jason had dreams for his relationship with his son – the games they’d play together, the conversations they’d have.

Around age two, Jack started to regress developmentally. He struggled to walk. He lost his vocabulary and his ability to communicate. Jack was soon diagnosed with autism, and everything in Jason’s family changed.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: parenting April 13, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Loving Your Spouse in the Midst of Parenthood

Do you remember when you were first married – how you and your spouse enjoyed endless conversation, had fun together every weekend, and always seemed to have time for one another?

Do you remember how all of that changed in the years after you became parents – how every moment seemed busy with sports practice, dentist appointments, and school programs?

Once a couple has children, it’s easy for the marriage to get pushed down the priority list.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: marriage, parenting April 12, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

A Bracelet That Can Change Someone’s Life

Bracelets as a form of fashion go back thousands of years, whether as jewelry made of gold, silver or even wood.

In recent years, though, bracelets have been used to help communicate a message or champion a particular cause.

My friend, Randy Hatcher, co-founder of Explore Your Faith, recently alerted me to a neat bracelet his organization is distributing. Here is how they describe it:

The bracelet is intended to be a relational, live, Gospel conversation starter.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith April 9, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Ditching the Cranky Monster Mom

There’s an old saying: “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

In most homes, Mom sets the tone. She’s the temperature gauge. If she’s in a great mood, everything else will run smooth.

Many women enter motherhood envisioning themselves as patient, kind, loving, soft, and gentle. And when they actually have a child, they’re confronted with the reality that children have a will of their own from infancy.

Children have an incredible way of pushing a mom’s buttons and triggering what author Becky Kopitzke calls the “momster.” Motherhood will find a way to squeeze out the most sinful parts of a woman, even one who strives to be under control and in tune with God.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: parenting April 9, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Improving Your Marriage as a Blended Family Couple

If you made a list of all the bad things that you never thought would happen, what would you write down?

For some, picking up the broken pieces of your life and starting over again with a blended family might be at the top of that list.

This new chapter may have come about through death or divorce or some other circumstance, but the challenge is the same: how to overcome the difficulties common to blended families and give this new part of your life its best chance to thrive.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: family, marriage April 7, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Using Your Unique Personality to Share Your Faith

What do you feel when you read this Scripture? “Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest’” (Matthew 9:37-38).

What about this one? “And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation’” (Mark 16:15).

Do verses like these about evangelism excite you? Or do they strike fear into your heart?

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith April 5, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

GUEST POST: The Power of Easter

By Pat Fitzpatrick

As a young teacher in Atlanta, I developed a mentoring friendship with a colleague who taught Old and New Testament survey. George was a master of the English language like none other I have ever met, which was made even more impressive by the fact that English was the sixth or seventh language that he had mastered in his forty-five years on earth.

I often reflect on a conversation he and I had in the school’s dining hall in the late 1980’s.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: easter April 3, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Examining the Evidence of Easter

Author Lee Strobel is a skeptic by nature. As legal editor for the Chicago Tribune for many years, he was trained not to accept anyone’s word at face value. Every fact was confirmed by at least two sources before it was printed. They even hung a sign in their newsroom which said, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

Lee’s skepticism eventually became cynicism … and then atheism. “If there is no God,” he reasoned, “if there is no heaven, and no ultimate accountability, then the most logical way for me to live is as a hedonist, someone who only pursues pleasure.” And that’s what he did.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: easter, faith April 2, 2021 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura