Book Review: Motivate Your Child by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN

 

Having a motivated child is probably every parent's wish. How to achieve that goal is a whole different matter. Recently I had the opportunity to review Motivate Your Child: A Christian Parent's Guide to Raising Kids Who Do What They Need to Do Without Being Told by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN, founders of the National Center for Biblical Parenting.

Motivate Your Child is a practical book that is filled with ideas and examples to help parents equip their children to have internal motivation for life. The book is divided into two parts.  The first part deals with moral development in children. It covers such topics as:

• Internal vs. External Motivation
• What is the Conscience?
• Helping kids choose to do what's right
• Learning to value integrity
• Compassion
• Consequences
• And more

The second part deals with the spiritual development in children. It covers such topics as:

• Family Time
• Relationships are foundational
• Practicing your faith
• Using scripture creatively and connecting them to the Bible
• Children and the Holy Spirit
• And more

One of the main premises of this book is teaching your child to be aware of their conscience and how it helps them learn to do what is right, deal with wrongs, be honest, and care about others. Of course, the conscience is so much more powerful with the power of the Holy Spirit, and the authors don't disappoint in showing how to implement the Bible and teaching your child how to have a relationship with God.

Throughout the book there are many practical suggestions and examples for parents to use with kids. But don't worry, there is also thought provoking questions and advice for the parents themselves.
I found myself shaking my head in agreement many times and jotting down a note here and there to implement with my kids. Such as:

When we rationalize a child's bad attitude, we miss opportunity to teach honor. p. 93

One of my favorite suggestions was the use of a Weekly Family time where you take the time to develop godly character in your kids. I know for a fact that this is hard to do. I found it reassuring that they encourage over and over to keep working for this goal no matter how times you drop the ball.

I think one reason this book resonated so much with me is that I was blessed to raised this way and I was strengthened in my resolve to pass this on to my kids. Some days I have my doubts if I am really getting through and I found this statement encouraging:

You're only influencing your children for God's purposes. It's God who ultimately changes your children's hearts. (p.195)

Motivating Your Child can be a "motivating" book for any parent and I highly encourage you to check it out. If you order your book TODAY (January 31) you can email your receipt to gift@biblicalparenting.org and you can receive The Bonus Parenting Strategy Pack which includes: • Toolbox of Consequences Video and Study Guide • Kids and Conscience Video and Study Guide • Children’s Activity Lessons for Conscience Development • Child Teaching Points • Make Devotions Fun MP3 • How to Develop Gracious Speech MP3nce Development • Children’s Activity Lessons on Correction • Strong Willed ($150 value).

Motivating Your Child is available through the National Center for Biblical Parenting, Amazon, Christianbook.com and many more retailers.

NCBP Blog: www.biblicalparenting.info
NCBP FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Center-for-Biblical-Parenting/116883041645

 

Wednesdays with Words (So Brave, Young, and Handsome)

 

I have recently quite a few reviews for So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger. I was looking for another audio book to listen to and since it was immediately available from Library2Go I downloaded it. Leif Enger writing is mesmerizing and I think listening to it has even made it stand out even more. Here are a few passages that I have enjoyed.
 

Glendon began taking supper with us once or twice a week. He kept an orderly greenplot and never arrived minus chard or kale or chives in wet burlap. At first he was quiet and somewhat formal visitor, yet the whole house lightened with him there. I admired his plain language and courtesy and the way he found everything interesting but himself. Redstart of course was polite as a pry bar.

I think often of Celia Davies. She could squeeze a conversation to its rind, leap it east to west, or change its axis wholly. Her wits were as supple as her fingers were rigid. I don't know her story, for she was an adept evader of questions, but her life would be a giddy crossword, working down from some clues and across from others.

Meantime Charles Siringo lay against the shire's neck like wet bedding. There was some debate among the boardinghouse audience whether he was alive or dead on that horse, but I hadn't any doubt of his living. Laugh all you like at the old perception of the fated existence; Siringo wore it like his own skin. You can't kill history. You can't shoot it with a bullet and watch it recede into whatever lies outside of memory. History is tougher than that--if it's going to die, it has to die on its own.

What's On Your Nightstand - January

I'll have to admit that I'm a little put out right now. Hello? January just arrived!! I thought I just wrote out my December Nightstand. Well, obviously not. Oh well, that is life. I did get some reading finished this month, though there were a few books had planned on getting read before today.  Here goes:

For February (My choices are a little slim since I can't decide what I want to read. Unbelievable I know, since my TBR list is overflowing with titles!):

From my January Nightstand:

• How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig - We have read quite a few Shakespeare plays in our homeschool, but that has fallen by the wayside. After reading this I am inspired to pick it back up again.
• A Beautiful Blue Death (Charles Lenox Mysteries) by Charles Finch - An enjoyable mystery.

I am currently reading:

• The Power of a Praying® Wife by Stormie Omartian

 I also read:

• Ashton Park (The Danforths of Lancashire) by Murray Pura - The jury is still out on this book. I felt like I was reading a soap opera rather than a book.
• For Such a Time by Kate Breslin - The story of Esther set during Nazi Germany. Excellent read.
• Hallowe'en Party (Hercule Poirot Mysteries) by Agatha Christie - Closing in on the end of the Poirot mysteries.

I listened to:

• The Clocks (Hercule Poirot Mysteries) by Agatha Christie - This audio used a different narrator besides Hugh Fraser (my favorite) or David Suchet. I was slightly annoyed!
• The Foundling by Georgette Heyer - Heyer kept me on my toes for this story.
• The Monument's Men by Robert M. Edsel - Very interesting historical read. Highly recommended.

I didn't even pick up:

• Gone with the Wind - I think I may have to part company with Scarlett or wait until the spirit moves on me. Right now it just ain't moving!!

See what others have read over at 5 Minutes for Books.

The Homeschool Mother's Journal: A New Year's Update

It has been over a month since I have blogged about family happenings. Christmas came and we celebrated long and hard and just when it was time to start school again my parents came for a visit. My dad stayed for a week and my mom for two weeks. Of course not a lot of school was finished during that time, and this week finds us back to facing reality.

1. I had to buy this shirt for Chantry. If you can't see it clearly it says: "It is hard work being awesome." The whole shirt sums him up perfectly. He is the one who is always acting so worn out after doing the least bit of anything!
2. I caught Caleb hard at work one day. He is getting about 3-4 days of work. My only dislike is that he has one uniform. I am always trying to keep a load of dark clothes handy so we can wash his uniform.
3. My mom and dad.
4. We headed out to the coast one day (to go shopping, not to see the ocean) and for once it was really nice. The temperatures were up to 60 degrees and it wasn't very windy at all.
5. Destini has started a new cross-stitch picture. This time she will be adding beads to her project.

 

6. After my dad went home we attempted to do some school work. Needless to say we didn't get very much finished!
7. Since our move we haven't found a place to hang our white board and I didn't realize how much we had used it in the past until this week while working on diagramming sentences with Chantry. My goal this week is to get it up on a wall.
8. The working man now has a checking account.
9. My mom flew home last Tuesday so after dropping her off at the airport we went to IKEA. I must backtrack at this point and tell how when we moved into our house in April I wanted to throw away all the blinds on the windows immediately. They were filthy and many of them had broken strings. I have an aversion to plastic mini-blinds since they are so hard to clean. I wanted either wood blinds or bamboo shades so I could just vacuum them off. When I went shopping for new blinds and saw the prices I decided it just might be awhile before that would happen. Needless to say I didn't clean the blinds in my bedroom until right before my parents came. Yes, I lived with them filthy for 8 months, but last week when I walked into IKEA I found wooden blinds for all the windows in our house that needed them for $10 a piece. I guess I should have cleaned my blinds back in April!

Wednesdays with Words (The Nesting Place)

I ordered The Nesting Place: It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful by Myquillyn Smith has from the library thinking I was just going to browse through it, but have found it has been a very compelling and relatable read.

 

You don't have to get perfect to have a pretty house. Most of us simply need to learn to see the beauty in the imperfect. Because life is gloriously messy. We can find rest in our less than perfect circumstances when we figure out that no amount of striving can create the perfect life we think we are looking for. True rest comes when we realize that we can't get it from trying extra hard. We find rest when we give up.

Wednesdays with Words (How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare)

I just finished reading How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig. This has been such an inspiring book! This school year our Shakespeare reading have kind of fallen to the wayside, but I will be making sure we get back to it in our 3rd term. 

Some may be put off by the author's use of memorization to "learn" Shakespeare, but don't let that deter you from reading this book. Ken Ludwig is passionate about Shakespeare and it shows. Even if you don't "do" Shakespeare as he recommends you will be inspired.

I am sharing a portion where the author has just gone through The Saint Crispin's Day Speech from Henry V:

What a speech! What a rallying cry of sheer patriotism! One of my favorite sections of the speech is this:

Old men forgot, yet all shall be forgot, 
But he'll remember, with advantages, 
What feats he did that day. 

Shakespeare starts the line with a fond observation about mankind as it grows older:

Old men forget;

Then he adds a joke, a warm, human, touching joke: 

But he'll remember, with advantages, 
What feats he did that day. 

The old man won't just brag about his exploits in the war; he'll exaggerate the exploits with advantages. Only Shakespeare could pack this much wisdom, humor, and humanity into three short lines. (p.238-239)

Wednesdays with Words (The Clocks)

I am currently listening to this story right now and I loved the description of this book shop, so much so that I had to order the book from the library copy it out.

 

I sidled through the doorway. It was necessary to sidle, since precariously arranged books impinged more and more every day on the passageway from the street. Inside, it was clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down. The distance between bookshelves was so narrow that you could only get along with great difficulty. There were piles of books perched on every shelf or table. On a stool in a corner, hemmed in by books, was an old man in a pork-pie hat with a large flat face like a stuffed fish. He had the air of one who has given up an unequal struggle. He had attempted to master the books, but the books had obviously succeeded in mastering him. He was a kind of King Canute of the book world, retreating before the advancing book tide. If he ordered it to retreat, it would have been with the sure and hopeless certainty that it would not do so.(99-100)

I had to laugh at how fitting this passage was for me right now. I am the bookstore manager for a local Friend's of the Library Bookstore and I get the privilege of weeding through and pricing the donated books for our bookstore. The end of December and January are big donation times and my donation piles right now are precariously arranged and look like they are breeding and multiplying and yes, I feel a little like King Canute.

 

This is an old picture, but my current pile looks just about as bad.

Books Read in 2014

Happy 2015! Another reading year has ended and it is time for my annual reading list for the old year. My 2014 list is sadly lacking compared to 2013. I am not exactly sure why, though I know that moving in April did not provide many moments for reading. 

I read all but one book (which I am currently reading) from my Reading Goals of 2014 list. My goal with this list is to read books that have been sitting around on my shelves for a while, after I read it I then decide if the book is worth keeping or get rid of it. I did get rid of quite a few from my list while buying more than I got rid of. (A terrible habit that I have!)

Here is a breakdown of what I read followed by a complete list of books:

• The Bible - Genesis - Song of Solomon, I read through Psalms and Proverbs twice.
• Fiction - 81 books, 16 of them were audio books and 4 were books read-aloud to my kids.
• Non-fiction -  41 books
• Total: 122 books

Fiction: (81)

• Absolutely Truly - Heather Vogel Frederick
• The Accidental Bride - Denise Hunter
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain*
• After the Funeral - Agatha Christie (audio)
• And Only To Deceive - Tasha Alexander
• April Lady - Georgette Heyer (audio)
• The Baron's Honorable Daughter - Lynn Austin
• Beauvallet - Georgette Heyer (audio)
• The Big Six - Arthur Ransome*
• A Bitter Truth - Charles Todd
• Black Sheep - Georgette Heyer (audio)
• The Blue Castle - L.M. Montgomery
• Busman's Honeymoon - Dorothy Sayers
• Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie.
• The Cherry Cola Bookclub - Ashton Lee
• Cold Sassy Tree - Olive Ann Burns (audio)
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain (audio)
• Cotillion - Georgette Heyer (audio)
• A Cowboy's Touch - Denise Hunter
• A Duty to the Dead - Bess Crawford
• The Elusive Pimpernel - Baroness Emma Orczy (audio)
• Emma, Mr. Knightley and Chili-Slaw Dogs - Mary Jane Hathaway
• Etta Mae's Worst Bad-Luck Day - Ann B. Ross
• Faro's Daughter - Georgette Heyer (audio)
• A Fatal Waltz - Tasha Alexander
• Fired Up - Mary Connealy
• The Four Graces - D.E. Stevenson
• Friday's Child - Georgette Heyer (audio)
• Gaudy Night - Dorothy Sayers
• Hatteras Girl - Alice J. Wisler
• Have His Carcase - Dorothy Sayers
• Heirs of the Body - Carola Dunn
• Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie (audio)
• Hitty:Her First One Hundred Years - Rachel Field
• The Hollow - Agatha Christie
• How Sweet It Is - Alice J. Wisler
• I Kill the Mockingbird - Paul Acampora
• In the Company of Others - Jan Karon
• An Impartial Witness - Charles Todd
• Keeping the Castle - Patricia Kindl
• The Labors of Hercules - Agatha Christie
• Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
• Listen - Rene Gutteridge
• Looking for the King - David C. Downing
• Love Among the Chickens - P.G. Wodehouse
• Middlemarch - George Eliot (audio)
• Missee Lee - Arthur Ransome*
• Miss Buncle's Book - D.E. Stevenson
• Miss Buncle Married - D.E. Stevenson
• Miss Julia's Marvelous Makeover - Ann B. Ross
• Mrs. McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie (audio)
• Mom's Night Out - Tricia Goyer
• The Mouse and the Motorcycle - Beverly Cleary*
• Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy Sayers
• The Nine Tailors - Dorothy Sayers
• A Noble Groom - Jody Hedlund
• No Fear Shakespeare: Hamlet - William Shakespeare
• Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
• A Poisoned Season - Tasha Alexander
• A Question of Honor - Charles Todd
• The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer (audio)
• Sarah Morris Remembers - D.E. Stevenson
• Second-Chance Cinderella  - Carla Capshaw
• Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good - Jan Karon
• Swept Away - Mary Connealy
• Stuck Together - Mary Connealy
• Taken at the Flood - Agatha Christie
• Tears of Pearl - Tasha Alexander
• Tried and True - Mary Connealy
• The Trouble with Cowboys - Denise Hunter
• Twenty Years After - Alexandre Dumas (audio)
• The Two Mrs. Abbots - D.E. Stevenson
• Uneasy Money - P.G. Wodehouse
• Uncle Dynamite - P.G. Wodehouse
• An Unmarked Grave - Charles Todd
• An Unwilling Accomplice - Charles Todd
• Venetia - Georgette Heyer (audio)
• A Wedding Invitation - Alice J. Wisler
• The Wife Campaign - Regina Scott
• Wouldn't It Be Deadly - D.E. Ireland
• The Young Clementina - D.E. Stevenson

Non-Fiction: (41)

• The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth - John C. Maxwell
• 53 Scrapbooking Challenges
• A Life in Balance - Frank Belgau
• Am I Messing Up My Kids? - Lysa Terkeurst
• Boundaries with Kids - Henry Cloud & John Townsend
• Choosing Gratitude - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
• Dreams, Plans, Goals - Ken Gaub
• Feminine Appeal - Carolyn Mahaney
• Flourish - Mary Jo Tate
• Get Creative with Type - Brian Tippetts
• Handoff: The Only Way to Win the Race of Life - Jeff Myers 
• How To Be Your Own Selfish Pig - Susan Schaeffer Macauley
• How to Live on 24 Hours a Day - Arnold Bennett
• Invading the Privacy of God - Cecil Murphy
• iWitness Biblical Archeology - Doug Powell
• The Life-Ready Woman - Shelti Feldhahn & Robert Lewis
• The Living Page - Laurie Bestvater
• The Magic Apple Tree - Susan Hill
• Midnight Sons (3 Volumes) - Debbie Macomber
• Mrs. Meyer's Clean Home - Thelma Meyer
• New Testament iWitness - Doug Powell
• One Month to Live - Kris & Kerry Shook
• Old Testament iWitness - Doug Powell
• Parenting Unchained - Dr. James D. Dempsey
• Photos: Style Recipes - Samantha Moss
• Plan Your Year - Pam Barnhill
• Preschoolers and Peace - Kendra Fletcher
• Practicing Hospitality - Pat Ennis
• The Reading Promise - Alice Ozma
• Quiet - Susan Cain
• The Sacred Search - Gary Chapman
• Say Goodbye to Survival Mode - Crystal Paine
• Setting the Record Straight - Lee Binz
• Steady Days - Jamie C. Martin
• Table for Eight - Meagan Francis
• Talking with Your Daughter About Understanding Boys - Bob & Dannah Gresh
• Teaching from Rest - Sarah Mackenzie
• Too Blessed for This Mess - Cindi Wood
• What Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast - Laura Vanderkam
• Wife After God - Jennifer Smith
• Your Child's Writing Life -  Pam Allyn