Comic Brian Regan reflects on a childhood memory of  his grade school science fair, for which he simply put some soil in a paper cup and displayed it. "I call it cup o' dirt," he explained to those wandering by, wondering what his project was all about. "You should move along now." The kid next to him was more ambitious. He’d created an intricate model of the solar system and kept explaining enthusiastically, "The yellow one in the middle is the sun!" Thanks, Copernicus, Brian thought. Which brings me to the first of five ineffective parenting styles to avoid: Helicopter Continue Reading

I’m in the store and I notice the sound of an escalating conversation in the next aisle. As I round the turn, a young boy and his grandmother (I’m guessing) are discussing his behavior. “You’re not being very nice,” the woman says. “I told you that you have to be nice. Now I’m not going to buy you anything today.” “Awww!” howls the boy. This serves to cement Grandma’s decision. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve heard a parent or grandparent admonish a child to “be nice.” But is this a good quality to instill in our children? I see a couple of problems with telling kids to Continue Reading

John is a quiet boy who prefers drawing and reading poetry to rough-and tumble play. Mary is athletic, a natural leader with an assertive personality. Our culture today is all too quick to point at boys like John and girls like Mary and say, “You’re supposed to be gay. That’s who you really are.” Or we may go a step further and say, “You should have the surgery so you can live as the gender you were really meant to be.” All this as early as grade school. We’re coming to the point of believing that biological gender is completely irrelevant, and that our maleness or femaleness Continue Reading

It was a perfect summer day, puffy cumulus clouds drifting across an azure sky. My then-seven-year-old son Jed pointed at a large cloud and said, "That one looks like the empty tomb after Jesus rose from the dead!" Then he turned and said, "And that one reminds me of the lion of Judah!" You'd think a seven-year-old would see a ducky or pony shape in the clouds rather than evidence of Jesus' resurrection and lordship. But when children are raised with an awareness of God's presence, they're amazingly perceptive. In fact, even when children aren't raised to know about God, their Continue Reading