Family

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?

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.

Is it possible, as single parents, to instil in our children a love for God and for the church?

Our children are forced to adapt to a world we did not want for them. As many mothers who attend coaching sessions say, the theme of war is one of the most difficult for them to address in discussions with their children, as they feel responsible for finding the balance between the child’s emotional security and their exposure to the reality around them.

When we are isolated with our family, problems that are sometimes easy to ignore become more acute, and the need to receive and offer forgiveness to those around us becomes increasingly evident.

As the world went into various lockdowns over the course of last year, people turned to a variety of entertainment forms to cope with...

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.

Nine years ago, as my then-fiancé and I were deep in the throes of folding paper flowers, painting glass bottles, and designing and making our own wedding stationery, the question popped up fairly regularly: Why don’t we just elope?

“We all feel stronger if we are part of a tapestry. One thread alone is weak, but, woven into something larger, surrounded by other threads, it is more difficult to unravel,” says family therapist Stefan Walters, summarising the benefits of understanding the history of the family we come from.

Even after the World Health Organization replaced the term social distancing with physical distancing, people are still feeling the effects of social distancing.

Sometimes, parents end up not having any free time during the day. Why is relaxation not easy for parents?

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...

Gentle parenting—how did this seemingly wholesome phrase come to elicit such strong negative reactions as contempt, sarcasm, and condescension?

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

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