So….if you are serious about helping your toddlers and preschoolers love books, learning, simple things, routine, and more, check out the links below!

Wondering Wednesday Video—“Creating a Love for Learning in Littles”

In this video, Donna gives specific tips on book baskets, activity tubs, reducing technology (and using it well), and more.

Room Time Activities Resource List

In this document, Donna details great products to use with toddlers and preschoolers—for Room Time activities and for to you do with your littles.

Timberdoodle

Great place to get age-appropriate “school kits.” Don’t let the homeschool kits aspect scare you. These are amazing kits of the best of the best put together for toddlers and preschoolers!

Creating a Love for Learning in Your Home

In this audio, Donna talks about love for learning in older children.

Turning High Need Preschoolers Into Darling Angels

In this audio, Donna talks about common preschool behavior problems and ways to handle them.

Preparing Your Preschooler to Learn to Read

In this audio, Donna teaches some strategies and habits that will help preschoolers be prepared to learn to read when the time comes.

Tips for Avoiding the Terrible Twos

In this video, Donna talks about strategies to use with your pre-two year old to avoid those “terrible twos” that people always talk about.

What to Do With a Wonderful One Year Old

In this audio series (two part), Donna talks about the amazing days of one year olds.

Jonathan’s Journal Blog Series

In this blog series, Donna uses her unpublished children’s book, Jonathan’s Journal, to detail a wonderful day it the life of a preschooler—teaching parents every hour of the day!
 

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The post Littles Love Learning appeared first on Character Ink.

The scene was a common one for this “young mama” (then!) of five children ten and under (so far!): I worked my tail off all day long and still felt like a complete failure. My husband came home from a typical twelve hour day to my cries of “I didn’t get anything done today that I needed to do” and “I just don’t understand why I can’t get more done as long as the day is and as hard as I work.”

And once again, he answered with sweet words that pointed me to prioritizing, something that I was still in the process of learning: “Did you rock and feed the baby?” I nodded yes.

“Did you do Bible time this morning?” I nodded yes.

“Did you do read aloud time?” I nodded yes.

“Did you do story time with the littles?” I nodded yes.

“Did you speak words of encouragement to the kids?” I nodded yes.

“Did you make sure everyone did their morning routines and chore sessions?” I nodded yes. (He knew my schedule well!)

“Then you got everything done that you really needed to! You got the PRIORITIES done.” ….And off he went to finish dinner and clean the kitchen.

And somehow, I was encouraged. I was encouraged through completing my priorities.

We had always talked about our priorities. We had agreed on them. We had mechanisms and routines in place to be sure we got to them.

Yet, the grandeur, non-daily, and sometimes exciting eluded me (and oftentimes, some of the dailies still eluded me!).

It would be a couple more years until I grasped the joy of fulfilling my daily priorities. And many more years until I understood that the quote by Aristotle is absolutely, positively true: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”’

(Find out how that happened for me in this productivity video)

It’s funny because today, after thirty-two years of homeschooling and now two years of empty nesting, some of my greatest joys come in prioritizing and fulfilling my priorities each day—my dailies first then the “grandeur, non-daily, and exciting”!

So how can you (1) Determine your priorities and do them? AND (2) Find encouragement through doing them?

There is something amazing about sitting down (with spouse, if possible) and writing out your true priorities for the year or the month or the week. And then writing the actions that it will take to make those priorities happen.

But there is something magical about following through on those things during that year, month, or week. Being able to look back and see that you really did the things that you have pre-determined are true priorities is the ultimate encouragement for homeschooling parents.

I know this isn’t the typical “outside encouragement” from a motivating article or moving speaker. (I love those too!)

But I also know that nothing felt as good or brought me as much encouragement as prioritizing and following through on my priorities did. And I so want this for young homeschooling moms.

Of course, it doesn’t just give you encouragement…you are heading towards big goals when you prioritize and follow through. Your preschoolers will learn to obey and sit still and be kind. Your new readers will be reading fluently before you know it. Your pre-teens will become independent with their daily school lists. Your teens will follow through on their assignments.

And you will be encouraged.

So encouraged.

So….some prioritizing and encouragement tips!

1) Prioritize your day.

Put the most important things first. And do those before you do anything else. Only put the things in your schedule for the first part of the day that truly need done every single day.

2) Make a List of Priorities for the Month and Attach Actions to It That Will Help You Fulfill the Priorities

We say something is a priority. A lot. However, we have to understand that a priority is only a priority if we do it. Otherwise, it is a wish or a dream. Many times we are unsuccessful in carrying out our priorities because we have vague, dreamy ideas of what they should be—but we don’t put real actions with them to be sure we DO them.

Priorities are what we do. If you were to pull out your virtual calendar, daytimer, or daily to do lists, anyone could read them and give you a list of your priorities. You might argue about their observations. You might say, “No, that thing is not my priority. My priority is this….” Something loftier, more noble, or more similar to what you would like your priorities to be. However, if we do not do something consistently it is not a priority because priorities are what we do. (Read 5 Influences to Determine Your Priorities)

3) Put the Actions That Help You Meet the Priorities in Your Daily Schedule—and Don’t Do Anything Else Until You’ve Done These

If Priorities Are What We Do, it follows that they are ACTIONS. Therefore, in order to meet priorities, we must DO something. Once my husband and I determined our priorities, we made action lists and put them into the daily, weekly, and monthly schedule. If these are our priorities, they should come ahead of everything else.

I know these steps sound simplistic. But there is nothing simple about following through on priorities. Tyranny of the urgent takes over. Messy diapers and boiling oatmeal take over. Our own lack of diligence takes over sometimes.

But I know through my life, prioritizing and following through on my priorities have gotten me where I wanted to go in graduating seven kids from homeschooling and maintaining an amazing marriage.

Blessings and encouragement to you—as you seek to prioritize!

I’ll leave you with some other articles, videos, and podcasts to help you learn to prioritize even more—and encourage yourself in the process:

1) Podcast: Overcoming Obstacles in Parenting

2) Podcast: Foundations for Becoming an Efficiency Expert in Your Home

3) Video: How to Prioritize

The post Finding Encouragement Through Prioritizing appeared first on Character Ink.

If you have heard us speak or read any of our blogs, you have probably heard my stories about how I used to be a “closet lady.” That is, I always cleaned out closets, organized toy cubes, shelved books in order, and made one hundred freezer meals in one day—instead of doing the dishes, laundry, trash, and other “dailies.”

It took me a while as a young mother to get to the point where I could set all of my projects aside—all of the more “creative,” fun, and cool things–in order to do the things that I needed to every day….the dailies.

But once I did, my life was forever changed. You see, it is the daily ins and outs that truly make us successful in homeschooling (and in life!).

Stop and think for a moment about successful businesses. Every day a successful business has multiple lists of things that are done by various departments every single day.   They have checks and balances in place to ensure that these dailies are done consistently. The people responsible for these dailies don’t branch out and do grandiose tasks or launch new projects. The daily people do the dailies—because without the dailies no great idea or new product really matters.

While homeschooling mamas do not usually have someone to take care of the dailies for us so that we can do the “grandiose” (if you do, power to you!), we still need to do those dailies in order to be successful.

What constitutes a daily? For me, a daily was anything in the home that needed done every day—either by me or by someone else. At various times, this could include any or all of the following: dishes, trash, and laundry (see my posts about never getting behind on these again!); morning decisions for evening meal (with some preps if needed); morning routines by all; reading with a new reader; writing with a new writer; Bible memory recitations; morning read alouds; two chore sessions; and more.

Some days, throughout my thirty years of homeschooling, my dailies felt heavy and overwhelming (and never-ending because they truly are!); however, more often than not, they made me feel successful. It didn’t matter what else I got done on any given day. It didn’t matter how many projects were left undone. It didn’t matter how accomplished I was (or wasn’t!) in other areas. Because I did something that is extremely difficult: I did my dailies.

And guess what? Not only did I do them, day in and day out. But I also got good at them! Talk about feeling super successful.

I got up, nearly every morning(!), and did what I needed to do in order to manage a large family, homeschool several children, live a Christian life, and keep a wonderful marriage going strong. Sometimes I even did other things—but, like I mentioned above, it didn’t matter if I didn’t.

Dailies are the building blocks to success. They are the things that feed a family, keep a home in order, build strong readers, instill Christian virtues in our kids, and more. They yield amazing results—over a period of time—without our even realizing that they are doing so.

After a while, I learned to Delight in These Dailies (due to the feeling of achievement and the success they brought about in our home). After a while longer, I taught my children to Delight in the Dailies (which have led to their success as adults today!). And now I am teaching you! 🙂

How do you learn to delight in the dailies when you are first starting to make these tasks priorities in your life? Stay with me! Next week, I will give you some tips in how to Delight in the Dailies!

In the meantime, here are some places to learn more about my beloved “Dailies”:

1) Short blog post: Dishes, Trash, Laundry Twice a Day

2) Short blog post on “after the Dailies”: Timely Tasks & ABC Weeklies

3) Video With Outline: Following Through on the Dailies

4) Video With Outline–How I Found My Dailies

Hope these help! Blessings to you as you seek to prioritize your life, school, and home!

The post Delighting in the Dailies–Part I of II appeared first on Character Ink.

Then you get home and start to make the charts, create the checklists, and hold the family meeting…and you suddenly have questions. A lot of questions….

Wowsie, I remember those days twenty-five and thirty years ago…like yesterday. (I’m so grateful that I remember so many happy memories associated with our thirty-two years of homeschooling!)

Well, this post is for those times. I recently did a 32 Scheduling Tips From 32 Years of Homeschooling presentation. Afterwards, I received emails and FB messages with those nagging questions that mamas get when they are going home and trying to implement something they just learned…

So consider this the follow up to the speaker that you heard and got so excited about. We all need that sometimes! 🙂

Love and hope,
Donna

P.S. Find other chore podcasts here.

The post Q&A Morning Routines, Chores & More! appeared first on Character Ink.

When we had three young children four and under, we went to a parenting seminar in which the wise teacher (Gregg Harris) taught us how to manage our day—and get in the things that are truly important to us: “Attach things that are important to you to something that is already in your schedule.”

I was a struggling young mom, trying to teach our little ones to obey, love each other, enjoy learning, be helpful, desire God’s Word, play creatively, and more. However, like many young stay-at-home moms, I had prioritizing and follow through problems. Mr. Harris’ advice helped me get a handle on my preschoolers’ days.

We came home from the seminar and began attaching our “priorities” to the things that were already in place. Some things are predictable in a day automatically; they are “constances,” so to speak. Children get up in the morning, eat three meals (and snacks!), take naps (more on that later!), and go to bed at night (more on that later, too!).

We chose the things that we truly wanted to make happen in our littles’ daily schedule: Bible reading in the morning; chore training; afternoon story time; etc. We attached these to the “constances” of our kids’ days, and before we knew it, we were having successful days…and we soon attached more things to our attachments until we were attaching to our attachments. And our days became one big, long attachment—getting to many of the things that were priorities in our hearts but were not happening in real life.

I have talked a lot about doing things with our children that teach them important Christian virtues and behaviors. It is easy to hear someone talk about these things, and think, Yeah, that sounds great….but it is easier said than done!

I’m here to tell you today that you can do this! If something is a true priority in your family’s life, you can make it happen, regardless of children’s ages, work schedules, financial situation, and more.

Take the most important thing to you that you know you should do with your children but never seem to get to. Daily devotions? Prayer time? Read aloud? Story time? Chore time? Morning routines? Talk time? Only choose one—and decide that this one thing will become a habit in your home.

Now choose the most constant scheduled activity in your family—rising, breakfast, lunch, after school snack, bedtime, etc. And attach your priority to that. Be realistic. Do not try to do everything at one time. Do not make it a long, drawn-out affair. Just start tomorrow doing the highest priority item attached to the most consistent “constant.”

Keep your activity short at first. If you choose to read a Bible story aloud while the kids eat breakfast each morning, get one of those One Minute Bible story books or some other quick read, and dig in and do it. Do not be discouraged if it is a five minute read. Do not be dismayed if you miss occasionally (the “more often than not” principle will be explained tomorrow!). Just do it!

Once you have some consistency with this, you can tackle another “attachment.” And so on and so forth. Before you know it, your home will be a center—a learning center, spiritual center, fun center, heart-affecting center—all of the things that the Christian home was designed to be. Don’t worry if you mess up—our children are quick to “catch us in inconsistencies,” and they will be sure to let you know that your “attachment” is slipping!

How have you managed to be consistent with important things in your home? Give us some of your tricks!

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The post Attaching Important Things To Your Schedule appeared first on Character Ink.

Summer schedules. Those two words do not seem to go together to most kids (and even many parents!). And yet, I want to propose a plan whereby summer can still be somewhat carefree. (After all, that’s what most people love about summer.) Yet, our children can all still be engaged in learning, developing disciplines for their lives, building relationships and memories, and more.

We are night owls here at the Reish family, so I’m not here to put a guilt trip on people who stay up late—and tell them that their entire family should be up at six in the morning year round. For years and years, I fought my and Ray’s tendencies to function better at night. However, we are not ones to pull out isolated Scriptures and make them rules for our lives. The idea that “early I will find thee,” is definitely in the Bible. Then again, so is the fact that God is found in the night watches and “late at night on my pillow I sought thee.” Truly, God can be found late at night AND early in the morning! Thus, saying that one sleep cycle is more righteous than another simply isn’t true.

I’m not advocating a time table in which everybody should be on in order to raise our children for God! I am here advocating patterns and constances that make us successful.

For us, this has meant that for nearly our entire thirty-two years of homeschooling (until we had one in high school only, and he worked and took college classes), we have followed the same PATTERN/schedule year round for our kids upon rising. We got up in the morning and do morning routines, chores, and devotions, regardless of whether it was July or January. Then we usually read aloud together. Then we did whatever was on the agenda—school, work, projects, play together, have free time (especially smaller kids in the summer), etc.

We did this because regardless of whether a person is fifty or five, there are things that we just need to do all the time. These patterns have helped our children grow up with extremely strong self discipline. Our adult kids, at ages seventeen through thirty-three get more done in a day than most adults I know. And they still, as adults, read, grow, learn, and give to others on a daily basis.

How can you apply this principle to your summer? What do you want your kids’ summer to look like? Staying up until three and sleeping until noon? Then hanging out with friends until bed again? Or do you want to help them learn some skills? Spend some quality time with them? Have them read a little? You can determine the kind of summer you and your children have.

What if you had an earlier bedtime (ours is midnight for our teens—they don’t require much sleep!) and had them get up, do a few chores, read with you, and start your day together?

What if you had a chapter-book-a week plan for their reading this summer? What if you taught each child a new recipe or a new cleaning skill? Summer can be fun and profitable!

Pin this post!

The post Summer Schedules appeared first on Character Ink.

*Learning From Workshops—as easy as ABC…making the changes you want in your home a little at a time

I. Five W’s and H of Character Building

A. Why–

1. Deuteronomy 6: 6 and 7: 6 “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

2. Make disciples….”bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

B. Where—everywhere we are with our kids

C. When—all the time!

D. Who—you—once it is in your heart first!

E. What—Biblical teaching, Christian living, character, faith!

F. How

1. Through a fairly predictable schedule

2. With intentionality—not letting these years pass by

3. By prioritizing—that reaching your children’s hearts for the Lord will be of top priority to you

4. Relationally

5. Through Biblical parenting

II. Toddler Tips

A. Adapt toddler to your schedule and family’s lifestyle

B. Set the stage for his future tastes

1. Defiance vs. submission

2. Selflessness/meanness vs. kindness/gentleness

3. Hyper-stimulation/activity vs. simple things

4. Lack of focus/not enjoying learning vs. love for learning

C. Decide ahead of time what your behavior absolutes will be

1. Behaviors absolutes are those behaviors that your family will not permit in your home

2. Ours—talking back, saying no, lying/deceit, temper tantrums, striking

D. Start teaching the joy of doing what is right

E. Develop predictable routines—block schedules (not minute by minute)

III. Times and Places to Teach Faith and Character

A. When you rise up

1. Character building chore times
2. Family devotions or devotions with Mom
3. “Morning read aloud”
4. Schedules/daily disciplines
5. Snuggle, rock, and read
6. Schedules that put God first in your home

B. When you sit in your house

1. Story time
2. Organization/upkeep
3. Discussion
4. Questions
5. Listening together
6. Parenthetical Parenting
7. Expectation Explanations
8. Teaching like Jesus
9. Reading together
10. Games
11. Prioritizing “sitting together in your house”
12. “Good report” time
13. Songs/sayings to build relationshiips
14. Family worship

C. When you walk by the way
1. “Who has shoes on?”
2. As you drive down the road
3. “Who had good character?”
4. Daddy talks
5. Meal times
6. Car talks
7. Twalks
8. Terrific Tuesdays and Wonderful Wednesdays
9. Movie and book talks
10. Teachable moments
11. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks
12. Listen more than you talk
13. Singing together

D. When you lie down

1. Malachi time
2. Bible talks
3. Bedtime stories
4. Tying heartstrings
5.The eyes are the windows to the soul
6. Taking the time needed at bedtime (requires great bedtime training prior to this)

Listen to the podcast here:

Links to Podcasts

Age Appropriate Chores

Ways to Spend More Time With Your Kids

Utilizing Room Time With Toddlers and Preschoolers

Turning High Need Preschoolers Into the Darling Angels They Were Meant to Be

Solving Common Preschool Behavior Problems

What to Do With a Kindergartener

How to Prepare Your Child to Learn to Read

What to Do with Toddler Troubles

Wonderful One Year Olds Part I

Wonderful One Year Olds Part II

Storytime Questions and Answers

Using Audios With Children

The post Podcast Notes for “Faith & Character Building for Littles appeared first on Character Ink.

On my recent podcast episode for the last Wednesday of December, I actually talk about the Daily Duties page first. I did that because I truly believe that Daily Duties are what make us the most successful in parenting, homeschooling, home management, and even entrepreneurship.

So where does the Daily Duties page fall in a simple planner? In The Simplified Planner (get it for free here during January 2016 by subscribing to the blog or newsletter or buy it here for five dollars), the Daily Duties page is a template page that you print off and fill in. (I recommend that you print one off and fill it with all of your Daily Duties as described below, then make copies to use each week. This way, any time your Daily Duties change (and they do throughout a year), you can print a clean one off, create a new sheet, and photocopy that.)

That is where it falls in The Simplified Planner, but it should fall every week in your actual calendar/planner. Let me explain:

1) The Daily Duties is a page that you create with all of your daily must do’s on it. These are things that you need to do every single day to be successful in life.

2) This page can be a daily page or a weekly page:

a) Daily just means that you will use a new one every single day (with the same ongoing daily list on it).
b) Weekly means that you will use one a week but each daily task will have five check boxes before it (one for each weekday), and you will check off one box for each task every day as you do it.)

3) Regardless of whether you create a daily sheet or a weekly one, it should have every thing listed on it that you need to do. Again, I work in categories, so my Daily Duties page was always divided by categories. For example, as a homeschooling mama of many, my sheet had these categories on it:

a) Personal Morning Routine
b) Morning Devotions/Reading With the Kids
c) Oversee Morning Routines and Morning Chores
d) Unit Studies (there were always things on here I did every day–Read biography; read character book; sing hymn; other reading for one hour, etc.)
e) Oversee Noon Chores
f) Littles in the Afternoons
g) Food Preps etc.

4) The point is that if you need to do it in order for things to operate smoothly at your house, it should be on this list.

5) Note that the categories may be time periods or categories/types of activities.

6) Once you have it made, you should print it off and insert it (either with a paper clip or in your binder if you use a three-ring binder) just before that week’s Weekly Worksheet. Open your binder or planner up to this page, and use it to work your mama magic in your home.

There are very few homemakers, homeschoolers, or work-at-home mamas who truly conquer the Daily Duties. There are many reasons for this–not really pinpointing what those things are; feeling overwhelmed by bigger things instead of tackling the smaller, day-to-day tasks; lack of motivation; not having kids help enough so the daily list is truly too much for one person, etc.

But the thing about the Daily Duties list is that once you master it, you can accomplish anything! Once you prove to yourself that you can do what needs done every day–before you let weeklies or monthlies or “tyranny of the urgent” overcome you–there will be no stopping you!

Check out my three chore sessions a day and dishes/laundry/trash twice a day for more insight!

Check out this podcast episode about Using Your Planner/Calendar to Get More Done!

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The post Welcome to a New Year: The Daily Duties Page appeared first on Character Ink.

We are the most balanced baby people I know! No extremes here of nursing a child on demand until age three —or of putting a baby on a four hour eating schedule while he’s still in the hospital at two days old! Somewhere between those extremes is an amazing way to parent babies and toddlers in which everybody (baby, parents, and siblings) enjoy each other and fall into a comfortable family rhythm that does not over-emphasize one child’s “wants” over another. And one in which wants and needs are differentiated and met as is appropriate. This is certainly not an article about baby and toddler training (check out our blog for more on that!); however, our parenting of our babies really did have something to do with the deep, communicative relationships that we developed with our children.

Talk about everything while you are going through your regular routines!

There is a lot of “talk” these days about talking to your baby in utero. We talked to our babies in the womb—sang to them, read to them, etc.—though not nearly as much as we did once they were born!

Yes, we talked to our babies! We sang to them, talked to them, rocked them and walked them as newborns. But we increased this even more once the baby became four to six months old.

When we got our babies and toddlers up in the morning, we spent even more time with them. I would get our babies and toddlers up, rock them, read to them, sing to them, walk around their rooms and read their posters and plaques to them, etc.

Rockies and Reading

Before their naps, we would have “rockies and reading” time in which I rocked the baby, sang Scripture songs, and read a little. (This was actually the pre-cursor to when the toddler became mature enough to join the preschoolers for story time—sort of a rite of passage that would happen as this time in Mama’s chair increased, and the little one could sit long enough for afternoon story time (one to two hours!).

We began talking baby talk early! Talking to babies and toddlers via books, songs, rhymes, etc., then eventually discussing these things, was the beginning of communicating with our kids. So….go for the baby talk! Start communicating early with your kids.

The post 52 Weeks of Talking to Our Kids—Baby Talk appeared first on Character Ink.

 

We would love to come to your area with our Homeschooling With Character parenting seminar.

 

This seminar is flexible to meet the needs of homeschool groups everywhere.

 

The details:

 

1. The seminar can be sponsored by a church, Sunday school, small group, community, homeschool group, support group, field trip group, state homeschool organization, etc. It is for any group of homeschoolers who want to learn about character-focused parenting from birth to tweens—with a special emphasis on the homeschooling lifestyle. (See our tween and teen workshop list here.)

Note: We also offer our Raising Kids With Character seminar, which has many of the same sessions but does not focus on homeschooling families only. It addresses Christian parenting regardless of schooling scenarios. Many homeschooling groups sponsor that seminar so that they can invite their non-homeschooling friends as well. (Another option is to offer the Raising Kids With Character seminar but Friday during the day (or Thursday evening) have us present homeschooling workshops only (such as writing or managing your homeschool day or any of our sixty-plus homeschooling workshops.)

 

2. It is flexible. We can accommodate most schedules, including a shorter seminar (Friday night and Saturday morning) or a longer one (Friday night and all day Saturday) or even an extended one if Moms would like to do some efficiency, organizing, or “baby/toddler” things or other homeschooling topics during the day on Friday (my personal favorite because in this arrangement I get to talk to more moms!).

 

3. It is inexpensive. This is our ministry. Our book sales and cottage classes are for-profit, but these seminars are our “mission field.” We don’t need to make money—we just need to be able to pay our expenses and sell some of our products on tables. Easy peasy. That means that parents will not have to pay a lot to attend (though we do recommend charging something so parents commit to it).

 

4. The registrations can be set up in multiple ways: (1) Your group can handle the registrations and pay our expenses with your “per person” charge; (2) We can handle the registrations fully on our end; (3) Your group can handle the registrations but scholarship your people and have your group pay our expenses.

 

5. We are always asked about a minimum number of attendees. We love to speak to hundreds at homeschool conventions, and we would love to get our parenting messages out there to hundreds as well. However, we can usually hold a seminar for as few as thirty attendees.

 

Contact us below:

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Email Address

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Here are a few scenarios:

(though you can take a look at our full workshop list if you would like for us to add something, come an extra day or two, or substitute something ). (Session descriptions are found below potential schedules.)

 

Short Seminar

Friday Night

• The Five W’s of Character Training
• Parenting Paradigms
• Options: Marriage OR Children and Chores OR Diligence Training

 

Saturday Morning

• Early Qualities for Toddlers and Preschoolers
• Child Training vs. Heart Training
• Helping Tweens Grow in Character and Virtue

 

Long Seminar

Friday Night

• The Five W’s of Character Training
• Parenting Paradigms
• Options: Marriage OR Children and Chores OR Diligence Training

Saturday Morning

• Starting Out Right With Babies and Toddlers
• Early Qualities Preschoolers
• Child Training vs. Heart Training

 

Saturday Afternoon

• Helping Tweens Grow in Character and Virtue
• Honesty vs. Deceit
• Handling Character Issues (vs. Heart Issues)
• Q and A

 

 

Extended Seminar

 

Friday Daytime: Any of these options (three to six sessions, depending on half day vs full day—most of these sessions are touched on informally in our podcast episodes)

• How to Become an Efficiency Expert
• Introduction to Freezer Cooking
• Efficiency in the Kitchen
• Scheduling a Preschooler’s Day
• Preparing a Child to Learn to Read (Preschool/Pre-reading)
• Five Ways to Be More Efficient in the Kitchen
• An Organized Family
• Utilizing Chore Charts, Morning Routine Charts, Bedtime Routines, and After School/Homework Lists
• Homework Help: Tips From Language Lady for Homework and More
• Personal Organizational Strategies for Mom
• Almost Three R’s Language Arts Workshops (three sessions)
• Write On! (Writing seminar for students including an editing roundtable for parents)
• CQLA or Meaningful Composition workshops/training sessions
• Helps for Homeschooling Moms (three sessions)
• Anything from our homeschooling, language arts, fathering….all of our workshop lists

 

Friday Night

• The Five W’s of Character Training
• Parenting Paradigms
• Options: Marriage OR Children and Chores OR Diligence Training

 

Saturday Morning

• Starting Out Right With Babies and Toddlers
• Early Qualities for Preschoolers
• Child Training vs. Heart Training

 

Saturday Afternoon

• Helping Tweens Grow in Character and Virtue
• Honesty vs. Deceit
• Handling Character Issues (vs. Heart Issues)
• Q and A

 

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Character Training Seminar Session Descriptions

 

The Five W’s of Character Training—

This workshop, the first in our popular “Raising Kids With Character” seminar (though may be used separately, as well), teaches parents the what, who, when, where, why (and how!) of character training in the home. Using Scripture and thirty+ years of parenting experience, the Reishes convince parents in this workshop that it starts with us–and is up to us–to train our children in godly parenting, how and where this takes place (it’s not as elaborate as you might think), and much more!

 

 

Parenting Paradigms–

How we parent begins with what we believe–what we believe about how children are when they come into this world, whose responsibility child training is, what our role should be in it, what we believe Scripture tells us about parenting, timing and appropriate age of training, empathy in parenting, and much more. What we believe will dictate what we do every single day of our parenting lives.
Find out why and how in this workshop.

 

 

Starting Out Right With Babies and Toddlers—

Demanding toddlers become disobedient preschoolers, disobedient preschoolers become surly elementary children, surly elementary children become disrespectful teens, and disrespectful teens become entitled young adults.
What we do in parenting our babies and toddlers makes a huge difference in the success of our parenting in other stages. This workshop focuses on the first four qualities that are essential for parenting babies and toddlers–contentment, cheerfulness, obedience, and submission.

 

 

Early Qualities for Preschoolers—

This workshop takes the first four qualities needed for babies and toddlers–submission, obedience, contentment, and cheerfulness–and builds on those in the life of the four to six year old child. In this workshop, Reishes explain how to apply those in your little one’s life, while raising kids whom others enjoy being around and that older siblings adore! Loving and training these ages are some of the most blessed years of parenting (along with many other years!)–and parenting children with boundaries, love, fun, and biblical concepts makes all the difference in their dispositions, the family’s efficiency and joy, and family unity.

 

 

Child Training vs Heart Training—

Something should start to happen in our character training between the ages of eight and ten. This workshop teaches how to transition from child training to heart training-and how the foundational character training plays a role in that transition. How do we get from “putting out fires” in our kids’ behavior to training their hearts for life? Ray and Donna have insights from their thirty+ years of parenting that can help parents move into heart training of their children effectively.

 

 

Helping Tweens Grow in Character and Virtue—

Taking tweens and young teens from obedience and submission for the sake of avoiding punishment to genuine respect, self-control, diligence, truthfulness, responsibility, and more can be a daunting task. But it can be done! And we can enjoy those ten to fourteen year olds instead of dreading the next confrontation! This workshop focuses on how to help our children grow in character and virtue because “it’s the right thing to do”–and apply those qualities to their lives for life!

 

 

Training Children to Be Diligent Workers —

RKWC goes beyond a daily chore chart (though that is certainly a part of it) to explain the basics of raising diligent workers in the home. The Reishes have found several keys that have made their children not just “chore doers” but responsible, diligent children at early ages. This session touches on setting up chore schedules, training children in chores, family unity in order to work together well, cautions, and much, much more.

 

 

Honesty vs. Deceit–

In this important workshop, the Reishes introduce various scenarios or honesty and deceit and how common things like “just kidding” or telling “half truths” lead to more dishonesty. They gives dozens and dozens of important tips for counteracting dishonest habits that develop so easily and quickly in our children when these areas are neglected. They also include how to teach honesty lessons, how to become a “family of honesty and uprightness,” and poignant verses to teach our children about God’s expectations of honesty in our lives. This new workshop was born out of the Reishes many talks with families and the struggles they are facing as well as their experiences teaching up to two hundred kids each year in their cottage classes.

 

 

Handling Character Issues (vs. Heart Issues)–

So once you have determined the difference between heart issues and character issues—and you understand how to handle those important heart ones, what do you do with chores left undone, bikes left in the driveway, forgetfulness with school papers and assignments, sloppiness, and more? Ray and Donna draw on their thirty-three years of parenting experience to give you solutions to some of these “character issues” that could lead to limited success as teens, college students, and adults.

 

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