The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process.

Our children are counting on us to provide two things: consistency and structure. Children need parents who say what they mean, mean what they say, and do what they say they are going to do.

The best time to start giving your children money is when they will no longer eat it. Basically, when they don't put it in their mouths, they can start putting it in their bank.

The greatest part of each day, each year, each lifetime is made up of small, seemingly insignificant moments. Those moments may becooking dinner...relaxing on the porch with your own thoughts after the kids are in bed, playing catch with a child before dinner, speaking out against a distasteful joke, driving to the recycling center with a week's newspapers. But they are not insignificant, especially when these moments are models for kids.

There's no problem so great it can't be solved. If it can't be solved, it's not a problem, it's reality.

When we use punishment, our children are robbed of the opportunity to develop their own inner discipline-the ability to act with integrity, wisdom, compassion, and mercy when there is no external force holding them accountable for what they do.

Every time a child organizes and completes a chore, spends some time alone without feeling lonely, loses herself in play for an hour, or refuses to go along with her peers in some activity she feels is wrong, she will be building meaning and a sense of worth for herself and harmony in her family.