Parenting

Body & Soul, summer issue

My mom can cook. I mean flat-out cook. To me, the real test of gourmand greatness isn’t concocting exotic dishes from strange recipes that call for ingredients you’ve never heard of before, utilizing specialty gadgets that can perform only…

by Jake Frost In our family, we have so many nicknames that our nicknames now have nicknames of their own — we call them “nick-nicknames.” Such as “umpkins” — it’s a word we use to refer to all the kids collectively, as in: “Hey! You…

by Matt Archbold  Every story answers a question. The good ones do, anyway. In fact, the greatest story there is begins with one young wom­an’s response to the question of love and ultimate sacrifice. Mary, the Blessed Mother, said “yes.”…

We’ve all got our temperaments and our children do too. It easy to pick out which of my children is the heart-on-her-sleeve mini-me of her father and which one is the spitting absent-minded image of myself. But our children don’t just get…

Proclaim Scripture Use black fabric paint or marker to decorate pumpkins with short Bible verses. This is a perfect opportunity to bring faith into your decoration and remind your child or grandchild to thank God for the fall harvest. It’s…

My husband and I have three daughters who at young ages already express some big opinions about life, including a four-year-old who complains about going to church. She knows what she wants, what she doesn’t want, and isn’t afraid to say…

Q. We’re only a month into the new school year, and already we’re off to a rocky start with my son’s second grade teacher. Each day when I pick my son up from school, I find myself on the defense as “Miss Brown” complains about my son’s…

Q.  At the start of the year, our children’s school handed out iPads to every fifth grade student. Consequently, though we had successfully implemented a strict family policy about when and how our daughter was able to interact with the…

Recently, I traveled from Ohio to Vermont for a quick Fourth of July getaway and the week after that I headed to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for another 700-plus mile road trip. These two long road trips were not only an opportunity for…