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How to Unplug Your Kids And Encourage Family Communication

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Want to have a better relationship with your kids and teens? Do you find it hard to get their attention when they are staring at a screen? Here are some tips for parents who want to unplug their kids and encourage communication. Limit Screen Time The goal is to place limits on when and where your child or teen can use their computer, tablet, or smartphone. The goal is not to remove those devices from your kids forever. A reasonable amount of screen time can be stimulating and sometimes even educational. Parents need to pick their battles with this one. … Continue reading →

Communication Is Key

Early in the separation you will need to keep the lines of communication open, especially when it concerns your child. If the only time you ever communicate with your ex spouse is to argue or otherwise be hostile to each other, will quickly break down. This is a problem when your children are young, but can become an even bigger problem when your child is a teenager. One of my friends is the divorced parent of a teenage son, she and her ex husband share joint custody of their son so he splits his time between the two homes. This … Continue reading →

Are the Grandparents Supportive?

We had a family gathering today, and were blessed to have two grandmas and one grandpa in attendance. One grandma asked my son, “How’s school? What’s your favorite class?” My son replied, “Well, we homeschool.” She replied, “Yes, but you still have classes. Which one do you like best?” This launched into a discussion of math – who knew that I’d have a child who liked math – and the conversation was very positive and upbeat. Not every conversation with a grandparent will go so smoothly, though. I feel very blessed that my parents and my husband’s parents have been … Continue reading →

Why Parents Make Great Entrepreneurs

If you are a parent and you are thinking about starting a home-based business, you are in luck. Parenting and entrepreneurship have a few things in common, and that means that parents are likely to be very successful in home-based business ventures. What are these common elements, and why are they important? Sometimes parents, especially those of us who choose to stay home with our children and leave the workplace for a while, feel like they no longer have what it takes to succeed in business. This is why it is important to learn about the similarities between entrepreneurship and … Continue reading →

What is Elimination Communication?

Despite the lack of an exciting moniker, elimination communication is a pretty exciting business. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I learned that many cultures actually communicate with their babies about going to the bathroom and work with babies to use the potty before the babies can talk. I’d always assumed that my daughter would be in diapers – cloth diapers, yes, but diapers nonetheless. Now, elimination communication shouldn’t be confused with old-fashioned punitive methods that involved forcing babies and young toddlers to sit on the potty for a long time, trying to go to the bathroom. Elimination communication … Continue reading →

Prospective Parents’ Health Status: What Effect on Chances of Adoption?

A reader recently asked two excellent questions about persons with serious health conditions adopting. I am paraphrasing the essence of her questions here, as I understand them. 1) Are agencies really allowed to ask about all this? What about health privacy laws? Most, if not all, of the forms I’ve seen will ask this question. (As well as questions about your debts, your marital communication, amount in your bank account, how you get along with your parents and many other things that wouldn’t be legal in a job interview, at least not in the U.S.) 2)Does having a serious medical … Continue reading →

Being Both Parents

Single parenting is so much more common these days, than it was even ten years ago. Parents wind up as single parents in a variety of ways, but once common thing remains the same – often a single parent feels as if they need to be both parents at once. So how do you go about being both parents at the same time, especially if the other parent isn’t involved or has limited involvement? First of all, you don’t try to be two people at once. You need to focus on being the best mom or dad that you can … Continue reading →

Author Interview – Richard Dudum on the Importance of Parents and Adult Mentors

Thank you for joining us for part two of our chat with Richard Dudum, author of the book “What Your Mother Never Told You.” If you missed yesterday, click here to catch up. Richard, why do you feel that so many of our youth (and adults, too, for that matter) feel that their self-esteem will rise if they have sex? There are a multitude of physical, emotional and developmental changes taking place during the teen years, including sexual and romantic awakening. The thoughts and emotions associated with sex, romance, and sexuality, combined with all of the other changes taking place … Continue reading →

Foster Discussions and Keep Communication Open

Have you ever had one of those stretches where you were so busy and distracted that it dawned on you that it had been a couple days since you really sat down and talked with your child? When this happens we get filled with guilt and remorse and wonder how on earth we could let such a thing happen… As busy single parents, we really have to make the extra effort to foster discussions with our kids–the older the children get and the more busy we all become, the harder it can be to carve out the time to chat. … Continue reading →

Single Parents Must Watch Out for Redundancy and Duplication

Let’s face it, as single parents our time is precious and wasting time or energy just is not a welcome option for most of us. I have found that one of the biggest time-wasters can be duplication and redundancy—whether it is doing something that is already been done, or lack of communication between myself and other people in my children’s lives that results in doubling up and duplication of stuff and adult “coverage.” It takes planning, scheduling, and sheer determination to try to cut out the redundancy and duplication. The trick to stamping out duplication is in understanding that our … Continue reading →