by Donna | Jun 14, 2016
What is a techno-free zone today? I remember when we would have our nightly living room meetings with our teens and pre-teens before they went to bed at night. We only had a television on a cart in our bedroom closet that we would pull out to watch things together as a family. We had one desk top computer in the dining room—an open room between the kitchen and living room. And that was it. Period.
Techno-free zones were easy to come by for us.
It got harder as the kids got older. We eventually had to declare techno free talks—phones off, etc.
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by Donna | Jun 13, 2016
Fire trucks with sirens blazing. Ambulances whizzing by. Woo-woos (police cars) racing ahead.
When our kids are really little, of course, it was a thrill to hear them say “woo woo” when a police car passed us or “fire truck” when they saw a fire truck.
New words. Attaching meaning. Community workers…oh, I loved having littles.
But as our kids grew up, we attached another important concept to emergency vehicles: someone was hurting somewhere and needed prayer.
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by Donna | Jun 6, 2016
WHEN YOU “SIT” IN YOUR HOUSE—PREFERABLY IN A TECHNO-FREE ZONE
Out of all of the times/places that we are told to teach our children diligently in Deuteronomy, “when you sit in your house” has got to be the most challenging. Over twenty-five years ago, Gregg Harris gave us the greatest advice in his parenting seminar (that we have used weekly and teach others to do the same): Whatever is important to you to do with your children should be attached to something that is already in the schedule. Thus, we attached reading together to rising/going to bed; we attach family prayer to meals; etc. However, finding time to “sit in your house” is another matter—and one that I would like to address as a talk time in this blog post.
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by Donna | Jun 4, 2016
In the last “talking” post, I described a time in which talking isn’t needed at all. (You can read that here.) Those times are not all that frequently, however, since usually our kids have wanted our input, advice, and help. (And if they didn’t want it, they probably really needed it, so it was up to us to find a way to make it happen.)
To balance that “just listen” vs. “give too much input,” we came up with a solution that has become a popular buzzword in our home.
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by Donna | Jun 2, 2016
Summer schedules. Those two words do not seem to go together to most kids (and even many parents!). And yet, I want to propose a plan whereby summer can still be somewhat carefree. (After all, that’s what most people love about summer.) Yet, our children can all still be engaged in learning, developing disciplines for their lives, building relationships and memories, and more.
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by Donna | May 31, 2016
The scene was familiar….a teen sprawled across the foot of our bed. Hubby has to get up. The clock indicating it was after midnight. The aforementioned teen in tears.
Hurt. Disappointment. Rejection.
And the “all nighter” was in progress.
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