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From Susan Merrill

The Blog

Parenting

5 Ways to Build a Strong Mom-Daughter Bond

A strong mom-daughter bond is not a given! Just like every relationship the mother daughter relationship is vulnerable. So many things can come between a mom and her daughter, not the least of which is hormones! I have three daughters and my relationship with each has been different because they are different. Personality, temperaments, experiences—all of these can affect your relationship with your daughter. And because of these variables, I have had to work harder at having a good relationship with some of my daughters than with others. My girls are adults now. As hard as some of the seasons we went through in our relationships were, I am so thankful that we worked to maintain our mom-daughter bond. As moms, we have the opportunity to teach our girls how to grow up in this world—to be their guide, confidant, and friend for life. {Tweet This} To do that we must maintain a connection even in difficult seasons of our relationship. So, how do you build that bond if you don’t have a natural connection? Or, how can you strengthen it if you’ve already got a bond? There are a few things that I always tried to do—especially while my …

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Parenting

8 Things Parents Should Do for their Kids Every Day

There are lots of things parents do for their kids. In fact, the list is endless. And, while all are important, they are not all equal. And that is the problem. Sometimes the less important but seemingly urgent tasks like packing lunches and helping with homework take precedent over deeper, more meaningful things that help build connection. So, to bring the important things to the top, here are 8 things parents should do for their kids daily. 1. Be fully present As parents we can get distracted and when our child asks us something we won’t even look up. And while we can’t be fully present with every child every minute of the day, we can remember to check their pulse at certain times of the day. I totally missed one of these. My daughter was driving herself to and from school. The front door opened, I said hello but never looked up from my laptop, and my daughter went upstairs without replying. I didn’t think anything of it until her sister said, “Aren’t you going check on her? She came in the house crying and has been locked in her room for the last fifteen minutes.” I was so engrossed …

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Sunday Suppers

Family Football Fun Recipes

Football Rice Krispies Ingredients 4 Tbsp. butter 1 10-ounce package of marshmallows 6 cups Cocoa Rice Krispies® 1 Tube of white frosting M&M’s (pick your favorite team’s colors!) Instructions In a large pot, melt the butter on low. Add the marshmallows to the melted butter, stirring until completely melted. Remove the marshmallow mixture from the heat once melted. Stir in the Cocoa Rice Krispies® cereal so all pieces are coated. If adding M&M’s to the mixture, do so now. This gets sticky! While letting the mixture cool, butter your hands. Shape the mixture into footballs. Decorate the footballs with the white icing imitating the stitching on a football. Slow Cooker Pork Sliders Ingredients 1 (14 ounce) can beef broth (try to get the kind with no MSG) 3 pounds boneless pork ribs 1 (18 ounce) bottle barbeque sauce Instructions Pour beef broth into slow cooker and add pork ribs. Cook on high for 4 hours, or until meat shreds easily. Remove meat, and shred with two forks. This will require a little elbow grease! Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place the shredded pork in a glass baking dish, Dutch oven, or cast iron skillet, and stir …

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Encouragement

How Do You Struggle with Life?

I came to a jarring realization two days ago–a positive aspect of my DNA has become a negative. And I am struggling with life. I have always loved to ponder about people and life. I have written about this before and I believe we must ponder (give consideration to, pray about) to love others well (our husband, children, friends). But pondering people and situations with optimism, reflection, and hope has turned to struggling with pessimism, panic, and despair. How did this happen? How do you keep from crossing the line between pondering about life to struggling with life? Two words: trust or control. Trust: reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety of a person. Control: to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command. Two more words: God or me. This jarring revelation came to me through a Beth Moore study we are doing at work called Entrusted. Needless to say there is a lot in the study about trust. And I am not doing it. I am not trusting God in my pondering. Instead I am struggling for control. It’s me against God and, no surprise, I am losing. There are a myriad of reasons why we don’t trust God with the people …

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Marriage

4 Ways to Fight for Your Marriage

You and your spouse are allies—not enemies. Did you get that? You may be thinking: well, of course, we aren’t enemies! But you’d be surprised. I remember when my sister and I were young and we were sharing a room. Technically, we shared a room, but we did not want to share the same ‘space’, so we took tape and put it down the middle of the room so as to deter one another from going into the other’s space. You could be doing the same thing subconsciously in your marriage—you might have drawn a line down the middle of a situation; if your spouse crosses the line in any way, you feel justified and they become the enemy. Don’t make your spouse your enemy, make them your teammate! Fight for your marriage by avoiding these four silent marriage killers. Comparison. Comparison leads to discontentment. When Mark and I had young children, we went on vacations (very inexpensive trips, mind you!) with other families and their children. I remember getting frustrated with Mark and started to verbalize how I wish he was more like my friend’s husband. By my verbalizing it, it created an ongoing, snowball effect of me being …

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Parenting

Drs. Warn About Your Child & the Forbidden Apple as iPhone Turns 10

Bar Taco was packed, as usual, but we got a table along the outer wall. I grabbed the comfy bench and sat facing Mark and the animated crowd inside. Standing next to me, on the bench that ran the entire length of the wall, was a toddler. She was happily playing on an iPad while the three women at her table chatted and laughed. Over Mark’s shoulder, I saw the back of a baby sitting in a high chair. He must have been around eighteen months. His parents sat across from each other enjoying a quiet, relaxed conversation. As our dinner progressed my interest in the relaxed couple also progressed. Perhaps it was because they were right behind Mark yet I couldn’t help but notice how chill they were and how quiet the child was. They finished dinner and then ordered dessert. I was impressed. My babies were so active that dessert was never an option unless I wanted to eat that first and skip dinner. The couple’s leisurely chat continued as the dad occasionally spooned a little bit of ice cream into the child’s mouth. The child never looked up. No eye contact. No squeal of delight at the cold, yummy …

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Marriage

Affair-Proof Your Marriage

Have you ever thought about how you can help your spouse from having an affair? It’s easy to think that they are solely responsible for their actions, and in large part, they are! But, here are a few ways that you can help affair-proof your marriage from a segment we did for channel 5 in Nashville. If you’re wanting to dive into affair-proofing a little further, here are some ways that you might be encouraging an affair without even knowing it.

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Encouragement

8 Habits to Break as a Family

There are some things Mark and I learned along the way in parenting that we spent way too much time learning, so don’t make the same mistakes! Good habits take time to form. Here are 8 Habits to Break as a Family—work on them with yours. Trust me, you will be thankful you didn’t waste your time or opportunities! Bickering This one is tough. It is something that can be a big distraction for the family! With our big family, I had to find quick ways to deal with it. For example, when we would be in the car and bickering would start, I would literally pull the car over. If they didn’t stop, I would check my phone and wait for them to stop. Another example is if the kids fought over a toy, the next day I would make the toy disappear, and when they would ask why, I would say that they just weren’t ready for the privilege of the toy. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets—so stop it in its tracks now! Disorganization We will never have the ‘perfect’ household, but shooting to have a general organization over things is a good idea. …

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Encouragement

Are You a Maid or a Mom?

Are you a maid or a mom? The answer to that question really matters when it comes to figuring out how to get children doing chores regularly. A maid serves. She does all of the work because it’s less frustrating than figuring out how in the world to get her kids to pitch in. A mom trains. She knows that if she doesn’t, she’ll be wearing that maid’s uniform forever. I’ve seen it in my own house with my kids—if they know I’ll eventually get around to doing the housework, they don’t worry about helping. That’s where the training comes in. We have to bite the bullet and get over the it’s easier if I just do it myself mentality and take the time to teach our children how it’s done. We may spend a lot of time up front, but boy is it nice when the kids finally do their part. Teach your children to do their chores and you’ll be on your way to being a mom, not a maid. {Tweet This} Here are two easy ways to get started. Chore Charts Your easy first step in training your children is to use a chore chart. Introduce your children to the concept gradually. Keep it simple by having just a …

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Encouragement

Why You Need a Relationship Bucket List

Have you ever made a bucket list? They are a fun and practical way that can help you connect with someone, and also something you can do in all phases of life, with all types of people that you love. A relationship bucket list isn’t just something that you want to tackle before you pass away—make it a game! Bucket lists encourage you to spend time with those whom you love, helps to create memories through having common experiences, and solidify heart connections. What are we doing that creates memories in our relationships? Trust me—they don’t have to be huge things! Simple or new things that you want to try is really all you need! Let’s say you are always taking your kids to the park; perhaps you should try to plant a garden together. This would be a fun way to introduce them to something new, all the while creating something beautiful with them. When your children are small, it’s easy to find creative ways to make these bucket list items happen cheaply–you don’t need to break the bank. When our Marky was 5, he adored baseball. So, we used to take him to our local high school baseball …

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