Learning Social Skills in the Summer

Nothing has plagued the homeschooling movement more than the idea that a child, who is not immersed in a traditional classroom setting, would be deficient in social skills.  In fact, some families have shunned the idea of educating their children at home because they feel the choice would turn their kids into social outcasts. This is a complete fallacy. There are a myriad of opportunities for homeschooled children to learn how to get along with their peers, though, summer often provides the most varied choices.  Some of the most popular include: Camps:  Some homeschool co-ops organize their own summer camps, … Continue reading

Learning through Example

Parents are the biggest influence on a child’s life. A parent’s job is to mold and shape a child to function productively in society. While, family values vary from family to family, most want at the core the same things for their children. I have yet to meet a well intentioned parent who did not want a happy, compassionate, well-rounded, and wise child. We may want a doctor or a lawyer in the family but above all we want healthy and happy children. We also want children who show proper discernment and made good decisions in reference to time management. … Continue reading

Election Lessons

On the way to school yesterday morning, I had the radio on. A caller from Kentucky mentioned that when parents go to the polls to vote, they can take their kids along and they get to participate in their own election. They even get a real ballot and the kids’ votes are tallied. This gives them the opportunity to see who their peers are voting for. My 13-year-old son spoke up and said that they are probably just going to vote for the same person as their parents. In other words, they are swayed by the influence of them. This … Continue reading

What to Do With the Skeletons in the Closet

Genealogy research uncovers a lot of information about a person’s family. Not every piece of family history is going to be positive and pleasant to discover. What do you do with the skeletons that you find hiding in the back of the closet? Everyone who decides to take up the hobby of genealogy has an interest in learning more about their family. There are people who are certain that they are related to someone famous, and are hoping to prove this in their genealogy research. Others search for interesting family stories to pass down to younger members of the family. … Continue reading

Movie Review: “Walking on Water”

When popular surfer Ryan Jennings was a young teenager, his parents divorced, leaving him confused and full of questions about his life. One of his mentors, also a surfer, took him on an amazing trip to some of the most challenging surf spots and taught him valuable lessons, not only about the sport, but about himself. As an adult, Ryan wanted to pay it forward and do the same for two young surfers. He found the two boys he wanted to take by watching their performance on the water. Tyler was a fourteen-year-old with a shock of yellow curls. His … Continue reading

The Counselor / Guiding Personality Type

The “Counselor / Guiding” personality type, or the INFJ personality type, describes a person who is an Introvert (I), who perceives the world through their Intuition (N), who relies on their Feelings (F) about the people and circumstances involved in a given situation as a basis for decision making, and who views the world from the vantage point of Judgement (J). If you are an introvert, it means that you are more comfortable focusing on your own inner thoughts and ideas than you are with interacting with a room full of people, especially if you do not know those people … Continue reading

Recipe For a Happy Marriage

Given the increasing rate of divorce what can we do to safeguard our marriages and make sure we don’t end up among the statistics? Here are some suggestions that we have found work in our marriage. Take all the ingredients below and out them together in a marriage. Hold on tight to what you have. Consider your marriage and the positives of your spouse and don’t forget to let him or her know how much you appreciate their special qualities. Overlook their faults. We all have them. Love is about accepting the other person for who they are faults and … Continue reading

Stress: Always Look for the Bigger Picture

It’s a strange fact, yet I encounter it over and over again. The people who have relatively minor worries in their lives often stress more than those who have genuine life-threatening or life-destroying illnesses. Now this doesn’t seem to make sense. Yet, as stressed as many of my clients are, in general, they worry a lot less than those who live more seemingly carefree lives. As a psychologist, I have over the years heard some terrible stories of extreme hardship, and yes, these people are often chronically depressed and anxious. And yet, the majority of the so-called “normal” and “healthy” … Continue reading

Are You Passing on Negativity and Criticism?

We want our children to take on our values and we might even be secretly hoping that they might inherit some of our “better points”–but children also have a way of showing us the less savory sides of ourselves. We can pass on all sorts of things–values, personality traits, and belief systems without really intending too. If we tend to be critical and negative about people and things that happen–we could be ensuring that our children will also be negative and critical. It can take some hard self-evaluation to identify if we are being openly critical and negative. Do you … Continue reading

Accepting All the Different Influences

When I set out on the road to parenthood, I saw myself as the idyllic mother who would have intense, benevolent influence on her children. They would absorb my ideas and values and I would send them out into the world as all the things I wasn’t. Well, reality is a little bit different. Even in those early infant stages, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was not the only influence on my children… At first, I fought a lot of those outside influences. At least, I saw them as “outside” influences, even though my … Continue reading