To your child, God looks and acts like you. They will come to understand God’s love based on how they have experienced your love. Their self-worth will be based on that understanding - a love that finds the right balance of words and actions to encourage, coax, and mold appropriate behavior and effort. Their life is a divine journey of discovery guided by you. And for those parents who understand the depth of this blessing, [...]
Clearly you are more mature today than you were 5 years ago. And to be sure, you’re likely to be more mature 5 years from now than you are today. In what way? Your kids will lead you to the answer. Setting goals for the year is definitely a worthwhile endeavor, though it is commonplace to lose energy and focus on those objectives as the clean slate of the coming year gets filled with life. [...]
The mission of OneFamily is to equip, encourage and sustain you throughout your marriage and parenting journey. For nearly 10 years, we have committed ourselves to serving families, one family at a time, with classes, seminars, events, one-on-one coaching/mentoring, and online with our daily quotes and Tuesday Letters of encouragement. This means you have ongoing access to OneFamily long after you’ve first participated in one of our programs. This year, we worked directly with 2,400 [...]
1,009,951 Families Reached! Our goal for 2024 is to reach one million families. By the end of the year, we are projected to exceed that goal by nearly ten thousand families! This is a significant milestone for OneFamily, made possible by the incredible support and encouragement from families like yours, who inspire others to attend classes, events, and share through social media. At the core of OneFamily's mission is creating a transformative impact on families. [...]
Does your family embody an attitude of gratitude? When shaping your family identity, do you actively cultivate and teach the importance of gratitude? One of the many reasons we cherish the holiday season, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, is that it offers a fantastic opportunity to strengthen our family identity through traditions that encourage our family to internalize the virtue of gratitude. Family Identity with Family Traditions Family identity is an anchor for you and your [...]
This is an actual (paraphrased) exchange we had with our 16-year-old son. If you are using the Parenting Funnel philosophy (Parenting from the Tree of Life – Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo) on how to provide freedoms to your children, this is how it played out at the Marr house. “A teen rebels not against authority, but against relationship” (Ezzo). As a child grows, parenting philosophy on why decisions are made should be transparent AND [...]
Each November, as Americans, we have the unique privilege to exercise our American Liberty by “V”oting and honoring our “V”eterans. Today is Election Day and next Monday is Veteran’s Day. How often do we take both for granted, let alone explain the importance to our children? Yet both are fundamental to the founding and longevity of our republic. Without either “V” our country would not exist. Learn, Instruct and Vote Voting is at the heart of [...]
Do you give your children the freedom to fail or make mistakes? Or more appropriately, do you allow them freedom to grow with personal responsibility and ownership? Whether you are a child or an adult, failure is not failure if you learn and grow from it. For parents, it’s especially difficult for us to see our children suffer frustration, experience emotional pain or the discomfort that comes with failing or making mistakes. As a result, [...]
As much as we enjoy Halloween, we were always glad when it was behind us. Sure, we enjoyed many aspects of trick or treating - like the time a 4 year old Elvis impersonator came to the door and said, “Thank you. Thank you very much” in his deepest little voice. But with all the fun and excitement, there is also a certain kind of craziness that is driven by the childhood narcotic – Candy. [...]
Throughout our parenting journey, one parenting tool that we have utilized the most is planting seeds. While the generic concept of planting seeds is not new, our friends Dave and Lis provided us with a perspective that took the concept to a new level in our parenting with a 2 step approach: Planting seeds – Initiate a significant idea or topic with a question Cultivation – Ongoing conversation follow up This tool has been particularly helpful [...]