parenting Archives - Page 3 of 57

Understanding Your Triggers for More Peaceful Parenting

See if this scenario sounds familiar.

Your son is playing with his toys when you stop by and tell him it’s time to clean up his room. You walk away, but instead of complying immediately, your son keeps right on playing.

A few minutes later, you return and discover that your instructions have been ignored. How would you respond?

Many moms and dads respond by exploding in anger.

The question is why? There’s no reason for a child’s ignoring simple instructions like “clean up your room” or “take out the trash” to make a parent’s blood boil, and yet it often does.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, parenting, peace July 16, 2019 by Jim Daly

Making Parenting Fun

The heat of summer is on, which for my family means camping.

We love getting outdoors. We love parking our fifth wheel in some remote location where the sounds of nature are not drowned out by cars and busyness.

When there’s a lake nearby, the first thing my boys do is grab rocks to throw into the water. And the bigger the better. For them, it’s all about the splash.

Me? I’m intrigued by the ripples.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, parenting July 12, 2019 by Jim Daly

Fun Ways to Instill Virtue in Your Children

Instilling virtue in your children is pretty serious business. After all, the adult world is a competitive place, and you want your kids to be prepared.

Unfortunately, that desire leads many parents to bury their children beneath some pretty harsh standards. At report card time, they question why their nearly straight-A student didn’t get that onegrade a little higher. Or maybe they snap at their teenager if he or she shows the slightest sign of irresponsibility.

That kind of response doesn’t adequately reflect most parents’ heart for their children.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, children, parenting, virtue July 1, 2019 by Jim Daly

Raising Boys to Become Godly Young Men

Numerous studies show that masculinity is in crisis. Boys are struggling to mature into competent young men, and men and fathers in general are denigrated in the culture.

Even when the criticism is justified, the solution to those problems isn’tto denigrate masculinity. It’s to teach boys how to harness manhood and to channel it in proper ways.

That’s where you come in, mom.

For every study that shows boys are in trouble there’s another showing that boys grow into healthy, strong, and courageous young men when they have healthy and secure attachments with their mothers.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, men, mothers, parenting, sons June 27, 2019 by Jim Daly

The Complicated, Beautiful Life of a Foster Mom

May is National Foster Care Awareness Month.

We’re honoring all those who have stepped into the world of adoption and foster care on our Focus on the Family Broadcast “The Complicated, Beautiful Life of a Foster Mom” with our guest Jessie Gallaher. She describes her difficult yet rewarding journey of adopting five children from foster care – all at once!

When they first brought the kids home, many people told Jessie and her husband, “Just love them, and time will heal all of their wounds.” But like most adoptive parents, they discovered that raising children with traumatic backgrounds also requires structure and consistency.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, children, fostering, mother, parenting May 23, 2019 by Jim Daly

Setting Healthy Boundaries with Your Kids

Imagine this scenario: It’s your child’s job to clean up their room, but hours have gone by and they still haven’t gotten the job done, despite repeated reminders from you.

How should you respond?

Lecture them? Ground them? Clean up the room yourself?

The answer is to let good boundaries be your guide. One of the most important functions of parenting is to teach your children how to respect appropriate limits.

Setting healthy boundaries has a lot of benefits, and primary among them is helping children to develop self-control.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: boundaries, broadcast, kids, parenting May 13, 2019 by Jim Daly

What You Need to Be a Happier Mom

A lot of moms say they feel overwhelmed and stressed. Is it any wonder? They’re struggling under the burden of unrealistic expectations – some self-imposed, and some imposed by the culture.

In both cases, the “ideal” mom is often portrayed as a woman who is not only a full-time mom at home, but a fulltime employee outside the home. In her free time, she’s a Girl Scout troop leader, bakes treats from scratch for her kids, and still has time to accompany her children on every school field trip.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, kids, mom, parenting May 9, 2019 by Jim Daly

Finding Freedom as a Grace-Based Mom

A lot of women feel pressure to be an outstanding wife, a fantastic mother, and to keep a beautiful home all while having a vibrant and meaningful career. They’re chasing an impossible standard. They feel they can never do enough, no matter how hard they try.

Many women are not only struggling to do it all, but to do it all perfectly.Without all of those plates spinning, they feel they’re not achieving anything extraordinary – for God or for themselves.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, kids, mom, parenting April 22, 2019 by Jim Daly

Training Sons to Be Confident, Capable Men

It’s been said it’s “easier to build a boy than to mend a man.”

I agree.

A startling number of boys today are alone, left to figure out for themselves what it means to be a man. They don’t have a father in the home who will engage them.

Oh, dad may be there. But he isn’t present.

There are a lot of great dads out there, but too many men are disengaged. They don’t see manhood as a quality for them to intentionally bestow upon their son.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, kids, parenting, sons April 8, 2019 by Jim Daly

Helping Your Daughter Understand Romantic Relationships

Do you have a daughter who’s a “crushaholic”? That term describes a young lady who is constantly seeking affirmation from boys.

I don’t have daughters myself, but I do have two boys Trent and Troy, so Jean and I are seeing the upheaval of the teen years up close. The physical, mental, and emotional changes can be intense.

Did I mention the emotional changes?

They can be especially pronounced in girls who tend to be emotional creatures by nature, more so than boys.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, daughter, faith, kids, parenting April 4, 2019 by Jim Daly