The Oscars are this weekend and all eyes will be on who is wearing what.  Eventually, the public will get to chime in on who looked best and who wore it best.  But beyond the dresses and jewels, the Oscars can help launch some important conversations with our kids.  They can actually get us to zero in on 3 things we need to teach our children.

The Academy Awards can also make us think about what movies we’re letting our children see.  Is a PG movie okay most of the time, and is a PG-13 movie wrong all of the time?  One way to find out is to check out iMOM’s Movie Monitor before you go to the theater.  And for something different on family movie night, here are 10 Family Movies You Might Have Missed.

Welcome to the Marriage Hall of Fame.  Our first couple has been married 67 years!  They have 5 children and have had a life filled with triumphs and trials—he was president of the United States, and they lost a young daughter to cancer.

George and Barbara Bush lead our marriage hall of fame along with a couple who shared one heartbeat as they died holding hands; a couple who cemented their love with 1,000 love letters, a young couple who loved unto death; and a couple living today who have survived what real life has dealt them.

There’s room for more couples, so here are 10 things you can do to earn a spot in the marriage hall of fame.

52 Movie Love Stories

We all work hard to keep our children safe from unwanted influences and dangers. We put filters on computers, tracking software on phones, parental codes on TVs and GPS tracking devices on our teens’ cars. And while all of this policing is an important deterrent that keeps your child accountable, what happens when you’re no longer around to be “big brother?” Will your child have understood the “whys” behind the rules and adopted those values as her own?

It’s in these questions that we find the difference between surveillance and parenting. Not only must we put protective boundaries in place, but we must have a regular dialogue with our children about why some choices aren’t right, and others are. We have to point them toward a moral code that is timeless and can answer the questions that our culture has yet to even ask. Good parenting gets beyond mere rules and teaches values that stick.

The Difference Between Parenting and Surveillance

The Secret to Helping Children do What’s Right

How to Get Values to Stick

Occasionally, I’ll catch myself acting or reacting to my family in a way that’s just not me. Blowing my top over things that really don’t justify such drama, being argumentative or overly sensitive. When my emotions are noticeably out of whack, I can usually pinpoint the cause by looking at the calendar—most times, it’s premenstrual syndrome, or PMS.

So what do these repeated bouts of hormonal upheaval mean to your relationships? Who bears the brunt of your outbursts? If you’re like me, it’s your husband and your kids.   So since you can’t hide in your bed until PMS passes, take the steps below:

1.     Understand Your Symptoms, We’ve Divided Them Into 4 Categories for You.

2.     How to Talk to Your Husband During PMS

3.     Know When It’s More Than Just PMS

There was once a widow with six children.  She depended very much on her oldest child, a son.  He was her rock and she loved spending time with him fishing, baking him gingerbread, and rocking with him on the porch.  Eventually, this son wanted to become a sailor.  She forbade it.  But when he was old enough to make his own decisions he became a soldier.  She prayed for her son when he was away at battles and she wrote him letters of encouragement.  She had instilled in him the vision of her family’s motto, Aspire to the Heavens, and he did.  Mary Ball Washington was there when her son was sworn in as the first President of the United States.

How much of a difference did Mary make in her son’s life?  His own words answer that question: All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.

7 Lessons from George Washington’s Mother

Gingerbread Cake Recipe

16 Quotes to Inspire Your Children

10 Leadership Lessons for Dads, from George Washington