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When Your Child Hurts You – Parenting Tip #45

December 24, 2017 by Val Frania Leave a Comment

My first son and I have something very in common. We write our best articles when we feel passionate about something, especially if that something hits us in our emotions. Yep. We're emotional beings and occasionally another being will hit our emotional nerve and cause us to sort things out until we feel we sufficiently understand them or can at least put it behind us. (If you'd like to see his writings about refugees and his newest adventure … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adoption, Family, Musings, My Kids, Parenting tips Tagged With: adoptive parents, challenges, discouragement, family, parenting advice, stressed parents, support

Should We Help Our Adult Children? (4) Parenting Tip #44

November 9, 2017 by Val Frania Leave a Comment

Should We Help Our Adult Children? (4) Parenting Tip #44

  This is the 4th in the series, "Should We Help Our Adult Children?" If you have not read 1-3, go do that now. #1 in This Series #2 in This Series #3 in This Series #4 in This Series (you are here) If you have, and are not sure still if you can help, even though everything looks kosher, then start out by helping them on a small scale. Lend them a few dollars to get by and see if they pay you back. Give them a ride and see … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Challenges, Family, Parenting tips, recommendations, Things I've Learned Tagged With: adoptive parents, family, parenting, parenting tips, special needs, stressed parents, support, trials

Should We Help Our Adult Children? Parenting Tip #44

September 6, 2017 by Val Frania 2 Comments

Should We Help Our Adult Children? Parenting Tip #44

It's been a while since I've posted here on Mom of Many because I've been busy putting together my DIY program. But I'm back today with the first in a series - it started out to be a simple set of tips and morphed into a full-blown series because there was so much to say. Have you ever wondered... How do I tell them “No,” when I can’t help? Am I obligated to help every time they ask? What do I do when I have a demanding or whiny … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Challenges, Family, Parenting tips, Things I've Learned Tagged With: Adoption, adoptive parents, discipline, family, parenting, parenting tips, RAD, stressed parents, support, trials

Calling Protective Services? A Message to the Concerned Onlooker

May 9, 2017 by Val Frania Leave a Comment

Calling Protective Services?  A Message to the Concerned Onlooker

I just read an article about a mom who left her 4 year old son in the car for a couple of minutes to run into the store. Read the article here. She is a good mom, cares for her child, works hard, is faithful and loving. She did what her mom did with her back when she was little. She did what she thought was best in the moment. While she was in the store an onlooker called the police and took a picture of her son sitting in the car alone. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Challenges, Family, Things I've Learned Tagged With: challenges, compassion, family, mothers, parenting, special needs, stress, stressed parents, support

Get a Hobby, Mom! Parenting Tip #43

March 14, 2017 by Val Frania Leave a Comment

Get a Hobby, Mom! Parenting Tip #43

Find Your Creative Outlet Back when all 15 kids were home and we were crazy busy, I still took time to read books, learn new technology and techniques in my graphic design and photography passions and kept up with several of my hobbies. Do you? Do you have a hobby or creative outlet that brings a smile to your face? You need to get a hobby if you don't have one now. Why a hobby, you ask? Well, to start with, you want to maintain your … [Read more...]

Filed Under: DIY & Crafts, Family, Parenting tips, Things I've Learned Tagged With: discouragement, family, gardening, parenting tips, scrapbooking, stress, stressed parents, support

Should We Help Our Adult Children? (3) Parenting Tip #44

February 8, 2017 by Val Frania Leave a Comment

Should We Help Our Adult Children? (3) Parenting Tip #44

  This is #3 in the Series, "Should we Help our Adult Children?" Read #1 and #2 first, please. #1 in This Series #2 in This Series Yesterday I left off with: "There was one defining moment that set my course for the rest of our parenting for when they were all adults." Let me tell you about that moment. When our older kids were in college, they all came home from college for Easter one year and I found myself falling into the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Challenges, Family, Parenting tips, recommendations, Things I've Learned Tagged With: adoptive parents, family, parenting, parenting tips, stress, stressed parents, support, trials

Stop Apologizing! Parenting Tip #42

February 5, 2017 by Val Frania Leave a Comment

Stop Apologizing! Parenting Tip #42

  True Story... Years ago we saw a rash of food theft in our home. We limited the sugar many of our kids consumed because of their sensitivity, though occasionally we would reintroduce it into their diets to test it out. Within two weeks we'd see such a negative change in their behavior that we'd withdraw it again. There were some who would sneak whatever they could find when my back was turned - a mom has got to use the bathroom … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adoption, Challenges, Family, Parenting tips Tagged With: Adoption, adoptive parents, discipline, family, forgiveness, parenting, parenting tips, stressed parents, support, trials

The Adopted Kids’ Internal Clocks – Parenting Tip #41

January 25, 2017 by Val Frania Leave a Comment

The Adopted Kids’ Internal Clocks – Parenting Tip #41

A Sibling Group of Four When we adopted our sib group of four, the two youngers were together in one foster home and the two older ones were together in another home. This type of arrangement can be most difficult on the oldest because they feel a need to protect their younger siblings. How do they do that when they don't live together and only see each other at weekly visits? This was the case with our kids. The oldest was 9 years old and very … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adoption, Family, Parenting tips Tagged With: Adoption, adoptive parents, family, parenting, special needs, stressed parents

When Your Child Publicly Hates You – Parenting tip #40 (Part 2)

November 20, 2016 by Val Frania Leave a Comment

When Your Child Publicly Hates You – Parenting tip #40 (Part 2)

I ended Parenting Tip #40 (Part 1) like this... Next I will tell you how we handle the publicly declared accusations and hate mail as siblings and parents. God speed and until next time… So how do we deal with public jabs, attacks and innuendos? How should we react or address twisting of the truth, stretching, shading or outright lies? Should we react at all? Should we counter lies with the truth? Should we acknowledge any … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adoption, Family, FAS, Parenting tips Tagged With: Adoption, adoptive parents, discipline, discouragement, family, FASD, parenting, parenting tips, RAD, special needs, stressed parents, support

When Your Child Publicly Hates You – Parenting Tip #40 (Part 1)

October 8, 2016 by Val Frania 7 Comments

When Your Child Publicly Hates You – Parenting Tip #40 (Part 1)

  Time to address a very sensitive subject... For many, this type of conversation is painful - and will possibly elicit anger and a lashing out, but there are so many suffering parents out there that need you to know their reality and be reminded that they are not alone that I must speak out. Insight into what it is to be a family like ours - to parent children with a difficult past, to invite into our family those who carry around … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Adoption, Family, Parenting tips, Things I've Learned Tagged With: Adoption, adoptive parents, family, forgiveness, parenting, parenting tips, stressed parents, support, trials

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Amy Carmichael

“If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.“

FREE Word Art

Want God’s Best?

“God reserves His best for those who leave the choice to Him.” Pastor Randy King

Don’t shoot the messenger.

"Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" Galatians 4:16

Learn to Learn

"The first object of teaching, then, is to stimulate in the pupil the love of learning, and to form in him the habits and ideals of independent study." ~ John Milton Gregory

Allergic to Smoke?

"Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell." ~ C.T. Studd

Abraham Lincoln on Criticism

"If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."

Consider the Cost

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events." ~Winston Churchill

Charles Spurgeon

"Our blessed Lord reveals himself to his people more in the valleys, in the shades, in the deeps, than he does anywhere else. He has a way and an art of showing himself to his children at midnight, making the darkness light by his presence."

Progress through Perseverance

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or whether the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; Who, at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; And who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. It is far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight of life, knowing neither victory nor defeat. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The Reformed Pastor – Richard Baxter

“We must carry on our work with patience. We must bear with many abuses and injuries from those to whom we seek to do good. When we have studied for them, and prayed for them, and exhorted them, and beseeched them with all earnestness and condescension, and given them what we are able, and tended them as if they had been our children, we must look that many of them will requite us with scorn and hatred and contempt, and account us their enemies, because we ‘tell them the truth.’ Now, we must endure all this patiently, and we must unweariedly hold on in doing good, ‘in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.’ We have to deal with distracted men who will fly in the face of their physician, but we must not, therefore, neglect their cure. He is unworthy to be a physician, who will be driven away from a frenetic patient by foul words. Yet, alas, when sinners reproach and slander us for our love, and are more ready to spit in our faces, than to thank us for our advice, what heart-risings will there be, and how will the remnants of old Adam (pride and passion) struggle against the meekness and patience of the new man! And how sadly do many ministers come off under such trials!”

About Me

Welcome.
I'm an empty nester wife to one, mom to 15 (many) and Grammie to 13. Mom of Many is a gathering place for ministry moms who reject isolation and embrace community. No one is alone if they reach out to others for support and practice transparency. Welcome! I hope we can become friends.

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