Adventures in Parenting

Should we teach our teens about using condoms? Isn’t it better to teach them about safe sex since they are going to have sex anyway?
Kara, an abstinence educator, tells it like it is in a letter she wrote to Dr. Laura. It gives us the right perspective about what we should teach our children.
Here is [...]

Imagine this, if you can:
Your daughter gets ready to leave the house in an outrageous outfit showing way too much skin, to say the least.
You reel on her and yell, “You are not going out of the house like that! You look like a slut. No decent boy will respect you.”
Your daughter pauses, looks at [...]

When my girls were little, I hear parents with teenage girls who dress with too much skin showing (that’s the nice way of putting it) say with a resigned sigh, “Well, I can’t control what they wear anymore.” At that time, I thought, “I still have control of what my girls wear for [...]

Male high school teachers have a very tough job. I especially feel for their wives.
When 17 and 18 year-old girls wear tank tops, tight clothes, and short shorts, do you think the men teachers, even the most moral ones, would notice? How can the wives of the teachers compete with these young beauties?
Recently at a [...]

I am honored to have today’s post written by Margit Crane, M.A., M.S., M.Ed. She is a family relationship coach, speaker, author (HELP! My Teen Has Been Abducted By Aliens!), workshop leader and acclaimed expert on teens, ‘tweens, and their parents. She is the founder of Rock The World Coachingg™ and is also known as [...]

A 20-something year old girl at church said something to me on Sunday that was incredibly mature.
“I decided to stay at this church because when I was growing up at this church, a lot of people here contributed to my growth. Now I want to give back and help other people grow at this church.”
I [...]

I’m really bad at it, but it’s great exercise and it gets me sweating.
I’m talking about Dance Dance Revolution. We play the Mario version on our Game Cube.
But Becki said it right on that the music of these types of games is not very uplifting. The Mario version is not bad, but the Guitar Hero [...]

It’s about prom time - do you dread it or do you enjoy it?
I survived the ordeal when my daughter went with a group of friends to her prom last year. I didn’t wait up all night worrying. I give that job to my husband.
As parents we always worry about practical concerns of safety when [...]

Spring break is over! Tomorrow we start school again. Sigh!
We’ve had such a great time doing all the little things we don’t normally make time to do - play games, do craft projects, went to Griffith Park Observatory, my daughter stayed overnight at a friend’s house, and we stayed up late and woke up late, [...]

“I feel left out when you guys talk. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
As the third and youngest child, my daughter is 6 years behind our second child and 7 1/2 years behind her older brother. At the dinner table, we would be talking about getting ready for college when she is [...]

If you have a 16-year-old, I bet you’ve grown more than a few white hairs worrying about your teenager getting his/her driver’s license. I know I have!
My son was in a car accident recently, thank God everyone was alright. It could’ve been worst. But it’s one of those phone calls you don’t want to [...]

While out with some clients for lunch, I tried in vain to remember the proper etiquette from Emily Post.
Am I suppose to order a drink to be socialable? Is there a rule as to who orders first? Who pays the bill?
I grew up in a very casual family where proper table manners were not emphasized. [...]

Have you ever squeezed too much toothpaste and tried to get it back in? You can’t do it.
It’s the same with words. Out of frustration, we often say things we don’t mean. But once the words are out, you can’t take them back.
Here is a list of things I’ve actually heard parents say [...]

I was presented with the honor of this award by Dance of Motherhood! What a great feeling to know that I made someone’s day!

The rules for the “You Make My Day” award are to re-present it to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blog land. Let [...]

This is the 6th and last article on Effective Discipline
I heard on the radio of a dad telling the story of his 6 perfectly behaved children . He trained them properly alright. But as his children got older, he realized they were behaving out of fear and guilt. They did not dare disobey their [...]

I asked my 18-year-old daughter today what is the hardest year in her life, so far. She said definitely 6th grade. She had to adjust to starting middle school, she didn’t have any close friends, and she got her first C on her report card in one of her classes.
Middle school years are well-known to [...]

On Sunday morning we woke up early to make breakfast before church. I was cooking up some turkey sausages, my son was grilling blueberry pancakes next to me, my husband was dicing apples to put into our brown sugar oatmeal, and the girls were setting up the table. We sat down to a leisurely Sunday [...]