Family and Home Archives

Appreciate the Moment

Most self-help advice focuses on the future – on what will be. Set goals. Plan ahead. Dream of where you wish you were instead of where you are.

Those are great ideas but let me share just one word of caution: don’t focus so intently on your future that you forget to be engaged right here, right now. This moment may never come again.

The importance of appreciating the moment is illustrated in the life of Wally Pipp, a man you probably won’t recognize unless you’re a major league baseball historian.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith November 10, 2022 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Setting Boundaries in Your Most Difficult Relationships

Relationships are the most rewarding experiences this side of heaven. But any relationship can present challenges. And when they do, the best approach for restoring peace and harmony is boundaries.

God himself demonstrated why and how to create boundaries. He gave Adam and Eve just one: Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). It communicated four important ideas about relationships:

Boundaries define and protect freedom. God’s boundary protected Adam and Eve for their own good.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: family November 8, 2022 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Get a Job

If you have a teenager who’s not working a job, the question is, “Why?” Working a job will bring out qualities in your teenager that you won’t always see from them at home.

When teenagers work – whether it’s scooping ice cream, working the drive-thru at a fast-food place, or cashiering at a grocery store – they’re developing valuable life skills. They’ll learn to submit to authority and to handle responsibly when they’re in charge. They’ll learn how to serve others and to be accountable for their choices.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: kids, parenting November 8, 2022 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Building Blocks for Self-Confidence

For children to build their self-confidence, they need opportunities to succeed on their own. But that can’t happen if parents overprotect their kids from every risk.

A few years back, my son Trent and I visited Yosemite National Park, and we got the chance to rappel down a 180-foot granite cliff called the “Prowl.” Trent isn’t usually much of a daredevil, but when our turn came, he didn’t hesitate. He gave me a big grin and over the edge he went.

Topics: Family and Home November 4, 2022 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

No Empty Words

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was one of the largest disasters in American history. In popular accounts from the time, Catherine O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern in a barn. The small flame became an inferno that destroyed miles of homes and burned Chicago’s business district to the ground.

More recently, in 2018, the Ranch Fire in California became the largest wildfire in the state’s history, killing a firefighter and burning over 410,000 acres. It was caused by a single spark from a hammer that someone was using to drive a metal stake into the ground.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith November 3, 2022 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Practical Advice for Parenting Powerful Kids

Dr. Kevin Leman says strong-willed children are given a bad rap. We want to raise our kids to be strong-willed. When the world tells them, “Believe this,” or “Do that,” we want our children to know right from wrong and to have the strength of conviction to stand for it.

What we don’t want to raise, Dr. Leman says, is what he calls a “powerful child.” Powerful children have an agenda. They want to win, to control, and to dominate.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: parenting November 2, 2022 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Parents Are Fed up with Their Children Being Culture’s Casualties

Previously published in the Washington Examiner:

Make no mistake – parents will play a major part in this year’s midterm elections, which may well upend current dynamics and potentially recast the direction and priorities of the nation.

Throughout our nation’s history, mothers and fathers have served as something of a bellwether in America. Political elites may jockey and joust with one another, often behind closed doors, but their policies are felt and then ultimately received or rejected by the families whom they affect.

Topics: Family and Home November 2, 2022 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Unleashing the Possibilities for Children in Foster Care

“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me’” (Matt. 25:40).

When we act on behalf of “the least of these,” it’s the same as ministering to Christ himself. With this in mind, Christians have a clear command to care for children.

On our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Unleashing the Possibilities for Children in Foster Care,” we’re recognizing November as National Adoption Month in the U.S.

Topics: Family and Home November 1, 2022 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Bits of Magic Mirror

You and I are up against a world full of lies that distort what’s really true.

That distortion is illustrated in the classic fairytale The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. In the story, the devil creates a magic mirror that distorts everything it reflects. One day, students of the devil attempt to carry the mirror into heaven so they can mock God and his angels. But the higher the students ascend, the more the mirror shakes … until, finally, they lose their grip.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith November 1, 2022 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Laughing, Loving and Lasting With Your Spouse

Is happiness in marriage attainable?

A lot of couples don’t think so.

Author Kevin Thompson says, “Absolutely!”

The catch is that couples can’t make happiness the goal. Happiness is the byproduct of an even greater objective. Connecting at a soul level. “And the two shall become one flesh” (Matthew 19:5).

How?

By working through challenges together.

Kevin’s grandparents were happily married for 70 years. People often suggested that they were “lucky” to achieve that success.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: marriage October 31, 2022 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura