Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’

Traditions!

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Today is the day to start a new tra­di­tion. There is a direct cor­re­la­tion between the fun, the qual­ity, the depth of rela­tion­ships in a close fam­ily and the unique­ness and fre­quency of that family’s traditions.

When fam­i­lies inten­tion­ally develop “their ways” of being a fam­ily early on, they tend to expe­ri­ence greater lev­els of fam­ily health and bond­ing. I have observed this over the years with count­less stand-out fam­i­lies and have adopted much of what I have learned from oth­ers over the years. I am in no way an expert, just a guy who is incred­i­bly pas­sion­ate about serv­ing and lead­ing a solid and lov­ing family.

10 Tra­di­tions to Cre­ate More Fam­ily Connection

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Do You Have a Target For Your Kids?

Friday, March 4th, 2011

You prob­a­bly have spe­cific tar­gets for your busi­ness which are fully devel­oped with strate­gies, objec­tives and goals. But do you have a clear and writ­ten tar­get for your life’s most impor­tant “direct reports”….your children?

Who will they be at age 10? Age 18? Age 25? I’m not talk­ing about what inter­ests they will pur­sue or activ­i­ties they will engage in, but rather the kind of peo­ple they will become.

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The Release

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

Here is a ques­tion for all you par­ents: When do you start prepar­ing for the release? That time when your kids make the jump from your home to a home of their own, to a col­lege cam­pus, or (in the case of my son Dylan) a six­teen hour flight away on the east coast of Australia.

Our fam­ily has spent the past week at a remote surf spot in main­land Mex­ico. Trav­el­ing with just the 6 of us is not the norm, as we usu­ally end up bring­ing other fam­ily or friends. But this vaca­tion had to be different.

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Are You Raising Kids or Growing Adults?

Friday, October 8th, 2010

Numer­ous stud­ies have shown us that many young adults are strug­gling as they make their first pil­grim­ages into the work­force, mar­riage, and par­ent­ing. One major cause of this, accord­ing to researchers, is that they are not equipped with the real life skills required to nav­i­gate suc­cess­fully through these sig­nif­i­cant changes.

This is a par­ent­ing issue.

Just a few weeks ago, my wife Sheri and I had the priv­i­lege of lead­ing a par­ent­ing work­shop at the Build­ing Cham­pi­ons Expe­ri­ence. We called the pre­sen­ta­tion, “Are you Rais­ing Kids or Grow­ing Adults?” I think the ques­tion is worth pondering.

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There is No Substitute for One on One Time

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Today has been a won­der­ful day!  It began with an early morn­ing meet­ing with a friend who has been men­tor­ing me for the last 13 years.  Recently, my time with him has been less fre­quent, but when­ever I am with him I learn and grow.  Our meet­ing took place at my favorite local cof­fee house here in Lake Oswego.  He was pour­ing into me.

Father and DaughterAfter an hour and a half, he left, and one of my sons came by.  He is 17, and is fin­ish­ing up his senior year with some classes at our local com­mu­nity col­lege.  The pur­pose of our one on one time was to con­nect and take a look at his plan for the next quar­ter.  It was an oppor­tu­nity for me to lis­ten to him and to con­nect at a deeper level.  I was able to pour into him.

The rea­son I wanted to share with you about my morn­ing is to chal­lenge you to think about how you will spend your time this year. 

Are you proac­tively sched­ul­ing one on one time with those you care for most?

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