Adult children can seriously take advantage of their parents–and seriously be moochers. Sheila here! A few weeks ago I started rerunning an important series I wrote six years ago about handling family dynamics as parents age and require care. We're moving the...
We know that parenting is the biggest responsibility we will ever have. But we've been told such different things about the nature of that responsibility. If you grew up in an evangelical church, chances are you were told that a parent's job is to teach them to obey,...
A basic principle in the Old Testament is actually quite a simple one: People of God don't sacrifice children. Read through the prophets, and you'll hear the judgment against nations that sacrifice their kids to Molech, or make children "walk through the fire."...
When my daughter Rebecca was 19 months old, her baby brother died. He was only a month old. We learned when I was about 5 months pregnant about his heart condition, and that things would be very touch and go. We spent the last four months of the pregnancy petrified of...
Christian parenting advice seems to really like discipline and obedience. Rebecca here on the blog today. As I was researching other parenting books and various Christian parenting blogs as I wrote my book, Why I Didn't Rebel, this focus on repentance and obedience...
Is it bad to be your child's friend if you're also their parent? One of the pieces of advice we often hear in parenting circles is: "Remember, you're their parent, not their friend." To be honest, when my children were little and I was immersed in evangelical culture...
What do you wish you could go back in time and say to your husband at 16 to encourage him? Or what do you want to say to your teenage son? I know it's Thursday and it's podcast day, but we hit a technical snag this week and we had to re-record some of it yesterday and...
I've been realizing lately I need to have compassion on younger me who was taught toxic stuff--and didn't know how to reject it. And as I shared yesterday in my "Fixed it for you" posts, sometimes I've even taught that toxic stuff myself! But when you know better, you...
How can you make sure that the messages your kids hear in youth group about sex won't be harmful ones? One of my big passions is helping sort through the messages about sex that we get in evangelical culture and throwing out the harmful ones and keeping the helpful...
Do you remember being a teenager and having your period come right when the youth group was going swimming or going to the beach? This month we're going to be talking a bit about periods--about what's normal and what's not; about how to help men and boys be aware but...