Daly Focus Blog
A few years ago, Newsweek Magazine made a heartbreaking observation in the form of a paradoxical question. Speaking of El Paso County, Colorado, home of Focus on the Family and over a hundred other Christian ministries, they asked:
How is it possible that one of the top five places to live in the country also suffers from one of the worst teen suicide rates?
According to the most recent information, 49 youth under the age of 18 died by suicide between 2014 – 2017 in El Paso County.
Is your child a rosebush?
A palm tree?
A pine?
How about a boxwood?
God wires our children with unique personality types. The nuances can be quite diverse, but they’re also finite to the point where a model of four personality types can explain them.
There’s power in personality. It’s a window into a child’s soul that parents can look through to see their hearts and to know how to lead them forward through life.
Hettie Britz is an author, a speaker, and one of the foremost voices in parenting advice from a biblical perspective in South Africa.
Dr. Kevin Leman humorously says of children, “We have seen the enemy, and they are small. They’re unionized. The ‘ankle-biter battalion’ is on the move, so you better have a game plan.”
I’m sure many parents would heartily agree with that assessment. To that end, Dr. Leman is with us on our program “Game Plan for Raising Well-Behaved Children” to share a wealth of practical tips that can bring order to the chaos in your home more quickly than you might think possible.
I could have been aborted.
I was born in the ’60s prior to Roe v. Wade, but even then many people felt my mother would have been justified to abort me. She was the perfect candidate. She was 42 and in a high-risk pregnancy. My dad was an alcoholic, and I was the fifth child of a marriage that was already struggling to stay together. I was born into a household in turmoil.
I could have been aborted.
When should parents say, “My child is old enough to be completely free as an adult”?
By the way, “Never!” is not a good answer.
It’s worth thinking through when your job is done as a parent. Your answers will guide you in how you approach raising your kids.
Children on their way to adulthood have always struggled against their parents. And parents have always wondered, “Have I done everything I could to prepare my child for adulthood?
Can you open your heart to a child who needs a family?
If you answered no, you’re not alone. Many couples wrestle with whether or not they should adopt, or if there’s some other part they should play.
That was how Mike and Kristen Berry’s story began.
Kristen assumed she and Mike would adopt children when they married. Adoption was Kristen’s family legacy. Her grandfather and his brother grew up in the foster care system, but they were never adopted.
Author Jonathan McKee remembers contemplating suicide as a teenager. He was standing on the edge of a cliff, staring all the way to the bottom. One step, and all of his pain would be over.
The pain was caused by incessant bullying. The pinnacle was in eighth grade when a group of classmates started what they called the “Kill John Club.” They made T-shirts with the letters KJC and a caricature of John’s face, complete with enormous buck teeth – a feature braces had fixed, but classmates continued to torment him over – and a gun scope target over his face.
In our Welcome Center here at the Focus on the Family campus, children have the opportunity to leave their prayer requests with us.
One of my favorites is from a 9-year-old boy who wrote, “Please pray for my brother. He wets the bed. And pray for me. I share the bed with my brother.”
Some prayer requests are much more serious, like an 8-year-old boy who asked God to help his dad stop drinking, so he could be healthy again.
I want to introduce you to Erin Hawley, Focus on the Family’s newest author. Erin is a wife, mother to two young boys and also a practicing lawyer and professor of law. This following excerpt comes from her wonderful new book, Living Beloved: Lessons from My Little One About the Heart of God.
If you think of someone who needs this does of perspective, please consider passing it along. I’d also like to encourage you to pick up a copy of her book in our store – and let me know how this message resonate with you by leaving your feedback in the comments section below.
We had Jeramy and Jerusha Clark on our Focus on the Family Broadcast last year to talk about what’s going on in our teens’ brains. It was fascinating.
We learned that teenagers often can’t articulate what they’re feeling. They don’t recognize that they’re lonely and insecure, or that they need more attention from you. Since they can’t ask for specific help, they often express their emotions through behavior.
We have Jeramy and Jerusha back with us again to discuss the way teens think.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
