Growing Up Well

  • Speak Your Kids Up

    Here is a sneak peak at the book I am writing about parenting: Kids need to see and hear their parents doing hard things, persevering, and being resilient. So, discuss life’s issues with your kids, and don’t dumb it down too much. They can handle and can learn a lot from some transparency. My wife…

  • From the Mouths of Babes

    This from a 6th grade teacher who I respect a great deal: I teach a class titled Emerging Leaders, and we talk about “self awareness” to start the quarter. For the lesson I was doing, I decided that asking these 2 questions would be interesting. 1. Name one or two things that your parents to…

  • It’s Never Too Late to Reconnect With Your Child

    I could tell that things weren’t right with me and my boy. He was avoiding me. I was annoyed with him. We weren’t having fun, even when we were playing ping pong or shopping for soccer shoes. I didn’t know what to do. He was acting like a sulking 14 year old boy, and I…

  • Protecting Kids From the Inside Out

    Unlike consumer products, parenting comes without instructions or guarantees. We all want our children to grow up happy, healthy, successful, and involved with positive-minded family and friends. However, our children live in a broken world, and it has a way of breaking young people, sooner or later, one way or another. But there is real…

  • Disappointing Birth Brings Hope

    By Julie Kerckhoff Mary and Joseph had just survived an untimely, government-mandated trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem with Mary “great with child.” Mary, who was chosen by God to have His son, had undergone six months of ridicule for being an unfaithful fiancé. By Jewish law, Joseph could have stoned her or at least dismissed…

  • Loving Grandpa

    One of my favorite 7th grade essays ever is this memoir about a grandfather. Ashley Aucker, is now a 25 year old, wife, mother, singer, and songwriter. She was a sweet, quiet little 12 year old in my 7th grade English class many years ago when she wrote this essay. It blew me away then,…

  • Middle School: Top Ten Things to Know

    The following is an open letter from my boss, Steve Hall, Head of Middle School at Westminster Christian Academy, to our parents. It’s one of my favorite pieces about teaching and parenting young teens. ——————————————————————————————————- Dear Parents, The middle school years are a unique time of life.  It is crazy, wonderful, exciting and baffling. As a…

  • Same Lake, Different Boat

    When you are a parent of a child with severe disabilities, you have to accept the fact that your life journey is going to be much different than most people’s and that you are not in control of circumstances.  Those two truths are much easier said than lived-out, but they are crucial to living well.…

  • Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

    Anne Lamott says that in her experience the two most powerful prayers are “Help me, help me, help me.” and “Thank you, thank, you, thank you.” We are so grateful for our recent trip to Laguna Beach, California.  The Dream Factory granted our family a first-class vacation that would suit the special needs and wishes…

  • Parenting With and Without Fear

    Fear is universal.  Columnist Dave Barry writes, “All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears — of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words “Some Assembly Required.” We are all deeply motivated by our fears, and…

  • Powerful Blessings

    There are countless ways that an adult can bless a young person.  In Trent & Smalley’s book, The Blessing: Giving the Gift of Unconditional Love and Acceptance, dozens of specific examples are given by people who were greatly blessed by their parents.  Here are a few of those testimonies.  Surely there is something here which…

  • The Power of No (Part 1)

    Anthony Bourdain, is an American chef, author, and television personality. He is well-known as the host of the Travel Channel‘s culinary and cultural adventure program Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. Tony is a rebel; it’s in his blood, and he has used that iconoclastic attitude in a largely positive way – as an aspiring international chef…

  • The Race to Nowhere

    The Race to Nowhere is a film that will make you think deeply about what a good education looks like.  It will challenge your beliefs about the nature of homework, AP classes, and college preparation.  You will re-think what a “successful kid” should do in middle school, high school, and college because, in many ways,…

  • Family Matters

    Imagine two American families, living on the same street, both successful in pursuing the American dream. Their Christmas cards are equally impressive. All their kids are college-bound. Their marriages are stable, and they are in the midst of meeting their career and material goals.  There are no skeletons hiding in their closets; what you see…

  • Books for Boys

    Finding a well-written, entertaining book for a boy who hates to read is always a challenge.   Woods Runner, by Gary Paulsen, grabs your attention at the get-go. It opens, “One day, it seemed he was eleven and playing in the dirt around the cabin or helping with chores, and the next, he was thirteen,…

  • Kids Should Work Alongside Adults

    “Unfortunately, many of today’s teenagers make no meaningful contribution to their families.  They have nothing more to contribute to the family than reluctantly taking out the garbage or picking up their room after being told again and again. That’s not a contribution. At that point it is more like self-preservation. “Kids need to be given…

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