Here's a few reviews of what I've been reading lately. The good ones and the duds too.
Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Dr. Meg Meeker.
I got this book for Greg to read, but I read it and pointed out the highlights to him instead since he doesn't get much chances to read these days. Here's a few highlights for fathers:
-Make a plan for your expectations when your daughter(s) are young. Teach them often. Repeat.
-Have courage under fire. Be prepared to give an answer for why you do what you do and believe what you believe.
-Be the leader. Show her how to make decisions by making wise ones yourself. Don't let her (or your wife) be the boss.
-Have willpower when things get hard, painful, confusing or just plain crazy.
-Teach humility, it's the starting point for all other virtues. More importantly, live it and that will teach more than you'll ever have to.
-Make her world larger than her and her talents. It's not all about her. Teach her to recognize her strengths, but also her limitations and how to deal with them.
-Hug your daughter often. Especially as she grows older and into her teens. Many dads shy away when their daughters get older, but the girls actually need it more.
-Teach your daughters to delay sex and teach her how. Until marriage would be preferable, of course. Tell them why. Tell them how valuable they are to you, and even more to Jesus. Give them a purity ring or necklace if you want.
-Teach her that she isn't a princess, in the way that princesses take, princesses demand, that princesses want more. Teach her to be a pioneer woman instead. Pioneers expect things to get better by their hard work, know how to problem solve and look out for others rather than selfishly for themselves.
-Have as much grit at home as you have at work. Don't be a pushover or disengage when you get home, your family needs the same dedication and integrity you have in the work world.
-If you want your daughter to marry a man with integrity, be a man of integrity yourself. Are you honest, hard working, loving and protective? If you want a son-in-law who is those things, you must be those things yourself. Your daughters will marry what they know.
-Treat the internet fearfully and with respect. It can be an asset, but can also be a downfall in time spent, pornography, and other areas that will weaken the will and the conscience.
-Teach her who God is and why He's important. Every daughter will run into hard times in her life, and God is the only answer and only hope for this world and the next. If you don't know who He is yourself, find out. She'll need help and she'll need hope at some point in her life. Give her the tools to have those things.
-Don't blur the lines between right and wrong for your daughters. Whatever popular culture is doing or whatever your daughter thinks you should be doing, don't be swayed. Don't tolerate abuse, rudeness or dishonesty. Deal with them appropriately. Confront her as necessary.
-Most of all, make her a part of your everyday life, her whole life through. Listen to her, let her help you with everyday tasks, ask her deep questions, tell her your beliefs.
Awesome book, much more inside!
Love and Logic by
This book was recommended to me by a couple of people, and all I have to say is what my Dad used to always say when we'd come up with a new idea, "It would be a good idea, if it would only work." Yeah, that sums up this book.
The main idea is that kids learn to make good decisions when they're little and the stakes are lower so that when they get older they know how to make good decisions when the stakes are higher. Good ideas and good theories, but not very effective in a homeschooled family with many children. Here's why:
-I'm not going to sit here and give choices to 5 children many hundred times per day, each with a good and bad consequence and then wait to see if the consequence plays out (it may take days, weeks or months before the consequence teaches them the appropriate lesson). Kids just need to obey.
-I have to live with the bad consequences because they're home with me all day. For example (this is one used in the book), the kids don't want to go to bed. So, you let them stay up as long as they want, and then wake them up for school the next morning at their normal time, no matter how tired they are, and send them off. By evening they are a wreck and never want to stay up late again. But, as a homeschool mom, I get to put up with that grouchy kid or kids fighting with each other all day, not able to focus, etc. Or a kid whose blood sugar bottoms out because I used lunch/supper as a bargaining tool ("finish your homework then you can join us for supper") and they'll learn to miraculously do their homework because they want supper. Umm, no, my kids just get grouchy, overwhelmed and turn into bullies if I tried that. They use meal time as a bargaining tool often in the book, which I'm not willing to do.
Anyhow, I read the whole book, hoping for a few gems, but it ended up being a bunch of mumbo-jumbo pop-psychology written for parents with 2 kids who send them off to school every day. I have heard that they are teaching this method to teachers to help discipline the kids at school and I can see how it would be helpful there when the options for discipline are more limited.
Carry On, Warrior, Thoughts on Life Unarmed by Glennon Doyle Melton
This is just an enjoyable read about life as a mom and wife. Humorous, insightful and helpful at embracing your beautiful, messy, real life. I don't agree with many of her beliefs about God, but the book overall has good lots of good ideas. I've read her articles on Huffington Post for several years, so this is just a compilation of many of those.
Raising Godly Tomatoes by L. Elizabeth Krueger
This is by far my favorite parenting book and I just got it back from being lent out and thought I should read it again and get re-motivated with my toddlers. Good stuff. Lots of good stuff.
Proverbs for Parenting
This is a book my older sister recommended so I bought a copy. Greg and I have been going through it, and I hope to start posting these on our daily white board to help teach the kids at breakfast each morning. The lady who compiled it recommends using these as discipline tools, but I think that it's more effective to know these proverbs on an everyday basis rather than just pounding them into them in times of trouble.
That's all for now!
