One of the chief concerns for parents of teens is how to find or to create a community of positive peers. Kim's new book, Coaching a Club, just released by Monument Publishing, offers seven secrets for creating such a community and unleashing teens' longing to achieve something extraordinary. Coaching a Club: Seven Secrets for Forming a Successful Speech & Debate Club teaches principles of mentoring, networking, facilitating public service and preparing the next generation to change the world through the lens of developing a forensics club.  Kim has gathered the collective wisdom of her positive peers in the Christian speech and debate community over ten years of service to teens across the nation.  Even if you don't think your students need speech and debate, you need this book! Excerpts Commitment to Character We can readily see that studying speech and debate will improve intelligence in these more traditionally academic categories. But if that is all we see, we miss the most important possibilities in forensics training.  Forensics offers young people the opportunity to exercise those academic skills in an emotionally-charged social setting very much like the real world. It offers coaches a nearly unparalleled opportunity to train students in interpersonal and intra-personal intelligence.  Taken ...

My friend, Julie Ferwerda, has just released a new book, One Million Arrows. In it she outlines a vision to inspire us to raise powerfully spiritual children and to aim them at the heartaches of the world. The book began with the compassion of one man - a poor man in India - who gathered up orphans from the streets and began to nurture them in the name of Jesus. "Papa" Thomas in Kota, India has now raised over 16,000 throw-away children from the streets of India and set them loose to extend the love that rescued them to others who still do not know the Author of love, Jesus. Profits from the book will assist "Papa" Thomas's work Hopegivers International to continue the work of turning throw-away kids into arrows in the hand of God. Practical as well as visionary, One Million Arrows tells dozens of stories of parents just like you who have stepped up to the challenge. Today on the One Million Arrows website, you can read about some of the Countdown to College Carpe Diem Cadre members. Petra Anderson is featured. Read it and get your parenting rejuvenation vitamin! And today, you can join the party by buying One ...

Check out the articles over at Mother-Lode about seeing Pentecost as a model for sending our children out to their callings. Inevitable Goodbyes Imitating the Perfect Father Fiery Harvest Celebrations that Sting Wind & Fire Parenting part 1 ___________________________________________________ Also try the new audio resource, Quests & Homecomings for more perspective on God's parenting through the difficult transitions of life.

‘Tis the season. To graduate or not to graduate, that is the question.  Rites of passage are especially important for us homeschoolers who don't have (or want) the usual institutional milestones.  Our children need a time and place they can point to and say, "I finished high school." And having a diploma - even one issued by Your Homeschool Academy - does help them along in business and college.  You don't have to spend the first ten minutes of your post-graduate interviews explaining why you don't have a diploma and how you never graduated from high school.  A diploma validates academic achievement and allows you to proceed directly to discussing your skills, your goals and your value to your interviewer. Two of my three have graduated.  We tailored their celebrations to their tastes and accomplishments. Here are some of the things we did: We got together with our grad's friends for a small joint celebration. Each grad had a table on which to display their work and awards, and to collect cards from well-wishers. Dad & brother piped in the graduates (yeah, bagpipes!). Each family had a set amount of time for slide shows, thanks, a charge from Dad, kudos from Mom, and presentation of diploma. The ...

What are YOUR major concerns as you face the prospect of young adult children launching out? Register your opinion here.

  Contact us to Schedule a Workshop: countdown2college@gmail.com We are delighted that you are thinking about bringing one of Kim’s inspiring workshops to your community! What would you need and how would it look? Read on:   Countdown to College Workshop This is an 8.5-hour presentation; including a half-hour gathering time, a 1-hour lunch or dinner, and a 1-hour shopping/discussion time afterwards. Set-up takes up to 1 ½ hours (depending on tech glitches), and take-down takes about 1 hour. Countdown to College provides: · Full day of content, discussion, and media, developed by Kim Anderson. · Intergenerational presenters (as available), who can inspire the entire extended family. · Printed syllabi for workshop note-taking. · Electronic advance publicity materials and ideas for your local PR campaign. · Online and mail-in registration. You don’t have to do any of that paperwork! · Online publicity for your event on the Countdown to College website. · Transportation to and from the nearest airport served by Frontier Airlines. · Books and resources about the transition to post-high school life, family life, college, teen entrepreneurship and resume-development for participants to ...

Do standardized tests in fact test anything? The jury is still out in many educators' minds. However, the growing practices of grade inflation and grade-weighting* undermine the credibility of the high school GPA, so that often college admissions officials feel that standardized tests at least allow them to compare students' academic potential on a level playing field.  Until we find a better way to certify academic achievement, it pays to understand the tests' aims and uses, so that you can use them to your advantage. PSAT Widely thought to be a practice for the SAT, the PSAT actually focuses on a completely different set of skills.  Given in the fall of the Junior year, this test is the qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship.  Although the National Merit Scholarship itself is a small monetary value, it recognizes the top percentage of the top 1% of American students.  Colleges often try to attract this top-tier of students by plus-ing the scholarship with a full ride plus extras. So if academics are your strength this test is definitely worth taking. SAT This reasoning test is the most widely accepted exam for college entrance.  Generally it is taken in the fall of the Senior ...

It's not only armies that march on their stomachs.  Young adults troop home for the culinary delights they can only get at home.  So planning food is a big part of building homesickness into your holidays. Don't think that this is cheating!  God does it this way, too. His biggest parties featured foods that would speak of His work on our behalf and of our adventures together.  Some of my favorite Bible verses come from His descriptions of Passover and the Lord's Supper, which teach us to long for the wedding feast of the Lamb. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Explore God’s recipe for homesickness in the NEW audio CD, Quests & Homecomings. Discover how to release your children into God’s calling and how to connect with them as adults in healthy ways, as you work together to build Christ's kingdom and to celebrate His goodness. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ At our house, our favorite Christmas candies are the ones no one else makes: sugar plums and pecan caramels (OK, you can get those at the store, but making them is half the fun). Sugar plums are so easy to make that your pre-schoolers can do it. And they are so delicious that I have to have someone hide them from me. Nowadays, we ...

Let’s face it. Anticipating the sea changes that accompany our children launching out into maturity is plain terrifying. Recently, I met an old friend at a coffee shop. While we waited for the barristo to do his magic, I asked how his family was doing. He hesitated a moment, “Well our daughter got married last weekend. My wife had been fending off a cold, but now she can hardly get out of bed. Our new son-in-law is a wonderful guy, and I think they’ll make a good pair…” His voice trailed off; he shuffled awkwardly. “How wonderful…and how difficult,” I replied. He looked up in relief. “Yeah, it’s really hard. This is the first time our daughter has been away for any extended time. Our family was a team. My wife’s best friend…” “Sometimes these successes are almost enough to kill you off,” I offered. “Life is never the same. We have to help each other to find some new equilibrium. Well, congratulations…and condolences,” I toasted. “Congratulations and condolences…That’s really it.” He shook his head, chuckling, “Nobody gets that part. Nobody wants to talk about it.” My friend hit it on the head: Nobody talks about it. But the difficulty of transitioning ...

Back in the middle of the twentieth century, the Left began to talk about "capturing the robes", meaning that they wanted eventually to place men and women from the Left in positions of power and influence - those positions that usually required robes. University professors and academic administrators, judges, pastors, civil magistrates of all levels... It has been fifty or sixty years, and look around.  Education is dominated by politically-correct liberals to the extent that most conservative perspectives are not even allowed in academic discourse.  The civil magistracy is also largely liberal.  In fact, America has just elected not merely a liberal, but a socialist who gives every indication that he wants to overhaul the Constitution itself to suit his agenda.  Even the Church itself has been infiltrated by men who press liberal agendas before Christ's. Christians want to influence their world, but too often we only think in terms of the next election cycle, not in terms of decades and centuries.  We ought to take a lesson from our opponents.  They have spent the last five or six decades training children, grooming young people and getting young adults the credentials they need to be credible candidates for those robes. Ben over ...