When you were a child, did anyone teach you how to properly greet a neighbor, a friend or a guest? How to accept a compliment or what the proper behavior should look like at a restaurant or when friends come over for dinner? If so, did you know why it was important that you show such courtesy and respect? One practical piece of advice that has served us well in our parenting is to Role Play [...]
What is a good life or a life well lived? Certainly there are many answers to this question, but we believe at the heart of a good life is a healthy and thriving family. It is an encouraging home environment where a marriage is strong, children are flourishing and everyone is feeling emotionally and spiritually fulfilled in one another’s company. For the Howards, our marriage and family life is not “Perfect.” We continue to work [...]
One of the greatest parenting joys is when your child lets you into their private world. What is the private world? It is a special place where we all hold deeper thoughts, treasured memories, and feel the most vulnerable. It is the essence of who we are. The private world is what we share with our spouse and only our most trusted and closest friends. As our children begin to grow and become self-aware, their [...]
Is your family characterized by having an attitude of gratitude? When creating family identity do you cultivate and teach gratitude? Among the many reasons we love the Holiday Season, Thanksgiving to Christmas, is that it provides us a wonderful opportunity to build our family identity through family traditions that encouraged Trevor and Alex’s hearts towards internalizing the virtue of gratitude. Family Identity Through Family Traditions Cultivating family identity is an anchor for you and your [...]
Children make mistakes. Just like when a toddler learns to walk, by leaning too far one direction then too far another, they learn to balance properly. It’s during those countless “mistakes” of not getting balance perfectly that they learn to balance. A child has initial up and down experiences that supply a massive amount of information about gravity and strength. Then back and forth with use of hips and toes. Then walking, staggering really, and [...]
When we took our first parenting class, our boys behavior was not characterized by First Time Obedience (FTO). In fact it was after our very first class, when we picked up our boys from childcare, that they immediately proceeded to run around in every direction away from us. Our embarrassed calls and pleading for them to come to us were definitely not obeyed. As parents, during that time, we relied on a variety tricks to [...]
Have you ever considered the temperaments or taken a temperament test? Shelly and Trevor are Phlegmatic while Rich and Alex are Choleric. These are the temperaments in our family. Similar to love languages, temperaments are a tool that help us to describe our emotional/personality characteristics. We have found that knowing our own temperament and our boys’ temperaments has been very helpful in our parenting and understanding some of the dynamics in our relationships. We have [...]
Do you have a 4 year old that uses a tablet or 13 year old that is glued to their phone? If so, you have a Screenager! A Screenager is any toddler, child or teen that actively uses digital media or technology. And while there are many wonderful aspects of our Digital Age, there are also many challenges that come with it! Over the next three weeks, our goal is to equip and encourage you [...]
As parents, spouses, friends, and coworkers, it is much easier to give advice or instruction than to lead as the proper example ourselves. Often times it’s the old expression, “Do as I say, not as I do!” Of course we would never say that out loud, but subconsciously we probably say this more often than we care to admit. We know that we have caught ourselves plenty of times in these circumstances! When our boys [...]
We heard a terrific message by Andy Stanley on how leaders can be more effective, innovative and open to creative exploration when they have an attitude of “Wow” versus “How.” Many great ideas and creative thoughts get shut down and lost when executives or managers focus on the “how” of an idea instead of encouraging further creative exploration with a “wow” response. The same can be true in parenting. Are you a Wow Parent or [...]