Over the last 18 months, we fully revised and updated the Preparation for Parenting series, with its emphasis on birth to six months; created a new, four-part Babyhood Transitions series—Parenting Your 5 to 12 Month Old; and updated the Preparation for the Toddler Years series, Parenting Your 12 to 18 Month Old. We also edited and published two GFI parenting classics, Creative Family Times, by the Hadidians and Wilsons, and What Every Child Should Know along the Way, by Gail Martin.

Another major undertaking was the rewriting and expanded On Becoming Babywise and Babywise II. Those new editions just arrived at the GFI warehouse. Along with the updated Babywise comes a new frontier for us—a Babywise Nap App.

The new Nap App will work as an analysis tool that can help parents isolate the underlying causes of nap disruptions and sleep disturbances for infants between 2 and 12 months of age. When the user responds to four basic questions, the App reduces the hundreds of nap-disturbance variables down to the most likely sources. It then generates a short list of the most likely reasons, explains each specific challenge, and offers recommendations to solve the challenge. The Babywise Nap App will be available in March of 2012.

In March of 2012, we will be releasing the new Blending by the Book, by Lance and Susan St. Clair, a supplemental workbook for blended-family households taking Growing Kids God’s Way. Each chapter of the book parallels the lessons from the Growing Kids series, bringing special application to the often-complex relationships found in blended-family homes.

We also invested a significant amount of attention to the development of our new GFI website. This site should be up and running in April 2012, along with a new Video Website, which will host a library of parenting topics presented in two-five minute video segments. We are currently in the final phase of both websites.

Behind the scenes, however, our major focus continues to be the development and production of the long-awaited Gift series. This project, which includes hundreds of adults and children in a variety of settings, special effects and weather-dependent scenes, is designed to take parent education to a whole new level. The Gift series meets the unique needs of the millennial generation. Regarding a release date for this project, the only thing we can say to the “faithful” is that “we’re working on it diligently”! We know it will be released in 2012, but since we cannot control all the filming variables, we cannot promise a date yet. Please keep us in your prayers.

Finally, our shared ministry to families has always been thrilling, inspiring and, yes, challenging. At the same time, we recognize how privileged and blessed we are to be part of this great, unfolding, heavenly drama and to be participating in it with so many couples whom we are honored to call friends.

Behind the scenes, our major focus continues to be the development and production of the long  waited Gift series. The scope of this project – which includes hundreds of adults and children in a variety of settings, special effects and weather dependent scenes – is designed to take parent education to a whole new level. While the focus of the  teaching content parallels the Growing Kids God’s Way, by no means will it replace the GKGW series. The Gift series offers a contemporary alternative that meets the unique needs of the ‘digital’ generation. Regarding a release date for this project, the only thing we can tell you at this point, is that “we’re working on it -diligently! Keep us in your prayers.

More pertinent to this website is the effort being made, by the GFI team to upgrade all our websites.  The plan is to expand our multimedia influence while consolidating  our written  resources. We are not sure when the new website(s) will officially be ‘on line’ but we wanted to alert our readership that we are actively working toward the new look and content changes.

It is precisely because we are redirecting so much time and resources to these upgrades, that we made the decision to ‘freeze frame’ this website until we migrate all the information into the new formats. For now, GrowingKids.org will continue remain active and be a handy resource and library. However, we will not be adding any new blogs or content data to this site. The next article posted will be to announce the activation of the various updated GFI websites.

Thank you for your understanding and patience with the process.

Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo

Cleveland, OH

Thursday July 16 – Saturday July 18, 2009

Childcare Now Available!!!

Our conferences are a place where new education takes place and new ideas are shared. This year’s conference has three key goals:

• Equip Growing Families leaders to disciple parents in biblical parenting principles.
• Provide Growing Families alumni parents new teaching and application on raising children reflective of Godly virtue and wisdom.
• Introduce and equip leaders to meet the parenting challenges in a post-modern society.

Whether first-time facilitator, parenting alumni, or seasoned leader, all will gain new skills for discipling, encouraging and pointing parents toward God-centered parenting in a post-modern world.

List of Workshops

Cleveland Conference Flyer

Child Care Flyer

Online Registration