How Does Your Family Communicate?

It’s easy as parents to try to communicate with all our children the same.  And typically, we tend to communicate with our kids in the way we grew up.  Some families look at communication as a way to make sure their kids are tough, resilient, and able to withstand whatever life sends their way. But […]

Who Gets the Blame in Your House?

Dare 10 - 7 Steps to Get Out of the Blame Game

Let’s face it, as moms we know our kids.  We know what they are capable of and what they might do and most likely what they won’t do.  Hopefully we understand their hearts and what motivates them. And we definitely know which of our kids is most likely to cause trouble in the family.   I can’t tell […]

What Can I do When Dad is Out-of-Control?

It has been amazing to me the number of women who have shared stories of out-of-control behavior from their spouses.  Their teen does something to upset dad and the war is on. It makes me sad. And I’m betting that if you are in that situation in your home, then your feelings are even more […]

6 Steps to Help Validate Your Kids

The word validation has been cropping up everywhere I turn for the past two weeks.  It’s something that I’ve struggled with for years.  I always thought empathy and validation were essentially the same thing.  I tended to be pretty good on the empathy front so I assumed that my empathy was in fact validating my […]

Changing Our Communication with Our Teens

Misty caught herself doing it again. But this time she knew what she had done it all wrong. She could fix it if she could think through the steps calmly. She knew she needed to change her communication with her 14 year old son, but she was just so emotional where he was concerned. He […]

When Our Kids Are Angry At Us

Dealing with Their Emotions

I remember the event vividly.  One of my sons did something that that had me questioning whether I could trust him.  He had done something that was against our family rules; it was something that could have negative consequences to him and we had been explicit in explaining the reason for our decree. But he […]