family Archives

Practical Help for Adoptive Parents

If I handed a baby to you, the infant would likely snuggle face first into your shoulder for comfort.

That’s not how it was with my colleague John Fuller’s youngest son. They adopted him when he was nine months old. Even as a baby, he would physically turn away when he was held. He’d accept chest-to-chest and back-to-chest snuggles, but never face-to-face.

That’s how deep attachment issues in adopted children can run. Many children who have lost their parents in some fashion suffer from a sense of rejection and lack of emotional connection that reaches to their soul.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: adoption, broadcast, family November 20, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

What’s the Best Family Dog?

Several years ago, I asked whether or not you thought pets went to Heaven.

The response was robust!

Personally, I’ve always appreciated how Dr. Billy Graham responded to that question:

“God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he’ll be there.”

But today I thought I’d ask a less eternally minded question, but a practical one nonetheless:

What’s the best family dog?

According to the American Kennel Club, here are the ten best:

Topics: Family and Home Tags: family November 15, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Simple Tools for Raising Great Kids

What can you do tonight to deepen your relationship with your children and empower them to develop strong character?

Simply this: in a genuine way that fits you and your child, make an effort to connect. It doesn’t have to be expensive, complicated, or excessively time-consuming. Even the simplest gesture of love, affection, and physical touch can strengthen the relationship between a parent and a child.

That advice comes from clinical child psychologist, Dr. Todd Cartmell, my guest on our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Raising Kids of Character.” He’ll be providing equally helpful answers to questions that many parents ask:

How do I get my children to listen to me?

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, family, parenting November 13, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Guest Blog: The 8 Ways Adoption Has Changed Your Life

I know what you’re probably thinking.

The headline of this post is a bit much. It’s a bridge too far. A significant overstatement.

Sure, you have a great deal of respect for adoption and adoptees, but has the institution of adoption really changed your life and the way you live?

After all, the odds are pretty good that you weren’t adopted. Just between two and three percent of American children are.

Maybe you know somebody who was adopted – or whose family adopted.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: adoption, broadcast, family November 1, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Seeing God through Autism

It’s not easy for a single mother to raise a son. It’s even more difficult when that son has autism.

Emily Colson can attest to that. Her husband walked out when their son Max was just 18-months-old, saying he couldn’t handle the stress.

And there was a lot of stress. Max’s autism was so severe that, for a time, Emily couldn’t leave home with him – not to the grocery store, not to friends’ houses, not to church.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, family, pro-life October 23, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Benjamin Watson Shares What Dads Should Expect When Their Wives Are Expecting

When my first child Trent was born 17 years ago I knew two things right away:

I loved him desperately.
I didn’t know how to be a dad.

I doubt I was much different than most guys. There’s a lot about fathering that men have to learn as they go. But every new dad and soon-to-be new dad could benefit from a playbook. We’ve got just the thing for you on our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Helping Men Prepare for Fatherhood.”

We’re talking to Benjamin Watson about his book “The New Dad’s Playbook: Gearing Up for the Biggest Game of Your Life.” If you and your wife are expecting, you’re going to want to hear this program.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, family, parenting September 12, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

The Way Forward on DACA

In his popular Morning Briefing yesterday, Southern Seminary president and former Focus on the Family board member, Dr. Al Mohler, wisely summed up the current challenge facing Congress regarding DACA – the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy – this way:

“Our current immigration laws are a complex of confusion; they do not reflect either what this country intends to enforce, by means of its police and its law enforcement agencies, nor does it reflect a coherent sense of national priorities.”

How can any reasonable person disagree?

Topics: Current Events Tags: family, news September 7, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Opioid Crisis Prompts Ohio to Seek More Foster Parents

Officials say that Ohio’s problem with heroin is reaching epidemic proportions. Ohio has the nation’s highest rate of deadly heroin overdoses, killing at least 23 people in the state each week by some estimates.

And as so often occurs when it comes to drug abuse, children are among those who suffer the most.

About half of all the kids in Ohio’s foster care system are there because one or both of their parents are drug addicts – and some counties report a rate of over 80 percent.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: family, kids, parenting, pro-life September 6, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Never Mind Your “To-Do List.” Battle Busyness with a “Stop-Doing” List

For many of us, busyness is like a badge of honor. We take pride in running from the moment our feet hit the floor in the morning to the moment our heads hit the pillow at night.

But busyness can also be a tool of the enemy. It distracts us from what really matters in life. We can’t do it all. Sooner or later, something has to give.

Recent surveys detail what people say they’re sacrificing to their busyness:

56 percent lost sleep
52 percent cut back on recreation
51 percent quit hobbies
44 percent spent less time with friends
34 percent sacrificed time with their families

The secular survey didn’t ask about faith, but time with the Lord is often one of the first things to go when we’re too busy.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, family, relationships September 1, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Walking Through Grief with Your Children

Kathleen Fucci met, John, her future husband, on a blind date. She was 38-years-old at the time, had never been married, and didn’t have children.

The mutual friend who arranged their date began his description of John by saying, “Um … why don’t you sit down?”

He told Kathleen that John was a widower with three children. His wife, Jeanine, had died from cancer the year before at the age of 34.

Despite the uncertainty Kathleen and John felt going into that first encounter, their relationship blossomed.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, family, parenting August 18, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura