Index: Skills

A reader once wrote asking about her children, ages 2, 4, 6 and 8. The children were usually very well-behaved in situations away from home. The mom tried to expose them to different places so they would know how to behave.… Read more »

How do you help your children stand up for what’s right without being “preachy” or “goody-goody”? The most importantskill you can teach your child is how to determine what is right and what is wrong and how to choose right and stay away from wrong. This is the whole reason children need parents. If my child can’t match his outfits,… Read more »

When I did foster care, I had a hard time remembering the new vocabulary I was required to use to help these troubled youth, so I made some cue cards to help myself. When I first started teaching people the language of self-government and I saw them struggling to remember the new words, I remembered how much cue cards had... Read more »

Being over critical of things that don’t really matter, like table manners, personal grooming, age appropriate actions, and school grades tells the child that you don’t accept them for who they are or are trying to be.… Read more »

The Couples Meeting Journal is used with the Family Meeting Journal and Mentoring Journal as integrated parts of the Teaching Self-Government family system. The marital relationship affects all of the family relationships. If the relationship between the parents isn’t healthy, then all of the family relationships become weak. The couple’s meeting sets the stage for strong family relationships. Parents can... Read more »

It really is shocking. Society is transforming tremendously fast. In the past 10 years the United States has become drastically divided as a nation on important issues like the value of life, the value of religious institutions and morals, and the value of the natural family — as well as what constitutes proper education. The list could go on. Fruitless… Read more »

The multiculturalism of modern society, or desire to promote all ideas or ways of living as good, no matter their opposition to moral, religious, social, and familial cultural norms, is creating negativity and confusion when it comes to attitudes about marriage and family. People have spent their young years reading books and watching movies that end in what many human… Read more »

When my son was 12, he sang barbershop with his dad and grandpa.A few nights a week they had long rehearsals.One night, my son didn’t get to bed until midnight after a rehearsal.He slept in the next morning and realized he missed helping the Boy Scouts deliver flags for Pioneer Day.He said, “I guess I was just too tired to… Read more »

When was the last time you felt lonely? In order to thrive during these socially unusual times, and even times that aren’t unusual at all, it’s important to understand the difference between being alone and experiencing real loneliness, and what we can do to combat the loneliness epidemic that seems to be sweeping many countries. According to 2021 Harvard research… Read more »

How do you find a good consequence for a thre-year-old who won’t participate in cleaning a shared bedroom? This mother explained to me of her struggle with this issue. This is the advice I gave her.… Read more »

Younas and Martha Martin are from a small Christian community in Lahore, Pakistan. While looking for a school to send their daughter to, they researched the top U.S. universities to see which ones had the strongest family values. They ultimately decided upon Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. After their daughter married and settled down in early 2015, she learned… Read more »

Why do we cater to our stresses and forget to choose calmness? After all, calmness is the only state where we truly feel safe and empowered. Stress, anger, and frustration never lead to true empowerment or peace, only emotional bondage.In 1998, when I was the young mother of a small baby and a toddler,and before I went through a complete… Read more »