parenting Archives

Understanding Teen Depression and Suicide

Focus on the Family is airing an important two-day broadcast titled “Understanding Teen Depression.”

Depression and suicide rates among kids are staggering. Everyone should be concerned. Right here in Colorado Springs, we’ve had an escalation of teen suicide clusters that is breathtaking, with two schools not far from our campus having a total of 12 suicides in the last three years.

That sort of pain is not unique to our community. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 3 million adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 report at least one major depressive episode in the past year, and more than 2 million report severe depression has impeded their daily functioning.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, news, parenting September 22, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Help Your Children Build a Strong Faith

Yesterday I shared with you why it’s more important than ever for public school students to participate in this year’s “Bring Your Bible to School Day,” the Focus on the Family-sponsored and student-led free speech event.

#BringYourBible has grown exponentially since we originally launched it in 2014: The first year, 8,000 students participated. The second year, 155,000. Last year, over 355,000. This year, we’re hoping 500,000 students will bring their Bible to school and will share and read Scripture with their friends during appropriate times, like before and after school, during recess or lunch, etc.

Topics: Focus Events Tags: broadcast, events, faith, parenting, religious liberty September 21, 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

Raising Boys Who Become True Men

“My coach from my senior year could look at me and knight me with his eyes.”

That powerful comment illustrates the hunger of every boy to have a man, particularly a father, draw him into manhood. It comes from Dr. Robert Lewis, who has been associated with Focus on the Family for years. Back in the late 90s, he wrote a book with Focus called “Raising a Modern-Day Knight.” Since then, it’s been our number one best seller.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, parenting 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

Hope for Parents of Troubled Kids

Some parents will understand these comments by Dena Yohe so personally and intimately they’ll feel like they could have written them themselves. Of raising a troubled child, she said:

“We had so much guilt and shame as parents, especially because our children were our ministry. We took our parenting seriously. I chose not to work. I stayed home, so I could focus all of my attention, my effort, and my energy into who our children would become.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: kids, parenting August 21, 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

Talking to Your Kids about Racism and Violence

The recent images from Charlottesville, VA—marches by torchlight, Nazi salutes, armed militia, angry mobs engaged in violent confrontation—are scary for adults to encounter, let alone children. These are not scenes from a movie but very real events unfolding right before our eyes.

The chaos in Charlottesville was fueled by a particularly insidious and evil form of racism known as white supremacy. It was the same in Charleston, South Carolina when a white supremacist murdered nine people during a church service in 2015, and in Overland Park, Kansas when a KKK sympathizer murdered three people near a Jewish community center in 2014.

Topics: Current Events Tags: kids, news, parenting August 16, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

What Every Father Must Teach His Son

It was one of those terrible headlines you didn’t want to click on:

“Teens filmed, mocked man as he drowned, police say”

Jamel Dunn, 32, drowned on July 9th off the coast of Cocoa, Florida, while several teenaged boys looked on. Mr. Dunn was disabled, and at no point did the teenagers even try calling for help. Authorities who subsequently interviewed the boys reported that it seemed they didn’t have any regret over their behavior.

It’s hard to fathom how hard the hearts of these boys must be to watch a man die and do nothing to help him.

Topics: Current Events Tags: kids, news, parenting August 9, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Helping Your “Different” Child

What would you do if your child was diagnosed with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), ADHD, ADD, and ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder)?

I like how Sally Clarkson responded. When her son Nathan was little, she wasn’t sure what she was dealing with, but she knew there was something about him that was different than other so-called “good” kids.

He frequently got into trouble and needed to talk – to argue, to ask questions, to complain. He was constantly moving, wiggling, and fidgeting with anything and anyone around him.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, kids, parenting August 7, 2017 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura