Index: Tone

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 »

I’ve never liked the part in the Christmas song It’s Beginning To Look Like Christmas when it says “Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again.” Every time I hear this it makes me sad. Sad that parents wouldn’t enjoy their children and that they would want them to go away, and sad that our society would… 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 »

Bundle and save on all 4 of the Children’s Books! These books have been helping children learn in a fun way for years! Teach your children the skills of saying and being “Okay,” how to accept “No” answers, how to accept consequences, and how to disagree appropriately!... Read more »

It sometimes seems like teens don’t want to listen to adults tell them what to do or not to do, but in reality, teens and children are always hoping that adults will teach them discernment. When a person doesn’t know who to follow or what to believe morally, then that person ends up feeling lost and confused. Parents have a… Read more »

Even though the mistakes our children make are glaring us in the face, we also know that each of our children has certain attributes that make them wonderful, individual, and precious to us. Charitable parents focus more on those good, productive attributes than on the negative mistakes their children make daily.Each week I answer peoples’ parenting questions on my weekly… Read more »

In our family meeting this Sundaya topicwas brought up that our family needs to do more service. We asked for suggestions. After going over many options, we decided that Dad would call aranch in our community that might need our help and see if we could come do some REAL hard WORK.… Read more »

Creating quality, loving family relationships requires discerning between what actions are really quality and what actions are nothing more than conformity to social norms. Creating these quality relationships doesn’t require elaborate planning, just time.Strong family relationships are built upon many components, such as good communication, honesty, trust, love, forgiveness, bonding, listening, shared vision, and shared experiences. Each of these relationship-strengthening… Read more »

For years I’ve heard adults complain about how disrespectful teenagers are with a tone that suggests the teenagers should fix their problem. I found myself wondering if it was really totally the teenagers’ problem, and if it was possible for teenagers to fix the culture of disrespect all alone. After many years of helping families fix disrespect problems I can… Read more »

After responding to the woman who teaches Primary at church with my initial, general tips on how to use self-government principles in the classroom she wrote me back the following:… Read more »