Family Communication
Famous Family Quotes

Shalom in home, Part Three

Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react.  How you respond to things in your family’s life directly determines the extent to which you will enjoy shalom in your home.  P.184

In a marriage where husband and wife experience joy and affection, the whole home becomes filled with light. P.209

The goal of our disciplinary efforts must not be to suppress our children’s passions but to develop them and channel them into healthy pursuits. P.212

When the house is boring, a kid will go elsewhere, for excitement— and before long, your parental role will be reduced to that of cop.  Your authority over you children will be dictated by bribery and threats rather than by inspiration and affection.  — Is that why you had kids?  So you could spend your life sniffing out lies and enforcing curfews?  Instead embrace your inner preschool teacher, your inner clown, your inner Baptist preacher; your inner cruise director— in short, make the home as fun, inspiring, exciting, and joyful as you possibly can.  Then you’ll be able to put the billy club and handcuffs down for good. P.217
                                

Our spouse and our kids deserve the very best we have, not what’s left over after our boss and our hobbies have depleted us.

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.  It’s greener wherever you water and tend to it.  P.192

Anger is a great isolator.  No matter how satisfying it feels in the moment to vent rage or to hold a grudge, it is always a false satisfaction.  Anger will always cut you off from other people— the person you’re angry with and the people around you, who will eventually tire of hearing you fume.  Anger will leave you alone and forlorn, as you occupy the center of a field of tattered relationships.  P. 227

It is our actions— rather than our intentions or our motivations— that dictate our character.  The great tragedy of life is that we so often get pushed off our intended trajectory and end up at a destination we never desired.  We must never forget that we have the power to choose how we react and how we will behave; in that, we have control of our lives. P.238

There are no “buts” when it comes to the parent-child relationship.  Personal feelings, politics, even religious beliefs cannot interfere with that bond.  A parent’s love must be unconditional. P.271