Evangelical Responds to Cyrus Interview: Urges Parents to Be Parents

Billy Ray Cyrus recently admitted that he should have been a better parent to his famous daughter, Miley Cyrus, rather than a friend.

The president of Focus on Family, a prominent evangelical organization, agrees, saying that a parent should simply be a parent.

In a blog post Wednesday, Jim Daly suggested that Cyrus made bad parenting judgment by trying to be friends with his daughter – originally named Destiny Hope but who in her early years was nicknamed “Smiley” for her incessant, carefree grin.

Daly stressed that even though it’s natural for a parent to be liked by their children, they must they first have to ask themselves, “Do we want to be their best pal – or their parent who often has to hold firm and say ‘no’ when they desperately want us to say ‘yes’?”

Cyrus made headlines this week after he told GQ magazine that he regretted being in the popular Disney show “Hannah Montana” because it destroyed his family. He also lamented about trying to be a friend to his daughter as he had often emphasized in many interviews.

Read the entire article here.

By: Josephine Vivaldo|Christian Post Contributor

Encouragement for Single Parents with Teenagers

One of the toughest roles anyone can have in today's culture is that of a single parent. It's hard enough to rear a child- especially a teenager- with two parents; but with one the burdens and pressures and problems multiply. My hat is off to every single parent. But more than praise for the difficulty of their task, I know from talking to so many of them that they need someone to walk with them and encourage them.

In almost every case, a single parent is walking down a road they didn't plan to be on. They started with two parents, but something happened- death, divorce, abandonment- and now they are sturggling to fill two roles that their children desperately need. They are trying to do an already difficult task without all of the resources they need. (If you know a single parent, go to them adn find way to encourage them. They won't always know how to ask for the help they need, so take the initiative yourself.)

Practical Steps
There aren't any easy answers. There isn't a magic verse of Scripture that will fix all your problems. There isn't one "cure all" that will remove all of the challenges that a single parent faces. But there are some practical steps that can offere help and hope in this very difficult job.

Read the steps here.

-By: Mark Gregston, http://blogs.christianpost.com/parenting/2011/02/encouragement-for-single-parents-with-teenagers-09/

'Wolf Pack' Teen Bullying Case--Is America Getting Meaner?

Nadin Khoury was brought to the United States ten years ago by his mother to escape the cruelty that accompanied teh Liberian Civil War. Last month he was left suspended by his coat from a seven-foot-high fence after being punched, dragged, kicked and beaten in a Philadelphia suburb. His shocked mother said, "One of the reasons I came to the U.S. was (so) that these horrible things wouldn't happen to us."

Here we go again. Sadly, it seems every time we turn around there's a new case of bullying in the news. Back when I was growing up, bullying seemed to be almost a rite of passage for every new kids at school, a type of hazing to validate your acceptance. Of course, the big difference in those days was that the bullying was usually only at the schoolyard an dtypically petered out quickly. Now, in the cyber world there is no respite and bullying has taken on a much more sinister tone.

Today kids have to deal with not only physical confrontations, but are also virtually pounded 24/7 via Facebook, Twitter and cell phone by text, calls and voicemails. In some cases (think Tyler Clementi) personal situations are videotaped and posted on teh internet for all to see. In others (Phoebe Prince) the bullying lasts for months on end. In addition, as in these two caes, suicide is being seen more and more an an end result with these kids.

Read entire article here.

by: Dr. Dale Archer, FoxNews.com