“Once seen as a time for parents to step back, adolescence is increasingly viewed as an opportunity to stay tuned in and emotionally connected.” This longitudinal research study includes 4 important phases of teen development that will help explain – and meet – the challenges and changes of our beloved youth.

“You look at these young people and they’re in big bodies,” David said, “but there’s a lot of sweetness, a lot of little boy in that guy. Despite the bluster and the F-bombs, they need as much love at 22 as when they’re 12.” When their son unexpectedly died in his sleep, these parents took care of their son’s friends as part of his farewell.

“…[H]ere’s a single mother who works for low wages for a corporation that doesn’t provide child care, and she was treated as a criminal for letting her daughter do something that is relatively safe. It seemed like people were angry at this woman for not being a full-time mom — for not fulfilling the unrealistic expectation that mothers should be with their children at all times.” A fascinating look into why we judge parents for putting their kids at perceived (but unreal) risk.

“Ostensibly a book for children, Our Heavenly Family, Our Earthly Families by virtue of its publisher becomes a groundbreaking theological text for LDS grown-ups…It’s that this book’s publication, from the Church’s official publishing authority, grants church members permission to consider a true parallel between an earthly mother and our Heavenly Mother — framing the latter as a divine woman who loves us and is as actively engaged in our mortality as our Father.” A book review worth reading, for a book now out at Deseret Book. (And with gorgeous art!)

“As somebody whose job is to write about “data” writ large, I’m a big believer in its power — better living through quantification. But my relocation to Red Lake Falls has been a humbling reminder of the limitations of numbers. It has opened my eyes to all of the things that get lost when you abstract people, places and points in time down to a single number on a computer screen.” A columnist writes about “the worst place to live in America” and, a year later, finds himself living there. Happily.

“When he wasn’t blackmailing lords and being sued for libel, William Playfair invented the pie chart, the bar graph, and the line graph.” And that’s only some of the things he got up to.

“Our [the LDS Church] growth rate for last year was 1.7%, the lowest since 1937, despite the missionary surge. It’s no longer “Every member a missionary,” so much as “Every member an apologist.” Clearly, what used to work well is no longer having the same effect.” A presentation – from this year’s FairMormon conference – encouraging Latter-Day Saints to be (more) effective apologetics, ties our lives and our societies with our faiths.

“Resilience is about how you recharge, not how you endure” offers a variation to the “To Do Lists” idea of success, performance and down time. (Word association thought: the change we could make, then, from singing “endure to the end” to “recharge to the end” is intriguing.)