“You mentioned you have touching rules for friends, family, and neighbors–do you mind sharing them?”
There are rules and boundaries for touching for different groups of people. Know what they are and make sure your kids know what they are too.
A reader wrote to me telling me about a young neighborhood child that introduced things of a sexual nature to her daughter. This is not a fun subject. I have been avoiding putting it on the site, but the more I think about it, this topic is probably one of the biggest things parents face. How do we keep our children free from the disease of sexual impurity that seems to be taking over our world? How do we make them aware while not taking away their innocence?
The Times We Live In Part 1 Read More »
A reader loves the chore chart we have for our children and wants to try it, but also wants to know if we have a chore chart for us, the adults.
Adult Chore Chart? Read More »
I have had a few requests for a copy of my chore chart. My system is very simple. Probably not revolutionary, but here it is. This chart is the one that my big children use. They switch chore lists each week.
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
Fathers: Parent or Playmate Part 1 Read More »
I have to ask it because it’s something I struggle with talking about to my kids . . . when do you talk to your children about sex? How do you go about it so that they understand that sex is actually a good thing at the right time and place, and not some evil thing (the world’s view) that you have to do to bring children to the world?
When do you talk about “it”? 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.
Character Building Read More »
A blog reader wrote:
1 – We don’t have a “rule” or certain consequence set up for every behavior in the book (nor do we want so many specific rules!) So, I’m wondering if “just-plain-not-doing-what-you-know-you-should” (be kind, be respectful, be responsible, be honest, don’t hit, tease, talk back, etc.) would be considered “not following instructions”, and would it then be followed up with the usual – an extra job, followed by SODAS, then major maintenance, and 24 hours without privileges…? Or is it better to assign certain consequences to certain behaviors?
Certain Consequences For Certain Behaviors Read More »
A lot of children have selective hearing; have you noticed? Some of this selective hearing is planned and some isn’t. They really don’t hear us correctly sometimes. We can do something to make sure this doesn’t happen as often. Have you ever said don’t run down the hall, and the first thing your child does is run down the hall? My mom used to say to me, “Don’t talk back to me.” The first thing I did after this instruction was talk back to her. Strange. It is never a good idea to start an instruction with the word don’t, because whatever you say after don’t might be
What Does It Sound Like? Read More »
Nicholeen, I have a 9-year old boy. He is a typical 9-year old boy, I believe, in that his mind (and mouth) is constantly going 200 miles an hour. His siblings are always waiting for him to stop talking so they can get a word in edgewise. He is full of ideas and loves to take things apart. We are having a problem with bedtime. He goes to bed just fine, but once there, he won’t go to sleep. We let him read for about 15-30 minutes once he’s in bed, then we come down and turn the lights out (for him and his younger brother who is 4).
“It’s Time To Go To Bed.” Read More »
I want to share “The Haroldsen Family Song” that I wrote the night after the seminar. Our family talked about creating a mission statement, but since that is going to take some time, I wanted something ‘right now!’ to pull us into the right frame of mind. I penned these words to be sung to the tune of “America the Beautiful.” We sing it together often and it has even stopped a couple of sibling fights.
