From the stars of TLC's critically acclaimed reality showLittle People, Big Worldcomes heartfelt advice to help today's families overcome life's obstacles together and grow closer in the process.The Roloffs are no ordinary family. Parents Matt and Amy are little people raising four children: a pair of teenage twins, Jeremy and Zachary, one of whom is average size and one who is little; preteen daughter, Molly; and the youngest, Jacob. Being part of this unique family -- where something as simple as shopping for back-to-school clothing can be a real challenge -- has presented no shortage of struggles, and inLittle Family, Big Valuesthe Roloffs share the values that have helped them and become the cornerstone of their bond.Through family stories, each member of the family weighs in on the importance of these values in their life and the lessons -- sometimes hard -- they've learned in doing their best to live by them: Amy tells of the decision she made, out of love for her family, to put her career as a teacher on hold and become a stay-at-home mom. Matt shares how keeping faith that God has a plan for him has helped him tackle any family setbacks with confidence. Jeremy describes the respect he feels for his brother Zach when he sees him on the soccer field giving players twice his size a run for their money. Zachary recognizes his siblings' love for him when they willingly sacrifice a Christmas at home to be with him at the hospital for surgery. Matt's mother, Peggy, reveals how his perseverance with a boyhood paper route helped him become the successful businessman he is today. In these and other inspiring stories, the Roloffs show us why they've become such a beloved American family and offer advice on how all families can put these values into practice to achieve a greater level of love, respect, and understanding -- no matter what their size.

The Roloff Family lives on Roloff Farms, just outside Portland, Oregon. They can be seen on the TLC television show Little People, Big World.

Introduction The Meaning of "Roloff Family Values" If you were to travel west out of Portland, Oregon, and through some beautiful, gently rolling hills, you might find yourself on a thirty-four-acre farm called Roloff Farms.That is our home and the home of our four children as well as an assortment of animals we keep as pets or livestock. It's also the site of a complete three-quarters-scale western town, a pirate ship on a pond, a three-story tree house, an almost full-sized medieval castle, a big pumpkin patch, one of the biggest zip lines in North America, and other projects we've either completed or have on the drawing board.If you've had a chance to see the Learning Channel's "reality" television showLittle People, Big World, then you have at least a little bit of a picture of what the farm looks like -- and what we, the family living on it, look like too. You know that my wife, Amy, and I are little people -- more commonly referred to as individuals with dwarfism -- living a busy life of work, running our home and farm, and most important, raising our children.One of the many results of doing the show is that we receive literally thousands of viewer e-mails every week asking us everything from what it's like to be small in a tall world to what kind of reactions we get from people when they first see us. But the question we're asked most often is what makes our family tick, how our mutual love, respect, and understanding have brought us beyond our differences to form a powerful family bond.Those values are what this book is all about.Our family -- as varied as it is -- works so well because Amy and I have had instilled in us by loving parents on both sides a set of family values, which we've built on and in turn instilled in our own kids. As a result, we now have our own set of family values, which we'll get into. Before we launch into our individual and collective beliefs, I'd like to introduce myself and my family for those who haven't come to know us through the showLittle People, Big World. The Story of Our FamilyI was born a diastrophic dwarf, meaning that I am not only short in height -- just over four feet -- but I also have severe problems in my legs, knees, hips, shoulders, arms, and the rest of my body. My joints, my hands, and my feet are all visibly deformed. The list goes on and on.All these physical problems led to a childhood spent in hospitals, either receiving corrective surgeries (some of which helped, some of which didn't) or recovering from them. In addition to those hospital stays (nearly two years combined), I spent more months than my family can count at home in braces and casts and recovering from my many surgeries. The physical problems have also led to a situation where it is impossible for me to stand up straight or walk without the aid of crutches.Amy is also a little person, but her condition is different from mine and not nearly as severe. Her genetic condition is known in medical terms as achondroplasia, which is another cause of dwarfism but one that doesn't carry with it nearly as many of the complications as I've dealt with all my life. For the most part, Amy physically leads a fairly normal life in which she is active and even coaches our son's youth soccer team. For several years, she held the difficult but rewarding job of being a stay-at-home mom. However, in the past few years she has started working outside the home -- part-time for a local youth soccer club and also as a preschool teacher.We have been married for nineteen years, and we are the proud, happy parents of four children, the oldest of which are our twin boys, Zachary and Jeremy, who were born in 1990. We also have a daughter named Molly, who was born in 1993, and another son named Jacob, who was born in 1996.Now, we know the question most people who don't know us would ask, and the answer i