Death by Sugar

A couple of weeks ago my friend J. put a picture up on her Facebook wall that was truly inspiring.  It was of a dessert she made for her son's birthday.  My teenage son took one look at it and decided it would be perfect for his birthday as well.  So, we thought we'd document the decadence in case you'd like to try it for your next big celebration.  

As with most perfect things, this dessert is poetic in it's simplicity.  Just 4 ingredients- all of which you can buy ready made if you want to.

1. Chocolate chip cookie dough
2. Oreos (double stuffed is the only way to go)
3. Brownie mix.
4. Marshmallow cream (or is it creme??)  There's no milk in it at any rate.

We're a milk-free household due to a severe allergy in our family so we opted to make homemade chocolate chip cookie dough and a brownie mix that doesn't use milk.

First you line a 9X9 inch pan with waxed paper.  You could be really careful about it and get it all nice and pretty or you could just shove it in the pan like I did.  Next, spread the cookie dough into the bottom of the pan.  I cut the dough into slices and arranged them on the bottom and then squished it all around until there were no holes and it went all the way to the sides.

Now open the package of Oreos and eat two to make sure they aren't stale.  You might want to try another one just to be sure.  Once you're positive they aren't stale place them in the pan in a nice neat pattern.  If you're a bit creatively uptight like I am you will be very satisfied that they make 4 perfect rows of four- a square!  Everyone knows the squareroot of 16 is 4 and here you have your proof.  If you're into unschooling you could call it a day for math.  (Just kidding- really.  Unschoolers are misunderstood.)  I digress.

Now you're ready to put your brownie mix on top of the cookie/oreo concoction you've got going.  Smile.  This is going to be great.

Bake it all for 30 minutes.  Cool and frost with the marshmallow creme.

Put it in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve it.  Take a butter knife and poke around the sides to loosen the waxed paper and then pull the whole cake out by the paper.  Peal the paper off and put the cake on a plate.   As soon as you take the cake out of the fridge the marsmallow creme will start to run down the sides so hurry up and get your camera out if you want to take a picture of the layers.  Use your biggest knife to cut it into slices. 

 Sing to your special birthday person and enjoy.  If you have neighbors you like you could share with them.  Or not.  My husband declared that his heart was beating super fast after eating this.  I'd like to think it was just because we're still so in love after all these years.  Could be the sugar though.

Try it and let me know how it turns out!

Hoarders and Vacuums

I don't watch much TV but the other day I ran across a program  about the lives of hoarders that completely drew me in.  Over the years I've read articles about the occasional New York spinster found dead in her apartment underneath piles of newspapers she collected.  One story that stuck out in my mind was about a man who died in his stuff but no one found him for three years because no one cared enough to check on him.  These incidents were anomalies, I assumed.  Surely, no one was really living this way.  Apparently, I was wrong.  According to the show, it is estimated that about 15 million people are completely encased in their posessions.  Many of them are not hermits or spinsters but have spouses, children, friends and co-workers.

The first time I watched one of these shows I sat there with my mouth wide open for the entire hour.  I just couldn't get over the amount of stuff these people had accumulated.  More shocking was the quality of the stuff.  Most of it was worthless trash.  Empty wrappers, old magazines, used items that were outdated or broken, all piled shoulder high.  These folks went to incredible lengths to move from one room to another, making little paths and climbing over their posessions.   Some of them had entire sections of their houses that were inaccessible.  One man ironically had to climb out of his fire escape and back in another window to get upstairs in his house because the stairway was impassable.  Important areas like kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms had lost their functionality.  The hoarders were washing their dishes in the tub, eating with plates on their laps in front of the TV and sleeping in makeshift chairs or on the corners of bare mattresses while fleas, flies, roaches, mice and rats ran rampant throughout the house.

I must admit, my first reaction was one of disgust.  How could people allow themselves to get to this point?  I thought that compared to these homes, my piles of clutter made me seem like a minimalist from IKEA.  After this initial smug response, however,  my senses got ahold of me and I realized that these are real people, living in real houses, with an enormous amount of stuff and hurt.  It also dawned on me that at the heart of this disfunction was a feeling of utter emptiness and despair.  All hope and meaning were lost for these folks.  They felt unloved and helpless even when surrounded by friends, co-workers and family members who DID care.

Each of these shows follows a common pattern: they identify the hoarder, highlight their disfunctional lifestyle, identify past trauma and hurt as causes and then offer help to the hoarder change their life patterns and responses to the stress or grief that originally set off this behavior.  Hoarding is a very complicated problem and I don't have the medical background to analyze all of the causes and effects.  I can only see that the outcome of hoarding is the destruction of homes and more importantly, souls.  None of the hoarders I've watched claims to have peace.  They may say that they are comfortable with the filth, deception, disorganization, ludicrous work-arounds and constant aquisition of things but they never say they have peace.  All they say is that they feel compelled to obtain and hold on to stuff.  They are prisoners of their posessions.

This bring me to the root of it all: hopelessness and the search for meaning.  The desperate attempt to obliterate the emptiness and futility of life under piles of stuff.   Blaise Pascal said “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”  The hoarder is an explicit example of this but I am really no different than he.  At one time in my life I had a God-shaped void  as well.  I filled it with other things- not nearly so obvious as the hoarders I've seen but no less futile.  Left unchecked my quest to find hope where there was no hope could have led me down a path of destruction that would have been very obvious to others- like hoarding, substance abuse or materialism, exercise, eating, shopping, watching TV, improper relationships, any number of meaningless roads that lead to destruction.   In the end, the only lasting peace I found was in Jesus.  


Since I started thinking through my emotions about what I was witnessing on these hoarding shows, my heart has softened to these folks.   I see them as people who need what we all need: redemption, hope, peace and meaning for life.    There are not enough dump trucks in the world to haul away the sin we all bear.  No amount of human impetus and  effort can make a person's soul clean for all of eternity.  There's not a therapist in the world who can untangle all of the hurt and disfunction in the heart of men.   These things are found and freely given away for free in the only One who can fill up our hearts and set us free: Jesus Christ. 

How to Make the Mother of All Home School History Timelines

The New and Improved MOAHHT Timeline is 37.3 feet long.

            We are in our third year studying World History.  Two years ago we started with creation, traipsed through Ancient Mesopotamia, Assyria, Greece and Rome.  The next year we moved on to the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation.  And now we have finally landed at the age of Revolutions, Enlightenment, World Wars and Post Modernism.  I have to admit that I have never had so much fun learning about history.  Everyone says that you learn exponentially more when you have to teach a subject and that is definitely true.  I’m pretty sure I was paying about as much attention as anyone else in high school and college when I took world history but somehow I had some gaping holes in my over-all big picture.  I’ve been gradually patching those up as I prepare for our history lessons.  There is nothing like taking your time and really getting into it to help put everything into perspective. 

            When I started homeschooling, I read that lots of home school families make a history timeline and add to it over the years.  I thought that it was a brilliant idea and decided to make my own.  We happened to have a huge cardboard box left over from something so I cut it up  and made a 22 foot long timeline which we have been using faithfully to record the Trojan war, Francis Bacon, the Roman Empire, Bach et. all.    I can’t tell you how helpful it has been to have a visual reminder of when things happened to help keep it straight in my mind.  I know the kids are enjoying it too.  They’re making lots of connections and having those “Aha!” moments that are so exciting when you home school. When you see that 2012 is 20 feet away from Ancient Egypt you get an idea of how long people have been around- and how short American History is compared to World History.  

The other day I looked at our timeline and started thinking that although it was loved- a la Linus blanket,  it was really a bit junior varsity.  It’s made of plain old brown cardboard and every two weeks we  fold it  up and stick in the closet.  It's looking a big raggedy.     Plus, I am a selectively organized person (only a few choice areas of my life are organized) and it was bugging me that the timeline was hard to read and not categorized. Charles Wesley, The Rococo Period in Art and The Seven Years war were all in there together.    

Humble and Jumbled.

Ye Olde Timeline coming in at 22 feet.

Of course, I could buy a timeline ready to go off the internet but that would just be too easy.  I really wanted it to correspond with what we are learning.   Plus, I wanted to have the visual impact of seeing how far away those ancient dates really are and I didn't want to have to squint too much.    

So, I did what I tend to do and set out to improve the timeline.  Everything can be improved.  :) What I’ve got now is the Mother of All History Timelines and although still probably not considered pro, I think it is at least more varsity than my old one.  Certainly more organized and easy to read.  I have found it very helpful to be able to look at one thread of Science history and another one of Music and Art, Religion, etc. We are already having blast adding stuff to it.  It is 37 feet long and made of 16 pieces of poster board.  I know, where in the world do we keep it?  Well, we’re pulling it out when we work on it every couple of weeks and I keep it in a  cardboard folder that easily hides behind one of our doors.  This was actually the packaging I bought the poster board in.

Storing the timeline- notice the gecko (school mascot).

I’ve separated each sheet into 6 sections: Religion and Philosophy, Literature/ Theater, History and Politics, Science, Music and Art, Eras and Epochs.  Not all of the sheets have the same increments of time but it gives a general idea.  If you gave even weight to all the dates you'd have a timeline that wraps around the block.  

So, how can you make one of these nifty timelines for your very own?  It’s your lucky day!  You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  I just happen to have written down the instructions.

5,000 years of World History in 37.3 feet

You will need:

16 sheets of poster board 22”x 28”

A pencil

A yardstick

Markers: black, blue, red, purple

This is a bit time consuming but you can take a few days and work on it or have your kids help you. 

1. On each sheet: Number in the right hand corner 1-16.

2.  On 15 sheets: Draw a horizontal line (divide the sheet in half) with black marker at 11” to form the timeline.  Then divide those halves into thirds by drawing horizontal lines with pencil at 3 ½” , 7 ½ “, 15” and 18 1/2”.   This isn’t exactly even but it is easy to measure and it’s close enough for me.  You will have 6 sections.

Dividing your sheets into 6 sections.

3.     Here’s an overview of what you will be doing:  These will be the headings for your sheets.  You can either hand write them or type them up and print them.  Cut them out and glue them to the tops of the sheets  in order ( See picture). 

a.     Sheet #1 AD 3000-AD 2500 (500 years) 2 ½”=50 years

b.      Sheet #2 AD 2500-AD 1800 (500 years) 2 ½”=50 years

c.       Sheet #3 AD 1100-AD 400 (500 years) 2 ½”=50 years

d.      Sheet #4 AD 400- 300 BC (700 years) 1”= 25 years

e.      Sheet #5 300 BC-1000 BC (700 years) 1”= 25 years

f.       Sheet #6 1000 BC -1300 BC (300 years) 2 3/8 “= 25 years

g.      Sheet #7 1300’s (100 years) 1”= 25 years

h.      Sheet #8 1400’s(100 years) 1”= 25 years

i.        Sheet #9 1500’s (100 years) 1”= 25 years

j.        Sheet #10 1600’s(100 years) 1”= 25 years

k.      Sheet #11 1700’s(100 years) 1”= 25 years

l.        Sheet #12 1800-1850 (50 years) 2 ¾”= 5 years

m.    Sheet #13 1850-1900 (50 years) 2 ¾”= 5 years

n.      Sheet #14 1900-1950 (50 years) 2 ¾”= 5 years

o.      Sheet #15 1950-2020 (70 years) 2”= 5 years

Add Titles to Your Sheets

3.   For all sheets:

a.     Mark 100’s in red.

b.     Mark 50’s in purple.

c.      Mark 10’s in blue.

d.     Mark 5’s in black.

4.  On the sheet you have left over (this is sheet #1) draw a vertical line at 7" to start recording history around 3000 BC.  I put a little jagged green line to note the fact that there’s some undetermined amount of time between when we start recording history with Adam and Eve and the year 3000.  At 7 ½” mark the year 3,000 in red marker (you might want to do all of this in pencil first and then go back over with a marker in case you make mistakes.) Then mark every 2 ½ inches.  (2 ½ “=50 years on this sheet.) Remember to count “backwards” since you are working in BC.

Sheet #1 is a little different.

6.  Make your Categories.  Copy these into a Word Document, use a bold font that is about 1/4 of and inch tall.  Make 16 copies of this list.  Cut them out and paste them onto each sheet (on the left hand side) in this order:  

Religion and Philosophy 

Literature and Theater 

History and Politics 

Science 

Music and Art 

Eras and Epochs

From Sheet #1

7.  Now you are ready to mark each sheet in pencil according to the measurements in # 3.  Put the dates below the lines (in pencil) making them about 1/4 of an inch tall.  Each sheet starts with the same number with which the last left off.  Go back over the numbers in marker following the color scheme in #4. Remember that on Sheet #5 which is AD 400-300 BC you will reverse the direction you are counting.  (See picture).  You can make a year 0 even though there is no such thing- or you can put

AD 1 and 1 BC on the same line.  There are actually 9 years between AD 5 and 5 BC.

Sheet #5 The birth of Jesus.

Start where the last sheet left off.

The 1700's

8.  Now, for the fun part.  Decide what you want to put on your timeline.  Just start wherever you are in your studies at the moment and don't worry about filling in the rest of the stuff.  This is a timeline you can work on for years.  

Make a list of all of the people, events and eras you want on the timeline for each chapter of your book.  Start a powerpoint file and add each of these items on your list to the presentation.  Then find pictures to go with the captions.  The pictures and captions should be small- maybe 1" wide by 1 1/2 " high.  You could add text to a document and have your kids search for appropriate pictures.

Be sure to include the date on each picture so you will now where to put it on the timeline.  For people, we usually try to pinpoint a special event in their lives like when they wrote a certain piece of literature or when they invented something and pin them to their claim to fame.  For other people who have too many claims to count, we just  pin them to the time period in their life when we feel they were most influential.  This is usually toward the second half of their life.   You are the boss of your timeline. 

9.  The Eras and Epochs section is used for any long period of time you would like to note during history that doesn't fit into your other categories or that would make things messier if you added it to a certain category.  For instance, there are many artists and musicians you could add to the mid 1700's so that section will probably be filled with pictures.  Use Eras and Epochs at the bottom of your sheet to denote the Baroque period in art and music.

Adding Eras and Epocs

10.  Don't forget to add yourself!  Add everyone in your family and other important ancestors or family events.

11.  Have fun and let me know how your timeline works out!

Keeping a Home School Gradebook

For me, the two most time consuming aspects of homeschooling are preparation and gradekeeping.  For younger students it is a little easier to keep track of grades but Middle and High School start to get complicated.

I've recently started using the free version of  Jupiter grades which has been a huge help in keeping track of everything and making sure there are no mistakes.  Jupiter used to be called Snap Grades and is used widely by public and private schools.  It is very secure and is completely online based. You can set up weighted grades and print report cards directly from the site.   Here are some pointers about setting up a gradebook with Jupiter.

1.  The first thing you need to do is set up an account on Jupiter Grades.

2. Next, you will set up a separate class for each student.  There will obviously only be one student per class unless you have twins or children who are in the same class.  I named all of my clases with the grade first and the name of the class second.  For instance, 9th Physics.  That way, I can easily see which class goes with each student.  So, at the top of my page I have 14 classes showing because each student has 7 classes.

3. Next, go to to Set Up> Grading Options and set up your grading periods, grade scale and how all of the grades should be weighted.  For example, Tests 50%, Quizzes 25% and Reports 25%.  You will probably have a different set up for each class.  Some classes might have a participation or assignment grade (daily work).

4  You might want to set up a time every week or two to log grades into Jupiter Grades so you aren't left during the last week of the grading period scurrying around trying to get it all done.  I have my kids record their grades every day in every subject next to their assignments for that day so all of the grades are in one place for each child.

5. To print Grades, go to Print > Report Cards.  You can choose to print just that quarter or the whole semester, or the whole year.  You can also decide whether you want number grades to show or just letter grades.  For high school, it would be better to have number grades listed with letter grades.  You can also have it calculate a GPA.

6. Watch the tutorials for other tips.

How do you keep grades for your home schooled students?  I'd love to hear your ideas.

You Have Made Us For Yourself

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God...Ps 19:1

        The kids and I finished an 8 part DVD series by John Piper called "The Blazing Center" for part of our Bible curriculum this year.  Great stuff. Tons to think about and jumpstart discussions concerning the sovereignty of God.   I recommend it for high schoolers and mature middle schoolers. The sessions were recorded during a youth retreat at his church and they have a very powerful message for teenagers:

God is really serious about His glory.

He lives to be glorified.  He will not NOT be glorified. 
In fact, he created the entire universe to bring Himself glory. 

Consider these passages:

Exodus 14:4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” So the Israelites did this.

Isaiah 48:11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. (Refined you and tested you) How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another.

Psalm 19:1The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands

        God is radically God-centered.  He is passionate about his own glory and He wants us to share that passion. In fact, the only way we can glorify Him is to treasure Him above all other things and find our complete satisfaction in Him.  He wants the chief desire and longing of our hearts to be Him. Only Him.

        This brings  up a good question.   Does God's pursuit of His own glory in all things make Him vain?   If we use the same measuring stick to measure God as we do people, it might seem so. That's because we perceive things differently than He does.  His thoughts and ways are not ours. (Isaiah 55:8)  Good thing. 

        If a person made these kinds of self exalting statements we would consider them to be arrogant at least and possibly even delusional because it is painfully obvious that no one is worthy of this kind of exultation. People shouldn't be worshipped. They shouldn't put themselves before everything else. This concept may be somewhat lost these days but for the most part we understand that it isn't "right" to seek our own glory.

        Nevertheless,  our culture is big on self aggrandizing affirmations.  It's not likely that many professional coaches are telling their teams that they should think of themselves with humility.  A parade of musicians, sports figures, polititians, advertisers and others are constantly proclaiming that they are the "best" and that no one even comes close to them.  Most of us read this stuff and wonder just who they think they are?  A gift to humankind?  God? 

        Yeah, that 's just it.  We recognize that people don't deserve to be glorified.  Even nice people.  Heck, even "good" people who do "worthwhile" things with their lives.  Even saints.  We're all flawed and we know it.

        People and things don't make us happy or satisfied.  A perfect God is the only one who is worthy of our complete satisfaction and worship.  After a life of looking for love in all the wrong places, Saint Augustine beautifully declared, " You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

         People spend their lives searching for the thing that will fill up the empty places in their souls-  that will lead to satisfaction and peace.   We all want to be happy.  We all want to have joy.  We all want to be satisfied. We look for it in power, money, relationships, work, substances and self gratification but those things never completely satiate our longing to be happy.  If God is truly a good and loving God, wouldn't he give His people what they want the most?  Wouldn't he want them to pursue happiness and have joy?

        The answer is yes.  God does want people to pursue happiness and have joy.  And the truth is, that happiness and joy can only be found in desiring Him.  God is the only Being whose best gift is Himself.    God's self-exultation is actually the greatest act of His love.  When He says "glorify Me", focus on me, worship me, pursue me- above all else- He is causing us to hold up the only standard, the only One who is worthy of honor and glory- Himself.  He is not being vain.  He is being the only thing He can be- love.  To tell us to pursue anyone or anything else but Him would be to substitute something imperfect for something perfect.  Nothing else will ever satisfy all of our longings like He will.   So, our pursuit of our own joy and happiness, is not in opposition to His pursuit of His Glory,  They are the same when we are completely satisfied in Him. 

Snowy Slopes and Straining Sludge

The day after Christmas my family packed up and headed to Breckenridge for a day of skiing.  I have to admit that my number one goal for the day was to get to the end of it in one piece.  If I had some fun, great.  If not, wholeness would be it’s own reward.  Neither of my children had skied before so we went straight to the bunny slopes for some instruction.  We weren’t able to work out joint lessons with “real instructors” for the kids so my husband and I looked at each other and said, ”How hard could it be?”  We each took a child and systematically showed them the basics.  There was lots of instructing going on. “Look at me,”  “Watch this,”  “Do this,”  “Try this,”  “No, don’t do that”.  

All day. 

You get my drift.  (No pun intended.  Ok, pun was intended.  Forgive me.) 

My husband and I already know how to ski but never once did it cross our minds to say, “Hey  guys, here are some poles and skiis.  There’s the lift- good luck!”  Ok.  Maybe once but we thought better of it.  Anyway, later it got me thinking.  That’s exactly what some Christian parents are doing these days with their kids and media.  They’re driving them to the slopes and then letting them out with an iPad and a prayer.  Completely unprepared or trained navigate the slopes of our culture. 

How should Christians respond to the remarkably powerful influence of the media that floods our society?   

1. Know the Word.  This is far and away the most vital step.  In fact, none of the rest of it is going to do any good unless you have this foundation. Reading, studying , discussing and memorizing the Word, there’s just no way around it. Truth cannot be ascertained from Error if we don’t know the truth and have it residing in our in-most being.  This concept is so common it is almost cliché but bankers and FBI agents know what the counterfeits are because they study the real thing. Anything that varies from the true deal is deemed counterfeit.  Children must have this ability in order to wade through the sludge of this world.  You are investing in eternity when you make scripture memory a part of your child’s education. 

2. You can and you SHOULD set boundaries in the area of media consumption for your children.  

We need to teach our kids that we are stewards of our media engagement.  We don’ t have to watch all of this. We don’t have to listen to it.  We don’t have to play.  We don’t have to go.  Sure, we can’t hide out in little holes and hope we never have to touch the world.  It’s our responsibility to be aware of what’s going on in the culture, but we do not have to be immersed in it.  In fact, we shouldn’t be. I think that’s what Jesus was saying when he told us to be in the world but not of it.  Young people are particularly vulnerable to media.  That’s why it’s so crucial for parents to act like parents and set boundaries. 

There is such a dearth of good content (that resonates Biblically) out there in media-land that sometimes it’s tempting to let some pretty sludgy stuff into our lives.  (“it’s not as bad as XYZ show”) As parents, this is something we must constantly evaluate.  Just because tons of people watch something doesn’t make it acceptable to bring into the temple of our minds and hearts.  There’s no reason to take in sludge just because we have a strainer.  We need to learn to slow the media flow down and control it, instead of letting it control us.    Don’t consume as much garbage.  Our primary consumption of ideas  should come through the written word.

3.  Find a systematic mechanism to teach your children Christian worldview.     

Parents absolutely must be deliberate in the training of their children in Christian worldview.  Make no mistake, your children are learning a worldview whether you are officially  teaching it to them or not.  Everyone filters their ideas through some sort of grid and if you don’t give them a grid to use (the Bible) they will filter it through the grid of the world- of humanism, secularism, postmodernism, and whatever is being put forth by their teachers and the media.  I recommend a systematic approach because it will cover all of the basic apologetics of Christianity.  Your children need to have ready answers for questions such as “Is there is a God and if so, what is He like?” (All worldviews have an answer to this question) and “ Is there Absolute Truth? If so, what does this mean for me?” They need to be able to read an article in the newspaper or listen to a song on the radio or watch a commercial on TV and be able to answer the questions: What is being presented here?  Why does it have such a powerful attraction to people?  What is the truth?  How do I come up with a Truth-based answer to the culture? 

If you’re not confident about how you would answer these questions, now is the perfect time to educate yourself along with your kids.  Don’t shy away from teaching systematic worldview just because you don’t feel qualified.  Make it a priority and qualify yourself through education.   I recommend using The Truth Project for high schoolers and mature middle schoolers but there are scores of other resources out there.  Choose one and do it. 

  

4. Spend more time reading.   Reading is an analytical activity as opposed to media consumption, which is highly emotive. When you read, you have the ability to stop and think about what you have read.  Media just keeps going.  We should be reading more than watching and reading broadly as well as historically.  We must understand history from a Christian perspective. Every Christian parent  should be able to give an intelligent answer to their children when they ask: “how did we get to this point in our culture?”  If you are a bit rusty on your history of the world from Ancient Rome to Postmodern times, I highly recommend getting a highlighter and copy of “How Should We Then Live” by Francis Schaeffer and reading it this weekend.  He has written an excellent and concise analysis of what he calls “The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture”.  It should be required reading for all Christian high schoolers and those who wish to understand these times.  As George Santayana, an American philosopher and poet said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  It’s shocking how predictable the future of cultural norms is when you understand the past.

Thankfully, many Christian families have embraced the idea of reading as entertainment (i.e. reading excellent literature aloud even into the upper grades) and of getting back to the “great books” of the Western Canon.  This is the foundation of the Classical Education movement, especially in home schools and Christian schools.  As a result, there are many more children reading and thinking critically about the future in light of the past.  I find this very encouraging considering the times in which we live.

Nutty but fun.  

So,  where are you in all of this?  Take some time and evaluate your readiness as far as training your kids to respond Biblically  to media and the culture.  If you're on track, keep moving in the right direction and if you haven't left the station, get going.  Wherever you are, God will give you the insight and strength to train you children if you surrender to him and give Him control of this area of your life.

We're all in process.  I'd love to hear where you are and how God is working in you as you train your children in responding Biblically to media and the culture. 

Got Adolescents? Passport2Purity is a Key Resource

There are some pivotal life choices made during the ages of 11-15.  That's one reason my husband and I decided to be very deliberate about setting our children up for success in navigating these often tumultuous years.  Just like most Christian parents, we have been actively training them from the time they were born, and praying for them each step of the way.  It is our heart's desire that they know the Lord and that they walk in the fullness of life they can have in Him all the days of their lives.  We want to help them understand the wisdom of following the precepts God lays out in the Bible.  We always remind them that they can learn things two ways, through personal experience or through other people's personal experience.  Not all lessons have to be learned the hard way.  Wisdom means hearing and heeding the advice and council of those who are further down the road and especially of God.

The best time to think about where you stand on sex, drugs, smoking,  bullying, and inappropriate activities is not when you walk in the door to a party or get confronted with a choice.  These are things kids need to discuss with their parents in a safe, open environment  way ahead of time.

Many parents dread the "big conversation" they know they need to have with their kids before it's too late.  We've been having age appropriate conversations with our kids as the topic of sex comes up but at some point, we knew we would need to lay out the facts clearly from God's perspective and help them think through the boundaries they wanted to set for themselves.   For both of our children, when they reached the age of 12 we  did some "official training."  By that, I mean we used specially made "so now you're growing up" guides during long weekends.  For our son, we used Preparing for Adolescence (Focus on the Family) and for our daughter we used Passport 2 Purity (Dennis and Barbara Rainey- Family Life).  Both of these were excellent experiences for parent and child alike.

Our  Passport2Purity weekend was truly one to remember.  A few weeks beforehand, I made reservations at a fancy hotel here in Hawaii and started previewing the materials.  I listened to the parent CD's and gathered the materials I needed for the five activities that went with the sessions.  About a week before, I told my daughter that we would be going on a weekend, just the two of us and that we would be having lots of fun and also discussing important stuff she needed to know about growing up.

Our big weekend finally came and we headed off in the car to have a special dinner together at a restaurant.  While we were there, I explained what we were doing a little more and gave her an Adventure Journal- which was part of the curriculum.  I also read letters to her that my husband and I had written telling her how proud we were of her and how important it was to us to help her grow up to be a young lady who loved the Lord.

We left the dinner and started listening to the CD in the car.   Dennis and Barbara Rainey have a very thoughtful, conversational style that is easy to listen to.  They pepper their talks with examples, anecdotes, humor and wisdom.  It isn't stuffy or boring.  This was the first of five sessions in which Dennis and Barbara Rainey lay out the plan for the weekend and build a foundation of the importance of recognizing God's word as the authority in our lives.

To emphasize the point of each session, the Rainey's gave instructions for a one-on-one activity that a parent can do with a child.  For this first session, I bought two different 100 piece puzzles.  One I left in the box and the other I took out of the box and put into a Chinese takeout container- minus a few pieces.  Then I announced that we were going to have a silent race to see who could finish their puzzle first and set the timer for 10 minutes.  You can imagine the frustration she felt when she realized that she didn't even know what she was supposed to be putting together- there was no picture to go by!  Of course, I got more of my puzzle done than she did, although she was a really good sport about it.  The point of the lesson was that  no matter where we go or what we do, God has given us His word as a guide.  The Bible is like our box top for all areas of life.  Without the guide, life doesn't make sense.  

God's Word is like a puzzle box top.

  Then we listened to session two which was about Peer Pressure and Running with the Herd. They encouraged kids to stay on the right track and influence others with positive peer pressure instead of succumbing to negative peer pressure.   During these sessions, the parent and child follow along in their respective books and the child fills in a few blanks as she listens.  These were thought provoking questions at the end of each session and they guided us into some very important conversations.  

I had prepared a few small gifts to give my daughter, just to say, I love you.  Each one was chosen because I knew she would appreciate it.  I wrapped these up and every couple of sessions, she would open one.  

On Saturday we had a nice breakfast and then did session three, Growing to Sexual Maturity.  Yes, there was some squirming but the Raineys did a great job of presenting the facts and they made it easy to continue to keep conversation open about these issues. (There is a separate CD track for boys.)  My favorite part of this discussion was when she asked me- "So...there are two of us kids... so you guys have done this TWICE?"  Funny, that's the same thing I remember wondering when my mom talked to me when I was a girl.  :)

After that conversation we were ready for some fun so we went to the pool and  took a walk on the beach.   

Beach wedding and beach bums.

Session four was "Staying Pure" which discussed establishing boundaries in life.  Finally, "It's a Date!", the last session, dealt with dating- sharpening convictions about dating and why parents need to be involved.  This last session was an important one because after presenting ways to stay pure and set boundaries, Dennis and Barbara give the kids an opportunity to make some decisions proactively- before they are in a difficult situation.  This was a very positive session for us.  My daughter was able to think through some issues, come to conclusions and convictions and cement them by writing them out in her journal.  I gave her a special necklace to help her remember the weekend and the decisions she made.  

To top our weekend off, we went out to eat and then to the theater to see a local production of The Phantom of the Opera.  It was fabulous. 

I knew that this weekend would be an important rite of passage but I didn't realize how much it would mean to my daughter.  When we came home after The Phantom, she was overcome with emotion and said that she felt loved and knew that she had two parents who were fully committed to helping her successfully make her way through whatever the future held.  The relatively small amount of time we invested in proactively preparing her for the challenges of adolescence and the teen years was already reaping the benefit of a closer connection with our daughter.

Have you used Passport2Purity?  I'd love to hear how your weekend went.