Julie Smith Lowe, M.A. is Associate Faculty at CCEF and has been counseling for over 13 years. She has a Master of Arts degree in Counseling from Biblical Theological Seminary, is a Licensed Professional Counselor and is pursuing certification as a Registered Play Therapist. She has extensive experience with foster and adoptive families, as well as child maltreatment issues. She speaks at events regarding women's issues, parenting, and children and conflict resolution.
Parenting so often can feel confusing and overwhelming. We want Biblical wisdom and yet we are not sure where to turn. This bundle contains refreshing, honest and wise counsel directly from Scripture on how to approach our children with God’s agenda and not our own.
As a parent I want to create opportunities to have meaningful and fruitful conversations with my children. I often use role-playing as a means to accomplish that goal. Role-playing is when you present a situation to your children and ask them what they would do and say as they take on different roles in the story. For example, your child may not know what to do when a peer pressures him to lie or cheat. Role-playing gives children an avenue in which to practice possible responses to difficult situations. It allows children to think with you about situations they haven’t encountered.
Bullying happens in every school across America. This means it is highly likely that your child or one of the kids in your church has experienced bullying. And since it has become an area of concern in schools and a focus in national media, techniques and advice now abound. CCEF wants to offer a perspective on bullying that goes beyond punishment or behavior modification and toward wise love for the bullied and the bully. We recently sat down with Julie Lowe to discuss this issue and practical helps for parents, youth leaders, and children’s ministry workers.
As parents we often struggle with this reality: the older our kids get, the weightier their decisions become. We also realize there is a great deal of evil in the world that we want to protect our children from. Given these facts, parents are often tempted to micromanage in an effort to prevent poor decisions. Parents may have good intentions but can become overbearing when driven by fear. As a counselor I want parents to focus on helping their children grow in independent decision-making. Ultimately we want children to have two things that go hand-in-hand:
The use of shame in parenting is designed to cause children to restrain behavior through undesirable thoughts and feelings about themselves. It involves negative and shaming comments about what the child is doing or who the child is, giving children a poor and inaccurate view of themselves. Instead of drawing them to see their worth in Christ’s eyes, children are taught to rely on the approval or disapproval of parents or caretakers.
As many of you know, the northeast was battered this week by Hurricane Sandy. As you may have noticed by our absence online, CCEF was closed until Thursday. We were fortunate to only lose power, and we suffered no damage to our property. Many others were not so fortunate. Many continue to deal with untold loss, pain, and struggle. Nearly three years ago, Julie Lowe wrote about how we are affected by traumatic events and how the gospel can meet people in the aftermath. We wanted to share this blog with you again today in light of Hurricane Sandy’s recent impact on millions of people.
Let me tell you a story. The pastor of a Bible-believing church was preparing a sermon for his congregation for Sunday. One of his elders came to his office for their weekly prayer meeting. In the midst of their prayer time together the elder broke down, confessing that he had inappropriately touched one of the teens in the youth group. His story was heart breaking, as he shared that he himself had been abused as a child. After praying together for God to work in the heart of the elder and for forgiveness and grace, the elder left.
In another "In The Counselor's Room," Alasdair Groves and Julie Lowe discuss how to help a child counselee to build relational bridges with their parents.
