Q: what happens when I honestly want to learn how to make my 2- and 4-year-olds obey? How do I know what’s realistic…when every book and every parents gives opposite, yet “biblical” advice on the subject? What happens when I’m at the end of my rope over tantrums from the younger one like I never faced…
Search Results for: obedience
How to Set Your Kids Up for Obedience
I was recently at an event where I was, for days, in a stationary vantage point of watching a wide swath of parents interact with their children amidst stressful circumstances. One mother stands out to me. Unfortunately, not for good reasons. She stood by watching as two of her young children destroyed part of the building. She feigned…
The “SHOULDS” & the Limitations of Now
As I’ve returned some attention to this little blog of mine, I’ve revisited old draft articles. Some are fiery; others seem lackluster. Well, if it were you, and you had sensible articles with practical advice about mommy topics you could finish up and polish, or passionate articles brimming with fervor, which would you pick? Each…
Womanhood & Our Identity Idolatry – Part 2 (especially “MOTHER”)
In Part 1 we discussed- the unreliability of basing our identity on seasons, or characteristics about us the way we are all geared toward identity idolatry (feeling that what we do/choose is the same as who we are) and the way God – in kindness – seeks to shake us loose of that. Ultimately, there…
13 Life-Preserving Ideas for Recovering From Spiritual Abuse
First: If you are suffering under spiritual abuse, or have recently left a spiritually abusive situation, I want to encourage you– not minimize or question what you experienced. For the purposes of this article, spiritual abuse is defined (by Got Questions) as: To “abuse” is to use something or someone to bad effect or for…
A Hard Year, the Joy of Baby #9, and the Ideas that Drive Us
Well, it’s been more than a year since I’ve written here. And a lot happened in the last year. WHAT WE DID, BETWEEN JUNE 2017 & JUNE 2018: Through our extended family, we’ve experienced some life-changing pain– the death of two grandparents, and my brother went through an unexpected divorce. They married the same year we did, and though we…
Q&A: “Obeying” With a Rotten Attitude?
Q: my son Caleb, who will be 6 next month. He is an extremely outgoing, active, almost hyperactive, little boy who talks non-stop and (perhaps because he’s the oldest; perhaps because that’s how he’s wired), is obsessed with the idea of being “the boss.” Overall, he’s actually a relatively compliant child, but lately I’ve noticed…
Discipline & Respect, with Teens & Preteens
Q: I am totally struggling with my oldest… One thing that I’m having trouble with is knowing how to discuss things with him. He still struggles with basic obedience, so that is an issue. Also, he tends to argue with me while we are talking. For example, this morning I told him that something he…
5 Ways to Prepare Your Kids for an Emergency
We typically don’t know when emergencies are going to happen. This means we’re often in high-adrenaline, reactionary mode, when those emergencies come. One way we can make those times *less* stressful is by being prepared in advance, in the ways that ARE possible. Here are 5 ways we can prepare our families for emergency situations: Basic…
Ep. 19: Public Behavior: Why Character Training Matters
The Bible doesn’t explicitly teach us what to do in a grocery store with our kids, right? So is kids’ public behavior just a matter of personal opinion and preference? Let’s discuss the underlying principles underneath the way we approach teaching our kids to behave in public. Listen in as Jess talks with Bethany Weatherby about: What…