EVERY MOMent COUNTS!
Hi – I’m Darcy Kimmel. I am a Mom who has raised two girls and two boys and in the process, I’ve been there and done just about anything you can think of. The good news is that everyone survived and, if it can be helpful to others, I love sharing from my experiences. I am also the Vice President of Family Matters where, according to my granddaughter Riley, I “let Papa think he’s the boss!” I love bargain shopping, cooking and baking, entertaining in my home and loving on my kids and grandkids! My ideal day includes chocolate, a beach, a breeze and a Maeve Binchy novel.
From a Mom Who has been There It’s a lament that I have heard too many times to count. My child is going off to college, and I’m scared to death because I have heard how many kids fall off the deep end after they leave home. Tim and I have sent four kids off [...]
Summer is forest fire season in Arizona, and right now the fires are raging in full force. They’re front-page copy in many newspapers and first lead reports on hourly newscasts as we watch the drama of evacuations, lost homes, and grueling firefighting. What used to be a bystander’s curiosity has now turned into a personal [...]
10 Ways to Help your Child Finish Strong As I bring this blog series, The Importance of Building Character, to a close, I think it’s only appropriate that we end on the character trait of endurance. In our Raising Truly Great Kids Conference, we define endurance as “the ability to keep going when everything is [...]
If we were to write a classified ad for a parent, one of the parts of the job description would be character building. It is a non-negotiable for any conscientious parent and, like so many of our responsibilities, one that takes a deliberate approach if we want to succeed. It’s character that provides [...]
A Guest Post Series by Darcy Kimmel from Family Matters. Part 1 – The Importance of Building Character “Some parents can’t cut the apron strings when their kids leave because of their fear and trepidation. They become helicopter parents, hovering within a text or phone conversation away — calling them when it is time to get [...]
The Importance of Building Character Part V: It’s the beginning of a new year, and there is no better time to set some fresh goals. As moms, ours probably include something to do with those few extra pounds we accumulated over the holidays and the ongoing challenge of de-stressing our lives. Come to think of [...]
The Importance of Building Character Part IV – Generosity: The cure for the “gimmes” There’s a super villain that shows up this time of year. I call him the Green-Eyed Monster of Greed. He attacks children’s hearts with the “gimmes” and delights at turning this “most wonderful time of the year” into a “very whiny [...]
It’s a scene that we’ve all witnessed and one that’s all too familiar to most moms: a screaming kid having a tantrum in the aisle of some store because he is not getting something that he thinks he wants and deserves. We all feel for the mom because we’ve been there before, and we all whisper [...]
The Importance of Building Character — From a Mom who has been There. Part Two: Integrity — The American Idol of Character As I write this blog post, I am on an airplane flying to Florida to celebrate my mom’s 80th birthday. I’m pretty sure if I stood up and asked the 14 people in the [...]
Definition of sexting: the transmission of photographs of private body parts, people engaged in sexual acts, and graphic, tawdry sexual communication via cell phones and personal computers. It is as old as time and first raised its ugly head in the Garden of Eden: taking good and using it for evil that is. Just like [...]
