Family

How much do we know about love? Enough to understand that love is not an obligation—we cannot love by force, nor be loved in this way.

In 1997, Dr Gary Chapman released the book "The 5 Love Languages of Children" as a follow-up to his bestseller, "The Five Love Languages."

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

I just got back from the funeral of a fifty-four-year-old mother who left behind a grieving teenager. His father told how the boy wanted to ask his mother for forgiveness, on her deathbed, for all the stubbornness typical of a seventeen-year-old. He was already forgiven.

Happy couples are not spared from marital conflict, but the crucial thing is that they have simple but effective tools to strengthen their relationship in a way that does not allow the conflict to destroy the emotional connection between them.

All COVID-19 statistics lead to the same conclusion: the young ones, our children, are at the lowest risk of getting ill or dying from the virus. That’s comforting. But the pandemic does pose a certain danger to them.

We love people for who they are. But there is a kind of love that is too high for us to truly comprehend in all its nuances, a love that manifests itself towards people no matter who they are or what they become. We find a love such as this in the beautiful story of Ian and Larissa.

I grew up on an unpaved, quaint side street in Ploiești, Romania. After school or during summer vacations my neighbours, M. and C., and I were an inseparable trio. We were almost always outdoors. If it wasn't too hot or raining, you could find us in one of our backyards.

After the authorities in different countries announced a relaxation of the restrictions, people started to impatiently waiting for that, maybe even with plans to recover last bits of a confiscated spring.

Lucy is an 8-year-old girl who has a range of interests broader than that of an ordinary adult. She is enrolled in an international school, where classes are taught in French by native speakers. Her classmates are children of expats from different cultures, which amuses her nanny, who, when picking her up from school, says that she "took her from the children's UN."

"Once upon a time, there was a princess as beautiful and kind as a fairy. She was an only child and her parents loved her dearly and did everything for her. When she grew up, they gave her a magnificent wedding to the brave man she had chosen, a handsome and virtuous fellow. After a while, misfortune struck: not a day would pass...

I once heard on the radio a recommendation to help us understand the elderly: to attach some weights to our backs, hands and feet, put some blurred glasses on our noses, cotton wool in our ears, and then go to the market...

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.

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.

In a world of rising toxic masculinity, here are some basic foundations we can provide to ensure our sons grow up to be men who make us proud.