Nurturing a Child’s Soul…
In his book Heartfelt Discipline, Clay Clarkson speaks about the importance of cultivating the soil of our child’s heart. He refers to the parable of the sower and the seed and compares it to how we, as parents prepare our children to live for God. “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no…
Healthful Play… what Charlotte Mason says.
Sometimes, a good dose of outside activity is all kids need. But in our culture, countless children are missing out on this crucial outside play time. They’re over-scheduled, often very inactive, and almost always on media overload. One afternoon, I realized how vital crazy outside time really is for our children. They need to let loose and have fun running wild. Charlotte Mason talks about this kind of play, and its benefits, in Volume One of the original Homeschooling Series: “The afternoons’ games after luncheon are an important part of the day’s doings… the more they run, and shout, and toss their arms, the more healthful is the play.” In fact, she suggested children spend several hours outdoors…
Learning to ‘let them be’
I often feel like I’ve stumbled through the past 8 years of parenting. There have been so many ups and down and boy, have I had a LOT of lessons to learn. I’m still learning them daily. But there’s a few that stick out as ‘life changers’ in my mind, and this is one of them- I’ve learned, when they are engaged in something positive, children need to be left alone. As a homeschooling Mom, I live this philosophy every single day. To be clear, I’m not talking about leaving them to do ‘nothing’ for hours on end. This is about spending lots of time engaging with the children and learning along side them but then, being in…
Minding our Media- teaching wisdom in media choices (for The Homeschool Village)
One of the wonderful benefits of homeschooling is the simple fact that our children are, well, home. However, because they are home so much more than traditionally schooled children, I believe homeschool parents need to be that much more proactive about their relationship with the Media. With children home, the temptation can be to allow more, less supervised screen time. It is vitally important that as parents, we’re very aware of how much and what kind of media our children are consuming. The media has the power to influence our children’s hearts, minds, and spirits. The media has the ability to negatively affect our children’s ability to think, imagine, and…
The Perfect Parent?
I’ve always been a reader. I read every chance I get. My husband even laughs at me because I read books while I brush my teeth. (I figure, I might as well make use of that time!) So, I’m always seeking knowledge, information, reading to grow and learn. A lot of my reading includes books about parenting, as I’m sure many Moms can relate. I’ve read so many books about training up our children, I couldn’t list them all. But, it seems so many of them have ‘techniques’. Even many great Christ-centered books have lists of rules about what we should do and how we should do it. 1, 2,…
