Parenting teenagers presents many challenges, but these reads will help you overcome the struggles you may face in this season of motherhood so you can still enjoy the relationship with your child. #gritandgracelife
Got teenagers? Check out High School Graduation: A Mom’s Rite of Passage and 5 Tips to Manage the Teen Years. #gritandgracelife
Tips for Prom Dress Shopping with Your Teenage Daughter (Video) Read More »
I think like a human. Like an earth-bound, time-constrained, self-absorbed human. And I parented like that most of the time, too. Humanity bears the imago dei, which means we reflect the loveliness of our Creator, so this was not always a problem, this human thinking. But I always knew there was more to life than my human brain could grasp, and I didn’t want to miss it. One day a long time ago, Bill stepped out of his little sunroom-turned-office and told me, “The Lord spoke to me today about Matt.” Bill is never flippant about this kind of thing, so I was immediately all ears, and, besides, in that season of parenting, I needed transcendence. Badly. “He told me He would
Parenting Truth: It May Get Worse Before It Gets Better Read More »
Have you ever found it easier to feel bad or sad for someone else’s situation than your own? When we are in a tough spot, we tend to justify, make excuses for people who’ve wronged us, or try to make our problem sound “not so bad.” And yet, if someone else told us about the same, terrible thing going on in their life, we would have sincere empathy and tell them how awful it is and that it should have never happened, etc. For me, I think it was just hard to accept and acknowledge the reality of some difficult things that happened in my life in an honest way. It took me a long time to get to the point where I could do this and mean it.
Do You Need to Forgive Your Teenage Self? Read More »
What not to do for your child: 1. Don’t fight all their battles. They won’t learn to fight for themselves. 2. Don’t fix all their mistakes. Consequences are one of life’s best teachers. 3. Don’t give them everything they want. What they want may not be what they need. 4. Don’t keep them from all hurt. They will never learn how to heal. Remember, while you’re protecting your child you must also learn to prepare them. The goal is not to only protect them from harm, but to prepare them for life. — For more articles with encouragement in parenting, start here: How to Be a #Girlmom Teaching Your Daughter How to Stand Out from the Crowd Parenting Adult Children—The Great Shift of Motherhood Raising
4 Don’ts of Great Parenting For Moms Read More »
I’ve learned that failure can be a time-release sort of blessing. We bide our time through the pang of it until it does what we know it can eventually do if we let God use it: transform everything. When my husband Bill lost his job, it hurt a lot. It felt like a failure. This came at the end of the last recession, after quite a few good friends lost their high-level, high-paying jobs and had to live on their savings. Bill’s job was neither high-level nor high-paying (which means we had next to nothing saved), but it was what he loved, and thus it was a blow. Today we both affirm that his job loss was the best thing that could
4 Lessons on Failure I Learned from My Kids Read More »
Every day I’m surrounded by 300 middle school students. My office is nestled in the seventh grade hallway, wedged within the girls’ locker bay. It smells of vanilla and baby powder. Further down the hall sits the boys’ lockers, and this hallway does not smell like vanilla and baby powder. It has a strange odor that I’ve yet to name, even though I have two teenage boys myself. When we think of middle schoolers, we often think of all the wisdom we would like to impart during these formative years. And there is a lot! However, I’m realizing that my days with teenagers probably teach me as much as I am teaching the kids. Here are a few things that I am
Lessons From the Middle School Read More »
Lately I’ve been thinking about a difficult subject…teen suicide. There are simply too many of them. Even one is too many. Too many kids who believe they have no hope, life is worthless, they are worthless. None of that is true. But how do we as adults convince them of that? I think part of the answer might lie in teaching teenagers to grieve and giving proper respect to the tough moments in their lives. I know we have the perspective of many more years of life, but for them, this moment is all they have. The problem is they dwell on these moments until they are consumed, and then they convince themselves nothing else matters. Just the thing… THE. ONE. THING.
When my son was fourteen years old, he suddenly lost his best friend. The week began with an ordinary Monday. My son spent the morning chatting with his friend before school began, they passed each other in the hallways numerous times throughout the day, they ate lunch side by side, and they said goodbye at 3:15, as they did every day for five years. That night his friend took his own life. On Tuesday morning, with the news of his friend’s death, my son’s heart broke and his world changed. Prior to this tragedy, my son lived in the beautiful bubble of a happy childhood. Sure, he’d faced fear, struggle, and disappointment, but in light of the nuclear blast of that Tuesday
Surviving the Shadowlands of Teen Suicide Read More »
