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Was it Bad Parenting or Making Memories?
A few years ago, we watched as our daughter, Taryn, spent an exorbitant amount of money on a Halloween costume. When asked why, she said that we had ruined every Halloween by having her be creative and come up with a costume, rather than getting a store-bought one. Upon reflection, we wondered, was it bad parenting or making memories? Thanksgiving: When Taryn was five, she was watching Sesame Street as Chris and I were in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner. She walked in the kitchen just as Chris was pulling the turkey out of the oven to baste. He said, “Wow, that’s a big bird.” When we turned around, Taryn’s eyes were full of tears…
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Tell Her She’s Pretty and Let Him Go Golfing
Kids say the funniest things. But sometimes, the things they say can teach us a thing or two. Our friends Greg and Cecilia have five children between 1 and 11 years old. They asked their four oldest kids to answer some questions about marriage. Here’s what they had to say: Why do people get Married? Because they love each other. Because they kiss each other. How do you know Mom and Dad love each other?
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Rule #1 for Resolving Conflict
Paul: With our child rearing days behind us, I figured any potential conflict surrounding child rearing was over too. Boy was I mistaken. We took our 3 year old granddaughter with us to the beach for two weeks so she wouldn’t have to be in day care. While we were both looking forward to some quality time with her, I cringed when Stephanie suggested that we run point on potty training her. That’s when the trouble began. My attitude was, “Why do we have do this?” But instead of speaking up, I kept silent.
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The Empty Nest Repopulated – 4 Ways to make it Great!
Julie: When our kids were small, it was easy to keep peace in the nest. Mama and Daddy bird had the final say and that was it. Ah, little kids, little problems. Things got a little trickier as those baby birds grew into fledglings. As our kids grew and stretched their wings, they asserted their increasing independence and often challenged our rules and decisions. As young adults who have left the nest, they are more respectful when they return home, but things can still get a little tense as we are still their parents and they are still our kids.
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Keeping Your Marriage Sane While Quarantined
Jen: Being quarantined and trying to limit your exposure to others is one thing and having kids at home adds another dimension. So many parents are trying to make a living and unexpectedly take care of their kids at home at the same time. No matter what your situation is, being quarantined at home can add stresses on your couple relationship that you haven’t experienced before.
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Parenting as a Team
Photo by John Mark-Smith Becoming parents is such an amazing blessing. From the moment we first hold our newborn child, our world is changed. Whether navigating the terrible two’s or adjusting to parenting young adults, we learned something that is crucial about parenting – we are much stronger together than we are as individuals.
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Getting Teens to Talk
Do you have teenagers? Maybe this sounds familiar: Interested Parent: “How was school today sweetheart?” Moping teenager, “Fine.” “Is everything OK?” “Yup.” “Anything you want to talk about?” “Nope.” Good talk.
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50 Ways to Engage Kids
Photo Credit: Jahir Martinez on Unsplash.com “A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.” This anonymous quote (sexist wording and all) caught our eye and caused us to reflect on fun times with our kids. As wonderful as children are, they add expense to any family budget. Kids need love and attention; they thrive when you engage with them. Fortunately engaging doesn’t have to break the budget. Engaging also creates screen-free time, lifelong values and memories. We’ll close with a list of 50 of our favorite ways to engage kids that cost little to nothing and are all screen-free.
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Parenting 101 – United We Stand
One of the most challenging things in our marriage was learning to raise responsible, caring, well-adjusted children. Now that our children are adults, we are back to child-rearing mode with our two year old granddaughter who lives with us. Here are 6 lessons we’ve learned.
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The Happiest Place on Earth – NOT (this time)
We recently went to Disneyland with our adult daughter and our 2 year old granddaughter. All three adults had high hopes for a fun-filled family time at the “happiest” place on earth. When naysayers told us we were crazy for taking a two year old to Disneyland, we scoffed at them. We’ve been there, done this before. But we hadn’t been there, done that with a toddler. The crowds, a cranky toddler, and plenty of unmet expectations led to a communication breakdown that was a debacle for all of us. None of us ended up having much fun and we left a day early.
