In a brain scan, relational pain—that caused by isolation during punishment—can look the same as physical abuse. Is alone in the corner the best place for your child?

Through the grace shown to us in the gospel, there is something distinctly Christlike about a mother’s love for her child.

I am not.” Jaccob took his hand out of his coat pocket, where he’d been reaching to check his police scanner or music player (he hadn’t decided which to use first).

One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.

Most important jobs of a parent: unconditional love, comfort and protection, and a solid platform and values for future success

If you want to be treated like a mother, act like one.

Allow yourself to think that the possibility of failure is a necessary part of parenting well…. Avoiding the possibility of failure means avoiding the possibility of being an extraordinary parent-and avoiding what you want for...

The reality is that most of us communicate the same way that we grew up. That communication style becomes our normal way of dealing with issues, our blueprint for communication. It’s what we know and...

It was a soulless gaze, burning with a wild hatred that shouldn’t be there in anyone who could call themselves a parent.

Babies don’t come with instruction booklets. You’d learn the same way we all do — you’d read up on dinosaurs, you’d Google backhoes and skidders. And you don’t need a penis to go buy a...

Young children especially need the visual reinforcement of seeing you turn to Scripture for wisdom.

The desire to procreate, in some, is so strong that it creates a sort of tunnel vision in the afflicted. One can’t see beyond trying to make a baby, and they never stop to think...

What better reminder do we have than our kids of our own best selves, our less stressed and more carefree selves? In their silliness we see the echo of the way we used to be:...

It’s not an easy time for any parent, this moment when the realization dawns that you’ve given birth to something that will never see things the way you do, despite the fact that it is...

Over time, parents have barnacled the most routine activities in infancy with their own preoccupations. It’s sometimes hard to see the baby for all the barnacles.

Imagine a man who doesn’t believe in anything, hope for anything, doesn’t love anyone. This is a description of a dead or paralyzed soul. This happens from great grief, or from an unhappy upbringing when...

The mother is the child’s first relationship, his whole world, his existence. If there is love in the relationship between the child and the mother, the child learns to trust himself, to trust others and...

Many parents lack a biblical view of discipline. They tend to think of discipline as revenge – getting even with the children for what they did. Hebrews 12 makes it clear that discipline is not...

Parenting is a giant responsibility forever, so we need to learn how to drop the guilt and go easy on ourselves when we mess up.

We usually need to have pain, trial or challenge to be motivated to learn or change. Learning in the midst of ease and prosperity comes from the pure inner soul’s inspired desire for improvement.

Why did they have kids then? Why did they have children if they didn’t want to love and nurture them? Weren’t you supposed to cherish every moment you got with your kids? The wives sounded...

My children taught me the true meaning of unconditional love.

The more we want our children to be (1) lifelong learners, genuinely excited about words and numbers and ideas, (2) avoid sticking with what’s easy and safe, and (3) become sophisticated thinkers, the more we...

Parents are not really interested in justice. They just want quiet.

Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

Remember, Little Ones, everything is not important all the time. Only living is important all the time. Not things. Not money. Not more things and more endless money. Spend well the quality of your time....

To be in your children’s memories tomorrow,You have to be in their lives today.

Identify your Radar – it’s your brain functioning optimally; not a vague intuition or cosmic sixth sense.Train your Radar in key areas like: evaluating people, personal safety, healthy relationships, physical and mental well-being, money and...

So, your best defense is knowledge. It really is power, as they say…The more you know, the more easily you will develop your own philosophies about child rearing. When you have your facts straight, and...

Saturday mornings, I’ve learned, are a great opportunity for kids to sneak into your bed, fall back asleep, and kick you in the face.

That’s the news from Lake Woebegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

Quality time is not the same as the everydayness of being together. Let’s neither glorify nor undervalue.

Your kids never really leave do they? They might live elsewhere, sometimes not even on the same continent, but Mum is always first port of call when there’s trouble. Parenting is a lifetime commitment.

There is entirely too much tut-tutting in this realm, if you ask me. All these kings would do a deal better if they put down their swords and listened to their mothers.

It’s never too early to begin pointing your little ones’ souls heavenward.

By spending years and years living entirely for yourself, thinking only about yourself, and having responsibility to no one but yourself, you end up inadvertently extending the introverted existence of a teenager deep into middle...

If there is one thing developmental psychologists have learned over the years, it is that parents don’t have to be brilliant psychologists to succeed. They don’t have to be supremely gifted teachers. Most of the...

To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.

His son’s transformation cannot be stopped, or hastened, or adjusted; the man he will become is already present, like a form emerging from a slab of stone. All that remains is to watch it happen.

But the smell of the hospital, the sting of those overhead lights in the night, the snippets of conversations I had overheard, stayed with me and marked the beginning of how I came to know...

I used to wonder why I had hair on my legs, but now I know it’s for my toddler sons and daughters to pull themselves up off the ground with as I scream in pain.

Generally, crises were Mom’s domain. Dad’s job was to listen, nod, act curmudgeonly, and offer to pay for things.

I realize parenting is hard and boring at times and a four-hour break would be super, but this is the job we signed up for. Some days it sucks, but most days it’s great.

One must make allowances for a parental instinct that has been starving for twenty-five or thirty years. It is famished, it is crazed with hunger by that time, and will be entirely satisfied with anything...

This was our language: half-truths, obvious lies, accusations neither one of us would ever make. It was a system eery bit as complicated as Morse code or the dancing of bees. Don’t ask, don’t tell,...

I tell Esther she should ease up on lard. There’s no need to mix lard in with Scottie’s rice, chicken, and beans. I tell her she hasn’t read the blogs. I’ve read the blogs. I...

As parents we have a tendency to overprotect; it’s okay to try and show them all positives but we cannot forget that the real world has teeth

Daddy, are you going to yell at us some more today?’Neary gazed down into her clear, guileless eyes. That was how he looked to her—a yelling machine. And she was prepared to accept more yelling...

In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The...

Maggie had learned a long time ago that each day with a child was filled with two kinds of battles: those that won the war, and those that did not.