"Shepherding a Child's Heart" and "Say Goodbye to Whinning, Complaining and Bad Attitudes in You and Your Kids". "Shepherding a Child's Heart" is the theory of parenting from a Biblical perspective and "Say Goodbye..." is a more practical approach to parenting. I have had some of the same difficulities with my oldest child. These two books have helped me to gain a better perspective in dealing with my own frustrations with him. I have had to re-read the books several times to keep me on track with parenting him. My prayer, repeatedly, is that God will use my feable attempts in his life to grow him into a godly man. I hope this helps,

This book has so many wonderful ideas in it. I also try to coordinate what we are doing in science to what we journal about. I have found that it is more fun for my kids if we go out with another family that is just as excited about nature. Here's a link to my reivew of Keeping a Nature Journal on my website. I hope this helps :)

When my oldest son turned 12 my husband took him away for the weekend with Dennis Rainey's Passport 2 Purity CD and book guide. The book and CD takes you through the whole weekend. He has it all mapped out for you. They recommend you buy your child a gift that has a lot of meaning (my husband got my son a pair of binoculars-something he has been wanting). They also recommend you do something really fun (they went jet skiing). Then on the last night they recommend you go out for a nice dinner. Throughout the weekend you listen to a CD that takes you through the basics of puberty, how babies are made, etc. My son had a blast. My other three kids are making plans, now, for when they turn 12. Here's a link to the bookstore on their website: Family Life Today. I hope this helps :)

I schedule out my year to help me keep with the program. I started out homeschooling with a 4 year old, 2 year old and an infant. As soon we sat down with a lesson, someone would need a diaper change, used my lipstick to draw nice pictures on the bathroom floor, or need to be nursed. The constant interuptions were frustrating to me. I started writing out my plan on a spread sheet to help keep me on track. Now that I have a 13 year old, 11 year old, 9 year old and 6 year old, I use the schedules to keep my kids on track. We don't follow them to a T, but rather use them as a guide. We don't get to every project or every lesson that I have planned, but I know we are covering all the essentials in order to get finished school by the end of May. Our basic day looks like this: 7:30-8:30: Eat breakfast and do chores 8:30-12:00 main subjects (math, grammar or Latin, history or science, Spelling or writing. 1:00-1:30 Read a-loud time 1:30-3:30 finish school we didn't get to in the morning, instrument practice, art or projects (history, science or nature journaling). There are days when we go to 4:00 or 4:30, but usually we get finished around 3:30. I hope this helps you!

One of my passions is researching family history. I have done genealogy research on my family and my husband's family. I have learned so much from the hardship that they had to suffer. One of my favorite things to do is to walk through a cemetary and look at the tombstones of my ancestors seeing through their eyes what they saw when they buried their loved ones. We have a lot of family that came over to the US in the pre-revolution era in PA. It is so hard to see families who buried young children, or war heros cut off in the prime of their lives. One branch of the family was decimated by Indians. It is sobering, but also encouraging to see what my ancestors had to endure for me to have freedom and my very life. My husband always jokes that "I see dead people". I guess it's not good to dwell on the past, but it is good to learn from your past-family's history. Thanks again for sharing!

My first son read when he was 3 1/2, second son didn't read until he was almost 5, then came my daughter. She didn't begin reading until she was 7 1/2 almost 8. I was really worried about her. I thought she might have some reading problems, and just about the time I had decided to get her tested she began reading fluently. Now that she is 9 she reads as well and maybe a little bit better than the boys did at her age. My theory is that there is a reading light bulb that goes on when reading fluency begins. The timing that the light bulb goes on is different for each child. I can tell right now that my 6 year old daughter is on the verge of the light bulb switching on. This is the strategy that I used with my girls. We start out with 100 Easy Lessons. When this gets too difficult we switch over to Phonics Pathways. I do Spelling Workout and Basic Phonics Skills to reinforce the phonics skills that they are learning while doing Phonics Pathways. The combination of the three seems to help. Basic Phonics Skills is a workbook put out by Evan-Moor Publishers. It has some coloring pages, cut and paste exercises, etc. I begin spelling in Kindergarten whether the child is reading or not. I walk them through a lot of the beginning lessons painstakingly, but soon enough they begin to catch on. I think the process of learning to spell helps reinforce the phonics. I think the key is patience and practice. I hope this helps.