dynamics of adolescence
5 Ways to Lead Your Teen Toward Healthy Friendships
Here are five simple tips for helping guide your teens in building healthy friendships.
parenting encouragement
Family Check-Up Time
Another school year is upon us. At our house, we are using this as an ideal time to evaluate ourselves as a family, as parents, as a student, and as individuals. We are rooting out places that need improvement and setting priorities and goals for the coming year. And based Read more…
Christian parenting inspiration
Summer at Its Best: Family Games
One of the fun things happening at the Butner home this summer is a resurgence of our family game time. I have previously shared some of my favorite gaming memories from past and present seasons, so I’ll not repeat that in this post. Instead, I want to continue in this Read more…
Christian parenting inspiration
Summer at its Best: Camps
Summer camp was one of the most wonderful threads woven throughout the fabric of my childhood. For years, my sisters and I would head off to “church” camp for a week of tech-free bonding with old and new friends, countless sports, activities, and crafts, memorable songs and campfires, splashing around Read more…
parenting encouragement
Summer at its Best: Vacationing
(Above: My family at Disney World several years ago – enjoying Animal Kingdom together with a basic outline of plans to structure our day. Below: My family on the same vacation at Disney World – clearly more focused on getting the good “photo op” than on the fact that part Read more…
Christian parenting inspiration
Summer at its Best
Kids are finishing up another year of school. Baseball season is well underway. Yards can’t be mowed and trimmed fast enough. And most days the relative humidity in Baton Rouge is now hovering around 137% or so. Summer time must be upon us! In the next few weeks, I will Read more…
Christian parenting inspiration
The Process of Parenting: Encouraging
Well, here we are. The final installment of my Process of Parenting series. And we get to end on such a wonderful note – encouraging our kids! Before we move into my thoughts on how best to encourage our kids throughout their life journey, and why this is so important, Read more…
parenting encouragement
The Process of Parenting: Releasing
Take a deep breath, parents. Here’s where the journey can get really scary for you and your kids. And it is absolutely essential to their growth and development toward adulthood – and essential to your healthy relationship development, as well. So, why is this so scary for us? Why do Read more…
Christian parenting inspiration
The Process of Parenting: Don’t Forget to Pause
I’m wiped out tonight as I write this post. Ever have one of those weeks (or months or years) where you are just spent, but you know you have so much more to do in the coming days? Yeah – that’s where I am. It’s a good weary, though. I Read more…
parenting encouragement
The Process of Parenting: Trusting
The process of parenting involves a number of critical elements and stages. One of the most important, and most challenging, is extending trust to our kids. We may do the best job in the world of preparing, equipping, and guiding them – but if we fail to trust them to Read more…