One of the truths of being a parent, is that you get to see a lot of movies you would not normally see. Most of the time I am ambivalent to this as the win for me is the time spent with my family. Then of course there is the first four minutes of Up….
In August of 2011 I went to a funeral of a dear lady. She was a sweet Italian lady who reminded me of my own mother. She would do things like my mom did and she would wear these house gowns that both my mom and my grandma wore. This is amusing to me because…
In my last post, I talked about the pressures and stress of the holidays. I would like to talk about how to handle the stress of the holiday expectations. It is what it is. Often our stress comes from unspoken and usually unmet expectations. Try just accepting that your holiday is what it is this…
Christmas is six days away! My wife's birthday is tomorrow! My kids are on break. Life is good. Last Christmas, I worked at the hospital. This year, I have it off and even my school requirements are minimal. But what about you? Chances are good that if there is more than a few people reading…
What have we become when we need a book to tell us that it is OK to wrestle with our children? What has happened that we need a book to tell us that physical touch of a playful nature is not only good for our children but also important and necessary? I loved this book….
Our lives are driven by our assumptions. What can be troublesome is the fact that we often do not stop to consider what our assumptions are and they impact us. For instance, couples often assume that conflict is bad. They will often say things to me like, "We never fight!", or "We've never had a…
This is a post that I did for our blog at Creative Solutions. I felt it should be shared here with you. Yesterday I talked about how 75 million people are suffering from mental illness. That means that if you know three people, there is a good statistical chance that at least one of them…
A truth of relationships that is often overlooked and pushed back against is the truth that your spouse should be more important to you than your children. In fact, nothing on this earth should be more important than your spouse. I know this goes against our cultural values but let's be honest, our cultural values…
Inconsistent messages tear at the fabric of any connection we have with our children.
Wonder what’s bugging your teen? It’s hard to be certain when all your son does is grunt and your daughter won’t stop rolling her eyes. So rather than pressing our own kids to talk—not going to happen!—we asked teenagers from around the country what messages they wish they could share with their moms and dads….
