I don't have too many teachers that made an impact on my life while growing up in public schools.  There were some nice one, lousy ones and ones that were ok but I can only count on one hand the ones that really made an impact on my education.  However I did have one that I LOVED, she was my fifth grade teacher and we always had a blast in that class.  She had fun contest to motivate us in behavior and academics and we won every contest the school had!  But the thing that made the biggest impact on me was her reading aloud to us every DAY!  She read all kinds of classic books to us-everything from Charlottes Webb to Bridge to Terabithia.  She had the attention of everyone in the room, including students that were typically a challenge.  I could not wait until reading time where she would get these stories out and introduce us to all the wonderful characters of the stories!  I LOVED it!

I think one of the greatest things we can do to bond with our children is to have read aloud time.  Many times as parents we read aloud to our little ones.  We have them on our lap or have them cuddle with us or read during their special bedtime routine but once our children start reading for themselves we let them go read but dont always think about reading books together anymore.  Some of our greatest times as a family have been reading great books together.  The kids get so excited talking about the characters, begging for another chapter to be read and excited about the anticipation of the next day wondering what the story is going to bring.  Sometimes mom gets so choked up during a chapter I have to let dad finish it.  Those sad ones are hard! 

I also find that they naturally become good spellers, good readers, and have high reading comprehension-all because they were read to.  All it takes is one chapter a day and they will love it!  Audio books are great too, you will have your kids begging not to stop the car.  My oldest all time favorite so far is Ginger Pye!  Wow, did he ever love listening to that one!  If you are looking for ways to connect with your children, you have to check out some great read alouds.

I think everyone (homeschoolers or not) should have two catalogs every year.  You can go to the websites and ask for a catalog and they will send them to you free of charge.  One is from sonlight where they give you a great list of books you dont want to miss!  They are seperated by grade level and there are readers for your kids to read as well depending on their reading level.  My son's favorite used to be Frog and Toad books, now it is anything Beverly Cleary has written.

The other is from Lamplighter where they have taken classic books from the 1800s and reprinted them.  Stories about  deep character that really gets to the heart!  We are now reading The White Gypsy and it is very hard to put it down.  They even put the books in covers that look authentic to the time period-they are beautiful books and we are hoping to read lots of them together in the years to come!

www.sonlight.com

www.lamplighterpublishing.com

Prayer is THE most important thing we can do for our children.  We can learn all kinds of parenting techniqes, styles and discipline but without prayer we have nothing.  Prayer is our life line with our LORD and we need to use it for our children.   We live in a day and age where everyone wants our children.  The culture, peers, and most of all Satan.  Eighty five percent of children who grow up in Christian homes do not stay in church once they are grown.  We (God's people) are losing our children to the world and we are losing them by masses.  This can not be acceptable, we don't have to give up to the enemy-our children belong to the Lord and we need to give them to him completely.  Prayer is the best way to do this. 

 Pray for your children- make times specifically to pray for them, maybe your shower time, your drive to work, before you go to bed, anytime you do the same thing everyday and that way you will remember.

Pray over them at night, go lay your hands on them while they sleep and pray God's will be done in their lives, pray that he protects them, guides them and brings them closer to him!

Keep a prayer journal and make days that are just for your children or grandchildren.  Even if you have adult children that do not have a personal walk with him.  Maybe you were not saved when they were little or didn't have the walk you have not with Christ and you have regrets.  It is NEVER too late to pray for them-Pray God brings them back, that he makes up for the time lost and don't give up.  You never know when God will use you or bring someone in their lives at the right time to lead them to HIM!

Here are some resources I talked about for your prayer life

You can get this on Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Praying Down the Path of Your Child's Life
Tom Bishop

You can find this Here. 

For eight weeks I will be leading a parenting seminar called Parenting is Heart Work at my church.  This is where I will put my links and notes so that the ones who come can refer back to.  I wanted them to have a place to come if six months down the road they were trying to think of a resource that I shared with them and could not remember it they could come here but I also thought I could share a little bit of the seminar with my notes here to my blogger friends.  Each week I will share the resources I talk about.  The first week I wanted to share the effectiveparenting.org resources because that is the study we are doing and dvds we are watching! 

I have a Category bar on the right side, just click on Parenting Seminar and the notes will be there, that way you won't have to look through all my entries to get there.  Of course unless you want to-I would love for you to read my whole blog! 

I have found so many resources in my parenting journey I would love to share some each week from many other sources as well.  Each week I will talk a little bit about a particular theme and then share the resources from that.   Teaching Children Character and Biblical teaching has been a passion of mine and hope and pray that you will learn something from my struggles and successes to take into your homes and family!

I started with my testimony of the struggles I had with an angry child.  I blogged about this a few years back, here is the link

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/byourlove1/181589/

I was new to blogging then and wrote it all in one paragraph, sorry about that, I wanted to edit it but because it is so old it wouldn't allow me to!

Effectiveparenting.org is the website of the ministry that we are watching the video on. 

The books I talked about are

Great book for children and parents who struggle with an anger issue!  You can get this from amazon or on the effective parenting website! 

This book is the one I am giving away at the end of the session to one lucky winner!  This book is based on the dvds we are watching!  Amazon or their website!

My all time favorite!  I LOVE this book.  Gives you practical tips on keeping the whining and complaining out of family life!  Specific things you can do with your children and a study at the end you can do together!  Amazon or their website!

This is a wonderful book to do with a group of kids or your own at home!  Really helps you get to the heart of your children's behavior!  Some of these kinds of books I feel are corny, just like I said in the study, we don't have to be corny just because we are Christians, I feel this one is not!  They have a series of these, this is the one I own!  Get this at effectiveparenting.org

CD's

These are the ones that helped us so much with Zach!  After listeing to these and applying them to our lives we saw instant changes.  It took a while to get where we needed to get but like anything.  You have to work on training not only your child but yourself in how you deal with them, especially the strong willed. 

First CD's I listened to, if you have a child that is strong willed, suffers from ADD or ADHD, you have to listen to them.  Found at effectiveparenting.org.

These Cds are just like the dvds we are watching but have a little more information.  Found at effectiveparenting.org

Fun activity books for Family Nights.  They have them for all ages!  Effectiveparenting.org