Family on 35mm film
We love stories, and Hollywood knows how to dramatise them. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that Hollywood is first and foremost an industry driven by ratings and profits. Children are more vulnerable and more likely than adults to pick up identity models from the film world.
Children’s leisure time: then and now
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.
Leaving home without leaving your parents
The sun was shining on that wonderful July Sunday when you were enjoying your summer vacation. Your parents were with you on your walks in the park and watched you ride your bike without the slightest care in the world. Their smile gave you hints of the purest parental love.
Why compliments make our day better
When we think about the many tasks of a new day, each morning can be a challenge to mobilise our resources—a combined test of speed and endurance, or a race against the clock with not only known obstacles but also surprising challenges that sometimes overwhelm us.
Why it’s important to have New Year’s resolutions
New Year’s resolutions are beneficial, according to experts at the Sacramento State University, who found that this method is 10 times more effective for successfully meeting goals over a longer period of time than the method chosen by those who decide to change certain aspects of their lives at another time of the year.
At the crossroad of our thoughts
Our daily habits and actions constitute our state of mind. However, few people know that we hold great power over our own thoughts. Developing this power could pave the way for happiness.
She loves me not | Friendship and the friend zone
When I was a child, I used to take a branch of locust tree and, plucking the leaves one by one, I would say: She loves me… she loves me not… she loves me… she loves me not. I cannot remember who I was thinking of when doing this; too many years have gone by since then. However, the refrain is still very...
Five lessons from the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
It takes a brave man to stand up to a dictator and perhaps an even braver one to stand up to his church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been held up as a hero of the cause of justice and equality, and a statesman of modern Christian theology. For some readers, these two things might not seem a natural fit. But for Bonhoeffer, the two...
Symptoms of a marriage that’s doomed for divorce
Behind the prelude to a divorce are four major destructive behaviours which can prevent the couple from keeping their enthusiastic promise of staying together ...for better or for worse, till death us do part.
Mother by profession
Raising a child is not easy at all. Raising someone else’s child is even harder. But raising six children who are not your own, giving up your life, sounds crazy to most of us.
Give a little, change a lot
Seeing a team care for remote villages in the Solomon Islands showed me how small donations can make a real big difference.
The path of renewal: from words that “ignite the wheel of life” to those that guard the soul
“The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream” (Proverbs 18:4).
How to talk about war with your child
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.
Mothering in times of anxiety
The young generations of women raised with the ideal of the family in which the man and the woman are team partners, equal both at home and outside it, discover that their expectations have taken precedence over the real course of society. The most surprised are, unpredictably, women who are highly educated.
The doctor of the forgotten world
Doctor Roland Hermann knows what he wants to do with his life. This is the explanation that best describes his decisive yet relaxed and simple answers. For years, the 45-year-old dentist from Mediaș, Romania, has been travelling to forgotten places to treat hundreds and thousands of disadvantaged patients.


























