Family

The perspectives we acquire as children about ourselves as individuals, about the world, and even about God, become beliefs that filter and guide the choices we make as adults. Some of these beliefs are helpful. Others are not. In fact, many of the obstacles we encounter in adult life are caused by these filters.

Some houses allow you to read the owners' story on their walls and through their windows. Although it happens less and less often, the most beautiful houses are built by those who mean to live in them. Cara Brookins and her children know very well how every beam or window in their house was put up, because they built it together.

For at least one party, sibling estrangement can be more painful than loss through death, writes Fern Schumer Chapman, who was excluded from her brother's life for four decades.

The prelude to a divorce often comprises highly destructive behaviours, which can prevent a couple from keeping their enthusiastic promise of staying together "for better or for worse until death do us part," says American psychologist Dr John Gottman.

Both specialist research and common experience tell us how complicated it is when children reach adolescence. Dr Bryan Craig helps us to understand the reasons for this and how to turn the crisis into an opportunity for growth.

My one-year-old son eyes the chickpea-filled bowl suspiciously. He tentatively pokes a stubby finger into the bowl and starts stirring the legumes around. I’m pretty sure it isn’t my imagination when, seconds later, his hazel eyes light up and his little pink lips curve ever-so-slightly upwards.

Early exposure to technology helps children accumulate information quickly, opening up new ways for them to understand the world. At the same time, however, the online environment can put many of its most vulnerable users at risk.

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.

I used to think I was a patient person. Then I became a dad.

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

As Christian parents, the most important legacy we want to leave our children is faith in God.

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.

“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.

Many families who feared that the new coronavirus would affect their health ended up dreading its effect on something seemingly even more difficult to protect: the well-being of their relationship.

Even in difficult times there are many things we can do at home to help children as well as teenagers to feel less worried.