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Q: Our daughter is about to graduate from high school. We're somewhat concerned that she doesn't seem to be overly enthusiastic about the values we've tried to teach her. This is discouraging to us as parents. Is it too late?

Jim: I'd say most parents struggle at some point with this kind of concern. Here's my advice: Be patient. You've planted the seed and watered it. Now comes the hardest part -- waiting for that seed to take root and grow.

Allow me to share a personal story. When my two now-adult sons were young, our family was traveling through open farmland. My son Trent asked, "Hey, Dad, why aren't the farmers out working?" He expected to see tractors and combines rumbling through the dirt, and rows of crops sprouting up along the endless miles of fields. But the planting season had just ended, so the landscape of seemingly empty farmland didn't tell the complete story. I explained that before the farmers could harvest a crop, they had to be patient and wait for the seeds they had planted to take root, grow and mature to ripeness.

Parents face much the same challenge. It's easy to become discouraged when we don't immediately see the results we're hoping for. But, like a farmer, you can't force a seed to grow. It has to be nurtured and given the right nutrients -- and time -- to have the best chance of taking root on its own. For a child, that includes patience, firm and healthy boundaries, solid examples from mom and dad, and buckets of love and praise.

As a parent, you do what you can while your child is under your roof. I'll presume that you've communicated (and hopefully modeled) the values you want your daughter to emulate. Now it's up to her. Her decisions as a budding adult might not always be the ones you'd prefer. But even if that seed seems dormant for now, under the right conditions it can still sprout and grow.

Q: My husband and I love each other -- but sometimes we just get on each other's nerves. If one of us even accidentally does something that irritates the other, things get tense for a while. Both of us hate this -- what can we do differently?

Dr. Greg Smalley, Vice President, Marriage & Family Formation: I heard a great story that illustrates a key point about understanding and grace. A family was sitting down to dinner. As Mom set the table, everything looked delicious -- until the kids noticed that the biscuits were badly scorched. The weary mother apologized. But the father simply smiled, slathered the hockey pucks with butter and ate without complaining. He then said to everyone: "I love a burned biscuit now and then."

After dinner, one of the kids asked why he hadn't just tossed the almost inedible hardtack aside. Dad replied, "Your mom had a very long, hard day. And she's far, far more important to me than any batch of biscuits."

Much of having a successful marriage is learning how to be patient with imperfection. Let's face it: Each of us is prone to mistakes, and we can all use a smile instead of judgment when things aren't going so well. Not to mention that "what goes around comes around," for both bad and good. A little grace can defuse a lot of conflict. In fact, many -- maybe even most -- arguments might never get started in the first place if couples simply offered one another their support instead of anger.

So, if your spouse inadvertently serves you a burned biscuit, cover it with some love, grace and understanding. It makes that minor inconvenience a lot easier to swallow.

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Jim Daly is a husband and father, an author, and president of Focus on the Family and host of the Focus on the Family radio program. Catch up with him at jimdalyblog.focusonthefamily.com or at Facebook.com/JimDalyFocus.

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