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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…
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Peace in the Parenting Journey
Being a parent is overwhelming in mid-December, when everybody’s activities and pressures are multiplying. During the holidays, our expectation of family life is heightened along with our kids’ sense of entitlement and their frustrations with school. Arguments are common this time of year. Perhaps a few lumps of coal belong in some stockings. It’s a…
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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…
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Storm Preparation
A Creeping Crisis Some crises develop gradually. Some are excruciatingly slow. Perhaps it is the approaching death of a parent with terminal cancer. Or it is the military dad/son/husband who will be deployed to an overseas conflict. Or it may be a huge financial crisis, which will likely take away the family’s savings and home.…
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Avoiding a Mid-Life Crisis
If you are growing old well, then you are likely to help a child grow up well. 40 is not old, but it’s certainly not young either. It’s the start of mid-life, and it has a well-earned, dangerous reputation. It’s when so many people have an inner crisis, even if life is sailing along smoothly…
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Our Friend, Failure
I once heard a speaker named Dan Miller at an educator’s conference tell the audience about how he learned to fly an airplane. First, you should know that he is disabled from polio as a teenager to the extent that he can only use one arm, and he walks with a serious limp. His sickness…
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The Great Abigail Adams
John Adams was a man of tremendous intellect and inner strength. With the aid of Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers, he set the legal and political foundations of the United States of America. As a rebel, he was the intellectual force of the revolution against England. His words in support of reason and…
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Just Believe in Yourself
“Just believe in yourself, and you can achieve anything.” “Pursue your dream, and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it.” “If you dream it, you can be it.” Countless movies, songs, TV shows, and motivational speakers have preached this message. And countless teachers, coaches, and counselors preach the same message. Parents teach…
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Slowing Down for Kids’ Sake
On the way home from soccer practice last night, my son asked if he could join a track and field team. This is right after an evening in which his mother spent 30 minutes shuttling him from his school to my workplace, where he worked very hard for 60 minutes on his homework, before we…
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Training Up Independent Kids
Embracing Mistakes; Developing Problem-Solvers Thomas Edison believed that failure was not a bad thing; it merely directed him closer to success. He embraced his mistakes as opportunities to learn, and he ultimately succeeded as the greatest inventor of all time. The truth is that you want your children (or students) to learn from their mistakes,…
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Success and Significance
Charles Schultz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip, had some words to say about success. It starts with a quiz. Name the five wealthiest people in the world. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest. Name five people who have won either the Nobel…