Jason Smith and his wife Paulina, in their Purposeful Parenting scheme, have designed various rites of passage for their teen children centering on fun, responsibility and service as they mature into adulthood. Read on to glean some ideas about how to shape your teen's destiny with such memorable moments.
It’s commonly accepted today that first marriages have a greater success rate when delayed. If we dig a bit deeper, however, we find this conventional wisdom regarding delayed marrying has its flaws. Certain factors are at play in the success of all marriages.
My heart lifts when I see my daughters cradled in healthy conversations with my parenting helpers.
Falling in love is easy. Staying in love requires a conscious decision and focused investment. Loving the Smart way is easy when you know how. Our romance was a whirlwind of delight and passion. Over an intense two years, we courted with a dedicated focus: from the very beginning, it was clear that we were discerning marriage. But even before we got to the altar, the sparkle of those initial ‘in ...
Thanks to a group of West Australian dads, Currambine Primary School is now host to a unique library. Painted red, and watertight, the renovated Telstra phone booth is an outdoor add-on to the school’s existing book-borrowing service. The dads from LADDs birthed the idea. Loving and Devoted Dads are an offshoot of father engagement, The Father Project. LADDs exists to ‘improve child development by inspiring dads to engage with their kids.’ ...
Helicopter parents are well-meaning parents who hover over their kids. If something happens, heaven forbid, such as falling over, fighting over a toy, or getting a bad grade, helicopter parents swoop in and do everything they can to make things better. Sometimes being a helicopter parent is a good thing -- in crowds, near water, or anywhere that physical danger exists. Stunted Growth But helicopter parenting when it’s playtime, sports time, ...
Fatherhood is to a son’s manhood, as manhood is to a dad’s fatherhood. They’re inseparable elements in the way fathers raise their sons to be men, because they reflect each other. A few points in a recent piece from All Pro Dad’s BJ Foster hit a six on the subject. Role Models Foster offered four ways to father their sons into manhood, introducing his argument with a simple: ‘Sons need their ...
Before we become fathers, we are free to live like children ourselves. We work towards our own ends, we engage in relationships to satiate our own needs and desires, we enjoy leisure-some pursuits based entirely on what we enjoy. Fatherhood, by necessity, changes our focus and our lifestyle. For myself, fatherhood was the precipitating factor in my finally and irrevocably, growing up. I believe that most new fathers (and their partners!) ...
We’ve been listening to Mike and Alicia Hernon’s podcast called Messy Families. One of their recurring messages for parents is: stop worrying about getting your kids to heaven -- parenting is about helping you get there! When we first heard them say this it stopped us in our tracks. Mike and Lisa go on to explain: the reason motherhood or fatherhood is a vocation, is not to make our kids into ...
We’ve been hearing from many of our SmartLoving leaders around the world looking for help in supporting couples under stress. There’s certainly a lot of stress going around with pandemic-induced changes and uncertainty. It got us reflecting on marital resilience -- the ability of a relationship to endure and persevere through difficulties. There is quite a bit of information on personal resilience, and it’s a buzzword in education these days, but ...
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