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

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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...

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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...

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June 26, 2021

Nurture Your Child’s Academic Success

Do you remember the feeling you had when “school’s out for summer.”? It was the moment of freedom and fun. Now that we have children in school, many parents worry that their children will fall behind over the summer months when they don’t have classes or a need to “study for the test.” But good...

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June 19, 2021

Help, My Teen is SOOO Negative

If you have a teen, you’ve probably noticed how negative they can become. Sure, they take risks, which is good. They also exhibit an idealistic view of what can be accomplished to change the world. (Which, by the way is also a good thing.) Unfortunately, they can also exhibit a negativity that can drive any...

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June 14, 2021

The Dangers of Strict Parenting?

Most parents want their children to grow into healthy, responsible adults. They don’t want defiant teens or lazy young adults as the fruit of their parenting labors. The parental fear that our children might become defiant or lazy can lead to a strict, controlling style of parenting that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let me explain....

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June 5, 2021

From Where Do Our Tweens Learn Values?

What values do you want your children to learn? Who do you want to teach them those values? Of course, we all want to teach our children the values we believe in and support. But there is another teacher in your home. This teacher reflects the values of our society and teaches those values to...

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May 31, 2021

Climbing the Social Ladder of Adolescence

A recent study from the University of California—Davis explored teens who bully and who they bully. The study followed 3,000 eighth, ninth, and tenth grade students over the course of a school year. They discovered that teens who bullied often bullied their friends not strangers or those of lower social status. In fact, they uncovered...