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(Photo: Lightstock) By Jordan Langdon, LCSW Parent Coach Families of Character There's something about August that feels like another New Year. Maybe it's the stacks of school supplies in every store or the calendar that suddenly fills up overnight. Whatever it is, we all start thinking the same thing: This year is going to be different. We promise ourselves we'll be more organized. Mornings won't be so rushed. Homework won't become a nightly battle. Family dinners will

(Photo: Lightstock) When my first child was born fifteen years ago, the Internet existed but only on my computer, as smartphones were only beginning to gain popularity. Facebook was around, but not many other social media sites, and they were not yet filled with paid influencers. If I googled a parenting question, most of the information came from mommy bloggers, forums or magazine websites. Very quickly, parenting sites combined information with commerce and began to undermi

Jeanne d'Arc by Jules Bastien-Lepage, 1879. (Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons) If it is possible to fall in love with someone you have never met, I fell in love with Jules Bastien-Lepage as a young art student in New York City. There have been few painters, in my opinion, that have been able to bring the natural world into sharper focus without being a photo realist painter. I have never been drawn to photo-realistic paintings. We have cameras to capture such thin

How to talk with our parents — and ourselves — about death with love, sensitivity and faith (Photo: Lightstock) By Lisa Smith, MA, LPCC Outpatient Therapist St. Raphael Counseling, a ministry of Catholic Charities Death is one of life’s few certainties, yet one of the hardest realities to face. Even as people of faith who believe in eternal life, many of us struggle to confront our own mortality — or the thought of losing our parents. Pope Francis once said, “Death is not t

(Photo: Adobe Stock) By Dr. Angela Wall Licensed Clinical & School Psychologist St. Raphael Counseling, a ministry of Catholic Charities As parents and grandparents of children in 2025, we face many unique challenges strikingly different from past generations. The one thing we do have in common is our love for our children and our faith in God. We treasure our families and cherish the time we have together. We value the beauty and innocence of childhood. God's light shines on

(Photo: Unsplash) Years ago, my wife and I read the book Parenting with Love and Logic and applied its principles with our now-grown adult kids. The book quickly became a parenting classic, helping parents raise responsible, independent kids with love and empathy by setting boundaries and allowing natural consequences for their actions. We had to keep the proverbial forest in view and not the trees — it was hard work. We had to remember that, amid all the parental trials, tr

(Photo: Lightstock) By Julia Sadusky, PsyD Note: In this third part of a four-part mini-series, we delve into how parents can address...

(Photo: Adobe Stock) Mark Twain once said, “The proverb says that providence protects children and idiots. This is really true. I know...