Only 12 percent of resolution-setters reach their goal. Their secret is choosing to focus on only One Thing.  My challenge is to make it One Thing that Really Matters, and I think there is only One Thing that Really Matters.

See, I’m convinced, contrary to popular sayings, that we do get to take something with us when we depart this physical plane. One Thing that Really Matters.

Relationships.

Ok, it’s a Big One. It’s also the best one with rewards that make life worth living, especially from a hind-sight perspective.

I got this idea reading about near death experiences and conversations they had with others in the afterlife. The flood of warm fuzzies from the greetings of family and friends was quickly overtaken by a flood of anxiety around the loved ones left behind:

• Did the loved ones know how much they were loved?
• Did the loved ones know how incredibly wonderful they are exactly as they are?
• Was forgiveness extended in matters small and large so that the relationship was energetically clean and clear?
• Was there no doubt that the relationships took priority over every non-eternal, such as work, play, habits, schedules and, God-forbid, housekeeping?

With renewed clarity about the One Thing that Really Matters, and filled with gratitude for the gift of a second chance, these people returned to their bodies determined to love more, forgive all and make a difference in people’s lives.

I’ve never met anyone who didn’t say his or her family or spouse was the No. 1 priority, even if work was the No. 1 consumer of time. So our intention is right. The gap is that we get stuck in the cultural crux of seeing and saying, “What’s wrong with this picture,” and “What’s wrong with this person?”

We call ENERGYPARENTING “the Relationship Revolution” because the principles and techniques build strong relationships in record time. In a sentence, we do it by seeing, saying and appreciating, “What’s right with this picture,” “What’s right with this person” and “What does that say about him or her?”

That’s what you’ll read about in this newsletter every month, that’s what ENERGYPARENTING.com teaches, and this month’s Feature Article below expands the concept with six steps to create stronger relationships. Make that your goal for this year and you’ll be living each day as if it’s your last, and come the day that turns out to be the case, you’ll be winging it on the other side with no regrets.

Ask anyone what’s most important in their life, and chances are you’ll hear that it’s their family, their spouse, their children or their friends.

People matter most.

At least that’s what we believe in our hearts and what we want our lives to be about. But unless we put action behind our sentiment, we’ll more likely feel regret instead of content at the end of the year or our lives.

It takes intention, determination, and skill to go about everyday life in ways that build relationship.  But living otherwise is gambling that there will be a tomorrow, a time other than this present moment when we’ll be able to ask for forgiveness – or extend it – and shower our attention on loved ones to make up for missed opportunities. Why risk it? Why resist it? Relationships are the main source of happiness in life, and you can build relationships that matter in minutes a day.

Here are six tips to C-R-E-A-T-E stronger relationships this year:

C is for COMMIT: Make a decision to commit yourself fully to all of the relationships in your life. If you can’t, that’s all the answer you need. Half-hearted is better parted. Whole-hearted is love imparted.

R is for RECOGNIZE: See the person for who they are in their core being. Respond to him or her with that vision firmly in place, and you’ll be a harbinger of hope. Recognizing a person’s essence empowers us to believe the best about them in every situation, and nine times out of ten, be right about what’s going on in their heart.

E is for ENGAGE: Much of our relating is head-to-head. While provocative or stimulating, it’s not really relationship-building. Engage heart-to-heart and you’ll be creating life-changing connections. Puran & Susanna Bair, authors of “Energize Your Heart,” offer this quick tip to get you out of your mind and into your heart: Place your hand over your heart as you speak. The mere act of touching our hearts moves our energy into sincerity and sensitivity. Try it.

A is for ACCEPT: We know we can’t change others. But we keep trying, and it’s pretty darn annoying. This year, vow to give it up. Consider how your world would feel if you decided that nothing and no one needed to change in order for you to show up in your life as your happy-go-lucky, wonder-filled self.

T is for TRUST: Everyone has inherent wisdom and their own life path. Try trusting that the people in your life, children and spouse included, learn best by doing what’s in their hearts to do, even if it looks like a mistake to you. Firsthand experiences are the fastest learning paths. So stop teaching and preaching and get out of the way of your loved ones’ learning. Interference just postpones the experiences they need to grow.

E is for ENERGIZE: We get more of whatever we energize, so with every word and action, you are choosing what you want to see more of in your relationships. What we talk about and get excited about, what we put our hearts and souls into connecting about – these are the energizers. So create conversations around how much you appreciate and admire what your loved ones are doing right, what they’re not doing wrong, and what that says about who they are.

Put these tips into practice and you’ll be living a life that proves your loved ones matters most.

Wrong.

If misbehavior was solved in this manner, we’d have peace on Earth, every family would be a happy one and there would be no need for a criminal justice system.

If focused attention solved behavior issues, it would be akin to gravity reversing itself. Because the energetic reality – the energetic law of the universe – is that whatever we humans choose to place our focused attention on does only one thing: grow.

The fastest way to increase anything is to put the power of focused human intention, attention and interaction on it.

We call it “energizing,” and it simply means that any subject of our focused energy will expand and become more alive and intense.

From the negative side, it’s the old ‘making a mountain out of a mole hill.’ From Howard Glasser’s positive perspective, it’s our ability to ignite molecules of movement in the right direction into momentum that miraculously transforms children from an addiction to getting relationship through negativity and adversity to living their greatness in the flow of positivity.

So what’s been the focus of your energy lately? What have you been choosing to grow in your children, in yourself, in your world – problems or positivity?

Perhaps you are convinced that it’s OK to do both – you are splitting your energizing between noticing what’s right, as well as what’s wrong.

A “balanced” energetic formula won’t get you to greatness. It certainly will not transform a challenging child from negativity to positivity.

How many relationships have blown up in which the feuding parties cannot even recall what lit the fuse – that’s how inconsequential, how seemingly innocuous the negativity first appeared.  Energizing negativity can turn a disagreement over dog shampoo into a divorce. Or a temper tantrum into a disability.

The American Psychiatric Association, with the intention of carving out children misdiagnosed with bi-polar disorder into a less serious diagnosis, is creating a new label for children who lose their tempers in dramatic ways, “Temper Dysregulation Disorder.”

I am not against diagnosing and treating, but I am advocating that the broad spectrum of normal childhood development be allowed to occur without labels, and for influential adults and organizations to believe in the strength of the human spirit in children to master themselves and to mature into better people as a result of going through the struggle to do so.

So, as to the unintended consequence, how many new diagnoses will be made as a result of this focused attention, intention and interaction on exactly how masterfully a challenging child can lose his or her cool?

Those of us who practice energyparenting know that we can choose to energize any molecule of control a child exhibits – and despite what you may believe or perceive, they all exhibit milliseconds of it at some time during any given hour or day  – and energize it into mountains of inner wealth so that the child indeed learns to master his or her anger and every emotion.

It’s all in how we choose to see things, say things, and what we choose to create relationship around with that child and his or her temper.

Energizing success seems to come a little more easily than de-energizing negativity. Many parents are drawn to energyparenting because of its positive spin. They begin seeing in new and expanded ways what’s going right and how to switch from junk-food pseudo positivity to emotionally nutritious expressions of appreciation for expected behavior with specific, concrete, honest recognitions of every effort the child makes in the right direction.

But how about when the child is not moving in the right direction? What about when he hits the wall, she flips you off, he swears at a teacher, she swings at her brother or you get hit during a fit?

How do we refrain from lending our precious energy to growing problems? How do we fold fast to the energyparenting stand of refusing to energize negativity?

It’s not enough to simply have the tools in your parenting toolbox. We need to learn what each one is for and how to use it like a pro. That means practicing, analyzing the results, practicing some more and getting advice from masters. There are plenty of resources at energyparenting.com, many of them free, and the forum is full of parents whose skill at wielding the energyparenting tools consistently pops my cork and inspires me to grow greatness deeper and wider in my sons.

In this month’s feature article, “3 Steps to Extinguish Unwanted Behavior,” you’ll find a primer on de-energizing negativity. Apply these three steps to any brand of negativity. The formula will hold true and without problem-solving, that unwanted behavior will simply dissolve before your eyes.

To Your Greatness in Extinguishing Negativity,

Tell me, just how motivating of an experience was it? Did you suddenly stop disappointing? Drop the behavior? Step up to your potential?

For most of us, that’d be a long, loud, “No, I just felt rotten for awhile.” (Or still!)

Now that we’re the parent, teacher or coach, those “motivators” still fall short of getting to greatness.

Lectures and pep talks at the point of failure rarely make a child or an adult “try harder.” Because no matter how well intentioned, at the core, the message is: “You did it wrong,” “You are NOT capable” or “You CAN’T control yourself” or whatever. Presto, the child pieces together another failure scene in the “Who I am” movie that’s under constant internal production.

The thing is, we know we need to hold high standards and intentions for our kids; they rise or fall to the level of expectations we have for them.

So how do we motivate a child whose behavior is disappointing or below his or her potential?

The secret is radical appreciation of what’s going right, right now. To do that, you’ve got to train your eyes, ears, heart and mind to answer in detail, “What’s right with this picture?” And you’ve got to sincerely express the success, no matter where you find it.

It’s totally counter-intuitive, a bit scary, and lickety-split quick to get the results we know are possible for our kids and ourselves.

The fearless mother, for example, announces: “Jason, you were really angry, but you only hit the wall two times! That’s a record! You are showing incredible self control and mastery over anger. Congratulations! Give me a high five!”

Jason, after he recovers from the shock of such an unexpected reaction, considers the possibility that the outburst was some type of success. It takes two seconds, and a big grin lights his face as he realizes the undisputable truth of the assessment. He’s probably thinking and perhaps even saying out loud, “Yeah, I did stop myself,” followed by a, “You think that was great? I bet I can do even better!”

The next time anger flares, Jason hits the wall once, or not at all, and is served up a seven-course wow-your-greatness-is-growing lecture from you. In a matter of hours or days – yes, that’s how fast we can turn things around with radical appreciation for what is right – Jason learns what it feels like to experience a strong emotion like anger AND make wise choices.

It begins to feel comfortable, like his real self, his true self, his higher self. You, as the producer, director and editor of the “Who Jason is” movie, can ensure that it is full of shots from every conceivable camera angle on every degree of great character qualities you choose to name and claim for Jason.

In the same manner, Jason learns what it looks like and feels like to be patient, respectful, intelligent and how to reset himself so that the energy of anger or any strong emotion that he was prone to display in negative ways now propels him to greater levels of self control and positivity. How’s that for great life skills?

Jason now knows himself from a place of strength, all because mom decided to fearlessly recognize, appreciate and celebrate the smidgeon of self control he exercised in hitting the wall only twice.

So how about it? Are you a Greatness Igniter or Extinguisher? Are you the adult who sees what’s right everywhere and anywhere, in any situation? Do you name and claim it for your child? How about for yourself? It’s not a matter of if you can. You are. I know that because you wouldn’t be reading this newsletter if you weren’t searching for what’s right, knowing it’s there and setting your intention to see it, say it and celebrate it.

To Speaking Success in the Most Unlikely Places!

It takes a Warrior. A Spiritual Warrior, aka an EnergyParent.

As some of us have long suspected, it truly begins in our head: The beliefs, thoughts and intentions that we hold about our children, ourselves and our family; and if/how we choose to manage the fleeting thoughts and full blown tirades that fire our grey matter daily.

Who do you say your child is – in your head, to him or her and to others? Who do you say you are – to yourself and to others? If your answers change depending on your horoscope, feelings or behaviors on any given day, you’re scattering your energy at best and flat out thwarting your true desires at worst.

Why not rather clearly define your intent, declare it often and outloud, and purposefully go about creating it with focused energy. Voilà, you’re exercising and experiencing your god-given co-creative power that can infuse any situation with life-giving energy and flip a negativity addict to positivity.

This is mission critical work because the dark side exists, and negativity likes to linger.

Here’s the 180-degree energyparenting difference:  never directly engage the enemy. Being aware enough to recognize and refuse negativity is all that’s required; in fact, doing anything more would be increasing its power or “energizing it.”

An effective Spiritual Warrior doesn’t fight against anything.

One could engage the darkness for eternity and at best hold a position. Far better to simply go about creating light wherever we go – by holding godly intentions for our children, ourselves and others, speaking life and energizing positivity.

Light extinguishes darkness.

Life annihilates death.

Dramatic, isn’t it? Consider that your everyday thoughts and choices either support one or the other, and all of a sudden it’s a whole lot easier to choose to disengage when your child or anyone else pushes your buttons. It’s a whole lot more obvious that every thought opposed to one’s intent should be decisively discarded and replaced with one that does. It also feels a lot more urgent to choose to relentlessly pursue and proclaim with delicious detail every morsel of movement your child makes in the right direction, every shred of evidence that the intention you set is the total truth about the amazingly intense spirit(s) entrusted to your care.

Until our divine nature rules.

Until positivity is the default.

Until greatness is a given!

The Russian word for ‘reset’ wasn’t correct, so, in our typical ‘what’s wrong with this picture’ frenzy, news accounts focused only on the faux paux. Come to think of it, had the translation been perfect, it might not have made the news at all!

News and politics aside, reset in any language is right-on and relevant! Resetting relationships – with ourselves, with our children, with anyone or anything – is a concept worth exploring and a technique worth learning. It’s a simple, sure fire trick to regain and refocus our energy from negativity to positivity. That’s what ENERGYPARENTS do with their challenging children: we reset them to their greatness.

Resets are a 180-degree about face from conventional parenting models that rely on shame, guilt, bribery, threats or punishment to control a child’s behavior.  Come to think of it, many of us use that same negative think speak on ourselves too, with the same puny results.

There is a better way. It starts with choosing to expend our energy building positive relationship through reflecting and supporting every choice and movement that a child makes in the right direction. Not with empty rah-rahs, but with specific facts that the child downloads into his or her growing portfolio of who they are. “I am a creative problem solver.” “I am fearless in stating my needs.” “I can express anger without hurting anybody.” My dear friend Gary Gibson refers to these positive downloads as the child’s “heartware” and “soulware.”

Resets are simply a way to alert a child when they make a choice counter to their greatness. Reset works for adults too – and countries.

To Resetting Ourselves, Our Children & Our World to Greatness!

Hardly.

We’re the strictest parents on the block. We don’t let ANYTHING slide. No warnings for first offenses (Oh, sweetie, I know you didn’t mean that); no second chances (I’ll give you one more try to get it right); no pretending not to see or hear what’s really going on (I just don’t have the energy to deal with it right now).

No – any and every rule violation or slightest infraction thereof needs an immediate consequence. Sounds overwhelming?

With conventional parenting it is. Limits are usually stated in such general terms that they require legal interpretation (gleefully provided, typically, by the closest challenging child), plus appropriate judge and jury deliberation.

We make limits simple. We’re 100 percent positive that rules have to be negative. Kids don’t instinctively understand polite and positively stated rules like, “Be Kind,” “Respect Others,” and “Safety First.” But they instantly get, “No hitting,” “No yelling,” “No interrupting,” “No riding a bike without a helmet.”

Rules stated in the negative don’t require interpretation or definition. You don’t have to expend any energy determining whether or not a rule was broken. That’s a huge piece to de-energizing negativity, because you can simply say, “time-out” or “reset.”

One mom’s formerly difficult daughter invented this reset phrase: “To the rubbish bin with that.” Exactly. Whatever works to demonstrate to your child that every broken rule is met by you with a consistent, low-energy, no relationship consequence will quickly become so boring for your child that breaking rules will lose its attraction.

No holding grudges; no escalating punishments; no need to shame – to the rubbish bin with those energy zaps and traps! Just enforce the rules like the eagle-eye referees in the big sports leagues, issue the consequence and welcome your child right back into the game of life. That effectively pulls the plug on all the negativity surrounding bad behavior – it happened, it was dealt with, and now it’s over.

Maybe that’ll cause your child’s jaw to hit the floor and he’ll say, “Is that it? Is that all,” like the child used to getting a couple hours of intense relationship via a trip to the principal’s office. Until he met an energy master who refused to expend one watt of her precious energy on his negativity. Absolutely no fun. BooooRRRRRRRiiiiiinnnnggg.

As you master ENERGYPARENTING, you’ll begin to SENSE energy shifts before you ever see or hear evidence of a child’s impending downward spiral. You will be so highly attuned to your child that you will feel an energy lull and instinctively  energize.

That’s when parenting becomes an artform, and it comes from a 180-degree shift of learning NOT to ignore anything. On the contrary, choose to consciously tune in and stay tuned in to the slightest dip in your child’s energy, and take immediate and proactive action to connect and energize.

It’s a revolutionary parent-child relationship that averts most meltdowns from even materializing, and we’re not monkeying around.

To Your Energy Attunement!

Observation: The Creator/Source trusts parents with babies, no matter what course the parent-child relationship takes.

Deduction: People arrive on the planet with both an innate ability to trust and the universe’s irrevocable stamp, “trustworthy.” It is wise to trust.

But under the illusion of protecting ourselves, we amend the universal agreement to read, “Trust must be earned; and once broken, even if regained, it is never the same.”

Broken/misplaced trust hurts our hearts. But not irreparably so. The pain is quickly cured – for truster and trustee  – by trusting again. We may choose to trust as little as possible, but to say we can not trust again or can’t completely trust again is simply a lie; humans exist only in a state of various levels of trust.

Trust is an inherent ENERGYPARENTING value that plays out in a million variations of this simple story:

“I do all by myself,” the challenging preschooler insists, wrestling the big milk jug toward the cup while adamantly refusing help.

The ENERGYPARENT, choosing to trust, offers no warnings or threats; gives no energy to impending mess.

The child spills more milk than lands in the cup; but delights in getting the goal. He doesn’t even consider crying over spilled milk, but happily assists in clean up and relishes drinking self-poured milk.

Next and subsequent days, the ENERGYPARENT and the child repeat the milky way. Each time, the child downloads the experience as a success, and quickly masters the variables of gauging the trajectory of liquid from one container to another, as well as his or her direct influence on same.

Let’s follow the scenario under a conventional model:

To avoid a mess and save the child from failure, the parent excitedly issues warnings and takes control of the pouring. An easier-to-raise child might accept this, but a challenging child is more likely to refute the reasons, protest the interference, refuse the parent-poured milk, and perhaps intentionally set the milk in motion.

Punishment ensues. Nobody feels good, the child misses a chance to practice life skills and the relationship takes a ding.

Our children pick up our energy around what we trust or mistrust about them and it affects them emotionally, spiritually and physically.

When we’re about to implode out of fear that some upsetting behavior is going to be incessantly repeated, that kind of energy will nearly guarantee that it is.

Nurtured Heart trainer/therapist Lisa Bravo talks about her daughter going through a phase of falling down “a lot.” Lisa became so engaged with warning and reminding her daughter NOT to fall down that the daughter could do almost nothing but. When Lisa became aware that she was coming from a place of not trusting her daughter to walk, she extended trust, and the situation solved itself.

Trust has a way of doing that  – making problems that appear insurmountable disappear.

We recognize that parents are dealing with situations where the consequences are more serious than spilled milk or bruises. Yet, within the boundaries of safety, trust is always the answer.

Ask yourself, “What’s the worst that can happen if I trust my child in this situation?” A rule gets broken? A mess or a mistake is made? A scene created? Grades tank? Reputation is mired?

ENERGYPARENTS give no energy to negativity; but we do get them back in touch with their higher selves through consistent, no fanfare “resets.” If the child doesn’t quickly regain and exhibit a sense of trustworthiness, toss in some extra family duties. There’s nothing like sweat and service to release our deepest fears – such as worrying that a poor choice means we never were or no longer are trustworthy.

Childhood is the right time to be convinced of one’s trustworthiness; and parenthood is an unparalleled opportunity demonstrate it.

Perhaps the eternally triumphant trio of faith, hope and love is expressed in one act of ultimate, no-strings-attached trust: life.

To Your Greatness of Trust and Trustworthiness

We lay to rest Old Man Time, so aged and decrepit from storing up all the year’s events; and in an instant, from 11:59 pm to 12:00 midnight, everything is new again.

It feels so wonderful, so full of promise.

Babies make us believe again. As we share in their discoveries of living and loving and finding one’s place in the world, we rediscover the bare naked wonder of life for ourselves.

Wait a minute, stop the clock! What’s really changed? New Year’s is just a big fake-out, a completely artificial construct, an illusion…

Yes, it is. By choice. We collectively choose as a society to make it so. And what exactly is it that we are choosing so forcefully, with such certainty and determination? We choose in that second to let go of the past and step into the new moment.

The illusion is that it’s reserved for once a year. The energetic reality is that it’s something we can choose to do as often as we wish. We can live the newness of New Year’s every moment, because each of us is born with that incredibly powerful skill fully engaged and intact. Many of us lose it along the way of growing up, but it’s always there for us to retain or regain.

We’re all born masters of the present moment.

Babies need no instruction in how to be in the now. What wisdom, considering “now” is the only time that anybody knows for sure actually exists!

We have dozens of techniques to teach children about time – observing the sun’s rise and fall, the comings and goings of the seasons, memorizing the clock’s ticks and tocks or the digital drops and the calendar’s days and pages.

Still, it doesn’t come easy. It takes about seven years to fully pull children out of their blissful existence in the present moment and teach them to divide their minds into past and future.

We’re not saying that there’s nothing useful about past and future constructs. But, as ENERGYPARENTS know, the most powerful space of transformation for one’s child – and oneself – is in this present moment. The past exists only if and as we keep it alive in our minds, and the future unfolds as a result of the choices we make in each moment.

So, just for fun, why not find a young Master or Mistress of the Moment, and mimic these “In the Now” anchors:

1. Listen to your body: The little ones are tuned in and committed to answering the call fast: “I’m cold.” “I’m thirsty.” “My tummy hurts.” “I have to….NOW.” How loud does your body have to speak before you take notice?

2. Feel your emotions fully: We are charmed with a child’s ability to begin one second with a crystal-shattering cry and end the next rolling with a belly laugh. “I’m angry.” “I love you.” “I’m happy.” “I’m sad.” We’re not saying to act on your every emotion, just feel them. And that’s all your emotions are asking for, too.

3. Ask for what you want, in detail: The child says, “I want vanilla ice cream in the yellow bowl and I will eat it with the green fork.” “I want to play ball. Not that way! Kick it.” Of course, before you can ask for what you want, you have to know what you like. If you’ve been consumed with the wants of your children, you might have forgotten your own. Rediscover them.

4. Notice your surroundings: Seven wonders of the world? More like seven million when you’re a child! The nature of the bubbles in the bathtub; the flicker of the candle’s flame; the texture of the PJs. Why skip the wonder when in a mere second it renews your soul?

And why not choose to live this new year as it happens? Keep the brand new baby of New Year’s Day every day. Nothing more; nothing less. No regrets or longing for the past. No worries about or preoccupation with the future. Keep your energy focused in each present moment as it unfolds, and we promise this will be your best year ever.

To A New Year of Nows!

My son’s school let out a full week before Christmas Day, and I simply wanted each one of those precious days of cool weather in the Phoenix desert to be full of bike riding for my boys. So I asked Santa to come early and bring two new bikes. Being a gentleman, Santa left a voice message saying my sons had been placed on a list of especially good children, and as a result, he was bringing the presents that night.

When my kindergartner heard the message, his eyes widened and his hand muffled a squeal. Then in a serious tone, he asked me to play the message again. And again. Four times. Tears gushed.

“I didn’t think Santa would bring me anything.”

“You didn’t?”

“Well I wasn’t sure. You know I haven’t been that good.”

“No, I don’t know that. You have been good and you are good.”

“Don’t you remember those notes from my teacher?”

“I remember all the stickers you brought home for behaving well at school.”

“But some days I didn’t get a sticker. I got a note for being bad.”

“You had many more stickers than notes, and even on the days you got notes, you were mostly good on those days.”

He brightened a little, “Well, I had 12 stickers and 2 notes.”

“Oh, you’ve been counting.”

“Don’t you think Santa counts?”

“No, I don’t. I think he just knows you’re good.”

“The song says you BETTER BE good.”

“And you are. Hey, have you been thinking that you were on the naughty list?”
He hung his head.

“Of course you’re on Santa’s good list. You’re even on a special list and now Santa’s coming early! Do you really think some boys and girls are so naughty that Santa won’t bring them a gift?”

“Well, I never heard of any girls being naughty.”

“Well, I’ve never heard of Santa not bringing a gift to every child.”

The reality started sinking in and happy dancing ensued.

And for me, the dots started connecting. I had noticed him being out of sorts for a couple of weeks. There hadn’t been a lot of  talk about Santa at home, but at school there was quite a stir. My son had performed in his first holiday musical, and learned a few classics, along with those famous lyrics, “Better be good…Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.”

Once assured that his behavior hadn’t crossed what I now realize to a child is a completely unclear line between naughty and nice, my son was free of the worry that had been plaguing him. The change that realization made was evident in his eyes, his attitude and his behavior.

I stand in awe once again at the power of thoughts and words in shaping who our children THINK they are. It’s a reminder to be ever vigilant in protecting our children’s minds and hearts from the many seemingly innocuous but potentially toxic cultural forces, even down to dear old Santa.

No matter if or how you celebrate the season, may you choose anew to fearlessly use the power of your words to help a child see him or herself in fullness and goodness. Or as Howie would say, greatness!

To Your Greatness and the Greatness of All Children!