Daly Focus Blog
Jessie Minassian knows the struggles teenage girls face. Not only is she an author, a speaker, and a blogger who has passion for mentoring young women, she lived through some challenging teen years herself.
Teen girls are trying to figure out who they are in the midst of social pressures, hormone-induced mood swings, and – many times – family dynamics. Even girls (and boys) who love God sometimes have a hard time acting respectfully at home.
“My coach from my senior year could look at me and knight me with his eyes.”
That powerful comment illustrates the hunger of every boy to have a man, particularly a father, draw him into manhood. It comes from Dr. Robert Lewis, who has been associated with Focus on the Family for years. Back in the late 90s, he wrote a book with Focus called “Raising a Modern-Day Knight.” Since then, it’s been our number one best seller.
Yesterday’s tragic violence at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, is the nation’s third-deadliest school shooting in history – and the 7th such shooting in 2018 alone.
Sadly, we’ve grown familiar with the awful rhythm of these barbaric events.
First comes the text alert on our phone or we hear about the horror on social media. Or maybe we learn of it from the lament of a friend or a co-worker.
Before we ask “How could this happen?” we instinctively ask “How many?”
Of course, we intuitively know that even one is too many, and that behind every number is a name of someone who means the world to someone else.
Parenting is only for adults.
That’s what Dr. Emerson Eggerichs tells parents who struggle with what he calls the “family crazy cycle.”
It works like this: When children feel unloved, they tend to react in ways that feel disrespectful toward their parents. When parents feel disrespected, they tend to react in ways that feel unloving to the child.
And the cycle starts to spin.
Parenting is only for adults because it’s up to mom and dad – not the child – to stop the crazy cycle.
When my two sons, Trent and Troy, were born, I thought they would be a lot alike. More to the point, I thought Jean and I would be able to raise them the same way.
Boy, was I wrong.
Trent and Troy share a lot of the same interests, but spend an afternoon with each of them, and you’ll find out just how different they are. Trent is thoughtful and super-smart. He may be the smartest one in the whole family.
Human trafficking is a part of the seedy underbelly of our society that most of us would rather not have a conversation about. It’s hard to conceive of hundreds of thousands of people, most of them children and women, being either kidnapped or manipulated into psychological enslavement. So we turn our attention to more pleasant topics.
That’s exactly the behavior traffickers count on from us to keep their activities hidden and their operations running smoothly.
Even the lowest estimates suggest that something like 100,000 kids are taken into human trafficking every year in the U.S.
Dr. Kevin Leman humorously says of children, “We have seen the enemy, and they are small. They’re unionized. The ‘ankle-biter battalion’ is on the move, so you better have a game plan.”
I’m sure many parents would heartily agree with that assessment. To that end, Dr. Leman is with us on our program “Game Plan for Raising Well-Behaved Children” to share a wealth of practical tips that can bring order to the chaos in your home more quickly than you might think possible.
Parents often discipline in terms of behavior modification:
“No backtalk.”
“Say please and thank you.”
“Stop picking on your brother” (with two boys, Jean and I have said that one a lot over the years).
“Put away your backpack.”
Outward behavior is an important part of raising children of character. But it’s only one side of the coin. The other is developing their inner motivation.
The root word of discipline is “disciple.” As disciples of Christ, we follow His teachings outwardly because our hearts are being transformed from within.
Do you teach your children to clean their rooms?
How about to do their homework, to brush their teeth, or to match their clothes?
How about to give money, save money, and to spend it properly?
If you said no to that last one, it might be because you see your child’s allowance as simply an economic transfer instead of as a chance to develop their character.
Our guest for the next couple of programs is the money guru himself, radio host and bestselling author, Dave Ramsey.
I’ll never forget the day I got my driver’s license. It was all I could talk about for an entire year before. It was a time-honored tradition back then: do whatever necessary to get your license by the time you’re fifteen, no later than sixteen. That little plastic ID got me and my friends out of the house and enabled us to hang out with each other whenever and wherever we wanted. My driver’s license was key to my social world.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
