Family by God&#039;s Design

To Teach or Not To Teach

Parents want their children to grow in knowledge, to do well in school and get accepted into a university that will set their career on a great trajectory. To accomplish this end, parents often take the role of teaching their children. That is all well and good, but it’s not the most effective way for...

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March 18, 2024

The Parent’s Key

I like what Alison Gopnik said in The Gardner and The Carpenter: “The key to love in practice is doing things together, participating in the world in a way that acknowledges the strengths and weaknesses of both of you.” Her book, and this quote, are about becoming a parent as a form of love. One...

emotional development emotional health family intimacy learning parent child relationship parenting

August 7, 2023

Children Need the Sound of Silence

Children’s brains are on a developmental fast track. Their brains are evolving, pruning, and shaping…at an amazing rate. You can see it in their changing abilities and growing knowledge every day. Interestingly, sounds have meaning to our brain and our brain seeks to understand that meaning. For instance, the sound of a speeding car when...

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March 18, 2023

The Gift of Your Child’s Question

Somewhere in the recesses of my brain I recall the phrase “incessant questioning” used to describe the time of childhood in which children ask question after question after question. When I first heard the phrase, I thought it sounded like the child became irritating in their questions. They just kept asking until the adult became...

Family Shepherds Honor

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November 14, 2022

Help Your Children Get “Ready to Learn”

Learning can happen anytime and anywhere…not just in school. In fact, most learning probably occurs outside of school. Our children learn by watching us. They learn while playing. They learn everywhere. But if you really want to get your children “ready to learn” in more formal settings like school, a series of five studies out...

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June 13, 2022

Your Child’s Learning Curve on Criticism

Children learn through naturally occurring rewards and losses, natural consequences. Behaviors that bring a natural reward tend to increase while behaviors that result in a loss decrease. In other words, children learn from experience. Parents, however, can interfere with this learning in a subtle way, often without even knowing it. Fortunately, you can avoid interfering...

Family Shepherds Honor

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November 6, 2021

Help Children Learn with These 2 Surprising Twists

You can encourage your children to learn their schoolwork (and anything else really) with these two surprising twists. Give them a break. Neurobiologists have found that taking a break while learning and studying helps us retain the information for a longer period of time. Sure, cramming may get a person through the test (there is...