- How will I measure "success" in my life?
- What character traits will I model to others?
- How will I build strong relationships and work effectively with others?
- What role does faith play in my life?
- How will I persevere through life's inevitable hardships?
- How do I become a masterful decision maker, goal setter, and time manager?
- How will I succeed in college academics?
- How will I select and thrive in my career?
- How will I know he or she is "the one" and prepare for a lasting marriage?
- How will I achieve my financial goals and manage my money?
- How will I measure "success" in my life?
- What character traits will I model to others?
- How will I build strong relationships and work effectively with others?
- What role does faith play in my life?
- How will I persevere through life's inevitable hardships?
- How do I become a masterful decision maker, goal setter, and time manager?
- How will I succeed in college academics?
- How will I select and thrive in my career?
- How will I know he or she is "the one" and prepare for a lasting marriage?
- How will I achieve my financial goals and manage my money?
Equipping Young Adults for Real World Success
ADDRESSING THE NEEDDennis Trittin founded LifeSmart Publishing to help address the life skills deficit hindering today’s younger generation. Observation and research suggests this looming crisis is rooted in several cultural and institutional forces:
1. increasing fragmentation of family life
2. immature or absent parenting
3. schools viewing character/life skills as the domain of parents and therefore focusing primarily on traditional subject matter; parents incorrectly assume schools are fully covering key life subjects (e.g., finance)
4. inadequate youth employment opportunities
5. harmful cultural messages from the media and entertainment industries
The end result is that our society is producing a generation of young adults largely unprepared to negotiate life, develop and maintain healthy life-long relationships, demonstrate honorable and effective leadership, build stable households, and succeed in a--- Read More
An Open Letter to Yourself to Read This Time Next Year
12/8/2020 11:09:20 PM
No matter how you slice it, 2020 year has been a really hard year for all of us. For parents, it may have looked like trying to juggle working from home and handling kids’ remote schooling at the same time. For teachers, it probably looked like figuring out how to teach kids over a computer screen (spoiler alert: it’s not designed to work that way!). Many of us may have lost loved ones and haven’t been able to properly celebrate their lives, or are mourning the loss of time spe--- Read More
Finding Gratitude in all Circumstances
11/24/2020 7:08:09 PM
I am thankful for my five little neighbor girls, who among other things, throw wet leaves at me. ~ Dennis Trittin It’s Thanksgiving Week, and that means our usual blog on the topic of gratitude. In normal years, this marks the beginning of the holiday season with tremendous anticipation, but this year has a heaviness to it, doesn’t it? We’ve been enduring one “Kaboom” after another, and, let’s face it, we’re having to work a little harder at be--- Read More
Our Tips for Raising Younger Leaders
11/13/2020 4:48:29 PM
If you’re a parent, caregiver, educator, or mentor of elementary-aged kiddos, this one’s for you! Earlier this year, I was invited to speak at a Moms program that focuses on the K-5 stage of parenting. Given that most of our parenting talks focus on the teen and young adult years, this was a fun extension of our mission of training up leaders. After all, it’s never too early to start building those skills that will serve a lifetime! It’ll come as no surprise that my --- Read More
7 Great Books for Your Parenting Toolkit
10/26/2020 2:31:20 PM
As co-authors of two parenting books (Parenting for the Launch: Raising Teens to Succeed in the Real World and Wings Not Strings: Parenting Strategies to Let Go with Confidence), we greatly enjoy (and benefit from) the writings and perspectives of our peers. We especially appreciate books that discuss the state of children and young adults and those offering practical parenting tips to add to our quiver. Truth be told, writing parenting books is a convicting experience because n--- Read More
Financial Lessons from 2020 (So Far)
10/2/2020 4:51:32 PM
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” ~ Benjamin Franklin Life is filled with lessons learned the hard way. Sometimes we genuinely don’t understand the risks in advance, but often we do and take our chances anyway. “It won’t happen to me.” “I’ll get around to it soon, I promise.” “I’ll just deal with it if it happens.” And, then, the unexpected strikes. Our company goes belly up. I get laid off after 3--- Read More
Truth for Youth Podcast: Life Lessons with Dennis Trittin
9/20/2020 10:23:50 PM
One of the most encouraging and inspiring aspects of our work at LifeSmart Publishing is meeting amazing young people who are motivated to impact the world. One such person, Jonah Swanson, is an incoming first-year student at Westmont College who is already making a difference. In addition to his studies, he is passionate about bringing practical life wisdom to youth through The Truth for Youth Podcast he created. Since this is perfectly aligned with LifeSmart’s mission, it was an hon--- Read More
4 Concerning Reports About Today's College Experience
9/15/2020 11:58:54 PM
Maybe it’s the time of year. Or, maybe it’s a sign of the times. If you ask me, it’s both… Over the last several weeks, with a new school year upon us, I’ve been reading more concerning reports about today’s college experience. Some are from reflective faculty members who witness it firsthand, while others are from parents who are footing the bill and employers who are hiring young adults. No, they are not necessarily new issues, but the confluence a--- Read More
The Most Important Goal For This School Year...
9/10/2020 6:32:27 PM
In a world consumed with constant distractions and multitasking, it seems like we’re becoming more like bumblebees—paying short visits to one flower after another. We’ve never faced “incoming data" like this before, and it’s affecting our attention spans, stress levels, and ultimately, our productivity. With the world of politics feeling incredibly polarized, the news cycle (with lots of alarmist stories!) going 24/7, and social media at the very tips of o--- Read More
How to Start Treating Your Teen Like a (Real) Grown-Up
8/27/2020 11:47:34 AM
Parents: how many times have you heard your teen say, “You treat me like a kid!” How many times have you responded, “Well, it’s because you act like one!”? Teens are constantly and increasingly tugging at the reins, wanting more and more slack. When teens ask to be treated like adults, what they're really wanting are the privileges of adulthood. A car. Money in their pockets. Decision-making authority. Autonomy. Unfortunately, because of the natu--- Read More
Building Better Decision Makers
8/12/2020 10:59:27 AM
It is undeniable that the quality of our decisions has an enormous impact on our happiness, well-being, and life success. With the benefit of time and reflection, we can see how the cumulative effect of our decisions, both good and bad, has led us to where we are today. And, they have an enormous impact on where we will be tomorrow. All of us guiding children have a special responsibility to develop their decision-making capability. (Not surprisingly, employers routinely cite deci--- Read More
Making Friends in New Places
7/30/2020 11:21:58 PM
This time of year always brings back memories of my first semester in college and the social adjustment I hadn’t anticipated. As a small town guy who knew everyone, being surrounded by a sea of strangers instead of my “regulars” was a brutal reckoning that life would never be the same. In those days, we lacked technology to keep us connected, and phone calls were simply too expensive. I remember resorting to writing letters to my friends who had scattered and were experiencing --- Read More
