At this time of year, it's so easy to get caught up in the letters to Santa, the hustle and bustle of getting gifts for our children, the parties, the events that we lose track of some of the most beautiful opportunities this season has to offer. In this episode, Saren reads three chapters from our eBook called A Deliberate Mother's Guide to Holida…

Join Saren and Power of Families Social Media Manager, Lynette Blood, as they discuss the magic and meaning of Christmas and how to balance the important elements of Christmas.

In this 25-minute episode, Saren and her sister Shawni (who runs the popular blog, 71 Toes), discuss simple ways to help our children: Feel and express gratitude for every-day things that are easy to take for granted Focus on what they have rather than what they feel that they lack Work for what they get so that they will more fully appreciate it L…

When your child is running for office at school, looking for a job, or working a school assignment, how much do you help? If you have ideas about what they can and should do, how much do you try to talk them into things? Are you OK with letting them fail sometimes? It can be so hard to know when to step in and when to step back! In this encore epis…

Family fun doesn’t need to be about complicated decorations or wearing ourselves out with dozens of events. But with a little bit of planning and a deliberate-motherhood mindset, this fall is destined to be the best one yet! For full show notes, please visit Poweroffamilies.com

In this episode, Saren shares some experiences she’s had with one of those age-old parenting issues – getting kids to clean up their room. She also shares some helpful tips for figuring out when it may be time to “give up” or simply let up on certain things that we want our children to do as we respect their opinions and needs and build our relatio…

Join Saren as she and Jane Clayson Johnson, an award winning journalist and author, discuss Jane's book Silent Souls Weeping about depression, anxiety, and how to help ourselves and our loved ones.

Join Saren and her mother, Linda Eyre, as they discuss how you can really give your children your full attention - and why this is so important!

If your children have recently gone back to school or your school year is about to begin, you’re probably going through some of the same things we’re going through. There are lots of emotions involved and new schedules to consider. Some of us are redefining ourselves as we enter a new stage of motherhood. Join Saren and April as they share their ow…

In this week's episode, Saren answers questions from our community concerning dealing with anxiety, saying yes and no to the right things, making the most of car time, and after school routines. Join us!

Saren spent a solid month visiting the 12 oldest National Parks in the west last summer (camping the whole way!). In this week’s episode, Saren shares how this all came about and what her family gained through this wild and wonderful adventure. The principles offered apply to all families whether they’d like to do a big trip or simply spend a littl…

Join Saren and her sister, Saydi, as they discuss wonderful ways to celebrate and discover with your family the real meaning of Easter.

Come listen as Saren shares two game-changing daily parenting practices that have made a huge difference for their family! These simple, daily practices can help dramatically change the mood in your home and the relationship with your children! For full show notes, please visit poweroffamilies.com

Join Saren and April Perry, Director of Power of Moms, for a 20-minute conversation where they share simple tried-and-true ideas for making one-on-one time with each child into a regular and meaningful part of the family routine. For full show notes, please visit poweroffamilies.com

In this encore episode, Saren talks with Katie Kimball from Kitchen Stewardship about how what we eat, the way we talk about food, and the way we prepare food is such an important part of parenting. Katie offers concrete ideas to help us really enjoy cooking alongside our children as we teach them responsibility, build their skills and self-confide…

Join Saren, her mom, and her sisters for a wonderful discussion that all of us need! Balance! How do we take care of our marriages, our children, and ourselves?

Do you find Halloween to be fun? Stressful? Scary? Annoying? All of the above? How can you make Halloween really work for your family? In this audio post, Saren reads her popular post, A Deliberate Mother’s Guide to Simple Halloween Fun, and shares some of the many many great comments with further ideas added by readers. The principles shared here …

In this episode, Saren interviews John Lanza, author of The Art of Allowance and founder of The Money Mammals, about how we can raise financially literate children. John talks about how we can teach toddlers to teens how to share, save and spend smart through everything from fun songs and stories to purposeful modeling of wise financial practices t…

Today we are bringing back a favorite episode to help you prepare for summer. Those long, lovely summer days can offer some of our family’s best memories, but how do we create a little more structure so that we can make the most of summer? How do we motivate our children to do some reading, get some exercise, and help out around the house rather th…

In this week’s episode, Saren and April (director of our sister-site, Power of Moms) share some of the great responses we received plus talk through some ideas that have really helped pump up gratitude and tone down entitlement in their own families. For full show notes, please visit poweroffamilies.com…

As our kids grow up, parenting can become more complicated - and more lonely. Where should we let go? Where should we hold on? How should we hold on? And who can we talk to about the challenging and sometimes heart-wrenching issues we're facing? In this week's epsisode, Saren and two of her dear friends, Tiffany Sowby and Allyson Reynolds, talk ope…

In this episode, Saren and Lynette Blood (Power of Families Social Media Manager) talk about how to balance the magic of elves and presents and Santa with meaningful discussions and activities that emphasize giving and celebrate the real meaning of Christmas. This episode is chock-full of ideas for traditions that celebrate both the magic and meani…

Join Saren as she talks with her son Silas about screen time in the summer. For full show notes, please visit poweroffamilies.com

So many parents view screen time and technology as a stressful conundrum that they need to solve for their children. But it works better if we view it as an opportunity to teach our children discernment as we work with them to develop guidelines for healthy technology use. In this episode, Saren interviews Andrea Davis, founder of Better Screen Tim…

In this week's encore episode, Saren interviews her sister Saydi about the simple, kid-friendly Christ-centered Easter activities she does with her family each year. Gathering ideas from many sources, Saydi has created a plan for how families can celebrate Christ's miracles, teachings, Atonement, death and resurrection in tangible and beautiful way…

Do you sometimes wonder whether you’re really making a difference? Do you see your dreams of doing big things fading away as you deal with all the little things that the little people around you need, day in and day out? In this audio post, Saren shares an “a-ah” moment that helped her to see that all those seemingly little things we do every day a…

There are so many things we want to do and be as parents and sometimes we can feel overwhelmed. So we decided to start issuing a really simple and super do-able weekly challenge at Power of Families. It's been wonderful to see so many parents participate in this easy way to work on one small aspect of our parenting at a time. In this week's episode…

In this encore episode, Saren interviews Stephanie Langford from Entrefamily.com about her amazing and budget-friendly around-the-world family travels and how every family can help their children become “citizens of the world.” For full show notes, visit poweroffamilies.com

Join Saren and her two youngest sons as they discuss the creative schooling solutions they've come up with for this year. They've worked hard to find what will work best for her sons and best meet their needs. I think you'll be intrigued. For full show notes, please visit poweroffamilies.com

What do you think is the key to happiness? Could it be gratitude? In this episode, Saren reads three popular posts on gratitude. Each post offers stories and concrete ideas to help you pump up the gratitude in your personal life and in your family and enjoy all the happiness it will bring.

What kind of schooling is right for our children? Public school? Charter school? Neighborhood school? Private school? Homeschool? There are so many choices these days! In this popular episode from our archives, Saren and April (director of our sister site, Power of Moms) share what works for them and offer helpful ideas to help you decide what is r…

Feeding our families is one of the most basic things we do as parents. It can be stressful and haphazard - or it can be deliberate, efficient, and even joyful. Listen as Saren and Power of Moms Director, April, discuss ideas (their own and ideas submitted by our community) for how you can develop a meal planning system that really works for your fa…

Join Saren as she interviews her fabulous, and renowned mother on ways to instill positive character traits!

n this episode, Saren shares three important ways that we can set our children up for strong friendships now and in the future. She shares specific and easy ways that you can help your children learn to: Resolve their own conflicts and repair problems that arise between them Bond with each other through working, playing and experiencing things toge…

In response to questions from readers, Saren offers concrete ideas for how we can work more effectively with children who are strong-willed, opinionated, and/or stubborn and who we clash with all too often. As a fellow struggler iwth this issue, Saren uses specific scenarios to explain the approaches and steps that can help us get on the same side …

In this fun episode from a couple years ago, Saren interviews her 9-year-old twins about their summer goals and about why goals and some “productive” activities are important during the summer. Included in this episode: Ideas for specific goals and ideas for how to set goals in a variety of different areas How to keep from being bored during the su…

Listen in as Saren is interviewed by the group "Family Looking Up" as they discuss ways to help prevent entitlement with our children.

Today we are bringing back a favorite episode to help you prepare for summer. Those long, lovely summer days can offer some of our family’s best memories, but how do we create a little more structure so that we can make the most of summer? How do we motivate our children to do some reading, get some exercise, and help out around the house rather th…

Children of all ages often feel that they don’t have all the freedom they want and this can be manifest in tantrums and power struggles and teenage rebellion. How do we decide what choices our children should have? How do we help them recognize the freedom they already have? How do we help them learn to make good choices? In this episode, Saren and…

In this week’s episode, Saren interviews Stephanie Langford from Entrefamily.com about her amazing and budget-friendly around-the-world family travels and how every family can help their children become “citizens of the world.”

In this week's episode, Saren talks with her mom and sisters, Shawni and Saydi, about how hard it can be to involve our kids in basic housework and go on to brainstorm concrete ideas for how we can get our kids to participate in housework in a positive and effective way.

Join Saren and Kristen Jensen as they discuss the importance - and better yet - strategies to porn-proof our kids.

In this week's brand new episode, Power of Families Director Saren and her sisters, Shawni and Saydi, and her mom, Linda Eyre discuss their thoughts, ideas and experiences about technology and screentime in today's world and in their own families. Some of the issues addressed are: How to keep from using phones as a crutch too often with our younges…

The word "housework" is often corrected to "drudgery," "whining," "nagging," and "necessary evil." But housework can actually be a fun and meaningful relationship-building activity. Saren and April share practical and simple ideas for how we can get our children effectively and positively involved in keeping up our homes.…

When we begin with the end in mind, we have a much better chance of helping our family become all the wonderful things it can be. In this episode, April and Saren offer concrete ideas to help you: decide together who you want to be as a family come up with fun family mottos, mission statements, cheers, and/or songs to help you support that vision…

Feeling overwhelmed by the stuff in your home? In this episode, April and Saren offer practical tips for streamlining and organizing the toys, clothes, dishes and furnishings in our homes. They focus on ideas to help you: Make sure you've got the right things in your home (and get rid of the wrong things) Make those right things easier to find and …

"Discipline" and "fun" may not seem like they belong in the same sentence. But they actually work very nicely together. In this 20-minute episode, Saren and April share three fun and simple ideas for making discipline in your home more fun and more effective - at the same time! Listen and learn about how an "angry hat," a "gunny bag," some puppet s…

Parenting teenagers is a whole new ball game! Power of Families Founder, Saren, and her sister, Shawni, who runs the popular blog, 71 Toes, have three teenagers between them plus a couple of pre-teens. They share what they're learning about building and maintaining strong relationships with teenagers.…

Paying a little extra attention to the positive "rituals" and "traditions" of our every-day lives can really build relationships and enhance the love in our homes. In this podcast, Saren and April share great ideas for enhancing your family's: morning routines after school snack time family dinner time tuck-in time weekend activities…