Index: Skills

This Thanksgiving Day is dedicated to feeling and expressing gratitude for our blessings. Are you grateful for who you are and the roles you have? Two Mothers Two mothers, Tina and Katy, are watching the ball game of their oldest sons. Their boys play for the same team. Each mother has other children busily running around on the sidelines as… Read more »

Have you ever completely lost control of yourself and you weren’t exactly sure why? This can happen to anyone. This usually means that you’ve been triggered in some way. There’s so much talk about emotional triggers nowadays that triggers are turning into common excuses for poor behavior. Could it be that we might sometimes be interpreting bad triggers as good… Read more »

Sharon and Michael always enjoyed their downtime in the evenings watching DIY, design, and food programs. They felt like their time together as a young married couple was meaningful and educational since they both loved creative projects, and they got the “downtime” they needed at the end their busy workdays. This nightly ritual quickly became a habit for Sharon and… Read more »

When I first decided to leave my high-paying career to stay home with my toddler son and daughter, I had to remind myself that I was picking the greater good. I was in the funeral industry and was really needed at an important time in people’s lives: the death of a loved one. I felt really needed at the office,… Read more »

The role of fatherhood seems to have been under attack for a good portion of my 42 years of life. When I was very young, I watched “The Brady Bunch.” It featured a smart and socially appropriate father whose children turned to him for wisdom. Other programs like “Little House on the Prairie” also had strong fathers. In that show… Read more »

Is your teenaged child not getting everything done that they need to in the day? Are they slacking off on their duties and assignments? I had a mother present me with a similar situation, concerned about her 16-year-old son and his lack of productivity. She couldn’t quite determine whatwas going on and wanted some advice.… Read more »

“There is no more war in my classroom, and there is no more war in my home.” Those were the words of a teacher from Kenya this summer. It was part of a parenting training I attended designed to teach Catholic leaders how to teach their families self-government skills and good communication. In the 19 years I’ve been teaching parenting… Read more »

My husband is a neat and tidy sort of a person. There was a time when our family was living out of laundry baskets instead of closets and drawers, because I just wasn’t able to stay on top of the laundry like I would have liked to.Spencer suggested the topic of having a set time for the laundry to be… Read more »

We have just made a pretty good argument for Dad’s to parent differently and have different experiences with their children. However, having a different God given role doesn’t mean that Dad should feel separated from the flow of the home. In fact, it is important that Dad should view himself as a co-president of the family business. Families should be… Read more »

I have had many questions latelyasking if fathers should parent different andhow to help fatherbecome part of mother’s vision for the family. There are many different situations and personalities, so there areprobably many ways to treat each different relationship.I am going to share some of what I have learned about fathers and what I havedoneto help myhusband and our relationship.For… Read more »

Family traditions instill personal and family identity and bind families together throughout their many phases of growth and change. After children and grandchildren are grown and gone off to live their adult lives, the traditions remain as reminders of the sweetness of home and family, what is most important in life, and who they really are. Each new holiday our… Read more »

Remember your family meetings! Family meetings are the core of Teaching Self-Government. If you have weekly family meetings, the whole family will stay focused on their family government. See what happens when you miss a few weeks, it’s noticeable. In my home it’s especially noticeable with Dad. He has less patience and focus as a parent when we miss our… Read more »