Parents want to be the best person they can for their children, but much of the time they may feel like giraffes on ice--clumsy, unprepared, and in imminent danger of going down. The good news is, our children don't need perfect parents. They need authentic, fully-hearted, relationally engaged parents who can mess up and move on more than parents who always get it right. In this freeing book, respected therapists and bestselling authors Stephen James and Chip Dodd invite parents to let go of perfectionism and micromanaging as they learn to parent from a place of emotional honesty and intimacy. Through their clinical experience and relatable true stories, they show parents that raising children to become capable, loving, and wise-hearted adults is far more about accepting our flaws than projecting an impossible standard to our children that we already know we can't live up to. Parents will learn how to resolve issues from their own childhoods, tune into their feelings and the emotions of their children, and be present with their families through both the best and worst of circumstances.

Between alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, pornography, gambling, and eating disorders, fully 25% of the population of the United States is addicted to something. Those addictions are taking a massive physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial toll on individuals, families, and communities. The problem can feel insurmountable. But there is a solution, at once ancient and supported by the latest in neuroscientific research. With an honest assessment of the facts, yet always reaching out toward hopeful solutions, counselors Chip Dodd and Stephen James explain what addiction really is, how it works, and why it is so damaging to our hearts, souls, minds, and relationships. They then take us beyond mere coping techniques that allow us to function to the real solution--restoring our broken relationship with our Creator so that we can rediscover how to live fully the way we were created to live. Each chapter includes the personal story of a recovering addict, told from the addict's point of view. The authors also include a list of books, organizations, workshops, and treatment centers people can turn to for help along the road to lasting recovery.

Through the use of story, experience, knowledge, and Scripture, we follow the author as he shows us how to walk the path toward a life of passion, intimacy, and integrity leaving a legacy that passes life forward to those we loved and beyond. Using the Beatitudes, we discover the eight movements we all must make if we are to live in freedom, fidelity, fullness, and faithfulness. With each movement, Dodd explores one of life's great paradoxes: the only way we get to the treasure we are made to possess is by traveling through tragedy and surrendering to the God who can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves."