The Fight For Family

It’s Time to Fight Right If you’re involved with one or more people in a continuing relationship, you can bank on one thing for sure: there will be conflict. Are you married? You will disagree. Are you single and living with parents or roommates? You will have different opinions. Do you work with clients or co-workers? You will face friction. Whenever there is conflict, you will either hurt (even destroy!) one another, or you will build up each other and benefit from the experience. It all depends on whether you fight wrong or fight right. Let Will Cunningham, in his refreshingly creative fashion, show you how to turn any disagreement into a winning situation—every time. How Family Fights Resemble Athletic Events: Most take place on weekends (typically Sundays) Two or more opponents gather in one place Participants are in it to win Friction-free households do not exist. While you can’t avoid a family feud, you can make disagreements constructive, rather than destructive! Enter: a referee with a whistle. An honest scoreboard. The home court advantage. Will Cunningham’s How to Win a Family Fight reveals less about how to crush your opponent, and more about how to strategize a win. Discover the who, what, where, when, why, and—most important—the how of constructive confrontation. You’ll swing open the door to greater harmony, honest communication, creative solutions, and deeper respect for one another. The key difference between a family fight and your favorite sport: If you set out to win, you’ll lose in the long run. So set out to win…er, lose…and let this book help! We don’t choose in-laws; we inherit them in the same way we inherit the smell of a car we buy. Story Behind the Book “This book sprang from a premarital class that Cindy and I taught in the mideighties. We were honestly just trying to convey information without boring our students to sleep! The class was a tremendous success. When Gary Smalley caught wind of it and encouraged me to shape my thoughts into a book, I was somewhat skeptical. Having hardly recovered from all the books I had to read in seminary, I didn’t want to write one, much less wish the burden of reading on any other poor soul. But when Don Jacobson convinced me that I could offer readers a new perspective on their patterns of family conflict, we published the first edition of this book, and I am still teaching its content. Now this revision specifically meets today’s audience.” —Will Cunningham

From leading researchers, this book presents important advances in understanding how growing up in a discordant family affects child adjustment, the factors that make certain children more vulnerable than others, and what can be done to help. It is a state-of-the-science follow-up to the authors' seminal earlier work, Children and Marital Conflict: The Impact of Family Dispute and Resolution. The volume presents a new conceptual framework that draws on current knowledge about family processes; parenting; attachment; and children's emotional, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral development. Innovative research methods are explained and promising directions for clinical practice with children and families are discussed.

In The Secrets of Happy Families, New York Times bestselling author Bruce Feiler has drawn up a blueprint for modern families — a new approach to family dynamics, inspired by cutting-edge techniques gathered from experts in the disciplines of science, business, sports, and the military. Don't worry about family dinner. Let your kids pick their punishments. Ditch the sex talk. Cancel date night. These are just a few of the surprising innovations in this bold first-of-its-kind playbook for today's families. Bestselling author and New York Times family columnist Bruce Feiler found himself squeezed between caring for aging parents and raising his children. So he set out on a three-year journey to find the smartest solutions and the most cutting-edge research about families. Instead of the usual family "experts," he sought out the most creative minds—from Silicon Valley to the set of Modern Family, from the country's top negotiators to the Green Berets—and asked them what team-building exercises and problem-solving techniques they use with their families. Feiler then tested these ideas with his wife and kids. The result is a fun, original look at how families can draw closer together, complete with 200 never-before-seen best practices. Feiler's life-changing discoveries include a radical plan to reshape your family in twenty minutes a week, Warren Buffett's guide for setting an allowance, and the Harvard handbook for resolving conflict. The Secrets of Happy Families is a timely, counterintuitive book that answers the questions countless parents are asking: How do we manage the chaos of our lives? How do we teach our kids values? How do we make our family happier? Written in a charming, accessible style, The Secrets of Happy Families is smart, funny, and fresh, and will forever change how your family lives every day.

I have watched families lose the battle for their families for far too long. Satan is winning the battle against the family and to say I am frustrated is grossly understated. I desire parents to become passionate in the fight for their family. That is the purpose of this book. I pray parents will decide their kids are worth the fight. I pray dads will take a stand and quit observing from the sidelines. Unfortunately, most of us are taking our cues from Adam. Adam passively sat next to Eve as the serpent engaged her in the fight for her life. Adam did nothing. Adam failed to fight. Adam failed to protect. Adam failed his family. I pray this book will inspire, challenge, and equip you to step in the ring and fight.

The Activist Mommy, a social media sensation with over 70 million video views, leads the way for today's Christians in the culture war. News headlines point to a world that has gone stark-raving mad. Right is wrong and wrong is right. Religious liberty is under attack. Gender identity and fluidity is not only accepted but encouraged. Same-sex marriage is embraced by some churches. Deviant sexual practices are taught in schools. Hundreds of thousands of babies are aborted annually. "No more!" cries Elizabeth Johnston (aka The Activist Mommy), who has made Christian activism a calling for her life and her family. In Not on My Watch, Johnston courageously defends the timeless truths of God's Word and inspires and encourages other Christians to unite in winning this war for our children, our morals, our freedom, and our culture.

Patricia Stephens Due fought for justice during the height of the Civil Rights era. Her daughter, Tananarive, grew up deeply enmeshed in the values of a family committed to making right whatever they saw as wrong. Together, in alternating chapters, they have written a paean to the movement—its hardships, its nameless foot soldiers, and its achievements—and an incisive examination of the future of justice in this country. Their mother-daughter journey spanning two generations of struggles is an unforgettable story.