As wives and mothers, our thinking doesn’t only affect us- it directly impacts our husband and any children God gives. What’s happening inside our minds matters a great deal! In 2011, I took my first biblical counseling class, and one session focused on the “Anti-Psalm.” The goal was to better understand what a text is saying by carefully…
Q&A: How Can I Decrease TV-Watching in My Kids?
After last week’s topic (Should Kids’ Screentime Be Unlimited?) a reader asked: Q: how do you let them watch a video/cartoon without the younger (under 2) seeing it or wanting to see it? He’s in the same room or walks by, for example, and now he likes to watch (and asks to) at an even younger…
Cooking, Sex, and Giving Honest Feedback
Imagine the pressure– (perhaps you feel this pressure over the holidays!?) Christmas dinner will be at your house, and everyone’s looking to you to make it. Only problem is, you cook infrequently, don’t really know your way around the kitchen, and are relying on ingredients you only rarely use or eat. The pressure to produce…
Here’s Why I Love Our Potty Training Toilet Seat
For many years of my life, I was a slave to potty training with the little kiddy chairs. We’d tote them around the house, dutifully emptying out the little chamber underneath the plastic seat multiple times a day, even for the tiniest drops of pee (for which we’d clapped and cheered, like the good potty-training…
Why You SHOULD Ask, “Why, God?”
Sometimes we can feel like it’s wrong to ask, “why, God?” When hard times come, it’s often a natural question of our hearts… but I don’t think it’s a wrong question. The only concern I have is that I think we don’t ask it soon enough. I want to encourage you to ask it now….
Should Kids’ Screentime Be Unlimited?
Devices are a sticky subject now. 20 years ago it was TV time. No matter what, though, unless you’re Amish, you have to reckon with it. I’ll share what we do- but would love to hear your thoughts. A Yahoo!Parenting article (which — as a sidenote– I think should be retitled more honestly as Yahoo!UNparenting,…
Can I Help You Be a Better Mom?
Wanna know what one thing has made the difference in becoming a better mother to my children? I made this 4-minute video to tell the answer to that question, and why I write at jessconnell.com. One of the lies moms have been fed in this past decade or so is that “you’re the expert” and that “you innately possess all the mothering…
Mama, Do You Flinch?
Fanny Price is one of my favorite characters in Jane Austen’s literature. She discerns the truth about people, and sees them for what they truly are at their core. Their dressing up, fakery, and flattering does not alter her observations about their character and priorities. This quality makes her a tricky person to have around. In…
My 2-Year-Old Punched Me In the Face
Ever experienced the outplay of a two-year-old’s punch to the face? As a mom of 7, I’ve experienced some version of it, several times over. One little boy, many moons ago, slapped me in the middle of a Hobby Lobby trip. Several have yelled “no” at me. And this happened almost a year ago: It…
24 Hours of Motherly Affection
(I wrote this 11/29/12 as a way to chronicle the loving, affection happening in our home and spur other moms on toward loving affection in their homes. I never published it, recently found it, and am sharing it even though it’s now 3 years old.) This morning, when Moses woke up, he came and crawled up…