Raising Made Simple

  For years I thought I had mastered the art of giving clear instructions. Five kids, five different personalities, and a dad voice that could be heard across a baseball field—I figured listening shouldn’t be that hard. Yet most evenings sounded like this: “Shoes on, guys.” “Time to brush your teeth.” “Dinner’s ready—let’s go!” And the response? Crickets. Sometimes I’d repeat myself until my throat felt dry. Sometimes I’d threaten consequences. Other times I just gave up and did the job myself. Like a lot of dads, I blamed the kids. They were distracted. They were testing limits. They were just being kids. But slowly—and sometimes painfully—I began to realize the real issue wasn’t that my children couldn’t hear me. It was that they didn’t feel connected enough to want to respond. The Myth of the Magic Dad Voice I used to believe there was a perfect way to deliver a command. Say it calmly, but firmly.  Keep it short. Stand tall and sound confident. Plenty of parenting article...

Most evenings in our house used to follow the same script. Dinner dishes barely cleared, the clock ticking toward bedtime, and me already bracing for the nightly showdown. By the time the first toothbrush was located, my nerves felt frayed and the air in the hallway carried a quiet tension everyone could feel. With five kids—an eighteen-year-old son, a thirteen-year-old daughter, an eleven-year-old son, and two little girls ages five and four—bedtime often felt less like a peaceful routine and more like a strategic operation. I sometimes joked that I should wear a whistle and carry a clipboard, but beneath the humor was exhaustion. I wanted our nights to end with warmth and connection, yet too often they ended with hurried words, raised voices, and the sinking feeling that we were all crossing a finish line separately. The Night That Opened My Eyes One Thursday stands out like a scene frozen in memory. It was well past nine o’clock. The younger girls were chasing each other down ...

Mornings used to feel like a daily ambush in my house. The alarm would ring and, before I even swung my feet onto the floor, the day already felt out of control. Someone couldn’t find their shoes, another child was crying over the wrong cereal bowl, the dog needed to be let out, and the clock on the microwave seemed to sprint ahead every time I looked away. For years I thought this was normal—that mornings were supposed to be frantic until the kids were older or life magically slowed down. But the truth is, the chaos wasn’t starting at 7:00 a.m. when the first alarm buzzed. It was beginning long before the first hint of daylight , hidden in small habits and decisions I wasn’t even aware I was making. I finally reached a point where I couldn’t keep starting the day with my shoulders up around my ears. Something had to change. That’s when I began what I now call my “morning minefield map”—a process of noticing, naming, and defusing the little bombs that were going off every single day...