Rick Stephens
Rick Stephens is a co-founder of Raising Families, a husband, father, and grandfather. With 33 years of experience as a top-level executive of The Boeing Company and having raised four children of his own, he is able to support parents and grandparents by incorporating his knowledge of business, leadership, and complex systems into the family setting. It is this unique combination of leadership and family life that allows Raising Families to help parents become more joyful and confident, as well as more proactive, intentional family leaders.
Rick currently resides in Alpine, Texas with wife and fellow Raising Families co-founder Elane V. Scott.
Posts by Rick Stephens
Personal Goal Setting for Kids: 3 Proven Ways to Help Kids Aim for the Stars
It's been said that if you don't care where you're going, any path will get you there. It's also been said that beautiful paths can't be found unless you get lost. Planning and getting lost are both great concepts to teach and instill in our kids. When your kids cross into their teenage years, there are a bazillion articles and countless books about personal goal setting and achieving goals. But you don’t have to wait for your kids to become teenagers to help them learn personal goal setting. What you do as a parent while your
Developmental Milestones: Are Your Kids Ready?
A common question in the minds of parents is whether their kids are ready. Are they ready for today, for school tomorrow, or taking the long view, for life? If you have an infant, there are doctor’s visits and numerous written material you can reference to make sure they are hitting the appropriate developmental milestones. If your kids are beyond the toddler years, though, how do you know if they’re hitting these developmental milestones to be ready for life? Where can you find the information? If you’re like most parents, you don’t have a ton of
5 Reasons Why Traditions Are Important for Families
The holidays are upon us as well as a time to celebrate some family traditions, many being things you look forward to that aren't a part of your normal daily routine. Family traditions are more than just something to enjoy with the family, though. Below are five reasons why traditions are important for parents and kids. Just this past week, most of us gathered for a family dinner and gave thanks for the many blessings we have. Some enjoy picking out what they want to eat for the evening meal on their birthday. Others go camping
2 Ways to Stop Yelling at Your Kids
Do you remember the last time someone yelled at you? If you're like me, you didn’t like it and just wanted the person to stop yelling. If you’ve ever yelled at your kids, they probably felt the same way. Yelling may have gotten their attention, but it probably didn’t do much else or help the situation. In the long run, all it did was teach them that they should yell when they get frustrated or angry. That’s not exactly what we want to be teaching our kids. The relationships we have with our kids have more
How to Create Opportunities for Your Kids
Many times, kids think of work as a four-letter word. Parents can show their kids that work can create opportunities, though. Parents can do this by teaching, coaching, and mentoring (TCM) their children about work. For kids, work routinely evokes strong feedback and emotion, often including statements like, "I don't want to clean up my room!" Sometimes it isn’t as harsh and is more of a question, "Do I have to do the dishes?" Regardless of the response, many kids see work as an imposition of their time and freedom to do what they want to do.
