Daly Focus Blog
Sharing a blog post from a few years back… the sentiments are the same, and the content is timely given the start of school for many kids around the nation. -J.D.
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Summertime is drawing to a close, so I’ve been thinking about some of my favorite teachers from down through the years. I have many; here are memories of just a few.
In kindergarten there was Mrs. Smith. I went to school that first day with my heels in the pavement and then didn’t want to leave by the time the bell began to ring.
It was one of those terrible headlines you didn’t want to click on:
“Teens filmed, mocked man as he drowned, police say”
Jamel Dunn, 32, drowned on July 9th off the coast of Cocoa, Florida, while several teenaged boys looked on. Mr. Dunn was disabled, and at no point did the teenagers even try calling for help. Authorities who subsequently interviewed the boys reported that it seemed they didn’t have any regret over their behavior.
It’s hard to fathom how hard the hearts of these boys must be to watch a man die and do nothing to help him.
What would you do if your child was diagnosed with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), ADHD, ADD, and ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder)?
I like how Sally Clarkson responded. When her son Nathan was little, she wasn’t sure what she was dealing with, but she knew there was something about him that was different than other so-called “good” kids.
He frequently got into trouble and needed to talk – to argue, to ask questions, to complain. He was constantly moving, wiggling, and fidgeting with anything and anyone around him.
So, here’s the scenario. It’s a weeknight, and your child has spent most of the evening on the same school assignment. It’s pretty clear he doesn’t understand the information. To top it off, he’s brought home a note from the teacher warning you about a failing grade. Now what do you do?
Parents often assume the worst, thinking their child has a behavior problem, difficulty learning, or is just plain lazy. In fact, most of the time, school challenges like this aren’t a crisis.
When Kim Meeder was growing up, she adored her parents.
She thought her father was a superhero. He didn’t wear a cape, fly, or leap tall buildings, but there wasn’t much else he couldn’t do. Her mother was the most beautiful and loving woman in the world, and Kim wanted to grow up to be just like her.
But when she was just nine years old, Kim lost both of her parents in a horrific tragedy that shattered her heart and left her disillusioned with God.
It’s a new series on Netflix that’s causing a lot of controversy – and if you have a teen in your life, you need to know why so many mental health professionals are concerned.
The series is called “13 Reasons Why,” and it tells the story of a 17-year-old girl, Hannah Baker, who commits suicide – and who blames others for what happened. The story unfolds through the cassette tapes Hannah posthumously leaves for the 13 people she blames for her decision to end her life.
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.
Over the past couple of decades, more studies than you can count have been done to pinpoint the most crucial factors for raising emotionally strong, well-balanced kids. Almost all of them have arrived at the same conclusion: Eating together as a family is one of the most significant influences in fostering healthy child development.
A mountain of research indicates that the more families eat together the less likely a child will engage in drug use, suffer from depression, develop an eating disorder, or succumb to a host of other behavioral problems.
A lot of you know my story. My mom died when I was nine years old, and my dad wasn’t around, so I spent a year in foster care.
That time could have been a bright moment in an otherwise dismal period of my life, but things didn’t turn out so well for me. Instead of support and compassion, I mostly remember feeling lonely, afraid, and desperate.
My past is one of the reasons I’m so passionate about God’s call on believers to care for “orphans and widows” (James 1:27).
If you haven’t already heard, in just a few days, Focus on the Family is officially re-launching Brio Magazine, our publication for teen girls. It’s a positive, godly alternative to most of the influences out there today for teenage girls.
Our “Brio girl” for the inaugural issue is Sadie Robertson. Many of you know her from the A&E reality show Duck Dynasty and from Dancing with the Stars a few seasons ago.
She’s just 19, but she’s an impressive young lady, and we’ve asked her to join us in the studio today to share how she is fearlessly living out her faith and using her public platform to be an excellent role model for girls.
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.
