Just Ask Your Mom

Whether you love or hate cooking at home, a lot of our time is spent thinking about, preparing, serving, and cleaning up after meals. In this final episode in our HOME series, we talk about some of the ways providing the 18K+ meals for our families is a spiritual exercise at heart. Plus--we have a few tips for planning ahead & how to share the feast with others.

It's rare for a relationship to suddenly rocket off the rails. More likely, we deviate off course a degree at a time. Fortunately, there are some do-able and practical efforts we can make to "course correct" on a regular basis to maintain the direction we want to grow in!

We lay out our top 10 "rules for life," otherwise known as stuff that's worked for us over the years. Join us for this line up of part-wisdom/part-opinion!

Special guests, Marisa Bailey and Katelyn Sproles, join us for a conversation from two points of view: a parent raising kids in a different culture and a kid who was raised that way. Both lived in Tanzania, East Africa, for many years and have felt the effects of crossing back and forth between cultures and navigating the differences. Third Culture Kids (TCKs) definitely have a different worldview...

What goes into choosing a home? Are there some features in particular families should look for? We walk down memory lane a bit in this episode with Rachel Farrell as we talk about what made our houses "home." (Pre-recorded and pre-aired on the RACHEL FARRELL SHOW.)

While this isn't "the birds & the bees" talk, on this episode we talk about body parts and frequently asked questions by parents of toddlers and young kids. Is it just our American culture with its Puritan roots that makes us uneasy with brazen nakedness or is it something else? How do we educate our kids without shaming them and still give them a sense that their body--ALL of i...

There's something in all of us that aches for home. When our homes are threatened--by natural disaster or other catastrophe, it can be disorienting and shake our sense of safety. On this episode, our guest is Tiffany Wax Mangus, who lost her new home suddenly through a fire ignited by a gas leak. She, her husband, and sons were safe, but most everything they'd worked for was gone in a ma...

For many parents, their kids' transition into tween or teen can feel abrupt and personal. Most of the things teenagers cope with and act out about are universal, and we can do ourselves (and them) a favor by recognizing when and how to react. Psychologist Lisa Damour's book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers, is a helpful resource when navigating the white water of kids ages 12-20.

We may be on top of it when it comes to intellectual, physical, and emotional training of our kids, but many of us feel inadequate or forget to address the spiritual side of our kids. How do we talk to our children about God, salvation, and things they might witness in church? This JAM episode gives you ideas, age by age, on what kids can comprehend and when and how to introduce concepts and pract...

Part 5 in our Home Series, this episode focuses on our homes being a temporary reflection of our eternal home. What features does a Christian home have and how can we set our sights on things beyond the laundry and dishes? What does it mean to be Christ-centered?

A fantastic & informative interview with father of 4 and self-described tech nerd, Doug Smith, author of the book Unintentional: How Screens Secretly Shape Your Desires and How You Can Break Free. A companion episode to our "Should My Kid Watch That?" conversation, we dig into what (or who) is behind the screens, apps, & games we use and look at some practices that might help us...

Tech & kids. As more research comes out, more of us are catching onto the effects screens may have on our kids. Especially our youngest ones. We asked our listeners: what have you noticed in your kids after they watch certain TV programs or have screen time? And you responded! This episode has some great resources for parents curious about this issue!

Our concept of home starts with relationships. Even very young children know home is where their favorite people live. It's also where we learn (or don't) to love our Creator. In this episode, we look at how home can teach us to love God and one another better and we run down some practical ways to practice the art of "welcoming."

Although miscarriage is common, it's not always talked about. Certified doula, Sarah Perry, joins us in this episode for a conversation about experiencing and coping with pregnancy loss. A mom of 3 boys--and expecting a girl!--Sarah speaks from both professional and personal experience in this touching conversation.

Somewhere along the [American] way, our homes became places we upscale, accumulate, and compare to others. Because we're made to create and find beauty, finding ways to do this at home can often be a simple but meaningful gift to those who live there--and even generations to come. Join us as we talk to mother-daughter duo, Melissa Skidmore and Daisy Montgomery, masters in creating beautiful s...

If there's one universal celebration moment in parenting, it's when your child finally sleeps through an entire night. Opinions and approaches differ widely in how to accomplish this, but there's no need to villify one camp or another. Mary Vaughn, certified sleep consultant and mom of 4, joins us for a lively conversation about how parents can help their kids go to sleep and stay a...

There's something deeply comforting about having a place where you can relax, take off your mask, and not pretend or strive. For many of us, that place is our home. What can we do to make our homes feel restful and safe, somewhere we can exhale at the end of the day and lean into one another?

Join us for a fun conversation about our favorite things we loved watching our kids achieve, some obvious and some maybe not so expected. Yes, the days are long and the years are short, but when your kids become more indpendent, life sure does get a little easier!

What does the word "home" bring to mind? In the first of a series on HOME, we take a peek into what our homes are for, what it is that draws us to the place or feeling of home, and what we can do to make a happy home for ourselves, our children, and others.

We're familiar with left-brain/right-brain functions & being left or right handed, but we also have a dominant eye, ear, and foot. The experiences and research from Dr. Carla Hannaford's book, The Dominance Factor, shed some surprising light (for us) on how our dominant sensory and motor functions may affect us under stress or new learning situations--which is pretty much the conditi...

Being intentional about raising your kids isn't about rigidity or loading even more expectations and pressure on yourself or your kids. Checking in with each other about your goals and course-correcting now and then makes good sense if you're aiming to do more than just survive another day. We run down some helpful tips to set yourself and your family up for success, make good habits, an...

#8 in our cultivate series, we get into how to teach your kids what it means to be gentle and give you some practical ways to demonstrate what gentleness looks like. Even the strongest among us can be gentle with both words and touch. Gentleness matters in both sons and daughters, but there may be differences in how we teach it to each of them.

Tongue ties, mouth breathing, snoring, nursing or feeding issues, sleep issues, speech problems, tonsils and adenoid issues and frequent ear infections can all stem from correctible problems in jaw, tongue, throat, or facial muscles. Orofacial Myofunctional therapist, Chelsea Madison, from the BreatheWell Group, talks us through what happens at her office and the surprising and often quick results...

Tantrums? Grabbing things? Interrupting? All young children struggle with self-control. It's one of the main areas parents teach and coach our children through. In this episode, we talk through how to help kids master this important skill.

Join us with veteran art teacher, Shawn Baughman, as we talk about what art does for kids. The obvious benefit is how it helps creativity, but there's so much more involving neurodevelopment, problem solving and more. Plus, she explains why all kids start out drawing "potato people"--an A-HA moment.