While preparing intentionally for your preschooler seems like an option in for the summer or school year, it should rank high in importance. Why? First, you don’t want to waste these ripe learning years. Secondly, if the little ones don’t have a plan to keep them busy, they will keep you from accomplishing your goals with the older children. Preschoolers are naturally curious. They love to play. Use this curiosity to play purposeful.

Speaking as a parent of a strong-willed child (SWC), I can communicate as one who has been in the trenches. The wonderful part of this is that I can fully confirm that this type of child is likely intelligent and full of potential. While parenting this personality can be altogether demanding, frustrating and intensely maddening…it also gives you the front row seat to a highly driven, strong individual. Consider your words and actions carefully. This blog offers hope and encouragement that this child’s potential is even greater that you might imagine. From identifying the triggers of strong willed children to some practical solutions and real examples of changing fighting words to thinking words. It is all about relationship.

As spring cleaning begins, think through whether your parents are storing your things or whether you are storing unnecessary things for your own children. Dig deep, literally and dig out.

Since I was a young woman, I have worked with children. As I dearly love these young hearts, I am particularly attuned to the anger seen in so many of them. Sometimes the anger comes from a wounded place or a response to bullying. Other times it is the result of neglect or a head injury. This blog explores practical helps for the prevention and cure of anger in children. Yes, there is prevention. Yes there are cures. Yes, more than just identifying the problem, there is help.

Anger in a child is a real response. While God holds each of us, even a child, responsible for his or her sin, God does hold parents 100% responsible for the sins which provoked him to that anger. Check out 25 ways that parents provoke their children to anger. Loving my children well means that communication on this topic must remain open to self examination on this topic as well as others.

For the last few years the topic of a loneliness epidemic has dominated much of chatter in interpersonal news. This conversation has focused on healthy friendships. In life, we often have to walk through the exploration of meeting a number of acquaintances in order to find true friendships. This growth mindset might even lead us to look inward and develop the qualities of a healthy friendship in ourselves.

Emotional health is vital to our physical and spiritual health. Taking inventory of our whole person is critical to moving through each day with our optimal potential. When thinking about embracing my everyday, it is especially important to recognize any toxic thinking patterns that might sabotage any capacity for growth. Latency or underdevelopment may hamper what I could be or eliminate future success. If shame is a reoccurring theme in my thoughts, it might be identified as a bully. Let’s explore shame in contrast to guilt along with the healthy pathway to eradicate this type of toxic thinking.

Being a parent is just hard work. The stages of childhood change rapidly. Approaching the subject of dating with your child can be downright intimidating. Before you begin, know that dating is radically different from how it was when you were a teenager and young adult. Sexual promiscuity is rampant. Sexual identity, date rape, binge drinking, emotional cheating, sexting and a host of new and more shocking behavior is the normal for today’s teens. Becoming more acquainted with today’s culture is a necessary, on-going job of today’s parents.

As a mom of two beautiful daughters, the topic of beauty materializes often. This article is intended to encourage the validation of the beauty in your daughter and mine. It is imperative that we speak intentionally to the dehumanizing of our daughters by the culture. What are the messages they hear which define beauty?