Family Life

Five Things to Do When Your Child is Being Picked On
A friend was just heartbroken, "My preteen son was visibly upset after children's choir last night. When I probed, he said he didn't like his class any more and he wanted to quit. After probing even more, he said, fighting back tears, that when he went to sit down, the kids told him that he…
Great New Gifts To Get Kids Off Their Devices!
  We hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Once more, we were blessed with all eight of our children around the table. One of our sons is recently engaged, so next year it may only be seven - unless it's nine, with our new daughter present! Time passes so quickly, and we treasure the memories…
Hurricane Safety
Today on Facebook, we saw someone from the Midwest giving advice to a mutual friend in the zone a hurricane is predicted to strike -- advice that could cost them their lives. For our friends in the path of one of these huge storms, who may not have been through a hurricane before, we wanted to…
Five Ways to Get Dad Involved in Homeschooling
One of the questions we hear is, "How can I get my husband more involved in our homeschooling?" If you look around conventions (we travel to lots of them), admittedly, you do see a lot more moms than dads. It's not just anecdote; a study published by the National Home Education Research Institute in 1997…
Teen Romance: Reality Check! (2)
When a 5-year-old announces he wants to marry the little girl next door, you might say (sweetly), “Well, maybe one day, Sport, but you've got to grow up and get a job first.” Ditto for your pre-teen. But when Sport is 17 and he can smell legal adulthood just a few calendar pages away, a…
Titus 2 Lessons from a Friend’s Funeral
Last week, one of my friends lost her battle with cancer and went home to be with the Lord. Monday afternoon, while I was sitting at her funeral, the Lord gripped my heart hard. My friend Cathy was a true Titus 2 woman. You couldn't know Cathy without knowing she was a Christian. She loves…
Love, Infatuation, and the Pre-Teen Crush
Boys will be boys, they say, which is usually an excuse for any sort of foolishness short of downright criminality. It should come as no surprise when a young man begins to notice that young women are different in ways that seem interesting rather than irritating. There's nothing wrong in that – God created the…
When You Find That on Your Husband’s Phone
It's the conference season, so we're all over the place speaking and talking to people. It's an honor to hear their stories and to be invited into their lives. It's also heartbreaking, sometimes. We think the hardest part is talking to those whose marriages are in trouble. The grief is palpable. They look broken, injured,…
Can We Get Your Vote for
My Beloved and My Friend?
Our book on marriage, My Beloved and My Friend: How To Be Married To Your Best Friend Without Changing Spouses, is in the running for the Christian Small Publishers "Book of the Year" Award. This award is based on votes from publishers, booksellers, readers - anyone interested in promoting books from independent Christian publishers - and…
A Question About Fifty Shades of Grey
This morning a friend asked, "Do you think I should watch Fifty Shades of Grey with my teen and talk about it?"  We're not as strict on media as some are. We think there's some value in watching things you don't agree with and analyzing and discussing them with your teens. Sometimes, though, there's more…

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