Search Results for: blog it takes courage to get involved

Mothers Determine How Well Father Takes Care of Baby

When it comes to how involved fathers are in caring for their infants, it seems that moms are the gatekeepers. According to a study published in the Journal of Family Psychology this past June, mothers play a critical role in determining how much and how well a father takes care of his infant. The study took a look at 97 families who had infants. After accessing numerous factors, such as what the parents believed about gender and paternal roles, the study found an interesting result. How much the mother encouraged the father to care for the infant was the single … Continue reading →

Single Parents will Benefit from Getting Involved

I know how busy you are—as single parents, most of us have little time to sip a cup of coffee, let alone add more activities and events to our daily lives. I do believe, however, that getting more involved in our communities, our neighborhoods, or other facets of the world around us will benefit us, our families, and make our lives richer and more fulfilling. Instead of focusing on all of the time that you do not have, it might be worth your while to look for ways that you can get more involved with things that make you happy, … Continue reading →

Jewish Vegetarianism

I run across this topic a lot, so I thought it was definitely blogworthy. I often meet Jewish vegetarians or am asked if we are encouraged not to eat meat. While I think there are many Jews, both religious and not religious, who are vegetarians, I don’t think the Jewish tradition either encourages or discourages vegetarianism. Meat-eating began with the time of Noah. After the Flood, G-d told Noah that he was permitted to eat animals as long as they were cruelly slaughtered. Before then, all people were vegetarians, and in appreciation for Noah’s saving the animals and righteous behavior, … Continue reading →

Choosing Sides—Part Two—When Your Children get Stuck in the Middle

It is unfortunate, but for many of us single parents, one of the realities that we have to face is how to get our lives to feel less like different, competing camps and more like we are all on the same team. If there is tension or disagreement—whether between the two parents or if other members of the extended families get involved—this can be incredibly hard on our children. I think it is a definite problem when the children feel as though they need to choose sides… I have always been “against” children being asked to choose which parent they … Continue reading →

Support and Encouragement for Taking Chances

As parents, we want to keep our children safe. We also want to help them learn how to keep themselves safe and to figure out how to be successful in the world. Have you ever considered whether you are encouraging your children to play it TOO safe? Could you actually be discouraging them from taking the risks and chances they need to in order to build confidence, self-esteem and resiliency? When was the last time you praised your child for taking a risk or setting out in unchartered waters? It seems to be more the norm to praise our children … Continue reading →

It Takes Courage to Get Involved

I have written a bit here in the Single Parents blog about tending to our mental health and all the personal development things we can work on in order to make us better parents, and make sure we have happy, healthy families. I realized that sometimes it isn’t just “knowing” what we “should” do, but it takes a heaping dose of courage in order to step outside our front doors and get involved with the world as a single parent. Any time a person feels “outside” the norm for whatever reason–whether we are making our own selves feel different or … Continue reading →

Getting Teens Involved in Church

Posted on by

My husband and I have the privilege of working with the Youth Group in our church. For several months when we first began this ministry, our focus was on serving them. We planned events that would entertain and encourage them, and spent much time deciding on games and activities that we hoped they would enjoy. While it is good to plan activities for the youth in the church, it is equally important to get the youth involved in the ministries of the church. My husband and I caught this vision and began planning service ministries in which the teens in … Continue reading →

Get Involved – Support and Encourage

This is the last in a series of blogs on how to get involved in adoption even if you are not adopting children into your own family. One of the biggest things that you can do for an adoptive family is to provide emotional support and encouragement. Adoptive families deal with all of the issues that traditional families encounter and added to that is a set of challenges unique to adoption. While most adoptive parents say that they would do it all again in a heartbeat, they also confess that they are often overwhelmed by the challenges of adoptive parenting. … Continue reading →

More Green Athletes

Yesterday I was blogging about green athletes and I realized there were way more than I knew about, so this turned into a two-part blog. Competitive swimmer Natalie Coughlin needs minerals and vitamins to give her energy, especially during the Olympics. How does she get it? By having her own chickens lay fresh eggs and growing vegetables in her own garden. It’s not only Olympic athletes who try to live green though. NFL linebacker Will Witherspoon, an animal lover, raises Animal Welfare Approved grass-fed cattle. He spoke before Congress against the practice of feeding farm animals antibiotics. NFL fullback Ovie … Continue reading →

Building a Platform

If you write for a living (or hope to), you need to understand the importance of building a platform. Writing today is much different than it used to be. In fact, you can’t really expect much of a career from it unless you have a platform. So what do I mean by platform? It is the means through which you promote, market, and sell your work. This is what will drive book sales. So if you hope to be taken on by a publisher you should know that without a platform, it likely won’t happen. The bigger and better your … Continue reading →