Family

"Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” (Dr John Trainer) Sometimes I pass my grandparents' house, which...

“When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window,” poet Ogden Nash once said, encapsulating one of the most common sources of intergenerational conflict—the role grandparents play in the upbringing of their grandchildren.

This article is the third and last in the "Parenting School" series. The first two parts were published in the May and June 2020 issues of Semnele Timpului, the Romanian version of the ST Network.

The refrain: “I’m booored…” is “the worst song on the parenting soundtrack,” says journalist Kat Patrick humorously. Chanted in the most inconvenient moments, this complaint often triggers the parent’s guilt or concern. But there’s nothing wrong with letting your child get bored sometimes.

The relationship between a parent and their child is one of the most significant in their lives, with its primary role being education.

I have two reasons for writing this article on identity crisis. First, I am the father of four children, three of whom are very different teenagers (14, 17 and 19 years old) and I think I have a vague idea of what it means to deal with teens. Second, in the studies I’ve recently taken up, I was surprised to discover that most...

The factors behind successful ageing have been the subject of research for decades, but the subjective side of ageing still needs to be explored. Because successful ageing is more than an attempt to defy age and its frailties, it is a process in which, in addition to losses, benefits need to be taken into account—not just those delivered by good genetics or a...

The saying Spare the rod and spoil the child is deeply rooted in some cultures as saving discipline. Where does this idea come from and is it true that using the rod is next to godliness?

If the death of our parents is a blow which makes “the very fabric of life…buckle and cave in,” the ageing of our parents resembles a classroom where we learn to give more than we are used to receiving.

Before the age of two, most children think the world revolves around them. From their point of view, what they think and how they feel must be what others think and feel, too. They don’t have the concept that other people have different needs and perspectives. It’s why if they can’t see you when they’re playing hide-and-seek, they believe you surely can’t see...

You wouldn’t think so, but whether or not children do chores is one predictor of their future happiness and success. 

Adults who choose not to have children are often portrayed as selfish people, so preoccupied with their own lives that the prospect of the sacrifices that raising a child would entail seems repulsive to them. Is this view fair or is it just an unfair judgement?

One of the biggest challenges facing both parents and teachers is to help children stay motivated so that they can keep focus, persevere when they are struggling, move forward, and finish what they have begun.

No matter how much we avoid it, the day will come when our parents will not be able to get by without us, just as we would not have been able to grow up without them.

Throughout her life, Ellen White wrote extensively on the subject of religious education for children. This material is a selection of her writings.