Parenting Blog
I once had a reader say that praising didn’t come naturally for her. In fact, she thought praising seemed fake and annoying. She wrote:
I don't want to be a cheerleader, always saying "Good job" no matter what---I want to say things that really matter, that I really believe, that are true. I guess what makes it hard is when I know (or think I know) that I've taught them how to do something better than they have done it, or that they should be capable of doing some things without always having to be praised for it.
“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 […]
Several years ago, my family had a tradition of occasionally deciding we were on vacation for a week. That meant we took a break from our regular routine. We did it a few times a year to focus on getting all of the yard and garden work done. One day that we spent doing lots of yard work is particularly memorable, not because of what we accomplished in the garden, but because of what happened with my children.
Janae and Trisha both have a 12-year-old son who has a habit of being defiant. Each woman struggles with having the confidence to help her son change his behaviors during his outbursts. So why is Trisha’s son making so much more progress on staying calm and listening to her than Janae’s? Why is Trisha’s confidence […]
Many years ago I co-directed a youth theater production of Shakespeare's "The Tempest.” On our last day of performances, we had a matinee and an evening performance. The matinee performance started under lots of stress. We were missing our stage hand, our sound person and two actresses, and everyone was stressed. The only thing we had time to do was say a prayer. We usually took time getting into character and doing energy-building exercises before a performance, but we didn’t have time that day. The play had to go on.
Today’s children are caught in the middle of multiple moral battle zones. You could even say that children’s moral battles are divorcing them from their parents. One of the most common characteristics of a child with divorced parents is that the child feels pulled between the parents’ different values and lifestyles. It’s common for husbands […]