In a world full of uncertainties, anxieties and an over-performance culture of never being good enough, the biggest gifts that parents can give to children is a true sense of belonging, hope, courage to dare greatly and the notion that they are ok the way they are. It is our responsibility to teach them the
When parents think of ‘discipline’ they are usually thinking in terms of ‘punishment’. But another definition is ‘instruction’. Dr Justin Coulson points out that the meaning of discipline has shifted over time. It comes from the Latin ‘disciplina’ meaning ‘teaching’, and ‘discipulus’ meaning ‘pupil.’ “When we ‘discipline’ our children, we guide, teach and instruct them
How sharing dinner is a ritual at the heart of a family’s life. Many of our fondest memories from childhood relate to meals we have enjoyed with our family, such as long Christmas lunches, the weekly roast, or fish and chips on a Friday night. The humble family meal is a powerful daily ritual
No one puts their feet on the floor each morning with the intention to cause harm to others... write Vic & Liz O’Callaghan. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes they go wrong regularly. This can happen anywhere, but it can often happen at home, and it is hard to talk about it. What can we do?
The fear of an unplanned pregnancy is one of the prevailing realities of modern coupledom. No matter how much we love babies, how much we trust in God’s providence, almost every couple will at some time have tasted the anxiety of possible pregnancy at the wrong time. For some couples, the anxiety may be
Emotional Intelligence is widely recognised as important for human flourishing. It includes: the ability to identify and appropriately express one’s emotions, the ability to manage and self-regulate negative emotions, and the ability to empathise with others’ emotional state. While people will be gifted to different degrees with Emotional Intelligence (EQ), like all intelligences, we can
Developed by Gary Chapman, the Five Love Languages, is a simple framework that can teach us how to love more effectively. The theory is simple and powerful. Love is like a language. People ‘speak’ love in different ways, some through words of affirmation, others through thoughtful gifts, acts of service, quality time or touch.
Things go wrong. Disasters happen. We fail. We mess up. No matter our age or talent, we all face adversity from time to time. Learning to respond with optimism and self-mastery can be the difference between a productive, joy-filled life and one mired with hopelessness. A persistent pessimistic mind-set is also a risk factor
If you could summarise Patrick in one word, it is joy. If you could bottle Patrick’s joy and sell it, we’d be multi-billionaires. You can get all these books and things on how to find happiness, but nope! All you need is a drop of Patrick! The older kids just adore him. When they come
At the breakfast table last week our four-year-old says to me, “Mum, I had a dream last night, that Jesus smashed into the earth and it shook and wobbled”. “Oh, that’s interesting,” I responded. Then I asked her, “So what happened to our house, darling?” “Our house was fine Mum, because Jesus can come in
