Is it my place to get involved if I’m convinced that the physical environment in my son’s house has become unsafe and unhealthful for my grandchild? I love my son and daughter-in-law, but I’m worried about their ten-month-old daughter’s health. The house is piled with trash, the floors are filthy, there’s month-old pizza stuck to …
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How can I encourage my bashful preschooler to open up and break out of his shell? He’s soft-spoken, reserved, and afraid of walking into a room full of people. He used to cry when we’d take him to the church nursery, and now he resists being left at his daycare center. Is there something we …
How can I help my adolescent son settle on a vocation and make wise plans for the future? He seems to be thinking more seriously about career choices and wondering what God wants him to do with his life.
Do you have any suggestions for things families can do together while the kids are out of school on Spring Break? We don’t have a lot of money to spend, but we would like to take advantage of the time off to strengthen our relationships and have some good old fashioned fun. Any ideas?
Now that I’m divorced, how can I stay involved with my kids? One of the most difficult outcomes of the settlement is that it limits my contact with them. Legally, I’m only allowed to have them a few days out of each month. I’d like to be more involved, but my ex-wife is very strict …
How can I help my 14-year-old son turn his grades around, especially when he doesn’t see the need for getting assistance from me or anybody else? He’s been falling behind in school and recently brought home 2 “Ds.” I used to tutor him when he was younger, but for the last two years he’s refused …
Could talking about suicide have the effect of pushing a teenager in the wrong direction? I have reasons to believe that my son may be struggling with self-destructive thoughts and tendencies. While I think it’s generally important to confront this situation directly, I keep wondering what might happen if I bring up my concerns and …
Should children be taught to fight back or to “turn the other cheek”? As Christian parents, we’ve drummed it into our kids’ heads from day one that physical violence is unacceptable. Unfortunately, the school playground has turned out to be a pretty rough place for one of our sons, and the non-violent policy hasn’t worked …
How can we help our adolescent daughter, who is depressed and angry as a result of our recent relocation to a new town and a new school? The move has taken a heavy toll on all of our kids, but our teenager is particularly upset. She won’t talk about anything but our old home, and …
How do we deal with an unhappy and contrary pubescent boy? Our ten-year-old son has just hit puberty, and it seems to have drastically altered his personality. He went from a generally happy little boy who laughed all the time to a miserable pre-teen who is always fighting with someone – my wife and me, his …
How can I know if my daughter is anorexic or bulimic? She’s lost a great deal of weight over the past few months, and she’s become extremely thin. What should I do if I find out she has a serious eating disorder?
How do we stop our two daughters, ages thirteen and seven, from fighting and bickering all the time? I’m concerned that the effects of all this conflict may be potentially harmful. We’re a Christian family, so we’ve talked many times about what it means to be kind, loving, and forgiving. After one of these discussions …
What do you do about a kid who attacks other people with his teeth? Our strong-willed toddler has been displaying this negative behavior with increasing frequency over the past couple of months. How do we put a stop to it?
How should I talk to my elementary-grade child about Santa Claus? She’s been asking a lot of questions about him. I am ready to tell her the truth, but I’m hesitant because I don’t want her to think that we’ve been “lying” to her all these years.
How can I tell if our teenager is faking an illness to get out of school? He often complains of not feeling well on school day mornings, but, interestingly enough, his symptoms usually disappear by mid-afternoon and rarely surface at all on weekends. Is it wrong of me to distrust him?
Should we tell our children that their mom had an affair?
What tools does Focus on the Family make available for use in passing the Christian faith along to our kids?
At what point does a child become personally responsible for his or her actions before God? This is not just an academic question; as I see it, your answer will affect how I choose to discipline my children. I know that we’re all born with an inherited sin nature, but I’m not sure what the …
Is it possible to be consistently pro-life while still making an exception for abortion in cases when the life of the mother is at risk? What’s your perspective on this difficult ethical question?
Is it normal for me to be dealing with troubling emotions as the result of a past abortion? It happened years ago, but I still have a really hard time coping with my feelings.