Growing Up Well

  • Raising Countercultural Kids in the United States of Addiction (Part 3 of 3)

    The trends are not looking good for the mental and emotional health of young people, across all demographics. For instance, most people think of college as one of the happier times in a person’s whole life. However, according to a recent survey by the American College Health Association, 52 percent of college students reported feeling…

  • Raising Countercultural Kids in the United States of Addiction (Part 2)

    Raising Countercultural Kids in the United States of Addiction (Part 2) In the previous post, we looked at how young people today are growing up in a culture which encourages extreme individuality. This individualistic lifestyle discourages healthy family life and social life, and it ultimately generates deep-down detachment and loneliness. This eventually creates chronic anxiety…

  • Raising Countercultural Kids in the United States of Addiction (Part 1)

    In the late 1990s, author J.K. Rowling invented the term “muggle” as a derogative term for the normal people of modern Britain. Muggles are all the ordinary human beings in Rowling’s wildly popular Harry Potter book series. Muggles do not have any magical powers or awareness of anything magical. They live for comfort, they conform…

  • The Social Combat of Being 13

    A New World Order for Young Teens 7th and 8th grade is when the social life of a child amps up in three ways: importance, intensity, and consequences. At 13, a child’s social standing becomes extremely important to them, as it has become more important to all the other 13 year olds. For some, it…

  • Your Family. Your Culture.

    The most common theme among parents of young teens lately is that they want to live differently than the culture. Most parents do not want their kids to ingest the current culture of materialism, comparison, busyness, and anxiety. They don’t like what the culture is teaching and demanding. Most parents want to be connected with…

  • The Power of Kindness

    Josh was a normal teenager whose father died. His mother moved them from their home in the country to the city, with the hope that a fresh start would improve their lives. But Josh was ridiculed in his new school for no good reason. In fact, he was ridiculed for a horrible reason. Instead of…

  • Advice for Middle School Kids

    Recently, I asked my Facebook friends to give me advice for my 7th graders. Here’s what my friends have learned in their 30 years of growing up since 7th grade. Be cool to everyone because there’s a good chance you will either marry, work with, or work for one of them one day. “It’s not…

  • The Distance Run

    I coach middle school cross country, which is not a glamorous job, but it is uniquely rewarding. For young distance runners, the hardest part is embracing the pain that creates stronger legs and faster times. I try to make practices and meets fun, but there is no way of getting around the fact that running…

  • Tips for Motivating Young Teens

    It takes more than a poster to motivate kids. Ask any schoolteacher. Early in their careers, young teachers will spend their own hard-earned cash on motivational posters for their classrooms, and soon thereafter they realize that those stylish platitudes are only good for the companies that sell motivational posters. Motivating kids, especially teenagers, is a…

  • Motivate. Don’t Manipulate Your Kids.

    Once again, his room isn’t clean, not by any standard. Her backpack, jacket, and shoes are scattered about the floor of the hall, again. His grades are sub-par in math, again. She is making the family late to school, again. He seems to be nonchalant about his music audition this weekend. She isn’t running enough…

  • Perpetual Parenting

    It’s likely that you are being a great parent even when you aren’t thinking about it. You may be doing a heck of a job of training your children without even trying to do so. Unaware, you can parent well. Unfortunately, that door swings both ways. You can be a terrible parent without thinking about…

  • Kids in Cars Talking Life

    The car is where the best stories have a chance to run and really stretch out their legs freely. It’s where sarcasm bursts up out of nowhere and cracks everyone up. It’s where kids break into tears after a horrible day at school. It’s where questions are posed, debates develop, and problems get solved. The…

  • Why Young Kids Should Learn to Use Dangerous Things

    A friend recently posted on Facebook a picture of her three young children helping their dad build a deck. The seven year-old boy was using a power drill to sink a deck screw. Another woman posts a picture of her two kids 6 feet high up in the branches of an old oak tree. One…

  • Connect + Guide + Enjoy = Good Parenting

    You are never done parenting. There is never enough time, energy, money, or wisdom to do it all right. Parenting is incessant, and perfection is impossible. No professor will give you an A for all that you did for your children this semester. No counselor will tell you that you can now celebrate because you…

  • Take Your Kids Outdoors

    Kids spend well over 40 HOURS per week in front of electronic screens, but less than 40 MINUTES per week in nature. Screens are ruling teens. Delayed Gratification A major component of growing up is learning to deal with long waits and unexpected delays, yet nearly everything is now available in an instant. If we are going…

  • Play Well This Summer!

    Summer School. Summer Job. Summer Reading. Yes, parents need to keep kids mentally active and productive in the summer. Growing up well requires hard work and intellectual development year round. However, parents also need to help kids enjoy life fully, and that absolutely requires fun — the sort of fun that is a little dangerous…

  • Ordinary Parenting

    Parenting is messy. It’s often a blender full of emotions, tasks, and conflicts. That why we so often feel pureed by our family life. Parenting is mundane. It requires incessant planning, cleaning, cooking, driving, laundry, arguing, more driving, phone calls, filling in forms, more driving, more cleaning, on and on. But parenting is also a…

  • Fear Less, Parents

    With the tragic news of the abduction and murder of ten-year-old Hailey Owens this week, many parents are afraid that the same thing may happen to their children. And many are wondering if they should be doing more to protect their children. Those are legitimate concerns and questions, and there is not a simple sound-bite…

  • Fun = Connection

    Have Fun with Your Child ASAP Good parenting has an order of operations. Insides come first. A child should feel connected to his or her mom or dad in a profound way, first and foremost. Then, and only then, the child will think about what the parent is communicating. A strong emotional bond between parent…

  • The Connected Family

    2014 is the first year in American history in which everybody has a mobile device. We are at the saturation point with smartphones, tablets, laptops, and TVs. They are in our pockets, purses, cars, backpacks, and bedrooms. We all have screens with us throughout our days, and some of us are never without a screen.…

  • Connect With Your Young Teen

    First Connect, Then Guide The best parents are the ones who are deeply connected with their children and offer support and guidance all along the path of life. They’re the ones who care enough to say, “No, you can’t do that, because I love you too much to let you settle for that.” And their…

  • Helping Your Teen Deal with a Sports Injury

    So, your teenager is injured and is out for the rest of the season. Of course, his or her initial reaction will be anger, sadness, self-pity, confusion. That is normal, since this is a form of grief – the loss of something beloved. But after a few days of sulking and trying to come to…

  • The Sacred Honor of Being a Parent

    A Unique Relationship Parenting is a unique relationship, wherein the parent is authorized by law and by God to protect, provide, nurture, and discipline. Ultimately, the parent must somehow control self and child enough to train for independent success. Parenting is a special relationship, one in which the parent is fully responsible for the children…

  • 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…

  • Weak Language

      We often chastise young people for using “strong language,” but there is an equal or greater problem with kids, especially girls, who use weak language. Consider the use of the following “words” among kids, and consider how you can guide them to use stronger language: like just kinda sorta maybe y’know know-what-I-mean know-what-I’m-sayin’ well…

  • Parenting Digital Kids

    Life Beyond the Screens If you ask most teens what item is their most prized, important possession, they will say it’s their smartphone. In fact, I’ve heard teens say that if they could only take one thing on a deserted island it would be their smartphone, in spite of the fact that it would be…

  • 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…

  • Stop, Look, Listen

    Our kids, no matter the age, need us to be with them, explaining what makes one thing beautiful and another ugly, why one thing is important and the other trivial, and why this is quite right and that is all wrong. A relationship such as this is what makes the world a better place, one…

  • You win some; you lose some

    Life is unfair – extraordinarily unfair. Sometimes the good guys lose, while the bad guys revel in their victory.  Sometimes, evil dictators prevail for decades, while innocent children starve and suffering saints are martyred.  Is this too much for kids to handle?  Dare we tell them the truth? I think the truth sets kids free. …

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