THE AWKWARD MOM

because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having

Tag: conflict (page 2 of 3)

The Stressed Version of Your Marriage

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Missed Part I, Questions to Understand THE STRESSED VERSION OF YOURSELF? Grab it here.

One of the unexpected delights of our final couple of months in Africa was the arrival of a college friend who’s known my husband and I since the beginning. She watched us meet, cautiously date, giddily become engaged. She played the piano when the two of us spring chickens said “I do” forever. Later, I stood with her as she spoke her own vows beneath a spreading tree. And when she visited us in Africa and we stayed up entirely too late, she gave us this gift: I told my husband, “I love that she reminds us how good we are together. That you and I together are a really good thing.”

I wrote before that this time of leaving Africa, of setting a foot on two highly divergent continents, has delivered unavoidable stress to our relationship. Both of us are strained, so it makes sense that our most intimate relationships would bear that weight. So it was kind of God to remind us that despite the ways we occasionally feel like the losers in a three-legged-race right now—“us” is still a really good thing.

Part I of this post outlined some essential reasons we need to identify when we’re stressed. If you’re convinced, let’s get down to it. What are the signs your marriage is under stress?

What’s Hidden inside Your Love Story?

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.

–Sweet Land (PG, 2005)

I tease my husband (the poor introvert!). Because whenever I write about him—he, who washes his hands of anything to do with internet attention—readers eat. It. Up.What's Hidden in Your Love Story read more

Essential Social Skills for Kids (and Ideas to Teach Them), #5-7

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Essential Social Skills for Kids (and Ideas to Teach Them), #1-4

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Think of these social skills as little golden keys to the future for your kids: They can get your kids into a lot of places! Bummer is, they can shut some doors, too, when our kids don’t master them. (Disclaimer: Writing this post does not declare my children in mastery of said skills.)

Social skills are key because manners are a form of loving others well. They lubricate the potential friction of social interactions.

(Some of them I’ve broken down because of my own experience with my son’s ADHD, such as giving him “scripts” for social situations; see #1.  I won’t speak directly to special needs in this post. But some of these ideas might work to put tangible steps onto often intangible skills.)

Freebie Friday! Printable Poster: Reminders for Handling Anger

Reading Time: 2 minutes

So many of you resonated with my struggle with anger and the ideas I’d collected for this post, and this one on my need to seek forgiveness from my kids. In an effort to keep pressing in to the destruction I cause in my lack of control, I put together this “fridge art”-style poster of “angry” reminders–to hang up inside a cupboard, perhaps, or tape beside the bathroom mirror. (I hope to put mine where my kids can see it–so they can learn, too, but also hold me accountable.) Enjoy–and if you like it, please share it!

DOWNLOAD YOUR letter-sized FREE PRINTABLE POSTER HERE!

Find more freebies and printables on this page!

6 ways to take your relationships deeper in 2016, Part II

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Click here for Part I!

  1. Tell the whole truth. Vulnerability takes so much security—first, in our vertical relationship with God. I find a direct correlation between my ability to be transparent with other people and my own humility. Honestly, I used to wait for others to pursue me as a display of their concern for me—and sometimes still do. But I need to acknowledge my own need for others to shoulder what I’m carrying (Galatians 6:1); that it’s not good for me to be alone (Genesis 2:18); that I can’t say, “I don’t need you!” to people of my choosing (1 Corinthians 12:21).  Now, Jesus had his own concentric circles of friendship–his intimate three, then twelve disciples, then 72, then the crowds. I’m not saying we trust anyone with our most intimate, painful areas. But friendship is rewarding proportional to the courage and intimacy we’re willing to extend; and the bar that Jesus set–love one another as I have loved you–is one that will take the rest of my life to pursue.

6 ways to take your relationships deeper in 2016, Part I

Reading Time: 3 minutes

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My dad, my mom jokes, has two speeds in life: full-throttle, and asleep.

I know this, because I inherited a lot of it. I am nothing if not intentional (if you’re skeptical, click the ideas page). In fact, before it was honed by some maturity and grace, I’m pretty confident I used to scare people off a bit, plunking down my lunch tray in the college cafeteria and asking people what God’s been teaching them lately. Pass the salt, would you? read more

12 “Angry” Steps

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12 angry steps

I’ve written before about my anger problem. You know. The one I didn’t think I had until I had children.

But as conflict reveals my heart for what it really is, I’m compiling a working list of practical steps and thoughts as God patiently carves away the death in my heart and slowly makes me a conqueror. read more

My assignment–from God

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Startup Stock Photos

I was a brand, spanking-new junior in a high school far from my former Yankee home. So new, in fact, that my parents hadn’t even moved down yet; I bunked with friends of my parents, previously unknown by me, so I could be present at the start of the new school year. Marveling at the slow drawls, Wranglers, and racial tensions around school, I’d now written my first pre-AP English paper. We’d circled our desks and traded papers with another student. The student—bless his heart, as they would say in the South—was actually remarkably kind to me, er, my paper.

My English teacher was not.

For the Days When Helping Hurts [You], Part II: When Helping Breaks Your Heart

Reading Time: 4 minutes

helping hurts

Missed part I? Get it here.

I knew last week was going to be killer. read more

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