The most sure-fire road to respectful kids!
“Knock it off! Stop it! Get over here, NOW!” These are familiar phrases for most parents. When kids act up we get frustrated. We get demanding and even disrespectful. Kids may comply with our demands in the short run but over the long run they learn from our example to be frustrated, demanding, and […]
10 Best on the Connected Families Blog 2014
We can hardly believe it’s 2015 already! Before we dive into a year of new blog posts, we thought we’d dwell for just a moment on some of your favorites from 2014. Here are the ten most-clicked parenting tips of 2014. P.S. If you know a friend or relative who might benefit from some Connected […]
Some Practical Tips for a Truly Christ-filled Christmas
Whether you’re feeling totally frazzled or totally prepared, here are some of our favorite parenting tips to help you and your family not only survive but find connection, faith, and the peace of Christ through this Christmas season.
Practical Skills to Pick Up the Pieces After You Blow It
Are you wondering what to do when you blow it? Overcoming parenting mistakes isn’t so much about not making them (which is good because we made TONS of them), but about being intentional to develop three specific things that will help you recover when you inevitably do blow it: Skills for reconciling well when you’ve blown […]
How do you grow when you’ve blown it?
Lynne and I blew it a lot. We had a lot of great moments as a young family, but we also had a lot of bad moments – the kind of stuff that over time can lead to growing disconnection between parents and kids. We yelled. We said and did ugly things. We exerted our […]
How do I talk to my kids about race?
Parents, are you struggling with how to address the recent racial tension that has exploded across the United States? At Connected Families we are on the side of Justice, Grace and Peace, without any judgment about how to legislate those values. We know that getting there requires humility and true curiosity. The following is a […]
Five Strategies for Gaining Your Kids’ Respect
Parents usually have good desires for their kids. They want kids to be respectful, responsible, faithful, obedient, and so on. But when parents make these behaviors their primary goals for parenting, their kids tend to resist. Why? Kids tend to resist because no one likes to be controlled – and parents’ good goals are usually mingled with […]
This Kid Changed Overnight! Here’s How…
Sometimes it takes a while for parents to change in ways that lead to deeper respect from their kids. Sometimes it can happen fast. When Dan attended our weekend workshop he saw an immediate change by practicing what we call a “do-over.” Here’s his report: An hour before we left for your seminar I was […]
An Unconventional Solution to a Child’s Resistance
We often see a common parenting cycle when kids are prone to anxiety. In short, it goes like this: Child feels anxious Worried, but well-meaning parent “encourages” the child toward to overcome the anxiety by pushing the child The child gets more anxious and withdraws, or has a meltdown in order to feel in […]
The Conundrum of Trust
When kids trust they feel safe; they know they’re loved. Trust leads to respect and true obedience. Kids who trust look to their parents for wisdom and follow their parents’ examples in desirable ways. Where trust fails, relationships fail too, even in those where love is high. So earning kids’ trust is perhaps the […]
