I am so excited.  I have gotten some new curriculums for history and Bible.  And, my son finished his first lapbook on Friday.  I am trying to make some changes in our home school since things had gotten to a point where homeschooling was no longer fun for me or the kids.  I figure that school should have some fun included with it or else we will all be miserable, and that would defeat the purpose of having my kids at home with me.

I have been working on a scrapbook for my in-laws' (husband's dad and step-mom) 25th anniversary.  I have 1 more spread to do before I am finished.  It is so exciting because this will be the first album I have actually completed.  All of my albums are works in process, I feel will never really be done.  I hope my in-laws will like it. 

I have to go for now.  We have to get started on our school day, and I have a lot of cleaning and laundry to do.  I have to sort through a bunch of papers, too, because I lost an important paper we need in order to get our taxes done.  :-(  We also have a cubscout field trip to go on this afternoon. 

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Well, we started our first lapbook today, and it was fun!  I have known about lapbooks for a year, but I just didn't know if I could be creative enough to do it.  I wanted the kids' first experience with lapbooking to be a good one.  I just found an email list for lapbooking which led to a website where I could buy ready to make lapbook kits/plans.  I bought one for St. Patrick's Day, and it has been great.  My older son was skeptical at first, but he was really enjoying himself after he got started.  When the kids finish, I'll have to figure out how to upload pictures of the finished lapbooks to this site.

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This morning I was considering the fact that my oldest daughter will be twelve this year.  This caused me to remember a special speaker who had come to our church a long time ago.  Philippe was a Messianic Jew from France, and he was speaking about the differences between the Christian Church and the Jews.   One of the points he brought up struck me as interesting at the time, and I made a mental note of it, filing it away in my brain for future use and pondering!

Philippe told us that the Jews that truly follow their traditions and beliefs don't have nearly the problem with teenager rebellion that we have amongst the Christian Church in America.  The reason he gave was this:  Batmizvah and Barmitzvah!  (I'm not sure if I'm spelling them correctly.)  Anyway, he said that at the age of 12, boys and girls become adults.  There is no in-between.  They are not given a teenager period of time to feel like they are in limbo and don't belong, not sure of their purpose or place in life.   I remember having a lot of Jewish friends when I was a teenager, and they did act a lot more mature than the rest of us, not having the rebellious attitudes or substance abuse problems to the same extent as the rest of us.  They weren't perfect, but they were good kids and had a better sense of who they were than we did.

This has me thinking, now that my daughter is almost 12.  In America, we all want our children to stay children as long as possible, but teenagers do seem to have an identity problem, wanting to be grown ups, not really children anymore, but not really adults either.  Many parents tell their kids to enjoy being a kid, but teenagers feel they are ready to grow up.  They are still treated like children, though they no longer feel like children.  While we maybe can't give them the full responsibilities or freedoms as adults have, perhaps we should consider treating them more like adults-in-training.  Perhaps we should discuss this with them, letting them know where they fit in and acknowledging that they are no longer children but adults in training.  I wonder if that would help them.

This is something I will be thinking more about as her birthday approaches.  The Christian Church in general doesn't seem to have a real timeline for telling parents when to consider their children as adults or how to adapt the way they parent their children as they get older.   There are some things out there concerning how to deal with disobedience and rebellion from teenagers, but it is just expected that teenagers will be disobedient and rebellious.  There isn't much out there to help parents avoid that behavior altogether.  While I realize our daughter will be disobedient or rebellious occasionally to some extent, is there a way to avoid it for the most part?  According to Philippe there is. 

I know that homeschooling does help somewhat with rebellion in teenagers because we can keep our children's environment controlled, but it seems to me that we should be able to instill some sense of responsibility into our children by the time they are twelve so they can handle spending a certain amount of time away from us without getting into trouble or having bad attitude changes.  I know many homeschooling families who seemed to be doing so well, but their children still rebelled as teenagers.  Or, they put their kids in public school in 8th or 9th grade and their children became totally different people, forgetting the values that were instilled at home.  I wonder if giving our children some form of acknowledgement and some freedom to make more of their own decisions would help with this.  I wonder if putting more responsibility on them to spend alone time with the Lord and discussing more grown-up topics with them would give them a greater sense of being valued and having a purpose and place of belonging.

Perhaps we will have a big party and make a big deal over our daughter's twelfth birthday.  We can get her a pin, necklace, or ring engraved with the words, Adult-in-Training and present it to her in front of everybody.  I don't know, but it's something to think about.

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Here in New York, there is a new bill being proposed that would allow parents who homeschool or send their kids to private school to get a reimbursement/tax credit of up to $3500 per child.  I am hearing mixed things about this tax issue.  One homeschooling mother was saying that as soon as you accept money from the government, they will feel they have the right to get more involved with how you are educating your kids.  Also, the public schools are putting out commercials on tv telling everyone they are going to lose over a billion dollars for education if this gets passed.  (That is money they shouldn't be getting in the first place, in my opinion, since it is money that is rightfully for the children that are not actually attending those public schools.)  That brings up a point in my mind, though.  If the public schools do lose a bunch of money, will that raise our school taxes?  If so, how much will the taxes raise? 

There are a lot of homeschooling parents who would welcome the tax credit/reimbursement, ourselves included.  However, I am wondering about the points that have been brought up against it.  Do any of you have any insight into this matter?  I know that there are a few states out there who have incorporated a very similar thing.  Do any of you know anything about how it turned out?  Did those state governments in turn try to gain more control over the homeschoolers or private schools?  Did the local school taxes get raised significantly?

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Well, I have spent most of my day, so far, looking for something new.  We have been using Rod and Staff readers to teach the kids Bible, but it's not very family oriented.  The kids like it ok, but it's not their favorite way to study the Bible.  Technically, they are readers, but the stories are all from the Bible in chronological order.  I thought they would work out great for us, combining Bible lessons with reading, but the kids prefer to read other books for "reading time" and would like to try something new for Bible training.  I think I would prefer a family Bible time to an individual study time

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     My 8yo son is so cute right now.  He is dancing around the living room, ballroom-dance-style with our 3yo daughter right now.  He is being such a little gentlemen.

     Now, he is trying out breakdancing.  He is trying to get the 3 and 4 yo girls to try it.  lol

     It is only 10:45, and he has already finished Math, Writing, Reading, and Bible.  This is the second day in a row that he has completed these subjects early.  I will be able to finish up his English with him in about a half hour.  He made up his own schedule yesterday, and for the last 2 days, he has been excited about school, trying to meet his schedule or beat it.  :-)

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     I must confess that my time with the Lord has seriously deteriorated in the last several years.  I have been too busy for Him, and it is definitely time for me to prioritize the activities in my life.

     One of the excuses I have used is that it is too hard to find quiet time when the kids are constantly here.  I can't leave them alone for long before they get in trouble or start arguing about something.  I have to keep them on track with their schooling.

     I realized this morning, though, that there is a bit of time in the morning that I have been overlooking.  I get up early to greet the children I babysit.  I usually am up a half hour or so before the arrive.  I turn on the news and sit on the loveseat with my eyes closed, wishing I was still in bed, or I turn on the computer and check email during that time.  I could very well spend that time with God, instead. 

     That idea struck me as I was turning my computer on this morning, and I decided to make it a priority to spend that time with the Lord, instead.  I will try to get up a bit earlier tomorrow, so I will have more than a half hour.  I hope that I will have enough self-discipline to continue this and make it an integral part of my day.  I am not normally an early morning person, so it is a great step for me to try to do anything productive at that time.

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