I want to share with you what I learned about blocked care and give you hope that we can overcome the conflicts we experience with our children. That these ill-feelings are not just the result of poor parenting techniques or broken children, but sometimes they arise from our own overtaxed or even underdeveloped parenting brains. And there are ways to help our brain parent better.
Read MoreHere are some fun activities we like to do with our boys, especially in the summer.
Read MoreHere is our list of essential items for your baby from birth to six months!
Read MoreIf we want our children to be successful in life, then we have to school them in the emotions. This is Daniel Goleman’s running thesis in Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ, a pioneering book that helped bring emotional intelligence into homes and classrooms. Drawing on brain and behavioural research, Goleman’s primary purpose is to explain that education and IQ alone don’t determine positive life outcomes. Rather healthy self-awareness, self-discipline, and empathy help a person stay afloat in life.
Read MoreMy husband is a fun-loving, easy-going, good-natured, spontaneous sanguine. We looked at the character traits of a sanguine as described by Art and Larraine Bennett in their book The Temperament that God Gave You. Gerhard describes what these traits look like in real life, the good and the bad of them, and offers some words of advice to other husbands and fathers who share his temperament.
Read MoreLinda Weber’s book, Mom, You’re Incredible!, is a dose of encouragement to all moms who have chosen to be full-time caregivers of their children. You’re not just a housewife or a babysitter, you’re nurturing the hearts and souls of the next generation of people on our planet.
Read MoreAs a parent (and I should add, as a wife) the negative emotions I encounter on a day to day basis can hit me suddenly like a landslide: feelings of anger, resentment, guilt, and overwhelming stress. Here I reflect on what it looks like to integrate our Jungian shadow, or our darker side, using the awareness of our negative emotions so that we can become a more emotionally balanced parent.
Read MorePodcast Episode 6. We discuss teenagers with Matt Charbonneau, a high school religion teacher from Ottawa, Canada. He tells us how teenagers have changed in behaviour and academic ability over the years of his teaching. We discuss the pros and cons of teaching and learning from home, and how teenagers can do best in this new digital environment.
Read MoreIt’s not the teachers’ job to help our kids become the best person they can be. That’s our job. No one else will stick by our kids for five, ten, twenty years. We will. And for that reason, we need to have a vision of where we want our kids to go and of what kind of people we would like them to be.
Read MoreIn this podcast, we give you a quick update on what we have been up to these last four months: a baby, a move, a new life direction, and even Lyme disease.
Read MoreDo you find that as soon as you sit down, your kids assume it is an invitation to play? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by your kids’ demand for constant attention?
Read MoreDo you feel overwhelmed about cooking/cleaning/grocery shopping/meal planning?? Minimalism offers a solution to give you back your freedom in the kitchen. In this blog post I reflect on Melissa Coleman’s cookbook, “The Minimalist Kitchen.”
Read MoreGer and Joce have a conversation on parenting with Patrick Sullivan, founder of Evango, a Catholic missionary organization for the new evangelization, and father of eight. Through his years of work as a missionary, Patrick saw the need that marriages and families have for practical, human formation and has started developing his own program, Me and My House, to strengthen marriages and families. We get to know his story, as well as get him to share some practical tips and tricks to strengthen our marriage and help improve ourselves as parents.
Read MoreIn an age where technology takes a prominent place in our home, many people are asking whether we still know how to be social. But I think beyond the usual answer of “turn off your devices when you’re with someone,” is a deeper cry for what it means to have a meaningful connection. Join me as I reflect on the importance of presence with our children and our partners.
Read MoreIt's easy in marriage to lose your sense of self amidst the demands of your relationship with your spouse and children. Jennifer Fulwiler's book, One Beautiful Dream explores her journey of maintaining her identity amidst her growing family through her passion for writing. This book inspired us, and we thought we'd share our thoughts on this book, as well as explore the idea of having a blue flame.
Read MoreThe temperaments have been used to try understand personality since the ancient Greeks. Based on the book: The Temperament God Gave You, we share the basics of the temperaments and how knowing them can help you navigate relationships like a pro.
Read MoreThe words “discipline” and “punish” often come off as negative principles. But they do not have to be that way. Encouragement and reward are also necessary for guiding children into being respectable adults.
Read MoreSome of the best organizational advice that I ever received was from the Seana method: “think like a Kindergarten teacher.”
Read MoreOne thing that many people ask me is how I first knew that I had an allergy. Here are some tell-tale signs…
Read MoreHow do I confront a choleric who is intimidating me? How do I motivate my phlegmatic friend to action? How do I get my melancholic spouse to not be so down? How do I encourage my sanguine son to stay on task? Here’s a cheat sheet to navigate the most difficult aspects of each temperament!
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