Dr. Scott Turansky and JoAnne Miller
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3 Ways to Respond When Your Child Wants to Pick a Fight
Learn How to Start The way you present an issue often determines the response. Sometimes it’s best to address a problem immediately, while other times waiting a few hours is more appropriate. Wisely choose a time, place and approach with the goal of not just rebuking, but correcting and finding resolution. “Lisa, I’d like to …
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Helping Children Through the Grieving Process
Teaching children how to grieve is important for their emotional health. Parents might consider this sensitive part of a child’s life when a loved one dies, but what happens when your son loses the soccer championship or your daughter is left out of the slumber party? Those are also significant opportunities to help your children …
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Walking Through Hard Times With Your Child
Teaching children how to grieve is important for their emotional health. Parents might consider this sensitive part of a child’s life when a loved one dies, but what happens when your son loses the soccer championship or your daughter is left out of the slumber party? Those are also significant opportunities to help your children …
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A Lesson From Jesus Every Parent Needs to Know
It’s amazing how transparent children can be when you take time to actively hear what they have to say. After listening for a while, it’s often possible to identify some key thinking errors that perpetuate the child’s problems. Take some time to study your children. What weaknesses do they have? What lies do they believe? …
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When a Gift Is Bad for Your Child
Gratitude increases closeness in relationships. As you parent your children, look for opportunities to take advantage of gratefulness to draw closer to your kids. Give your children small gifts of love day after day. Be careful, though, that you don’t confuse the gratefulness principle with the overindulgence trap. Some parents, wanting to connect with their …
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How to Pass Your Faith to Your Children
Making a heart connection with a child is a special part of parenting. One reason connecting emotionally is so important is that the heart is a person’s spiritual center; that’s why God chooses to live there. It’s also where parents can impact their kids spiritually. When you connect with your children on an emotional level, …
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Is Consistency Overrated?
“Consistency is overrated.” I love that statement! “That is the most freeing statement I’ve heard in a long time.” That’s what one mom said when we freed her from the guilt she experienced because she couldn’t always be consistent. She continued, “It makes so much sense now. Thank you.” Here’s what we told her. If …
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How to Teach Your Child Self-Control
The preschooler who whines, the 7-year-old who talks incessantly, the 10-year-old who verbally jabs his brother, and the 14-year-old who can’t get out of bed in the morning all have one thing in common. They lack self-control. Self-control is the ability to limit behavior rather than give in to present desires. It means that you …
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How to Raise a Selfish Child
“If you get your homework done then you can go out and play.” “If you clean your room then you can watch a video.” Many parents today use a simple behavior modification approach to raise their children. This approach basically says, “If you do what I say, I’ll give you what you want.” Unfortunately, children …
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When Your Child Resists You
Parents are sometimes surprised when their children resist correction. Some children seem to resent hearing instruction or advice from us. As parents we need to learn to expect some of that resistance and even prepare for it. This may seem obvious, but many parents react with emotion when they don’t get a positive response from …
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When Your Child Doesn’t Want to Go to Church
Mark was 12 years old when his parents realized that he was pulling away from spiritual things. He didn’t want to pray at dinner, seemed to merely endure church, and was more interested in his electronics and friends than spiritual things. When Dad and Mom saw this tendency in their son, they wanted to do …
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Why Setting Rules With Your Child Doesn’t Work
Many parents use a simple behavior modification approach to raise their children. “If you get your homework done, then you can go out and play.” “If you clean your room, then you can watch a video.” Unfortunately children trained this way often develop a “What’s in it for me?” mentality. “If I don’t get something …
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How to Talk to Your Teen About Character
Teens are at an important stage in life where they are developing their own value system. Sometimes teens seem unresponsive to parental leadership but what you say has more weight than you imagine. Take time to identify character strengths and weaknesses and then respond accordingly. When you see a problem, relating a consequence to the …
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How to Influence Your Teen to Love God
Even the best of parents must make some changes in the way they parent as their children grow up. The old methods of relating don’t work the same way anymore. In fact, they seem to cause problems instead. Of all the changes teens make, the most important one is probably the adjustment in their relationship …
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When Your Teenager is Disrespectful
One mom felt hurt but considered her thirteen-year-old daughter’s meanness as normal. “Aren’t children supposed to hate their parents in order to ease the upcoming separation?” Another mother of a teenager had given up. “You just have to get used to their disrespect. Hopefully some day they’ll appreciate you, but for now, there’s no chance.” …
