Family Focus

Our sincere thanks go to Dennis & Barbara Rainey for granting us permission to print this book excerpt.

code for voice mail. A secret number for the ATM at your bank. Phone numbers at work, at home, in the car.
          And our child's at college --- the number changed again this year.
          Do you long for the good old days (maybe the mid 1980s or early 1990s) when you didn't have to answer the phone while driving, and you only found mail in the box at the end or your driveway --- not in your computer, spewing from the fax machine, or in an overnight packet on your porch?

          Our brains need braces for the information overload. People who study such topics say that a single weekday edition of the New York Times has more information than a typical person living in the
seventeenth century would have encountered in a lifetime!
          Parents certainly feel the pain brought by information glut. Everywhere we turn someone is offering more advice on how to do it right with our children.
          We know this book is full of ideas but in this chapter we will simplify the

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