Home Field Advantage Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Home Field Advantage?
We believe the family is the cornerstone of society. While being a parent is a big responsibility, it’s also the source of great joy. Finding that joy often means finding the space and time to be together. Everything in our society works against this. The trend is to subcontract out all of family life and parenthood. Our rush-around lives can then leave us with an empty and purposeless family life.
No matter where we live, no matter what our circumstances, we believe it’s possible to find and create more joy in our families. Even if parenting has been hard and less than satisfying for you, God is here and providing fresh parenting mercy . . . for all of us.
We have been through dry times and the fruitful times of family life. Let us share our ideas and hope for more joy! For you, for them – together – in your family.
How we can help you. . .
Just like you, our hearts beat as mothers’ hearts.
We are imperfect parents who have walked before you, often making many mistakes along our path. What we offer is the stuff of real life and helpful information. We offer resources to you in posts, e-books, books, articles, and workshops – to lighten your day and help you find more treasures of family life. Instead of more expectations for you to meet as a parent, we help you see and value the incredible important of you in relationship to them.
How can discouraged parents find solutions?
Have you heard of re-framing?
We’ve found re-framing to be a wonderful way to see God at work in family life, no matter what our circumstances. Solutions for tough challenges are generally a process. Re-framing can be part of the process. Before we see a whole solution re-framing can help us move from discouraged to hopeful.
We offer you the idea of re-framing problems and people so we can see them in God’s light.
Example: If a child has a learning disability, if we define our child as “My child with a learning disability” who do we see? We often see our child amid an obstacle-strewn-path. We see our child in the context of challenge.
Re-framed: What happens when we re-frame our child as: “My incredibly creative child who has many gifts from God and who seems to learn differently from many others.” There’s a lot in a name. When we re-frame and rename new possibilities occur to us. It can become possible for us to see much more in our child’s life. We can re-frame our children in multiple ways: “My child who’s a blessing to me.” “My child who amazes me with his kindness and creativity.”
Example for Re-framing Ourselves: As this child’s mom if we define ourselves as: “A-mom-with-limited-knowledge-of-learning-disabilities-and-who-has-many-other-limitations” we can feel self-doubt. Even though we’ve taken many positive steps we can feel dread for the day ahead.
Re-framed: What happens when we see ourselves in a new way, such as: “Blessed-to-be-this-child’s mother” and “Entrusted-to-see-who-God-is-creating-this-child-to-be” or “Empowered-to-help-this-child-grow-and-bless-others.” As we see everyone in our family in God’s good light, good things can happen. We can move toward solutions even while living with challenges. Re-framing helps us find joy today.
When our lives are hectic and rushed, how can we savor our kids’ childhoods?
Too often we mistakenly believe solutions have to be big and dramatic. But savoring our lives happens one moment at a time. When we glimpse the possibility of enjoying and savoring, we can find more of those moments.
Face-to-face time and voice-to-voice time are often at the heart of savoring. We savor, and we help them savor, as we listen to our children (while holding back on correcting and reminding for a few minutes, or longer, each day), as we play tic-tac-toe together with a crayon – on the back of an envelope – while at a doctor’s office waiting room, when we award family prizes for silly jokes, use cookie cutters to cut shapes in Jell-O, have a picnic (even on a blanket in the living room), and as we do thousands of other small things. Small moments together can create the sweetest time . . . even today!
