In a perfect world, I would be patiently doing many hours of therapy each day with my son and in a perfect world, he would be meeting milestone after milestone. Then there’s reality. Calvin is one of five kids who need me, he is not “catching up” developmentally, and some days it’s all I can do to…
What does it mean to have faith on this parenting journey? September will mark 16 years since autism came into our lives. J was 22 months old. In the very early days, faith meant trusting God for healing. People prayed and encouraged and gave us timelines for God’s miracle. “By 6 he will be healed!”…
Splink 1: Go and Find Play Sardines, a variation of Hide and Seek. Choose one person to hide while everyone else closes their eyes and counts to 25. When the counting is completed, each person searches for the hider. When someone finds the hider, he or she doesn’t say anything but quietly crawls into…
It’s time somebody said it. Grandparents matter. We step in and dare to tread where even the bravest of parents won’t. We invite those little people to climb in our lap with their damp bottoms and sticky fingers. We listen to endless jokes that have no punchline. We cram our oversized behinds into itty…
Kids know more about you than you know about them. People are wired to pay closer attention to someone who has power over their world. Think about it. You probably know more about the President than he knows about you. As kids and teenagers grow up, they depend on the adults in their world…
Be honest. Even if you didn’t say that out loud, you’ve thought it at least once! Yet, the primary “care-giver” really does have the need to leave home, leave town, and leave their child behind from time to time. Perhaps we need to leave our child behind (not in the sense that they’re taking off…
Splink 1: Power to Go Run a relay to introduce the idea of Paul and Barnabas being sent out to share the gospel. Send everybody to gather three items they would bring if they were going on a trip. Put these on a table. Place an opened suitcase on the floor on the other…
Splink 1: Forgiving Even When It’s Hard Watch a 2.44-minute video of Amin, a boy from Iran who was faithful to the Gospel even after being persecuted. http://www.kidsofcourage.com/?p=8096 Talk about it: How do you think you would have felt if you were Amin? What does it mean to be persecuted? (Treated badly because of…
Raising a daughter is one of the scariest endeavors I’ve ever faced. Once we got past the toddler phase with our son, I had a fairly good idea of what to do; we played catch, we talked about sports and we laughed at body noises. I made my share of mistakes raising our son, but…
Imagine a parent of a child you know approaching you. “Can (insert their child’s name) and I speak with you and (insert your child’s name) privately for a minute?” Maybe this kind of “confrontational” conversation raises your blood pressure? I know it raises mine. Thoughts spiral and I become anxious: “What did my child do?”…