One day I was checking the internet history on our family computer. It's something I do regularly just as a precaution, and to make sure I know what is going on, even though we keep the computer in a common area. My kids are also never allowed to use the computer unless an adult is awake and around.

And then I found it. Lots of Youtube videos about sex. Raunchy, nasty videos.

I was completely stunned. Horrified. Literally sick. I try really hard to be a (reasonably) great mom. And I have (reasonably) great kids. We have family standards that we live by, and this is definitely not it. So how did this happen?

We did some investigating and found the curious child who had watched it. I blamed myself-I felt awful. My child's innocence and childhood had been ripped away right in our own home.

I NEVER want that to happen to you. And that is why I am telling you about this important website. If you never read another thing on Raise The Good, please read this one.

Today I completely lost it. I yelled down my sweet 5 year old. Like, in-your-face-ugly-yelling. First thing in the morning, right before I dropped him off at school for the rest of the day. Not a good mom moment.

Now, I feel awful about it. But at the time, he was running late, he wasn't obeying and wouldn't wear the coat I asked him to.  I was super tired and had a big day in front of me filled with things I didn't want to do, and no time for things I DID want to do.

 And stuff like this keeps happening:

• Do you ever feel like you want to have great conversations with your kids about important things but don't know where to start?
• Or maybe a "conversation" starts feeling like a lecture and your kids start to tune you out?
• Maybe you just don't know how to help your kids have a bigger vision of the type of person they want to be, or goals that they want to achieve.
• Maybe you want to get closer to your kids, but aren't quite sure how to do it.
  
• Are six year olds too young to start learning these things?
  

Sound familiar?

Well, Scott and Alexandra Eidens have come to the rescue! They are expecting a sweet baby soon, and as they were pondering what principles and tools they wanted to teach their child, they distilled down lessons from some of the world's best books and most successful people.

No one has taught me more about optimism in the face of adversity than my mother.  When she was only 35 years old, she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.  She told her doctor that she would not lose the battle—that she had three little girls to raise—and she fought for 13 years to make that happen.We were just 8, 6, and 3 years old when she was first diagnosed, and we were confused and frightened by what was happening to our mother.  After many months of chemotherapy, she spent almost three months in the hospital recovering from a bone marrow transplant.  Before her operation, she recorded our favorite storybooks on cassette tapes so we could listen to her voice reading to us each night.  I have a vivid memory of snuggling up next to her and my sisters, watching as she fiddled with my dad’s dictophone and listening as she read my favorite storybook, “The Magic Pot” by Patricia Coombs, in her energetic voice.  I listened to that tape almost every evening while she was in the hospital, and hearing her voice in the quiet of my bedroom brought me peace.

Wow. What a ride this presidential election has been!  With less than a month to go, things are getting a little crazy. We love politics at our house, and we often talk about the different candidates and watch the debates. I love to hear my kids' perspectives. They are hilarious and insightful at the same time.

I don't know if you are happy or upset with the two main candidates, or if you are looking at a third party choice, but I DO know that there has been a lot of fighting on Facebook and other social media sites about it. Here are some questions I have seen lately:

• Do our votes really count?
• Is the electoral college outdated or is it a safeguard?
• Can a third party candidate realistically get enough votes to split the election and have it go to a vote in the House of Representatives? Or if you vote for them, will you be giving  your vote to the enemy (whoever that may be for you)?

I went to the coolest activity this weekend.

My friend Shari invited me to a Sole Hope party. No, they didn't sell shoes or anything like that...we MADE shoes for children in Africa, instead! How cool is that?!

Due to sand fleas (called jiggers) which burrow into skin and lay eggs, children and the elderly in parts of Uganda often have painful sores in their feet and eventually, if left unchecked, become unable to walk.

We brought clean, used milk jugs, old and worn out jeans and went to work. We chatted, ate chocolate and just generally had a great time while we kept our hands busy using patterns to cut out plastic and denim.

Why?

Asher Collie, founder of Sole Hope, explains it this way as she remembers her feelings when she first found out about the jigger problem. She already felt busy and overwhelmed. She wasn't ready for a project, but this problem kept nagging at her:

If you believe that motherhood is the toughest and most beautiful job in the world, I’ve got just the thing for you. What would you say to a little (FREE!) help minimizing the hard and maximizing the wonderful involved in motherhood?

Next week only, you can attend trainings by all the best authors and speakers on motherhood topics. Plus, you don’t even have to leave your house to participate. (And did I mention it's FREE?!)

If you do nothing else next week, please promise me you will do this.

You can listen at home.  You can listen at work during lunch. You can listen while you clean. You can listen while you shower, fold laundry, exercise, or any other number of things.

WHAT IS THE MOM CONFERENCE?

*This post is written by my good friend and author Jared Garrett.
Find out more about him below.
If YOU want to share a personal hero, (Yes, you!) please click here.*

How to add to a section about heroes that already includes Tim Ballard, Eric Liddle, and a man who outsmarted Nazis on a bike? I mean, I’ve been supporting OUR for two years now because seeing people suffering in the most vile and heinous circumstances makes me want to get bitten by a radioactive spider and have gamma rays blasted at me so I can put some spandex on and save every one of them. I joke because anything else would make me too furious to write.

Another situation that makes me furious is the way women and girls are treated by fundamentalists who choose (yes, they choose) to see women and girls as property, unworthy, and deserving of beatings and other awful treatment. But Malala Yousafzai defuses my fury, transforming it into a desire to forgive, peacefully protest, and show love and kindness to all.