LeRay Havard

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “You can’t be your child’s friend, you have to be their parent.”  And while that’s true, we don’t always take the time to unpack what it actually means to be  the parent. More often than not, that idea comes down to one essential piece of parenting: boundaries. Boundaries are not just a parenting buzzword, they are foundational to a healthy, connected home. And when we take time to think about what our boundaries are and how we communicate them, we can...

I truly remember it like it was yesterday. My two young children and I were walking out of church one Wednesday evening toward my navy blue minivan to head home. Someone had given one of my children a balloon, and you can probably imagine what happened next. They started fighting over it. Fighting over who was going to hold the balloon. Who got to play with it. They were hitting the balloon back and forth between them while I was trying to walk through the parking lot—watching for cars,...

When parents talk about their hopes and dreams for their children, you’ll often hear things like, “I just want them to be happy and healthy,” or “I want them to be successful, fall in love, and maybe have a strong family of their own someday.” These are such tender, heartfelt hopes. And they’re good ones. But here’s something we don’t always talk about: those outcomes don’t happen by accident. They’re built on skills. Skills our kids need us to teach. Just like we help them learn their ABCs...