Pile of household cleaning items for chores

At the end of the day, children who help around the house are more responsible, have higher self-esteem, show more empathy, and mature faster. But that doesn’t mean it can’t still be a fun experience for them (and you)! Using rewards, incentives, or just their natural competitive nature can get your little ones moving and …

Father and son standing in field surrounded by cherry blossoms

Helping support your children’s mental health is just as important as supporting their physical health. In a world of continuous stimulation and 24/7 media, it’s important that you are well aware of the state of their minds and whether there is friction or difference throughout their days, as well as what to do to make …

Young skateboarder performing stunt in skate park

Anxiety affects many people, but it can be particularly volatile and crippling amongst our teenagers. Teens face pressure at every turn of their lives—often before they’ve developed enough skill and confidence to handle it all. Throw in the additional pressure of competitive sports and you can end up with a nasty combination of factors bubbling …

Have a teen? You might be curious about their whereabouts or check in to see if they are driving safely. Use one of the 5 Best Apps to Track your Teen.

You have a teen, or maybe even a pre-teen, and you might be curious about their whereabouts or want to check in to see if they are driving safely. Amazingly, technology allows us to do this. When we were kids we “would have died” knowing our parents could monitor our location let alone what notes we were passing …

  Things are a little fuzzy but I can still remember back to middle school and the questionable choices I made, because “everyone else was doing it”!  Yes, I had the large teased bangs and rolled the bottom of my pants tightly at the ankle…questionable decisions I now realize!  But honestly, peer pressure is real …

Is your Child Struggling with Grades? It may not be about comprehension, there may be a simple step that they are missing to solve the grade struggle.

Reading, writing and arithmetic (remember that old-fashioned word for Math)…schools usually have them covered, in fact, most schools do a really great job teaching these and many other subjects. However, what tends to get overlooked is the student’s ability to prepare for their course load each week. Is Your Child Struggling with Grades? Recently, one …

GameDay Cofee strengthens relationships between fathers and their children. Easy, simple intentional time with your kids.

GameDay Coffee. Say What?  GameDay Coffee. It’s a simple little ritual with long-lasting effects on your child.  Let me explain. Last August, I felt God wanted me to meet with my oldest son, Luke, every Friday morning before he strapped on his helmet to play QB for Noblesville High School. Luke had been working hard …

Want to know what is going on in the mind of your teenage son's mind? Check out this Dad's insightful & hilarious interview with his teenage son!

It’s a Sunday evening in 1984, I am sitting in a chair in our kitchen, my mother has temporarily lost her mind as she proceeds to apply rollers to my bone-straight hair from a LILT Hair Perm set that she bought at the grocery store earlier that day.   This was not entirely unusual except that …

It happens to everyone…we all have had trouble concentrating at times. We find ourselves distracted when we are trying to focus. It’s just a fact of life.  So, it’s not a matter of ‘IF’ your kid gets distracted; it’s a matter of ‘WHEN.’   The good news is that you know it’s going to happen. This helps …

Every day, all across the world a familiar scene continues to play out in youth sports that causes havoc in kids’ minds. Ryan is a 12 year old baseball and basketball player. He is an above-average player whom the coach has called out as a team leader and all-around good guy. He makes friends easily at school and …

We sit. We watch our kids play sports. We react. Find out how this sports dad's experience has changed his perspective.

This past summer our oldest son and I went on a short-term mission trip to the poverty-stricken areas of Cartegena, Columbia (one of our parent goals is to provide each of our 3 boys, at age 13, an opportunity to experience, albeit briefly, a world that exists beyond our American suburb). We worked on several …

Do you write check after check to pay for your kids activities? Find out why your kids help contribute toward their activity fees.

Our boys are in the midst of winter workouts for their travel baseball team. This also means, our teams are prepping for the upcoming season: ordering uniforms, scheduling games and tournaments and raising funds to pay for it all. In order for all of the planning to come together, every parent gets assigned a committee. This …

The other day I saw a photo on Facebook that said, “NO is a complete sentence.  It does not require justification or explanation.”  The quote was meant to point out that you can say no to people or situations without having to explain yourself…but it got me thinking about my kids. How often do we tell our …

Give your Thanksgiving guests a chance to create a list of things they are thankful for. Use these Thanksgiving Gratefulness Printable Cards this holiday season.

As we enter this month of November and ponder all of the things we are thankful for, it’s important we have our kids take time to think about these things too! We created this simple Gratefulness Printable that you can print out and hand out to everyone at the Thanksgiving table to fill out. It’s …

This post is written by Craig Sigl a Mental Toughness Trainer. ************* Confidence. Everybody wants more of it and lack of it is the second most common issue why athletes come to me for.  (The first is fear of failure). When I work with young athletes in my office, I often have one or both parents …

Smiling teenagers in photo for after school program

Are your pre-teens and teens anxious to earn extra cash while gaining athletic experience? I know for my 13-year-old, umpiring baseball is very motivating for him to get off the couch and do something constructive. Besides baby-sitting, dog-sitting and yard work, pre-teens don’t have a lot of opportunities to make money. Finding a sports-related job …