Family by God&#039;s Design

Take This 4-Week Challenge with Your Teen

A study published in September, 2020, reported the results of a simple classroom activity that increased the life satisfaction of ninth- and tenth-grade students. In fact, it did even more than that. This study involved over 1,000 ninth-and tenth-grade students in a 4-week project. One group of students spent 10 minutes a week writing gratitude...

Celebration Family Shepherds

connection gratitude happiness

July 24, 2021

Look Into My Eyes, See My Soul

Some say, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” Researchers at the University of Geneva took that saying to heart when considering the impact of making eye contact with another person. They found that when a person makes direct eye contact with another person, they perceive time as shorter than it objectively is. As...

Celebration

acceptance intimacy marriage vulnerability

July 19, 2021

Don’t Let Defensiveness Ruin Your Marriage, Take The Antidote Instead

I don’t know about you, but I often find myself making defensive maneuvers when my wife and I get into an argument. I hate being wrong. I want her to understand. So, I start defensive maneuvers. Maybe you recognize some of these: “Well, I wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t….” “But you need to...

Grace Honor

arguments defensive responsibility

July 17, 2021

Happiness Is Not “IF” Families Use Social Media, But “HOW”

Not long ago we published a short blog on how to avoid “Media Induced Jealousy.” At least one study suggests that nearly 60% of people suffer from jealousy induced by social media posts More recently, I discovered and read the review of a study suggesting that how people use social media impacts their well-being. Since...

Celebration

family intimacy happiness

July 10, 2021

Reach Out and Touch Someone

Remember the commercials that encouraged us to “reach out and touch someone” with a phone call? Their motto bounced around in our heads long before cell phones and texting. Now it’s even easier to “reach out and touch someone,” right? Just send a quick text or message them on Facebook. So much easier… or is...

Celebration Honor

cell phone conflict resolution intimacy

July 5, 2021

Try Saying This Instead of That

Sometimes I like a simple cheat sheet. It gives me great ideas and primes my mind to come up with some more ideas. With that in mind, here is a cheat sheet for parenting phrases we can use instead of the one that immediately comes to mind when our children do something…eh…crazy. So… Instead of...

Family Shepherds

discipline parent child conflict parent child relationship parenting speech

July 3, 2021

Using Repetition to Help Your Child

Remember those movies your children wanted to watch over and over again? They watched them so many times that they quoted the lines as they watched the show…and kept quoting them after the show ended…and when asking to watch the show again. If you were like me, the movie became boring. But our children never...