Is it a bad idea to become romantically involved with a fellow employee? I think I’m in love with a man who works in my office. I know it’s often considered unprofessional to date a co-worker, and I’m not entirely certain about his feelings for me. The last thing I want to do is place …
Family Q&A
Are “pro-ana” websites helpful for those with anorexia and other eating disorders? I recently discovered that my teenage daughter, who has struggled with an eating disorder (anorexia), has been visiting one of these sites on a regular basis. When I questioned her about it, she said that it’s designed to provide girls in her situation …
Can you tell us what changes we should expect as our child goes through puberty and enters adolescence — and how we should deal with them? I realize that this is likely to be a challenging time in our son’s life. I’m also assuming that my spouse and I will have to bear a large …
How can I help my granddaughter who is struggling with her racial identity? She’s the child of an interracial marriage – her mother is white, her father black. Her parents have now divorced and her dad is no longer in the picture. On top of the many other problems that go along with being a …
Is it appropriate to pay our school-aged children for doing household tasks? When I was growing up I always received an allowance, but my spouse says that kids need to work without being paid because that’s part of being a family. What do you think?
In light of our tight financial situation, how should we handle all of the costly “extras” at our child’s school? Here’s the latest example: we received a note from my child’s kindergarten teacher informing us that the school would be producing yearbooks that cost $30.00. We declined to buy one, only to learn that our …
How do we stop our two teenage sons from fighting over a girl? What should we do? The sixteen-year-old, who has always been more outgoing than his brother, has struck up a “friendship” with a girl our seventeen-year-old has liked for over a year. This kind of thing has happened before, though it’s always been …
I’ve heard a lot about the post-partum blues, but is it normal to be feeling emotionally down before the baby arrives? I’m currently about three-quarters of the way through my pregnancy, and lately I’ve been very low and sad. Is there anything I can do about this?
How can I convince my adult son that matrimony is valuable and worthwhile when his own parents couldn’t make it work? My ex-spouse and I split up when my children were still small, and I thought it was all water under the bridge. Now I find that my son blames me and his dad for …
Is it okay for a boy to be gentle and sensitive? Our two young sons couldn’t be more different. The oldest is a typical boy: loud and in perpetual motion. His 4-year-old brother, however, is so quiet I hardly know he’s around. While our oldest son and his dad spend hours on end rough-housing together, …
What are some meaningful and practical ways we can ease the burden of a family who has a child with special needs? My husband and I have friends from church with a child who was recently diagnosed with cerebral palsy. We know this family is juggling a lot of things at once and we want …
How can we encourage our overweight teenager to shed his excess pounds and shift his lifestyle and eating habits in a more healthy direction?
Is there some way to get my wife to stop complaining about the job I’m doing as a parent?
Do you have any advice or suggestions for a mother who wants to make the transition from full-time career woman to stay-at-home mom? What can I do to make this change as smooth as possible for the entire family?
How can my wife and I come to an agreement about child discipline? I’ve tried to teach my son a strong sense of discipline, but my wife often disagrees with my approach and methods. She says I’m “too hard on the boy.” As you can imagine, this can sometimes become a sore spot in our …
As a Christian father, should I give my daughter away at the wedding if she’s marrying a non-believer? Over the more than twenty years of our marriage we’ve worked hard to raise her in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Her decision has come as a great disappointment to us. We love our daughter, …
What’s the best way to stop a teenager from using her cell phone to send and receive sexually explicit messages and photos? We recently discovered that our daughter has become involved in “sexting.” When confronted about this, she claimed that this kind of activity is harmless since it doesn’t involve any physical sexual contact. How …
Should we force our teen to relocate to a new state with the rest of us? A job change is requiring our family to move, but our adolescent son, who is currently a student in high school, doesn’t want to go with us. He’d rather move in with some friends and graduate from the school …
How should I handle a three-year-old toddler who is mean and aggressive with other children? He’s fine at home where there aren’t any other children around. But when he’s at church or with another family that has children his age, his behavior becomes ugly. On occasion his aggression takes a physical form – hitting, kicking, and …
Do you think it’s a good idea to take a small child out of the home and place him in an institutional setting for a number of hours every week? We’ve been considering preschool for our little boy, but we’re not sure if the pros outweigh the cons. What’s your perspective?
