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. Like 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 also [...]
In our Overcompensating letter, we mentioned that CouchTime was one of the most impactful tools we had implemented from the Parenting from the Tree of Life class (formerly Growing Kids God's Way). Since mentioning it earlier this year, we have had many parents ask us to provide more insight regarding CouchTime. So we thought it might be helpful to provide a little more detail regarding the why, when, where, and how of CouchTime. Why The [...]
According to research, we are considered the last “low-tech” generation and, generally speaking, our kids have (or will have) more knowledge than we do about technology and how to use it. This brings up a lot of questions. We need to ask ourselves, who or what is the authority in our kids’ lives, or our own lives for that matter? Who is in control? What kind of example am I to my family and friends [...]
In last week’s letter, Rich and Shelly wrote about the marital mindset of continuous effort in The One Thing. This simple idea is a gem hidden in plain sight. In this week’s letter, we’d like to expand on that theme from our perspective that might provide you some encouragement in your marriage, particularly if you’re having difficulties. It’s an unfortunate fact that roughly 5 out of 10 marriages are so challenged that they call it [...]
We are often asked this question: “Is there one thing we can do to strengthen our marriage, relationship with our kids, and create a healthy family identity?” The answer is yes - Serve others together! Investing in the lives of others, as a family, is a rich and meaningful way to rejuvenate family bonds and experience many valuable life-lessons together. Why serve together? In a society seemingly consumed with being self-focused, entitled, and self-pitying, what [...]
In the course of your parenting, have you ever felt like you and your spouse were on opposite ends of the spectrum? Overcompensating for one another? That certainly was us when our boys were 3 and 5 years old. Rich was more on the stricter side of the parenting spectrum and Shelly was more on the permissive side. For example, Rich believed that once you instructed your children to do something, they should immediately understand [...]
At a time when our marriage was at a fork in the road, we discovered 2 important things that helped our relationship immensely. The first thing was Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages (here’s a link to take the Love Languages Test). This well-known concept that people grow up giving and receiving love through these 5 modes of love was absolutely revolutionary for our marriage taking it from a 6-7 rating on the happiness scale to a [...]