Why It’s Surprisingly Easy to Reward Disobedience
Reward the behaviors you want and don’t reward the behaviors you don’t want.
Articles by Sam Crabtree
17 results found
Children are not naturally obedient. The problem lies in the opposite direction. The little fellows are sinners—and sin hardens.
The Problem with Child-Directed Parenting
Young children cannot “lead” parents to a Jesus they do not know, but parents can lead a child to a Jesus the parents know and love.
Though God receives our offerings, he isn’t looking for our outward offerings that give back to him what he gave us in the first place.
Practicing Thankfulness during a Pandemic
There is a kind of thankfulness that is grateful not only for what isn’t but for what is. The Bible doesn’t exhort us merely to be thankful in everything, but for everything.
How to Pray When Your Kids Go Off to College
Not all parents can provide what they want for their children, but all parents can pray.
How to Pray for Your Kids This Summer
The clay is still soft, so ask God for sculpting opportunities in the lives of your young children.
How Thankfulness Increases Your Capacity for Wonder
Thankfulness greatly intensifies one of life’s most precious capacities—namely, the capacity to marvel. We are created for it.
Do We Spend More Time Correcting or Affirming in Relationships?
What does it look like to restore a pattern of affirmation to a relationship?
Christian Leader, Are you Forgetting Something?
In his book Practicing Affirmation, Crabtree explains in further detail why we should affirm people and how to restore affirmation to relationships that have been lacking it.
An Open Letter to the Parent of a Strong-Willed Child
Let us be careful about singling out the strong-willed child as though his will is more corrupt than ours.
Affirmation Is Not Optional in Marriage
The evaporating disappearance of affirmation in a marriage is invariably a contributing factor to virtually all divorces. Short of divorce, it also contributes to flatness, coolness, and degrees of alienation.
8 Real-Life Questions about Children and Discipline
You might feel overwhelmed by the amount of parenting advice that exists. Take a breath. Break the goal down into small steps, and take one step at a time.
7 Tips for Keeping Your Cool When Your Kids Misbehave
Jesus came to make it possible for all kinds of people, including angry parents, to be changed into people who yield their expectations to God in service to others, specifically their children.
Why do we need suggestions on how to express gratitude? Shouldn’t a truly grateful heart just naturally overflow in expressing that gratefulness?
4 Things at Stake When Your Children Don’t Obey
What’s at stake in practicing correction is probably better gauged by understanding what happens when correction doesn’t get practiced very well.
4 Essential Things to Remember When Disciplining Your Children
What are we trying to do in disciplining children? We are not just trying to avoid all annoyances. There’s an aim here and it's a glorious one.