Discipleship
At our sons' coming-of-age ceremonies, we aim to gather the wisdom of significant men in the young man's life and offer encouragement, welcome, and exhortation in a public, family-oriented setting. But it's not all teaching and ritual. Another thing we do is invite our guests to rejoice in this time of growth. Our family's birthday celebrations…
We described the idea of a formal coming-of-age ceremony here. We've done this with all six of our sons, and in a few years we'll consider how to celebrate our eldest daughter! One of the earliest questions to answer is the form the ceremony should take ... and therefore, who to invite? Since we're totally at…
People often ask if we'd describe what we do for a coming-of-age ceremony with our boys. Surely with six boys we've done something of the sort … and the answer would be, “Yes, indeed!” You've probably heard of the Jewish “Bar Mitzvah” tradition – where a Jewish boy is officially welcomed to adult status in…
As parents, we have a love/hate relationship with all the devices in our home. We depend on our laptops. We run our business from them and our teen/twenties sons run their businesses from theirs, too. We use them to communicate with each other - especially the grown up kids in other states. If we need to…
Here's what I struggle with: How do I prepare my young boys in case they are exposed to porn without destroying their innocence? It is a struggle at young ages, but it’s so important. A mom recently told us she discovered her 8 or 9 year old was getting up in the middle of the…
What can we as parents do to help OUR faith become OUR BOYS' faith? As my son goes into the age if double digits, (10 yrs old soon) I worry about him losing his faith. How do I help him look to God more and not less? These moms are right to be concerned. We read…
We finally noticed a pattern. When one of our children got somewhere between nine and fourteen, they'd climb on an emotional rollercoaster and invite us all to join them. Wow, what a tough age to parent! The first time we went through it, we questioned everything, "Is it us? Have we failed in parenting? Is…
We recently reached a milestone online – our Facebook page Raising Real Men has gathered 20,000 fans. In the discussion that morning, one of our readers asked, “As a single mom, can you tell me the one most important thing I can teach my son?” (more…)
This has been a pretty sobering week for many homeschool families. A very prominent leader and speaker in Christian homeschool circles confessed to an inappropriate relationship with a woman and resigned from his ministry and speaking engagements. As speakers ourselves, we and our children know most of the other families on the speaking circuit, so…
We are thrilled to announce that we'll be hosting an hourlong weekly streaming radio show on the new Ultimate Radio Network! Our new show, Making Biblical Family Life Practical, will be the Hal & Melanie you guys know and love -- there will be lots of back and forth and humor, but also pointed, principled…