Splink 1: Something Good Bake some cookies to help kids understand that God is so great He can take even the bad things that happen to us and make something good out of them. Gather the ingredients and let the kids taste each individual ingredient—baking soda, baking powder, salt, flour, butter, etc. How do those…
Splink 1: Can You? Let kids try each one to see if it is easy or hard. Is it easy or hard to: rub your belly and pat your head touch your nose with your tongue kiss your elbow make a human tripod (balance your body with only your head and two hands on the…
“Read their mind” is just another way of saying every leader needs to understand what’s changing mentally and physically. Kids and teenagers don’t think like adults. So it’s the role of a leader to keep presenting, keep translating and keep creating experiences until someone has learned what they need to know. When you know…
I still remember the first time I drove our first new born home from the hospital. The journey was slow, careful and deliberate. Since then, a lot has changed, not only in the way I drive, but also in the way I parent… If parenting can be described as a journey, I am not sure…
Just last week I talked to my wife, Lisa, about my ten year old daughter who seems to have changed overnight. Just as I was getting to understand how to interact and support her, I was suddenly interacting with someone else… She’s starting to look different, think different, act different, and even smell different! Whether…
Splink 1: Amazing Metamorphosis Watch an amazing 4-minute video about the butterfly’s metamorphosis. Here’s a shorter 2-minute one for non-readers: What does metamorphosis mean? (To change, such as the change from a caterpillar to a butterfly) When the caterpillar appears from the chrysalis, it doesn’t look anything like a caterpillar. Instead it is a…
I’m learning that friendship, as a parent, is even more life-giving (life-saving?) now than ever before. And this says a lot coming from a friendship-nostalgia-freak who has a file box of every single note I received in middle and high school organized by name of the sender. (If anyone under 25 is reading this, a…
Remember when you used to have fun? I know, it seems like it’s been a while. Maybe a long while. Sometimes parenting can seem like a burden. Even reading about parenting can make you feel like you need to button down and master 5 more parenting skills—which, sometimes you need to do. But in the…
Splink 1: As Sure as the Stars Stay up late, go outside, put a blanket on the ground, look up, and count the stars. God made a promise to Abraham that his descendents (children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, etc.) would be as many as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5). How many stars can…
My son attended a small, private high school. It was a wonderful school, that had a rule for everything, and many of their favorite rules had to do with uniforms. Students were required to wear their uniforms, and nothing but their uniforms, whenever they were on campus. As parents, we liked the uniform rule because…