“Dear Gay Community, Your Kids are Hurting”

Posted on March 17, 2015 by GREG

This is a power letter from a young woman, raised by two women, who was a former gay marriage activist and is now a children’s rights advocate and mom of 4.

Image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.

“….Kids of divorced parents are allowed to say, “Hey, mom and dad, I love you, but the divorce crushed me and has been so hard. It shattered my trust and made me feel like it was my fault. It is so hard living in two different houses.” Kids of adoption are allowed to say, “Hey, adoptive parents, I love you. But this is really hard for me. I suffer because my relationship with my first parents was broken. I’m confused and I miss them even though I’ve never met them.”

But children of same-sex parents haven’t been given the same voice. It’s not just me. There are so many of us. Many of us are too scared to speak up and tell you about our hurt and pain, because for whatever reason it feels like you’re not listening. That you don’t want to hear. If we say we are hurting because we were raised by same-sex parents, we are either ignored or labeled a hater.” READ The Rest Here.

Don’t Think NFP is Effective? Advertisers KNOW It Is–“Bio-Marketing” Can Remotely Monitor Fertility Data to Increase Sales

Posted on March 4, 2015 by GREG

This blew my mind–and not in a good way.

“In the creepy brave new world of marketing, a woman who logs onto Facebook during her fertile phase can expect to be barraged by ads for new consumer products that are absent on non-fertile days. It is not happening yet, but it is technically possible and it is hard to see who has the power to stop it.”

Aldous Huxley? Meet Don Draper.

Image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.

Dr. Nigel Barber, an evolutionary psychologist who writes at Psychology Today describes new research that shows how and why advertisers could access and use a woman’s fertility signs (via health monitoring apps) to developed fertility cycle-based targeted marketing campaigns. Here’s an excerpt from Dr. Barber’s piece…

“…University of Texas marketing researchers Kristina Durante and Ashley Rae Arsena found that women are also flightier in respect to choices of a variety of consumer products from candy bars or lipstick colors to high-heeled shoes. They opt to try 15 to 20 percent more products when fertile(link is external) compared to the low-fertility phase of the cycle.

This is not a huge difference, but it might help a new consumer brand for women to get an edge against established brands. From a marketing perspective, the fertile phase of the cycle is a time not just to introduce new products but to offer women premium brands at a time when they are most likely to trade up. Hence, the buzz amongst marketers.

We are accustomed to being tracked on the Internet by scores of companies who collect our data. Now these big-data operations are trying to link our online keystrokes with what is happening inside our bodies.

How is this even possible? One source of vulnerability is the growing popularity of wearables, such as physical activity monitors and smart watches that connect to the Internet. Some of these devices automatically record health data, such as pulse rate and temperature. As users of the “rhythm” method of birth control know, temperature rises during ovulation, giving the marketers one good clue to a woman’s reproductive condition. Some women volunteer information about their reproductive condition by using cell phone apps that track their menstrual cycle.

In the creepy brave new world of marketing, a woman who logs onto Facebook during her fertile phase can expect to be barraged by ads for new consumer products that are absent on non-fertile days. It is not happening yet, but it is technically possible and it is hard to see who has the power to stop it.“ READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE.

UPDATE: POPCAK NOTE: People are writing to take me to task for referring to NFP as the “rhythm method” I DID NOT WRITE THIS ARTICLE. It says so in the bolded section above. This is an excerpt from a larger article by Dr. Nigel Barber at Psychology Today. I didn’t call it the rhythm method. He did. I too look forward to the day that secular writers don’t confuse the two.

Helping Your Kids Deal with Anger

Posted on March 3, 2015 by GREG

Image via Shutterstock.

Parents often struggle to deal effectively with their children’s anger. We either tend to respond by coddling them when they tantrum or shutting them down. Of course, neither response is effective and both responses tend to produce angrier more impulsive kids.

Of course, an important part of raising moral, loving, faithful kids is teaching our children to manage all of their emotional reactions in more godly, appropriate ways. In Parenting with Grace and Then Comes Baby, we offer a ton of strategies for dealing with tantrums and angry outburst in respectful and effective ways but here’s a great article from PsychCentral on how parents can teach their children how to manage anger appropriately. By all means go and read the whole thing, but here are some tips to get you started.

helping him understand what triggers his anger
teaching him about symptoms of being angry (such as feeling tense in his body, having a fast heartbeat, thinking about wanting to hit a sibling, etc.)
teaching your child to make healthy and appropriate choices as soon as possible when he becomes angry (such as walking away, taking deep breathes, etc.)
creating a tool box with your child of ways he can calm himself down
identifying his strengths and building on them
rearranging the environment and/or restructuring his daily schedule to better suit his true self (such as by placing less demands on him after school if your child would do better by having a break after school, although this does not mean to let him get out of responsibilities)
modeling healthy responses to anger
identifying what makes your child calm, happy, and feeling great and then put more of those things into his life (be sure to have him be involved in the process as much as possible as well as take on ownership and control of implementing these strategies)
work on problem-solving skills
practice stress-management skills together (such as doing exercise, getting enough sleep, learning progressive muscle relaxation, doing hobbies, etc.)

Anger, like all of our emotions, is a gift from God but we need to be taught how to use it. These tips can give parents some great ways to help their children express their anger in respectful and appropriate ways. When that happens, children feel heard, parents feel respected, and everybody wins!