Can you judge a book by its cover? I stood transfixed as I looked at the book in my hand. The background was blue with white polka-dots that faded down into the real interest of my gaze–a classic pink convertible with a woman in a sunbonnet in the driver’s seat and two small heads poking up from out of the back seat. The title read A CAR SEAT IN MY CONVERTIBLE? Giving Your Grandkids the Spiritual Ride of Their Lives.

Finally the day came for the interview with Sharon Hoffman. She is a popular author and speaker known for her warm demeanor. When you listen to the interview scheduled to air on September 7, http://ltr.streamon.fm, from 11:00 to 11:30 am, you’ll catch the infectious enthusiasm she has for people and especially grandchildren.

So what do you think, is play really God’s way for helping us to connect with the children in our lives?

What a fun show this was. Our guest, Sydney, was a beautiful, bubbly, blonde teenager, who embraces life to the fullest. Her engaging smile and infectious laugh had us, here in the studio, smiling through the entire interview. Sydney, now a high school senior, has never been kissed, nor has she ever had a boyfriend. Does this bother her? I would say probably not. The fact that she has brought it up makes one realize that it is definitely something she thinks about. But Sydney doesn’t feel it is a bad thing – just different from the norm.

In today’s society, being different from the norm is a breath of fresh air. Feeling like you must have a boyfriend (or girlfriend) to fit in or be normal is the downfall of many teenagers. Being comfortable in one’s own skin is something that we, as parents, try to instill in our children, yet because of peer pressure and all types of media, our children think that a boy/girlfriend is necessary.

So at what age do you think it is appropriate for your child to start dating? At what age do you think it is appropriate to kiss your boy/girlfriend? My parents didn’t let me start dating until I was 16 years old. Is 16 the magical number that you can go from not being romantically involved with someone to being in a committed relationship?

Is dating important? Do you think it allows a young person to “test the waters” before diving in? Do you think dating in high school is age-appropriate, or would college be a better setting?

In our discussion we asked Sydney to evaluate these seven questions. Why don’t you give us your opinions on each of these. True or False:    

1. Dating leads to intimacy but not necessarily to commitment.
2. Dating tends to skip the “friendship” stage of a relationship.
3. Dating often mistakes a physical relationship for love.
4. Dating often isolates a couple from other vital relationships
5. Dating, in many cases, distracts young adults from their primary responsibility of preparing for the future.
6. Dating can cause discontent with God’s gift of singleness.
7. Dating creates an artificial environment for evaluating another person’s character.

In Sydney’s case, she says she really didn’t start out planning to not date until after she was 18 years old. It just happened. As the years went by, she felt more comfortable having guy friends but not having to worry about the “mushy” part of it all! And then her aunt stepped in and offered her a deal – a “No Kissing or PDA” contract! If Sydney didn’t kiss a boy until she was 18 years old, her aunt would pay her $200. Sydney did, in fact, just turn 18 years old. And I was a witness to her aunt giving her $200. If anyone is interested in a copy of this contract, feel free to email Dr. Gamblin (she happens to be Sydney’s aunt) at rose@myhomeschoolcompanion.com. I’m sure she would be happy to share!

Remember we always love to hear your opinions.

When is it Time to Sign? Well, we learned that now is the time. Infants and toddlers who learn sign language are able to communicate at a very young age—5 months old. Learning sign language makes learning an additional language easier. It raises communication awareness and abilities, and enhances the child’s vocabulary and literacy skills. Research indicates that an infant who learns sign language has a 10-12 point higher IQ level. It also enhances fine and gross motor coordination. All of these benefits give the child a sense of confidence that helps build a positive self-worth. Some additional benefits are:

Increased Brain Function

Visual right brain usage. The right half of the brain is the creative, high-order thinking sphere. We want to nurture this sphere of the brain because we want our children to be independent thinkers, not mere reflectors of other men’s thoughts.

Cognitive second language left brain usage. The left half of the brain is the analytical sphere where cognitive abilities are often measured. Signing allows for development on both halves of the brain creating additional connections or synapses.

Positive Behavioral Management Outcomes

Signing can lower children’s noise levels in the learning environment. Teaching your child to respond to signs will help reduce the noise level. Have you ever had to yell, “be quiet,” in order to get the children’s attention? It is quite comical to say the least. With signing you can greatly reduce the need to raise your voice.

Another advantage to signing is,  it enables classroom teachers and families to better support special needs children. Take, for example, the highly sensitive child. Noise can be most distracting and overwhelming for that child. If you have established some non-verbal signs, the children will quickly obey and peace will ensue. I have witnessed this phenomena where ever signing has become the culture of the family or classroom. It is not fully understood as to why sign language gets their attention better than the spoken word, but it does.

Once you’ve established a culture for signing use, you will notice the reduction of the instances of errant behavior. I believe this is a result of the child feeling heard. In other words, it provides children with the ability to understand and express their emotions in a positive way. This is particularly helpful to boys who often have a difficult time verbalizing their emotions. Now with a simple sign they can let you know if they feel sad, angry, or happy.

Check out the resources on Lillian Hubler’s website for beginning your Time to Sign!

I wrote this book with the strong belief that most addictive and high-risk behaviors can be avoided if we understand and take action to support and nurture the spirituality of the young child.

Research has proven that all addictions stem back to a low sense of self worth. This book is a call to action to support and nurture the child’s spirituality, because we know it is the essence of a child’s state of “well” being–a positive authentic sense of self-worth.

As I observed these infants and toddlers and then wrote the book, I realized so many things about my own up-bringing. This book can help you re-parent yourself, to fall in love with the wonderful creature you are! http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=84429

What an interesting title for a show. Gentle Measures. What does that mean? Gentle Measures for what? Cooking? Cleaning? Clothes buying? How about discipline? In my experience, the topic of discipline is a hot button for many people – the biggest point of contention being whether or not to spank. So often you hear, “I was spanked and I turned out fine.” And, in fact, I was spanked and I do think I turned out just fine! But does that make it ok?

Now-a-days, spanking is considered “taboo” by so many. It’s scary to give your child a swat in public for fear of being turned in to social services by someone watching from afar. Do you remember when teachers spanked students? Can you imagine a teacher spanking your child in this day and age? Yet, when you look around us, it seems that so many of our young people today are disrespectful, irreverent and downright rude. Why is that? Do you think it is because they aren’t spanked? Or could it just be lack of discipline? Discipline does not necessarily = spanking!

Personally, I am slightly conflicted when it comes to corporal punishment. Yes, my children have been spanked – but very rarely. Even my boisterous, happy-go-lucky-get-in-all-kinds-of-trouble seven-year-old has had very few spankings. Yet, when I was pregnant with my children, I absolutely intended on spanking, when necessary. After all, I was spanked as a child and felt like I deserved it every single time. I didn’t feel unfairly treated, embarrassed, or put down. And I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that my mother loved me with all her heart. But as my first child grew up, I quickly realized that with her temperament, spanking was not the answer and would do more harm than good. I had to change my plan, for sure.

Can you spank and still let a child know they are loved and valued? Basically the question arises – can you hit a child out of love? That sounds like such an oxymoron, to me. Yet I still stand on the middle ground, not sure exactly what my stance would be on spanking. I think there might be merit to spanking in certain situations. Yet, I know a set of parents who absolutely refuse to spank or do any corporal punishment, and while it seems to be more work for them at this point in time, they have a well-adjusted, very happy and secure child. I also know a set of parents who believe in spanking to teach their child right from wrong and they, too, seem to have happy, well-adjusted children. The one thing in common with both of these families is that they absolutely love and adore their children, and their children know it.

So, is there are right and wrong? Let us know what you think!

The topic of Homeschooling seems to bring out defensiveness on both sides of the issue. Today we had a debate show on the pros and cons of homeschooling. Our guest debater was Matt Bosely who is the also the engineer for our show. Matt was homeschooled as a young kid and had a lot of thoughts on the issue.

I, have spent the last five years homeschooling my children, yet just this year, I put my children into private school. Am I against homeschooling, now? Absolutely not! Will I go back to homeschooling in the future? Possibly.

So, homeschooling…is it for everyone? Is it for no one? We had one listener send us an email and he stated that he thought all schools should just close and everyone homeschool. Of course, that is not even a possibility, but it is something to think about!

One of the cons we talked about was how homeschooling consumes so much of the parents’ time. As a homeschooling mom, that was so very true. I often felt so guilty because my house was a constant mess, and yet I was at home and felt that I should be able to keep up with everything at home while my husband was outside the home as the primary breadwinner. Finally, one day, my husband sat me down and said, “Hey, you have a full time job here at home, just as I do outside the home. We take care of the home together.” But I believe that many times, the parent who stays home with the children to teach them probably feels this way at some time or another. Homeschooling is very time consuming, as it should be. It is also very rewarding.

A couple of our listeners wrote comments about homeschooling. The basic gist of what they said was that homeschooling freed them up so much. They could get up, eat, vacation, study, play all on their own schedule. Life seems to be one activity after another. Our lives seem to be so scheduled. Homeschooling does allow a little bit of freedom from that rat race that is the human life.

One of Matt’s concerns was the socialization aspect of homeschooling. Actually, he was concerned about the lack of socialization. In many situations, there are homeschooling groups that allow for ample socialization. These groups meet once a week, or whatever schedule suits them, and the children do get a chance to play and work together. But there are other cases where there aren’t any groups, and maybe no other children in the home, or, as in my case, two children but the age gap is quite large. What do you do then? There are always ways to socialize your child in one way or another but it does seem that it is much more difficult. Matt also pointed out that it seems that homeschooled children seem to be very comfortable around adults. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Homework is another hot button. It seems that traditional schools send a lot of homework home with the children. If you homeschool, you don’t really have “homework” per se, because the work is done (at home) during the day. We never did schoolwork at night in our own home, though sometimes we did go a little longer during the day to get something done.

Of course, I’m coming at this topic from my own experience and everyone’s experience is different. The way I see it, I support homeschooling as a wonderful thing. I loved homeschooling my children and miss them now, during the day. But in our situation, putting them into traditional private school was what we felt best for them at this time. What the future holds, we have no idea. For now we just keep moving forward, praying for God’s guidance in helping us to do what is best for our children and to give me patience when dealing with teachers who have the audacity and temerity to teach a different way than I do (I’m kidding!). Maybe it’s the teachers we need to pray for as they deal with an ex-homeschooling mom!

Please let us know what you think!

By Cathy Jackson

Our guest today was Sarita Holzmann, co-founder and president of Sonlight Curriculum. She and her husband John are considered leaders in the field of literature-based homeschooling. They established Sonlight Curriculum twenty years ago. Their goal was to provide families across the globe with the rich resources they need to raise life-long learners who fervently pursue whatever God calls them to do. Sarita and John have co-authored almost fifty Sonlight Instructor’s Guides, Core programs, and study helps for topics as diverse as World History to Science. Sarita homeschooled her own four children and cherishes a legacy of family-centered, literature-rich home education. She now serves as a trusted guide in how to raise disciples with a heart for God’s global work.

In looking at the big picture of what education really is, Sarita said that it is so much more than just spoon feeding our children what is written in a textbook. Education should include cultural literacy, math, training to love and serve God, memorizing scriptures, reading biographies, understanding the big picture of history, to be critical thinkers and to evaluate and understand what they are reading and discussing. What do you get when you put it all together? The love of learning. “If your child finishes 12^th grade, closes the book and says, ‘yay, I’m done learning!’” Sarita says, “then we have failed.”

Instilling lifelong learning is a goal that every parent should have. Reading great books, such as the ones that Sonlight Curriculum offers, is one way to encourage that love of learning. What makes a truly great book? Sarita gives each book a 7-point test: 1) Real or realistic characters. 2) Solid character development. 3) Content that adds to a cultural library. 4) Multi-dimensional plot. 5) Emotionally compelling. 6) Verbally beautiful. 7) Re-readable.  If your book can pass this test, then in Sarita’s opinion, and the opinion of the author of this blog, you have a good one!

With a scholarship program in place and a charitable organization that they support, Sonlight Curriculum seems to be a well-rounded, literature-based, Christian homeschool curriculum that can fit your life and your children’s education. For more information go to www.sonlight.com.

Today our guest was Dr. Sandra Doran. Dr. Doran has worked with parents and teachers for more than 25 years and enjoys conducting workshops through her business, www.TheTeacherTrack.com. She has taught on every level from pre-school through graduate school and holds a doctorate of education from Boston University. On both a personal and professional level she has had first-hand experience dealing with such issues as attention-deficit disorder, dyslexia, specific learning disabilities, emotional issues, and giftedness.

Some of the basic symptoms a person with ADD/ADHD might have would be:

• Consistantly inconsistent
• Difficulty paying attention to detail and tendency to make careless mistakes in school or other activities; producing work that is often messy and careless
• Easily distracted by irrelevant stimuli and frequently interrupting ongoing tasks to attend to trivial noises or events that are usually ignored by others
• Inability to sustain attention on tasks or activities
• Difficulty finishing schoolwork or paperwork or performing tasks that require concentration
• Frequent shifts from one uncompleted activity to another
• Procrastination
• Disorganized work habits
• Forgetfulness in daily activities (for example, missing appointments, forgetting to bring lunch)
• Failure to complete tasks such as homework or chores
• Frequent shifts in conversation, not listening to others, not keeping one’s mind on conversations, and not following details or rules of activities in social situations

Determine when these signs are exhibited during the course of the day, evening, or night. The ADHD child has these issues not only at school or at home, but also elsewhere such as extra-curricular activities or during neighborhood playtime. Forming a time frame at what age these symptoms began to show up alerts the parent to the possibilities that their child may indeed have ADHD. An ADHD child starts exhibiting many of these symptoms before the age of seven.

Dr. Doran says using the acronym AIH can be very helpful in diagnosing a child with ADHD.

• Attentional bias – We are not talking about the normal distractibility of a child, but instead, ADHD sufferers have an inability to focus on tasks, instructions, or activities.
• Impulsiveness – All children are impulsive to some degree or another, but when we are looking at an ADHD child, they are several degrees above their peers in impulvsive behavior. Their impulsiveness is constantly getting them into trouble and they do not have the ability to keep it in check.
• Hyperactivity – Hyperactive symptoms are different than inattention in that the child is always moving. They fidget and have a hard time sitting still.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health two to three percent of children have ADHD. This means that in a typical classroom at least one child is ADHD. The NIMH estimates that about 2 million children in the United States have ADHD.

A neurologist by the name of Dr. Fred Baughman estimated that 500,000 children were diagnosed with ADHD in 1985 and he estimates that there are now 5 to 7 million children with this diagnosis. Dr. Baughman’s main point seems to be that ADHD is misdiagnosed and overly medicated.

Russell Barkley, PhD, has done extensive research on ADHD and ADD. Here is the summary of some of his findings:

• Boys are most likely to be diagnosed ADHD.
• 75% of boys with ADD are also hyperactive while,
• 60% of girls with ADD are also hyperactive.
• 40% of children with ADHD have a parent with ADHD
• 50% of children with ADHD also have trouble sleeping
• Children with ADHD develop 30% slower than non ADHD children
• 65% of children with ADHD have discipline problems
• 25% of children with ADHD have a serious learning disability
• One half of ADHD children have poor listening comprehension
• Parents of a child with ADHD are three times as likely to divorce
• Teens with ADHD have four times as many car accidents and have seven times as many second accidents

 On the other hand, there are also positive traits associated with people who have ADHD:

Creativity – Children who have ADD/ADHD can be very creative and imaginative. The child who daydreams and has ten different thoughts at once can become a master problem-solver or an wonderful artist. They may be easily distracted but sometimes they notice what others don’t see.

Flexibility – Since they don’t consider a lot of options at once they are usually more open to different ideas.

High Energy – When children with ADD/ADHD are motivated, they strive to succeed and work and play hard.

Curious – Children with ADD/ADHD are not usually boring! They are interested in a lot of different things and their curiosity makes life very interesting.

Keep in mind, too, that many children with ADD/ADHD are intellectually or artistically gifted. We totally believe that every child has been given unique gifts to bless others. And affirming those gifts can be a protective factor against low self-worth. Make a point to focus on what is right about your child.

By Cathy Jackson

It sounds hard, doesn’t it? Managing and Maintaining are both big words. And they mean work. So is it work? According to Cathy Turner, Chairperson for the Christian Homeschool Alliance of Texas (CHAT), the answer to this question is a big, resounding YES. But it’s a rewarding job, as well.

Cathy Turner and her husband have five children – four of whom have graduated high school from home school. Their youngest child is in his final year of high school. They are in their 11^th consecutive year of homeschooling with a total of 14 years logged in!

What exactly is a Homeschool Alliance or Association? We asked Cathy that very question and the answer was really quite simple. A Homeschool Alliance is a group of people who want to homeschool their children and get together and organize themselves accordingly. It can be as simple as 2 families, or as in Cathy’s case, 55 or more families. CHAT has gotten large enough that they now have a Board of Directors and also simple rules of conduct and a dress code. They meet two Fridays per month to offer enrichment classes such as music and art, and also to go on field trips on a regular basis. Because of the number of students they have in their group, many of their field trips have been at a much lower cost because of the group rate.

Anyone can start a Homeschool Alliance. A great place to start would be www.hslda.com. That is the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. Another source that Cathy gave us was www.peah.com where you can find a wealth of educational materials, products and services designed specifically for your homeschool family, your children’s needs and your budget!

Cathy is also happy to answer any questions that someone might have for her. You can email her at chairman@c-h-a-t.org. For information about CHAT, send your email to info@c-h-a-t.org. To send announcements about events, products, or services of interest to the alliance members, you can email them at fyi@c-h-a-t.org or visit their website at www.c-h-a-t.org.

Deciding whether or not to homeschool your child is a big decision. Having a support group, socialization for your children and comraderie with other parents who are experiencing the journey right along with you can make it a big, rewarding decision.

Jesus said, Except you’re converted as a child, you won’t enter the kingdom (paraphrased Matt 18:3). Our understanding of the “heart” of a child is of eternal importance, so I invited Elizabeth Causey to help me with this recent radio show topic. 

Elizabeth Causey

Elizabeth was born outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but grew up in the South. Her family moved every two years because of her father’s job. In the fifth grade her family finally settled in Charlotte, NC. “Because of this experience, I had a sense of not really belonging anywhere,” states Elizabeth. The main constant in her life was the church. 

Is this a bad thing for a child? Moving every year or so? What do the children of the military do? When the choice is, being with your parents or being with your friends and extended family, the choice is obvious. “This World’s not my home I’m just a passing through, my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. . .” Children trustingly go where their parents want them to go, just as we should trust our Heavenly Father’s leading in our lives. 

Elizabeth and I agreed that the emotional needs of every child’s heart are for security, love, and approval, and the child of our adult heart longs for these same conditions. God, in His great wisdom, personified each of these conditions for us in His Son, Jesus Christ. We can rest in the Heavenly Father’s hands. 

Elizabeth’s husband is the founder and director of The National Christian Choir. Elizabeth wrote the book, The Heart of a Child, to accompany a CD produced by The National Christian Choir under the direction of Dr. C. Harry Causey, and with Special Guest, Steve Green. As I listened to this beautiful recording of children’s songs, I felt transposed to the heavenly realm. Doesn’t music do that to you? Isn’t it the language of the soul? I think I’ll do a little more singing and a little less crying today.