The world regularly teaches us ways to consume in our relationships rather than contributing to them. How, then, can we teach our kids to become contributors rather than consumers? What does real love mean? And what are ways that we can teach our children how to genuinely love others? Read More

Help your family celebrate Christmas, with a historical twist, by looking at the early church's thoughts about Christmas.

In this podcast Dr. Ricketts and Dr. Skinner explore some of the current trends to help families stay focused on Christ’s birth at Christmas. They will take a look at some thoughts of the historical and early church surrounding Christmas celebrations and how/why/where some of them developed.

Listen to the podcast now.

In the journey of raising children, parents play a vital role in shaping their children’s mental health. A strong connection exists between parental influence and a child’s emotional well-being. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognizes that “… a child’s healthy development depends on their parents—and other caregivers who act in the role of parents—who serve as their first sources of support in becoming independent and leading healthy and successful lives.” A study from 2021 revealed that “poor mental health among parents or primary caregivers is associated with poor mental and physical health in children.” Read More

In this podcast, Dr. Skinner talks with Bill Klasnic, VP at Bark - a company focused on providing filtering for safety and content for phone and internet usage. The conversation focuses on internet safety issues, pornography usage, and ways that technology can help with these important roles in parenting, working with those struggling with inappropriate usage, and how parents and others can use a tool like Bark to help with accountability and safety. They talk about the Center's new partnership with Bark which makes it easy for everyone to get access to resources around this important issue and obtain filtering that is easy to use and maintains a high level of technology.

Listen to the podcast now and find out more at www.champion.org/bark.

Are you ready to take your parenting to the next level with your teens? If so, we encourage you to check out The One Conversation Model by Axis. Instead of trying to keep up with the thousands of conversations our culture is having with your kids, think about it like you’re having one continuous, lifetime conversation. This conversation includes a lot of different topics, but they’re all connected. The goal isn’t to simply have “the sex talk,” “the gender talk,” “the mental health talk,” and “the drugs talk,” as if you’re ticking lectures off a list. The One Conversation journey is about keeping the door open, so one topic can flow into the next. Read More

Christian Counseling Associates (one of the Center's ministry partners) featured our Executive Director, Dr. D. Merle Skinner, on their podcast, titled "Christian Education is Back."

Christian education is a very important conversation for us to have as Christian schools are places where kids can be surrounded by traditional values, truth, and the space they need to simply just be a child, so the podcast does cover a lot about the topic of Christian education, BUT it is jam packed with a lot of great content and covers much more than just a conversation about Christian education. In this podcast you'll hear Dr. Skinner & Dr. Rich Hoffman discuss things like....

• public school, christian/private education, and current trends seen in schools that kids are facing
• current political and legislative happenings surrounding Christian education and school choice
• the importance of worldview
• mental health crisis
• Christian counseling, current trends seen in this field, and how this relates to students today

 

You can find the podcast on youtube or podomatic.

 

God’s grace truly is amazing. Instead of giving us the punishment we deserve, Jesus laid down His life for our sins. Instead of condemning us, He freed us from sin’s grip on our lives. We absolutely don’t deserve that. And we can do nothing to earn it. As Christian parents, we are so grateful for the grace of God, and we want our kids to understand it, too. Explaining grace to a child is one of the biggest things you will do as a parent. We want them to accept the salvation Christ freely offers.

In the second chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul talks about what draws people to Jesus. After describing all the things people have done to reject God, he asks, “Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?” (Romans 2:4, emphasis added). Read More

Anxiety can feel like a beast that is daunting to defeat, but the good news is it is possible to overcome the sensations that flood our minds and bodies when anxiety hits. We can help our children by teaching them strategies that lead to a more peaceful mind and body. It's our job to walk alongside them as they learn to understand how their minds and bodies work. Read more to learn a few tips to help you calm your anxious child.

A Podcast On The One Conversation...

In this podcast, the team at axis.org is joined by Elliot Campbell. Elliot is on the pastoral advisory board for Alpha Youth USA.  He has collaborated with the Bible Project and various other national leaders for the sake of reaching Gen Z and has a decade in pastoral experience working specifically with students and young adults. Elliot studied comparative religion and philosophy at the University of Virgina and graduated Denver Seminary as a Kern Scholar with his Master of Divinity in 2018.  He and his wife Madison are currently church planting in the Denver Metroplex. Elliot shares about Alpha Youth along with the openness of Gen Z.

Listen to the podcast on axis.org

Who was your first best friend? Maybe it was the girl you used to walk home from school with, or the boy who always met you on the playground. Maybe they’re still your friend, maybe not. Maybe they’re just a warm memory in the back of your mind, a reminder of innocent times and the special sweetness of knowing for the first time that you’ve found your person.

By talking with your teen often, you can encourage them to express not only their own feelings about their friendships, but how they think about friendship as an idea—what makes a good friend, what makes a bad friend, why do they like the friends they have, and how they think they could deepen their friendships.

Model Jesus’ friendship framework by helping your student understand that not everyone has to be their closest friend—that boundaries are safe and okay to establish, and that some friendships require more boundaries than others. Encourage them to choose their best friends carefully, to ask themselves questions like: Will this person support me? Will they tell me the truth, even if I don’t want to hear it? What do this person and I have in common? What are our differences? Why do I want this person as my best friend? What characteristics do they have that will make them a good friend to me? These are the kinds of questions that will help your student think critically about their relationships both now and into their adulthood. Read More