VII. Parenting and Family Life

In 1989, Dr. Werner reported on 31 years of observation of children growing up in chronic poverty, highlighting the qualities of survivors of dysfunctional families and neighborhoods. He found that one out of three high risk children grew into competent young adults who loved well, worked well and played well. He describes this skill among survivor children as resiliency.

Resilient. Don't you love that word? Resilient. It is one of the words in the English language that gives a ...

Thoreau in his book, "Walden," stated, "The cost of a thing is the amount of . . . life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run." Time at work spent to acquire goods and services is the real measure of the cost of living. Our free market economy provides more and more goods at cheaper and cheaper prices.

Once a good or service becomes affordable and spreads through society, competition drives the price down. When it becomes c ...

"Consider what heavy responsibility lies upon you in youth, to determine, among realities, by what you will be delighted, and, among imaginations, by whose you will be led." John Ruskin.

What is a man? What is manly, in the best sense of the word?

A man takes responsibility for work. He selects worthwhile goals and works steadily and aggressively toward them. He takes his place as a provider for his family. He produces more than he consumes. He is gene ...

Alana - not her real name - is an unhappy teenager. She has a negative self-image and it shows. You can see it in her eyes, in her appearance. Her dress, body posture, lack of eye contact and general nervousness communicates an apologetic message: I'm not important. Ignore me.

Alana is a scared rabbit. She hangs back in conversations. Her loneliness in a crowd is painful.

Beneath Alana's scared exterior is anger. For those few who get to know her, she unleashes a scat ...

As parents we often wonder if our teens are being wise when they spend so much time with their friends. We wonder if our teen is overdoing the social part of life at the expense of school work, reading and other productive activities.

Stories in the media and other parents may cite negative peer influence as the root cause of teen problems such as drugs and alcohol, premarital sex and juvenile crime. However, there is also an untold story. Peer relationships are an important, ve ...

"There is nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning won't aggravate." - H. E. Martz

"Youth, when thought is speech and speech is truth." - Walter Scott

Raising teens can be fun. Raising teens is an ordeal something like a proctology exam for colon cancer. The fun comes with the relief you feel once it is over.

We have one more teen to go. Our formerly delightful 12-year-old seems to be enjoying asserting his will and opinion upon us. I gr ...

Girard Sagmiller grew up going to schools in rural North Dakota - places with names like Dickinson, zap, Valley City and Golden Valley. He went to college in Mayville. He has written a first hand account of his childhood and adult experiences wi

How satisfied are you with your friends? With your close friends? Are you disappointed in the frequency or quality of your social contacts? If so, you probably feel lonely.

Loneliness is the psychological experience of being alone. You

One casualty of modern life has been the demise of family meals. Why? Mothers are working. Schedules are harried and often don't match. Workdays are longer. The microwave is easy. Fast foods are available. Children's after school activities cut