Daly Focus Blog
Author Joe Pellegrino discovered it’s never too late to let your children know you love ‘em. When his son Joey was little, Joe taught him to play baseball. As a challenge, he told Joey, “If you hit the ball over my head, I’ll buy you the Lego pirate ship you’ve been wanting.”
As Joe remembers the story, Joey never hit the ball over his head. Joey remembers the day differently. Over the years, those differences in memory occasionally came up.
New York state has recently signed into law a barbaric piece of legislation which would allow a woman to abort her child at any point during pregnancy, and specifically during the third trimester. The law only requires that the mother’s “health” is at risk. The term “health” is so broad that it could mean anything from medical, physical, psychological to financial issues.
Shockingly, there were celebrations throughout the state in response to the passing of this legislation, with lawmakers cheering wildly.
A few months ago, I got a chance to visit with Greta Henry. She’s the director of Living Alternatives Pregnancy Resource Center in Champaign, Illinois. She’s also their director of adoptions and oversees their residential program for women called Merci’s Refuge.
She asked me to come and speak at the pregnancy center to almost 1,000 workers and supporters. I was happy for the opportunity to share my heart with people who are so dedicated to standing for life.
I returned from Washington D.C. this past weekend following a series of meetings, media interviews and special ministry sponsored events that culminated with the 46th annual March for Life.
It’s an inspiring experience to stand on the stage and look out over the sea of humanity sprinkled across the National Mall, hundreds of thousands of pro-life stalwarts, many of them young – all of them united in an un-equivocating devotion to working together towards a day when every baby’s life, in every state, is protected under law.
Imagine your boss asking you to train someone so well that you’d no longer be needed. What would you do? That’s an important question to answer because that’s precisely your role in the life of your child.
As your children grow older, they’ll naturally and progressively seek their own identity apart from you. That path toward independence prepares them for adulthood, but it can be painful for you. It’ll feel like they no longer need you.
Do you teach your children to clean their rooms?
How about to do their homework, to brush their teeth, or to match their clothes?
How about to give money, save money, and to spend it properly?
If you said no to that last one, it might be because you see your child’s allowance as simply an economic transfer instead of as a chance to develop their character.
Our guest for the next couple of programs is the money guru himself, radio host and bestselling author, Dave Ramsey.
The statistics are heartbreaking: One in 4 girls will be sexually abused before her eighteenth birthday. For boys, the number is 1 in 6.
Sexual abuse isn’t an easy conversation, but the information we have to share with parents on our broadcast “Protecting Your Child from Sexual Abuse” can help your children avoid becoming part of the disturbing statistics.
An overwhelming percentage of abuse – close to 90 percent – comes from someone the child knows and trusts, like a family friend or someone from within the family itself.
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.
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.
