Jim Daly

How to Fight Fair

Did you know that researchers can predict with almost 95-percent accuracy whether a couple’s marriage will succeed or fail?

Their predictions are based on how a couple fights – not how frequently the couple fights or even what they fight about, but howcouples engage each other in conflict.

Researchers discovered four elements to marital conflict that are destructive to a relationship. Dr. John Gottman calls them “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” They are:

Criticism
Defensiveness
Contempt
Stonewalling

Wouldn’t it be great if couples could avoid the Four Horsemen and use conflict to invigorate their marriage rather than allowing it to burn up their love life?

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: arguing, broadcast, faith, fighting, marriage

Author Tricia Goyer says she never thought she had an anger problem … until she had to deal with children who had anger problems. She and her husband had three kids of their own and adopted seven others.

Their adopted children had emotions that Tricia didn’t know how to handle. They struggled with pain from their past. They were angry from being away from their biological families. Some of them had faced difficulties in foster care.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: anger, broadcast, faith, family, kids

Taming Your Child’s Tongue

Has one of your children ever thrown a world-class fit in a store?

My son Trent did that once when he was little. He wanted a candy bar while he was with his mom in the checkout aisle. I was out of town, so Jean was alone with him. Trent had a meltdown because he couldn’t have the chocolate he was after.

Jean was a new mom and was embarrassed that she couldn’t get Trent under control.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, family, kids, parenting

Reserve Your Spot in Times Square on May 4th!

I wanted to remind you that registration is now open for “Alive from New York” – Focus on the Family’s largest pro-life event in its history.

The event will feature live music and inspirational speeches from special guests, as well as abortion survivors. The culminating moment of the event will be a live 4D ultrasound broadcast on several jumbotrons in Times Square.

Event capacity is limited to 10,000 attendees, so you need to act fast in order to reserve your spot.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: abortion, events, faith, pro-life

Defeating the Darkness of Abortion

On today’s edition of our Focus on the Family broadcast, “Defeating the Darkness of Abortion,” we’re going “behind the scenes” of an abortion clinic. Our tour guide is Kathy Sparks, and as you’ll hear, she trained in every area of an abortion facility – from the telephones to the surgical room.

She has a riveting story to tell.

Kathy was raised Catholic and pro-life. In college, feminism drew her to adopt a pro-choice outlook.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: abortion, broadcast, kids, pregnancy, pro-life

The “Do No Harm Act” Harms Religious Freedom

It’s back.

A bill introduced in the last Congress in an attempt to gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) has been reintroduced in the current Congress. A liberal response to Supreme Court decisions such as Hobby Lobbyand Masterpiece Cakeshop, the bill is deceptively titled the “Do No Harm Act.”

RFRA was passed in 1993 in one of the most overwhelmingly bipartisan votes Congress has ever seen: by a voice vote in the House (equaling a unanimous vote) and 97-3 in the Senate.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: events, faith, government, religious liberty

Making Peace with Unfulfilled Dreams

Has reality set in on your dreams yet?

It will, you know.

Not on all of them, of course. But enough.

Maybe you never got the career you wanted. Or the marriage you dreamed of. Or the baby you hoped for.

The question is, how do you come to terms with your unfulfilled dreams?

Author Chrystal Evans Hurst understands what you’re going through. She’s also walked the road of discontentment before.

In college, she didn’t handle her freedom well and became a teenage mom.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, dreams, faith

Motivating Your Kids to Reflect the Character of God

Teaching character to children and motivating them to embrace change can be a challenge. So where do you begin?

Dr. Kathy Koch says you do it by strengthening your relationship with your child. You can help your child feel known and understood and intentionally impart character qualities like resilience, humility, self-respect, respect for others, and self-control.

It comes through relationship. You first model those qualities, then you guide your children as they learn to interact with life the same way.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, family, kids, parenting

What Do the Smallest Baby in the World and Chick-fil-A have in Common?

Did you read the story the other day about the smallest baby in the world?

He was just 9.45 ounces (.59 pounds) when he was born at 24 weeks gestation. Doctors didn’t expect him to survive. After nearly 6 months in the hospital, he went home last week weighing 7.2 pounds.

The little boy’s physician, Dr. Takeshi Arimitus, told reporters, “I want people to know that babies can return home vigorous even if they are born small.”

Or are you up to speed on the latest from out here in Colorado, where the state has finally dropped its second case of alleged discrimination against Christian baker Jack Phillips?

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: baby, current events, events, pro-life

Using Our Words Wisely

I’ll bet you remember the moment your life changed.

It may have been in childhood or even as an adult. But someone said something to you that was hurtful and that moment changed your entire perception of yourself from that point forward.

For me, it was ninth grade. I was in my high school’s weight room, getting ready for football season. Coach Logan walked through the weight room, looked at me, and said, “Man, you’ve got bird legs.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, words

How to Fight Fair

How to Help Your Angry Child