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I will always remember one moment as one of my children approached GCSEs. My child screamed through tears, “I am going to fail all of them.” This was not the first time. Previously, I had said things like, “You can only do your best.”, which hadn’t improved the situation. This time, I had a better, …

I recently stayed with a Christian family. One child is still living at home, their other two are living independently. Their family’s story includes sibling anger, late diagnosis neurodiversity, multiple school moves and a particularly painful season with one of their teenagers. It also includes am…

Two types of people The world can be divided into two types of people: The planners and the deadliners. The planners get straight to the most important task, they stay calm, they work out the process and they pull together the team to get it done. The deadliners ignore the task until a few hours b…

I remember hearing my parents talking about me in the next room. “He must be going through puberty.” I felt angry, judged and misunderstood. Am I the only one who still feels a little awkward saying the word out loud? It wasn’t until my thirties when I had my penny-drop moment about puberty. A pae…

Children cry for the silliest reasons. Someone ate the last doughnut. They lose at Monopoly. Their socks feel ‘pinchy’. In moments such as these, dismissing our child’s tears may sometimes be necessary. Yet at other times, our kids will experience true sorrow. Eating lunch alone. Losing a pet. Endur…

I led a table at a seminar for parents on tackling screen time, organised by my local secondary school. For the first discussion, each of the ten parents at my table told a story to illustrate why we were there. We heard about ruined holidays, sexting, repeated arguments ripping apart families and y…

For one of my children, there was a three year period when bedtime often meant tears. The words that kept on putting a dagger through my heart were, “I have no friends.” I learnt that naming children in the class like a desperate form of bingo did not help. Nor did organising playdates. Nor did conv…

At Faith in kids our message to parents is:  “You are plan A for the children God has given you.”  We want parents to confidently embrace the role God has given them in raising their children to know and trust Jesus. We want parents to fully depend on God to work through his Spirit to do w…

I have a friend who grew up in Nigeria. As a child, his family would pray before going on a journey across their city. They never felt sure that they would arrive safely. His parents led him in everyday dependence on the Lord. The illusion of independence For many of us, our transport is safe, o…

I once asked some friends to share their stories of Christmas highs and lows. Here are some of them: Christmas lows The one where the oven broke half way through cooking the turkey.  The one where the turkey didn’t defrost because the house was so cold. The one where all the children h…