Daly Focus Blog
By the time kids enter middle school, their march toward independence is well under way.
But let’s face it – it can be a confusing time for parents.
When a child spreads his wings, it can feel like he’s turning his back on you instead. But that’s not really the case. Your middle schooler needs you as much as he always has.
In some ways, more.
He just needs you in a different way than he did in his formative years.
Although he struck many of us as something of a curmudgeon, I enjoyed watching and reading Andy Rooney over the years.
Mr. Rooney lived a long and colorful life before passing away at the age of 92. Many of his newspaper columns were compiled into various books. The following essay that I’m going to excerpt, “What Every Kid Should Have Growing Up,” comes from one of his best-selling works titled Sweet and Sour.
Reading over this list, I have to admit that I wish I had all these things growing up.
It’s up to parents to show their family how to live a healthy lifestyle. But as you’ve probably discovered, that can be easier said than done. The labels on packages can be tricky. And just how many grams of fat and carbs should be in our diet anyway?
If you’re wondering how to help your family make good food choices, we hope you’ll join us this week for our three-day broadcast series titled, “Sound Advice on Healthy Eating,” with our guest, registered dietician David Meinz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNQKAF9LdB8
Giving is down and key ministries are at risk. You can help by showing your support at www.focusonthefamily.com/summer2014.
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know I enjoy highlighting the abundance of research that pops up in support of families. The reason is simple: Well-designed studies affirm again and again that God’s blueprint for healthy families can be trusted, regardless of which way the winds of culture may blow.
Take, for example, a recent article by Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, Executive Director and Senior Fellow at Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute.
A new school year is just around the corner, and you know what that means:
The annual hunt for school supplies.
Did you know preparing for school in the fall is, on average, a family’s second largest expenditure each year, outranked only by Christmas?
Maybe that comes as a surprise to you, but I’m sure this won’t: The time and cost required of parents to get their kids ready for a new school year can not only put a strain on their wallet, but on their marriage.
Today’s post comes courtesy of Glenn Stanton, Focus on the Family’s director of Family Formation Studies.
A new study from the University of Melbourne in Australia on how kids from same-sex homes fare is getting a good deal of press. Perhaps you’ve seen the news stories and wondered if this changes the nature of the debate over the importance of the family?
It does not.
This new study gives the same kind of findings we’ve seen before, coming from the same kinds of studies with the same kinds of serious short-comings and method problems.
Our family is visiting Mt. Rushmore this 4th of July weekend. In the visitor center Tom Brokaw narrates a film about Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor who carved the four Presidents’ images—Washington, Jefferson, T. Roosevelt and Lincoln—into the granite. Brokaw says of those who worked on the mountain, “… these were ordinary men accomplishing extraordinary things.”
It made me think of our Christian faith. Yes, we are ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary things through Christ. In fact, this testimony came to us this week.
In a previous blog post, I wrote about passing along a faith that lasts to your children. That post focused on the most important thing parents can do: live out a vibrant faith themselves.
Today I want to share with you additional research that suggests another helpful dimension to helping your kids inherit your faith.
As it turns out, that element has a lot to do with Dad.
The power of love and affection
In a New York Times article that ran earlier this year, Prof.
In my latest book, “The Good Dad,” I spent a lot of time and pages on the importance of dads simply “being there” for their kids.
“Our kids aren’t asking for perfection,” I wrote. “They’re asking for our presence – to show up for the job each and every day. They’re asking us to be there for them, to guide them, to hug them.”
When we’re there with them, accompanying them in the trenches of everyday life, we’re able to serve as a guiding influence over our children.
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.
