Kirk Martin from Calm Christian Parenting had 4 sessions at convention this year. I had never heard of him, but the session titles jumped off the page at me as something I needed to listen to. After the first session, I was hooked. I wanted to hear more! I wanted him to move in with us! At his sessions, he didn't have a powerpoint. He didn't have handouts. He just talked. I wrote furiously snippets of his talks. I am warning you that these notes are not in outline format. These are just sentences I wrote as I listened to him talk. Hopefully some of what I have written will help someone else. And if you EVER get an opportunity to hear Kirk speak - TAKE IT. It WILL change the way you parent!
Are You at Your Wit's End?
What if kids are created this way? What if they are like this for a purpose? What if I'm trying to change them when I'm the one that needs to change?
It is not my job to control their behavior. I'm in charge of my behavior and I need to teach them to control themselves. Teach them how to deal with conflict. No one else should manage my emotions or deal with my resentment. It is not my job to make everyone else happy.
When in a disagreement, don't create a victim. (I'm sorry ______. Instead, I understand how you feel.) Don't let one give power over the other. Ask him what he'll do next time sibling annoys them. (Gives them power over their emotions.)
When I lose control of my emotions, I lost my authority. Now the child is in control. Discipline them sitting down. Give them a choice for the consequences. No guilt, no manipulation.
When we step back, it gives kids space to step up. Kids learn by doing, even making mistakes. Let them make mistakes - even if we see it coming. Stop trying to protect them. Step back, because that's how they'll learn.
When we say "Do your chores right now." or "Do your chores with a smile on your face." Why? Why do they have to be done right now or happily? Is it for their benefit or mine? Example: The parable of the 2 sons in the vineyard. The one who complained and then did the job was the one who obeyed. Jesus even asked for the cup to pass from him, but finished with let your will be done. Kids with the biggest mouths, have the biggest hearts. 90% of power struggles begin with my control issues.
Remember: Kids are drawn to calm!
Encourage the child to go to God or come to us with mistakes. It shows their self control. The best discipline is self-discipline.
Anxiety is caused by the unknown and looks like defiance on the outside. Consequences don't work for anxiety. Being sent to their room is a relief rather. Anxious kids prefer that to having to experience the new thing. Usually kids don't know they are struggling with anxiety.
I need to control myself first, then I can help him deal with the real situation. It makes us angry when they have signed up for something new (karate, sports, etc.) and then they decide they don't want to. Usually is an anxiety issue. It's helpful to go a week ahead of their start time when theirs no pressure to perform. Ask other adults to give your kids specific responsibilities.
Stop Defiance, Disrespect and Meltdowns
Moms do too much for their kids. We're too emotionally involved. Usually defiance is caused by some other underlying problem.
Set boundaries. Make sure to get 20 minutes to myself each day. Make sure there is Dad and me time. Kids don't always have to know what's going on.
Don't give them control of the home but ownership. Set clear boundaries, give them choices.
Praise them with the same intensity we use to get on them. Obstinance becomes persistence one day. Every trait that pushes our buttons, turn it around into something good. Don't fight people; fight obstacles.
Moses argued with God, questioned God. Jesus asked God for a different plan. It's honest to question and ask why - not defiance.
We don't necessarily want well-behaved children. Ex. prodigal son. He came back to be a world changer. Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, the ones that followed the rules.
When your kids are emotional, you can't respond with emotion. Speak like adults with honesty. Strong willed children are doers.
Endless lectures are provoking. Don't provoke kids. Treat the child with dignity and respect - not so demanding - explain the big pictures. Don't demand chores - ask for help - recognize what they are already doing. Model - Model - Model
Motion changes emotion. Just because I have the right to demand something doesn't help them. Sending them to their room sends them away from us. We lose our influence. Instead have him get something and meet me somewhere to talk (ex. you get the chips, I'll get the salsa and meet you on the deck.) We want them to come to us for help and acceptance - not to their friends.
When kids are emotional, they are not rational. "What are you going to do next time you're upset? When you yell at me, you lose stuff. You don't like it and I don't like it." When they are at their worst, draw them to us - just the way God does with us.
Model what I do when I get frustrated - teach them how to control their own behavior
Self control = impulse control
Discipline that Works When Consequences Don't
Discipline is not punishment - it's meant to teach
The best discipline is self-discipline.
Kids like video games because they are consistent. they know what to expect. Disappointment is a fact of life. They need to learn how to deal with it. We are not responsible for their happiness. Stop saying "no" so often, but instead have them think about it overnight and talk about it the next day. This teaches them critical thinking.
Choices and promises
"If you choose to ___________, I promise to ___________." Ex. in the car, if you choose to continue being loud, I promise to bang pots and pans the next time you're watching your favorite show.
Your choice determines your consequences. When they choose the wrong way, you always keep your promises.
"Your mood doesn't determine my mood." "I understand why you're miserable, but I always keep my promises." This doesn't mean you can't show mercy once in a while. Expect kids to freak out during the consequences. Make sure they understand the choice and the consequences. Don't punish them again for their reaction to a consequence
Ex. every minute late to the car, you are choosing 15 minutes of lost screen time. Quietly wait in the car, patiently. Make the consequence worthwhile and memorable. Make them pay money for your time.
Why do kids spend so much time in front of a screen?
The needs not being met might be stimulation, competence or confidence, social aspects. You have a right as a parent to limit time, but it's not very effective long term. You need to use internal motivation. How else can these needs be met? Us their gifts and talents.
Make a list of gifts and talents of your kids. How do they connect? What are their passions? If you can't come up with something, ask other people. Find ways they can use those talents outside the home - in the supervision of other adults.
Back off - believe the best about them, not the worst - apologize for your past behavior and explain how you will change.
They don't care about losing video games, but they won't want their gifts/talents taken from them. expose them to new/different experiences that use their talents. Find other adults that will sew things into your kids.
The father of the prodigal son didn't condemn him for his mistakes. The son knew he screwed up. The father loved him anyway. A strong-willed child might love others more because they have been forgiven of so much more.
Arguing With Your Teen (with his son, Casey Martin)
Some kids need outside stimulation to think- do their homework Why do they want to do their work? outside motivation, internal motivation or because of what their parents want.
When I'm on my kids for things they are not responsible for, it's not for them but for my own anxiety. watch out for their personal space. Do something for yourself. Let kids see you with a passion and joy for something other than caring for your family.
When we are in freaked out mode, teens are scared of us and there is no respect. They won't come to us with problems, but to their peers.
If teens can control themselves, parents don't have to control them. Shows that parents can trust them.
How to have a difficult conversation with a teen, without having emotional distance from them or lecturing. Tell them my perspective about the issue and leave it in their court. Lecturing is not influencing them. They might not be happy about your perspective, but leave them alone and let them ponder it for awhile. Separate so there isn't fighting back. Come back later to discuss things further. Lecturing just shows you don't trust them. Don't worry if the teen doesn't agree with you. Let them make a bad decision and go through the natural consequences.
Every teen wants the parent to know:
1. Don't lecture - kids don't listen, we have no influence.
2. Leading by examples - models good behavior, kids are watching.
3. Be vulnerable - tell the kids if you are struggling with anxiety/stress - give them an opportunity to help us out - let them earn your respect
4. Respect teens' interests, even if I don't understand why it's so important to them. Don't attack their interests
Promise them you won't over-react, yell or lecture when the come to you with something they have done wrong. We don't want to change the behavior, we want to change the heart. we can punish and yell enough to scare them into the behavior we want.
Sibling rivalry - the child being picked on needs to demonstrate that someone else can't control how they feel about themself.
Screen time - Make kids earn stuff - willing to pay 1/2? Have kids start their own business, what they are good at.
Trust has to run both ways - check texts and don't overreact when you see something a friend has done that's inappropriate. Hold your teen accountable. Teach them that just because someone texts or e-mails doesn't mean you have to respond immediately. Learn boundaries - You own your time! Your friends don't own your time! Do regular electronic fasts - says you have power over your time.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Convention notes
Our annual Homeschool Convention was this past weekend and I enjoyed the time away and time spent learning from all the experts! I wanted to share my notes with you all.
Susan Kemmerer - Homeschooling Distractible Kids Who Don't Like School
Practical Ideas for school
1. Don't compare 2 Cor. 10:12
2. Work side by side with your child Col. 3:23, 1 Thess. 5:18
3. Don't dumb lessons down
4. Allow energy escapes between lessons
5. Use large whiteboard - removes distractions from the page
6. Give him time to answer 1 Cor. 13:4-5
7. Encourage your "reluctant reader" to read
10. Throw out the workbooks - use hands on curriculum
11. Relax
12. Allow adventure
Zeph. 3:17 - Remember he/she is a gift from God. God didn't put them in my life to show my sin. Am I demanding something of him that I'm not demonstrating? God doesn't define us by our short comings. He delights in us - the way we are.
Book list for distractible kids:
1. Shop at the dollar store, but remember, not everything is $1. Keep in mind what you pay for things at your regular store, because it might be more expensive.
2. Don't be brand dependent - base your purchase on the price
3. Buy in bulk, but remember, the big package doesn't always equal the good deal. For a warehouse membership to pay off, make sure you save at least 3 times what the membership costs.
4. Use your crockpot
5. Have a meatless night once a week - breakfast for dinner, veggie bean soup, bean burritos, lasagna, beans and rice
6. Bake your own bread - use the bread machine to make the dough and bake in the oven
7. Shop at the bread outlet - shop once a month and buy enough to store in the freezer
8. Look for marked down groceries - make sure you'll use the items before they go bad
9. Use less - detergent, shampoo, cleaning, etc.
10. Serve meat as a condiment, not the main dish - soups, casseroles - Replace 30-50% of meat with beans, lentils
11. Sprinkle with simple meals that use inexpensive ingredients - make a list of 30 meals your family loves and cost next to it.
12. Eat from the pantry - challenge yourself to skip shopping for a week. Go to myfridegefood.com, or supercook.com
13. Use bone in chicken breasts (usually costs 30% less)
14. Price match at Wal-mart - bring ad to make sure you get correct size/brand - then don't buy impulse purchases
15. Order groceries on-line - Amazon has good deals for natural and organic foods or camelcamelcamel.com will give you an e-mail alert for prices you want to pay on products
16. Use your freezer for marked down groceries - have 1 hour or 15 minutes cooking sessions for extra food, or double/triple your recipes to freeze some
17. Don't throw out leftovers
18. Make own homemade cleaners (baking soda and vinegar work for many things) momsbudget.com
19. Eliminate paper products - cut paper towels and dryer sheets in 1/2
20. Ditch cereal for breakfast
21. Invest in reusable water bottles
22. Shop every other week
23. Buy roast on sale and have it ground
24. Buy produce in season and on sale - buy extra & freeze, localharvest.com
25. Plant a garden - freeze or can
Remember - Pick one new thing to implement every 4-6 week. Focus on the best return on your investment of time. Give yourself grace.
Joanne Calderwood - Self Teaching 101
Self teaching - manage/develop habits of kids so that they can go somewhere besides you for help in a subject which will help them in college. Provide them with the tools they need to learn, set expectations for them, give positive and negative reinforcements.
Benefits for mom
You are what you teach, you teach what you are.
Children will perform based on your expectations of them - trust your instincts.
5 steps to self - teaching success
1. Provide - a planner or notebook for record keeping by the CHILD, they see where they're headed.
2. Gather the curriculum - find the most challenging you can for your child
3. Set short term goals - 1 per subject
Self motivating when the child can cross off the lesson when it's completed - they see their accomplishments
Divide text into quarters, quarters into weeks, weeks into daily lessons
4. Monitor students' progress - not daily! Ask questions from last month, not yesterday. Testing is one way to monitor, but test for mastery, not for grades
5. Let go! - Let child learn from consequences (crash & burn), Trust their abilities to master
Sonya Shafer - Laying Down the Rails
"The effort of good decision is the greatest effort in life." ~ Charlotte Mason
Good habits are like railroad tracks. They are not built in a day.
"The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children" ~ Charlotte Mason (underlines mine)
pains - takes work to build
endow - pay into now; reap benefits later
Tips for cultivating a Good Habit
1. Concentrate on forming one habit at a time, keeping watch over those habits already formed. Spend approx. 2 months per habit. *Nagging doesn't work because you are reinforcing the wrong path - waiting for mom to tell him what to do. Instead, call him into the room and say "I promised I would remind you."
2. Repetition - deal with detours immediately so it doesn't become ingrained
For littles - distract so it doesn't reinforce wrong path
For biggers - enlist the will of older kids - in a neutral time, have a brief talk, lay out the habit you think will benefit him - explain the benefits and ask "Are you willing to work on it?"
3. Motivation - find living examples of the people exemplifying those habits; use natural consequences (good or bad); have expectant encouragement - expect them to put forth the effort and expect them to succeed (not fail) using facial expressions
Top 3 habits to work on
1. Attention
Start with short lessons, vary the order of lessons, don't repeat yourself, set time limits that assume full attention, don't give them less time than they need to complete the job
2. Obedience
Expect obedience; ever give a command that you don't intend to see fully carried out; don't pester child with excessive or continual commands; when possible, plan ahead for transition times
3. Truthfulness
Require exact facts without omission or exaggeration; avoid qualifying statements with "I think" or "perhaps"; don't use excessive language for common situations; have daily lessons in truthful reporting
3 Reasons to lie
1. deliberate intention to deceive
2. carelessness in gathering facts
3. carelessness in communicating facts
God made our brains to form habits. If we're not instilling good ones, bad ones are forming automatically.
Ted Tripp - Getting to the Heart of Behavior
Why do children do the things they do The heart sets the course of life.
"Above all else guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life." Prov. 4:23
The Bible uses other terms for the word "heart" - mind, inmost being, soul
Cognitive activities of the heart:
"How does the heart set the course of life?"
1. The heart worships (Ez. 14:3-4)
All behavior is heart driven (Mark 7:20-23)
We can't go out and hang apples on the tree, we want the tree to bear apples. Apples just hung on the tree will eventually rot. They are not supported by the life giving support of the tree. That's what manipulation does. Guilt trips, shame, bribery, threats are all simply manipulation of behavior.
Behaviorism evaluated (when we manipulate behavior)
Andrew Pudewa - Mastery Learning, Ability Development and Individualized Education
4 Pillars of Talent Education (The Suzuki method)
1. Saturated by the thing you are trying to learn - get into their environment
2. Right period - children learn better than adults - start early!
3. Learn from the best teacher
4. Right method - keep using what you've already learned while learning new things - build a good foundation "10,000 times: then begins understanding"
Workbooks cannot adjust itself to a child
Doesn't help to understand why math works, but you need to only memorize the facts. Don't go faster than mastery will permit. Understanding of how it works will come with mastery, but if the facts aren't memorized, you can fall behind very quickly.
Michelle Kauenhofen - Water in the Desert
Battling the 3 Ds
1. Discouragement
We're doing a good job and what's right for our children. Love life - make the most of today - every moment is a gift from God.
2. Doubt
If we believe God has called us to this place, why do we doubt? It's just an attack from the enemy.
3. Deception
We will learn what we need to know when we need to know it. Don't get hung up on "how am I going to teach ______ (physics, calculus, etc.)" If the child needs it for what they are studying, he will be self-motivated to complete it without much assistance from us. When we believe lies, they are self- fulfilling. Children won't succeed or fail only because of what I do.
A - Attitude
Don't long for the next season of life. Life goes by fast enough. Embrace the season you are in because you don't get a second chance.
B - Build up the people around you
When we serve, we're filled up. We live in a world that likes to tear down.
C - Care for yourself (or you'll burn out)
When you have mercy on yourself, you're free to give it to others.
I have put all the Kirk Martin sessions in another post.
From the above notes, I think the one most helpful to me was Sonya Shafer's Laying Down the Rails. My boys don't have many good habits. We are frequently repeating ourselves to get them to do regular chore type activities. This is the session that I will try to put to practical use first - after practicing more of Kirk Martin's instruction. See the next post for notes to the man who changed my view on how to discipline the boys. Ryan also went to most of these sessions, for which I am grateful. It makes it much easier to be on the same page. Unfortunately, Ryan didn't make it to the Sonya Shafer session, but I think with gaining respect through our disciplining methods, the habits will fall more easily into place.
Susan Kemmerer - Homeschooling Distractible Kids Who Don't Like School
Practical Ideas for school
1. Don't compare 2 Cor. 10:12
2. Work side by side with your child Col. 3:23, 1 Thess. 5:18
3. Don't dumb lessons down
4. Allow energy escapes between lessons
5. Use large whiteboard - removes distractions from the page
6. Give him time to answer 1 Cor. 13:4-5
7. Encourage your "reluctant reader" to read
- Read to them often
- Make time time special - let them play with something
- Use facial expression
- Stop at exciting parts - leave them to finish reading
- Have him tell back what was read
- Be an enthusiastic, expressive listener
- Be a reader yourself - model it
- Give them a reading lamp - read after bedtime privilege
- Don't be concerned about delayed readers - they'll catch up
- The distractible child through the lens of our flesh is annoying, a pest, foolish, lacking sense, dumb or stupid, slow, exasperating, irritate, and unmotivated - Luke 16:5
- The distractible child through the lens of God's word is exuberant (Ps. 150), creative (Prov. 31:13-22), strong (Joshua 1:9), brave (Joshua 1:9), enthusiastic (Col 3:23), visionary (Prov. 29:18), inquisitive (2 Tim. 2:15, Ecc. 12:12), a doer not a hearer (James 1:22-25), joyful (1 Thess 5:16), and worshippers (Ps. 19:1)
10. Throw out the workbooks - use hands on curriculum
11. Relax
12. Allow adventure
Zeph. 3:17 - Remember he/she is a gift from God. God didn't put them in my life to show my sin. Am I demanding something of him that I'm not demonstrating? God doesn't define us by our short comings. He delights in us - the way we are.
Book list for distractible kids:
- Frank Peretti kids books
- Little Britches
- Wally McDoogle series
- Ted Dekker books
- Sign of the Beaver
- My Side of the Mountain
- Farmer Boy
- Light in the Forest
- Left Behind kids series
- Hardy Boys series
- Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- James and the Giant Peach
- Lord of the Rings books
1. Shop at the dollar store, but remember, not everything is $1. Keep in mind what you pay for things at your regular store, because it might be more expensive.
2. Don't be brand dependent - base your purchase on the price
3. Buy in bulk, but remember, the big package doesn't always equal the good deal. For a warehouse membership to pay off, make sure you save at least 3 times what the membership costs.
4. Use your crockpot
5. Have a meatless night once a week - breakfast for dinner, veggie bean soup, bean burritos, lasagna, beans and rice
6. Bake your own bread - use the bread machine to make the dough and bake in the oven
7. Shop at the bread outlet - shop once a month and buy enough to store in the freezer
8. Look for marked down groceries - make sure you'll use the items before they go bad
9. Use less - detergent, shampoo, cleaning, etc.
10. Serve meat as a condiment, not the main dish - soups, casseroles - Replace 30-50% of meat with beans, lentils
11. Sprinkle with simple meals that use inexpensive ingredients - make a list of 30 meals your family loves and cost next to it.
12. Eat from the pantry - challenge yourself to skip shopping for a week. Go to myfridegefood.com, or supercook.com
13. Use bone in chicken breasts (usually costs 30% less)
14. Price match at Wal-mart - bring ad to make sure you get correct size/brand - then don't buy impulse purchases
15. Order groceries on-line - Amazon has good deals for natural and organic foods or camelcamelcamel.com will give you an e-mail alert for prices you want to pay on products
16. Use your freezer for marked down groceries - have 1 hour or 15 minutes cooking sessions for extra food, or double/triple your recipes to freeze some
17. Don't throw out leftovers
18. Make own homemade cleaners (baking soda and vinegar work for many things) momsbudget.com
19. Eliminate paper products - cut paper towels and dryer sheets in 1/2
20. Ditch cereal for breakfast
21. Invest in reusable water bottles
22. Shop every other week
23. Buy roast on sale and have it ground
24. Buy produce in season and on sale - buy extra & freeze, localharvest.com
25. Plant a garden - freeze or can
Remember - Pick one new thing to implement every 4-6 week. Focus on the best return on your investment of time. Give yourself grace.
Joanne Calderwood - Self Teaching 101
Self teaching - manage/develop habits of kids so that they can go somewhere besides you for help in a subject which will help them in college. Provide them with the tools they need to learn, set expectations for them, give positive and negative reinforcements.
Benefits for mom
- Take burden of homeschooling off you and onto kids
- Have more time to run your home, connect with other people, have time for yourself, have more one on one time with kids
- No burnout
- Can raise extraordinary kids
- Have a non cranky wife
- Kids smarter - get more college scholarship money
- Children are happier when they are not being micromanaged (parent constantly looking over their shoulder)
- Learn time management
- Shows trust
- Self-motivation - children are not motivated by lists
You are what you teach, you teach what you are.
Children will perform based on your expectations of them - trust your instincts.
5 steps to self - teaching success
1. Provide - a planner or notebook for record keeping by the CHILD, they see where they're headed.
2. Gather the curriculum - find the most challenging you can for your child
3. Set short term goals - 1 per subject
Self motivating when the child can cross off the lesson when it's completed - they see their accomplishments
Divide text into quarters, quarters into weeks, weeks into daily lessons
4. Monitor students' progress - not daily! Ask questions from last month, not yesterday. Testing is one way to monitor, but test for mastery, not for grades
5. Let go! - Let child learn from consequences (crash & burn), Trust their abilities to master
Sonya Shafer - Laying Down the Rails
"The effort of good decision is the greatest effort in life." ~ Charlotte Mason
Good habits are like railroad tracks. They are not built in a day.
"The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children" ~ Charlotte Mason (underlines mine)
pains - takes work to build
endow - pay into now; reap benefits later
Tips for cultivating a Good Habit
1. Concentrate on forming one habit at a time, keeping watch over those habits already formed. Spend approx. 2 months per habit. *Nagging doesn't work because you are reinforcing the wrong path - waiting for mom to tell him what to do. Instead, call him into the room and say "I promised I would remind you."
2. Repetition - deal with detours immediately so it doesn't become ingrained
For littles - distract so it doesn't reinforce wrong path
For biggers - enlist the will of older kids - in a neutral time, have a brief talk, lay out the habit you think will benefit him - explain the benefits and ask "Are you willing to work on it?"
3. Motivation - find living examples of the people exemplifying those habits; use natural consequences (good or bad); have expectant encouragement - expect them to put forth the effort and expect them to succeed (not fail) using facial expressions
Top 3 habits to work on
1. Attention
Start with short lessons, vary the order of lessons, don't repeat yourself, set time limits that assume full attention, don't give them less time than they need to complete the job
2. Obedience
Expect obedience; ever give a command that you don't intend to see fully carried out; don't pester child with excessive or continual commands; when possible, plan ahead for transition times
3. Truthfulness
Require exact facts without omission or exaggeration; avoid qualifying statements with "I think" or "perhaps"; don't use excessive language for common situations; have daily lessons in truthful reporting
3 Reasons to lie
1. deliberate intention to deceive
2. carelessness in gathering facts
3. carelessness in communicating facts
God made our brains to form habits. If we're not instilling good ones, bad ones are forming automatically.
Ted Tripp - Getting to the Heart of Behavior
Why do children do the things they do The heart sets the course of life.
"Above all else guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life." Prov. 4:23
The Bible uses other terms for the word "heart" - mind, inmost being, soul
Cognitive activities of the heart:
- conceals
- discerns
- instructs
- meditates
- misses
- perceives
- plans
- plots
- ponders
- thinks
- weighs
- serves idols
- loves God
- prays
- rejoices
- turns to/from
- seeks God
- trusts God
- yields to God
- ache
- cherish
- desire
- despair
- despise
- grieve
- hate
- fear
- lament
- love
- lust
- melt
- pure
- rebellious
- rejoice
"How does the heart set the course of life?"
1. The heart worships (Ez. 14:3-4)
- Idols distort your vision
- The set of idolatry is the heart
- Idols lead to practical desertion of God
- Possible to enthrone idols and still seek God
- God won't reveal himself to idolaters
- God's purpose is to restore idolators
- your treasure owns you
- your treasure controls your behavior
- your treasure shapes your choices
- Pleasure seeking
- sensual passions
- relationship cravings
All behavior is heart driven (Mark 7:20-23)
We can't go out and hang apples on the tree, we want the tree to bear apples. Apples just hung on the tree will eventually rot. They are not supported by the life giving support of the tree. That's what manipulation does. Guilt trips, shame, bribery, threats are all simply manipulation of behavior.
Behaviorism evaluated (when we manipulate behavior)
- Real need is not addressed
- False basis for ethics
- The heart is wrongly trained
- The gospel will not be central
- Shows our idols of the heart - control, pride, ease, fear of man, convenience
- If I manipulate behavior, I will hypocritically distance myself from my child
- When I do that, the gospel will never be central
- The goal is to stand beside him as someone who also needs grace
- The goal is to ask questions that show his straying heart
- Shows your kids the need for grace
- Shows your kids the need for input
- Shapes your ministry to them (Eph. 6)
Andrew Pudewa - Mastery Learning, Ability Development and Individualized Education
4 Pillars of Talent Education (The Suzuki method)
1. Saturated by the thing you are trying to learn - get into their environment
2. Right period - children learn better than adults - start early!
3. Learn from the best teacher
4. Right method - keep using what you've already learned while learning new things - build a good foundation "10,000 times: then begins understanding"
Workbooks cannot adjust itself to a child
Doesn't help to understand why math works, but you need to only memorize the facts. Don't go faster than mastery will permit. Understanding of how it works will come with mastery, but if the facts aren't memorized, you can fall behind very quickly.
Michelle Kauenhofen - Water in the Desert
Battling the 3 Ds
1. Discouragement
We're doing a good job and what's right for our children. Love life - make the most of today - every moment is a gift from God.
2. Doubt
If we believe God has called us to this place, why do we doubt? It's just an attack from the enemy.
3. Deception
We will learn what we need to know when we need to know it. Don't get hung up on "how am I going to teach ______ (physics, calculus, etc.)" If the child needs it for what they are studying, he will be self-motivated to complete it without much assistance from us. When we believe lies, they are self- fulfilling. Children won't succeed or fail only because of what I do.
A - Attitude
Don't long for the next season of life. Life goes by fast enough. Embrace the season you are in because you don't get a second chance.
B - Build up the people around you
When we serve, we're filled up. We live in a world that likes to tear down.
C - Care for yourself (or you'll burn out)
When you have mercy on yourself, you're free to give it to others.
I have put all the Kirk Martin sessions in another post.
From the above notes, I think the one most helpful to me was Sonya Shafer's Laying Down the Rails. My boys don't have many good habits. We are frequently repeating ourselves to get them to do regular chore type activities. This is the session that I will try to put to practical use first - after practicing more of Kirk Martin's instruction. See the next post for notes to the man who changed my view on how to discipline the boys. Ryan also went to most of these sessions, for which I am grateful. It makes it much easier to be on the same page. Unfortunately, Ryan didn't make it to the Sonya Shafer session, but I think with gaining respect through our disciplining methods, the habits will fall more easily into place.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Spring Co-op Classes
Haven't posted anything for awhile, so I thought since co-op is done for this semester, I would post a follow-up of the classes the boys took.
Alex took a class called God's Smuggler(s) based on the life of Brother Andrew with a focus on the Voice of the Martyrs ministry. They looked at different countries where Bibles need to be smuggled in and made a power point presentation and display board to take to various churches to raise money for Bibles Unbound. They were able to raise over $2200!! That was more than 2X as much as their goal at the beginning of the semester. I think this class has really opened his eyes to how much freedom he really does have in America.
Alex's second class was Yoga. We had an outside teacher come in for this class.
Nicolas took a Breakfast Cooking class. They made 8 different breakfasts to bring home and share with their families. The last class was show and tell - each student made a breakfast to take into class to share. Nic is ready to have a breakfast party some Saturday because he wants to share these new recipes with our family and friends. Not sure when (if) that will work out.
His second class was Drama for Divas and Dudes. They have been practicing a short play all semester that they will share at our open house on Friday. He has a rather large part at the beginning of the play to introduce each person and the play. He has really had fun with this class!
I'll post pictures later of the open house and the drama.
Alex took a class called God's Smuggler(s) based on the life of Brother Andrew with a focus on the Voice of the Martyrs ministry. They looked at different countries where Bibles need to be smuggled in and made a power point presentation and display board to take to various churches to raise money for Bibles Unbound. They were able to raise over $2200!! That was more than 2X as much as their goal at the beginning of the semester. I think this class has really opened his eyes to how much freedom he really does have in America.
Alex's second class was Yoga. We had an outside teacher come in for this class.
Nicolas took a Breakfast Cooking class. They made 8 different breakfasts to bring home and share with their families. The last class was show and tell - each student made a breakfast to take into class to share. Nic is ready to have a breakfast party some Saturday because he wants to share these new recipes with our family and friends. Not sure when (if) that will work out.
His second class was Drama for Divas and Dudes. They have been practicing a short play all semester that they will share at our open house on Friday. He has a rather large part at the beginning of the play to introduce each person and the play. He has really had fun with this class!
I'll post pictures later of the open house and the drama.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)