The Young Man's Guide to Awesomeness

Young Man's Guide to Awesomeness

The Young Man's Guide to Awesomeness: How to Guard Your Heart, Get the Girl and Save the World is a book I've been looking for for years.  Barrett Johnson has written a guide for Christian teen boys outlining, in a direct and serious tone leavened with a healthy dose of humor, the challenges they face in their relationships and attempts to succeed in life and how to overcome those challenges.

The three major sections of the book cover How to Guard Your Heart, How to Get the Girl, and How to Save the World.  Within each section, chapters outline different areas of focus.  In each chapter, the topic is explored within several subsections.  A pithy Big Idea gives a piece of advice.  A body part is highlighted along with an explanation of how that body part affects this topic.  Typical responses or situations are described.  Advice is given for how to respond differently than the norm.  A related lesson from the life of the biblical king David provides an example.  The Take Action subsection gives a short list of concrete steps to take.  Talk About It has discussion questions, and there's a QR code that links to a video.

Johnson's advice and admonitions here are direct and earnest but not overly explicit.  Sex is discussed quite a bit, but in an appropriately tactful way.  The humor in the book will appeal to older pre-teen and teen boys but isn't crass. 

LATCH

Latch: A Handbook for Breastfeeding with Confidence At Every Stage is a straight-forward, encouraging resource for moms who would like to breastfeed. The book is organized by the stages of the process, starting with prenatal preparation and ending with weaning.

*Preparing to Breastfeed
* Establishing Breastfeeding
* Breastfeeding Through Changes
* Weaning from Breastfeeding

The tone is matter-of-fact and supportive, and the author does not make judgmental statements. Moms facing typical breastfeeding challenges will find practical advice along with suggestions for where to go for additional help if that is needed. Many testimonials from breastfeeding moms are included, giving a multitude of perspectives on the process and the types of challenges moms face. I have nursed five children, so I found much of this information familiar, but I still saw some new and helpful facts and ideas.

I would have liked to see more testimonials from moms who had a smooth experience or at least a bit more recognition that breastfeeding, once established, can be a relatively simple and uncomplicated process. Also, proper hydration wasn't emphasized as much as I would have liked, but that may be simply that my own personal experiences have made me overly cognizant of that factor.

This is a friendly, functional guide to breastfeeding. This is absolutely a book I would buy for an expectant friend who wanted to breastfeed or for someone who was experiencing challenges in the process. It's a book I would have liked to have had when I was first trying to breastfeed.

(I received a free copy of this book to review.)

Sacred Search

Whenever I find a copy of Gary Thomas' books Sacred Marriage or Sacred Parenting at a discount price, I buy it.  I love to give these books to other people when they are facing challenges in their marriage or their parenting.  I recently learned that he had written Sacred Search, about choosing a marriage partner, and I bought the paperback and the ebook.  I have teenagers now, and I'm always looking for excellent resources to help them transition to adulthood and the new challenges it brings.

Sacred Search tries to set the focus of the dating relationship on the purpose of the marriage relationship.  Thomas hopes that Christian marriages will become support systems for lives of ministry and training grounds for new generations of Christians who will form the same types of marriages.  From the beginning and throughout the book he reminds readers that Christian lives should be focused on the kingdom of God, and this means that Christian marriages should be focused on the kingdom of God. Therefore choosing a spouse needs to focus on that component of the relationship too.

Thomas covers much more than that, though.  He talks about the pitfalls of infatuation and how to avoid being deceived by feelings.  He discusses many other deceptions that lure people into marriages they later regret.  He suggests considering each person's expectations for the marriage relationship, giving examples of different types of expectations people have and the potential pitfalls of each one. His chapter on premarital sex wonderfully combined mercy with firm warnings backed by information.  He also explains how to develop the relationship constructively and look for common ground.

The intended audience for this book seems to be single adults, primarily.  Most of the book is suitable for older teens, and none of it is inappropriate for most older teens who are interested in pursuing serious dating relationships.  Some of the material isn't as relevant to teens, such as the advice for going out looking for a mate when options seem limited.

I am using this book with my older teen now, and I intend to have my other kids read it as they get to an appropriate age.  Sacred Search helps set the right tone for dating in an intentional way as a means for selecting a life partner who can really be a partner in walking with God.

There Is Truth

Why do we teach children about history (or literature or any of a number of subjects)?  What is the best way to teach these subjects?  How do we know if we have taught them successfully? In Consider This:  Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition, Karen Glass explains the choices facing all of us who have the responsibility of teaching children.  When we choose to present or not present certain topics, even more so when we choose to present topics in particular ways, we are making philosophical choices whether we know it or not.  These choices have a profound effect on the way each child views the world.

Karen explains that today's preferred methods of teaching resemble the old story of the blind men and the elephant, as we present children with disconnected bits of information without ever showing them the whole.  Without that view of the whole, children do not come to care about the subjects of their studies or to care about the process of learning about the world around them.

There is a better way, and it is not new but yet it is fresh and lively.  The original classical educators, back in the distant past, aimed at pursuing virtue through "synthetic" learning.  (Synthetic meaning all the parts together, like the whole elephant.)  Charlotte Mason, back in the early 20th century, studied the principles espoused by classical educators and found ways to apply them with her own students.  Our job is to do the same today, if we want to equip students to pursue truth and virtue.  "There is nothing quaint, nostalgic or old-fashioned about a desire to educate in the classical tradition.  It is a radical thing to do.  We do nothing less than demand that chaos resolve itself into order, simply by saying, 'There is truth and I want to know it.'"

Delightful Reading

Just today I finished, with my ds who is just barely 6 years old, the lessons for Robert Louis Stevenson's poem "Rain", which are the first full-fledged reading lessons in the Delightful Reading package. Prior to this, for about 3 months now, we had done simple word-building work, using the word families suggested in the teacher guide. My ds appears to be a natural reader, along the lines of my oldest dd who in Year 1 was using the Declaration of Independence for her reading lessons because we needed something that challenging in order for her to have at least one new word in each lesson. I provide this information so you'll have context for my comments below.


The teacher guide supplies you with the text of CM's Volume 1 that applies to teaching reading, along with some helpful notes. It supplies you with suggestions for alphabet and word building activities to use before beginning reading lessons. It supplies you with reading lessons using primarily poems and scripture passages; the lessons include word families and sentences that can be created from the words in the families and in the actual passage.

The kit also supplies you with cardboard alphabet cards and word cards to cut out, with little baggies to store the cards, labels for the baggies (separated by each line or section of the reading), and a lovely bag in which to keep all the baggies. It further has a little booklet that contains all the reading passages from which the reading lessons are drawn as well as pages following each passage with sentences built from words in that passage, separate pages with sentences built from words in each section of the passage.

This is all very handy to have at your fingertips like that. You can create just such a kit yourself--I figured since I have two more children learning to read, I'd go ahead and spend the money and check it out since I really didn't want to spend the time putting my own package together this summer. I am pleased with what I have, mostly.

However. . .

Some choices were made in putting this package together that I would not have made and which may create problems for some young readers. Specifically, I have concerns with some of the word family choices. IMO, word families should contain only words which use the same spelling to represent the same sound. Therefore, the word "fall" could have in its family "small" and "wall" but not "shall". The word "rain" could have in its family "main" and "lain" but not "again" (unless you're from a place where "again" is pronounced the same way as "rain"! lol).  The word "around" could have "wound" (as in "the clock was wound") but not "wound" (as in "the wound was slow to heal"). By mixing in words that have dissimilar sounds for the same spelling, you introduce ambiguity that should not be present, particularly in the first lessons, imo. My ds who is using this package right now gives every appearance of becoming a strong reader quite quickly, so these inconsistencies, although confusing for him, are not likely to throw him completely off. My dd who I am still teaching to read at 8 years old would have been devastated by these--for her I didn't even use real literature because there wasn't enough repetition of word families, so we used the McGuffey Primer and have taken more than 2 years to work through it!

This package would have worked excellently with my oldest dd and should work excellently with my ds (although I am omitting the words that do not fit in the given word families). My second dd would not have been able to progress with this at all, not because CM's methods don't work for her (they are the best methods she can use!) but because the progression in these reading passages is too fast. That's probably not an indictment of this package, because it is not aimed at children like her and in order to serve her would have to offer up a completely separate set of materials.

[This post was edited to reflect an additional problematic word family situation and an adjustment I am making with my ds.]

Hints on Child Training

I just finshed reading Hints on Child Training by Clay Trumbull, the great-grandfather of Elisabeth Elliot.  I wanted to evaluate how closely his recommendations meshed with those of Charlotte Mason.  In many respects, the two authors come from the same perspective.  Both encourage us to respect the personhood of the child, to train rather than break the will, and to value the role of imagination in the child’s life, just to mention a few places where the two are in agreement.

However, there are significant areas of disagreement as well.  Trumbull mentions habit formation but never focuses on this key Mason element.  Trumbull also assumes a level of parental control that differs from Mason–he suggests that playmates need to be carefully screened for suitability, where Mason recommends gently training the child to choose suitable playmates for himself so as not to push him toward unsuitable ones merely by forbidding them.  Similarly, Trumbull’s suggestions for choosing reading material do not reflect a love of literature in the way Mason’s do and completely fail to acknowledge the importance of feeding the child a mental diet of great ideas.

If you are already familiar with Mason’s recommendations for child training, Trumbull’s book can be useful to flesh out some of her advice and to highlight some areas she omits or glosses over.  If you are not already familiar enough with Mason’s recommendations to recognize areas where the two differ, I suggest you start by reading Mason, specifically Volume 2 and then Volume 1 if your children are young or Volume 6 if they are older.

Grace Based Parenting

Tim Kimmel’s Grace Based Parenting details an approach to parenting that meshes nicely with Charlotte Mason’s philosophy.  Kimmel’s approach, like CM’s, holds out high expectations for children but expects parents to help children meet those expectations with graceful guidance rather than brute force.  I see no indication that Mr. Kimmel has ever read CM’s works, but their thinking follows along the same lines.  Kimmel outlines the primary needs children have, then shows how parents can meet those needs by showing children the same grace that God has already shown us.  He recommends that parents examine their children’s strengths and weaknesses, looking for ways to hone the strengths and help the child overcome the weaknesses, in the same way that Charlotte Mason encourages us to use habit training not only to avoid the child’s natural flaws but also to avoid the pitfalls in their virtues.  He suggests that parents follow the child’s natural bent rather than imposing our own vision, just as CM says that "children are born persons" and we must respect the persons they are rather than trying to make them into the persons we want them to be.

Chess for Juniors

Chess for Juniors, by Robert M. Snyder, covers basic and intermediate chess concepts for young people.  We are using the book with our 6yo dd, who started learning chess when she was 4 or 5.  She’s been reading kids chess books since she learned to read over a year ago, and she’s been playing chess against the computer for over a year as well.  However, I am not qualified to teach her anything more than just how the pieces move, and without instruction she becomes discouraged as the computer repeatedly wins their games because she is not using strategy.  So we bought this book to work through together so that she would have a better foundation in chess.  I am working through it with her, about one chapter or half of a chapter each week.  We get the chess board out so that we can set it up to match the illustrations in the book.  So far (we are just on chapter 6), I have found the presentation very clear and easy to follow, and the topics move slowly enough for us without being plodding.  The book covers the very basics, such as how each piece moves, as well as more advanced topics such as specific openings to learn and employ.

Parenting with Love and Logic

Parenting with Love and Logic, by Jim Fay and Foster Cline, presents many of the same parenting concepts recommended by Charlotte Mason 100 years ago.  The first half of the book covers the philosophy while the second half provides specific examples of the philosophy in action.  The relatively simple philosophy centers on natural consequences, allowing children to learn from their own mistakes.  The book clearly lays out principles to follow and provides guidelines for knowing how to use natural consequences (or logical consequences if natural consequences are not appropriate).  I found a great deal of resonance between this book and Charlotte Mason’s principles for child training.  If you have read Charlotte Mason but need to see her principles in action or if you needed more explanation of her principles from a modern perspective, this book can help.  The book does not really deal with habit training, which is a key component of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy, but right at the very end of the first half of the book it gives a brief explanation of how to apply their principles that hints at the habit training aspects of CM.  Of all the many parenting books I’ve read, this one seems the most compatible with CM’s philosophy and also the most practically helpful.  However, the advice, if taken to an extreme, could lead to callous parenting.  I don’t think that’s the authors’ intent, but it’s certainly possible.  Also, some of the example consequences were not ones which I was comfortable allowing in my own home, and some just wouldn’t work with homeschooling.

UPDATE:

I’ve been thinking about this, and I think maybe I should amend my review to add a little clarification.  I really did get a CM-comfortable vibe while reading the first half of this book, the philosophy half.  Many of her principles were there, such as not pestering the children with endless demands and commands, setting a good example yourself, using natural (or logical) consequences, not manipulating the children but allowing them to make their own choices, and others.

However, when I mentioned that habit training was missing, I should have emphasized that more.  CM wanted us to use even natural consequences only when absolutely necessary.  If we are consistently training the children via habit training, consequences of any kind should be rarely necessary.  Also, the training process should ideally be almost invisible to the children, happening below their radar so to speak.  This book does not acknowledge any of that, so it relies very much on the consequences to do the work.

Depending on where you and your children are in this process, you might need to really use consequences for awhile to get the kids on track before you can focus on more gentle habit training.  But long term, you wouldn’t want to stay primarily in the consequences mode if you were following CM’s recommendations.

I'll Tell You a Story, I'll Sing You a Song

I’ll Tell You a Story, I’ll Sing You a Song by Christine Allison should be a great help to any parent
wishing to incorporate story-telling and singing. For Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, telling stories in the early years is a must, since Charlotte Mason herself emphasized its importance:

Every father and mother should have a repertoire of stories––a dozen will do, beautiful stories beautifully told . . . .   Away with books, and "reading to"––for the first five or six years of life. The endless succession of story-books, scenes, shifting like a panorama before the child’s vision, is a mental and moral dissipation; he gets nothing to grow upon, or is allowed no leisure to digest what he gets. It is contrary to nature, too. . . . And here is another advantage of the story told over the story read. Lightly come, lightly go, is the rule for the latter. But if you have to make a study of your story, if you mean to appropriate it as bread of life for your children, why, you select with the caution of the merchantman seeking goodly pearls. Again, in the story read, the parent is no more than the middleman; but the story told is food as directly and deliberately given as milk from the mother’s breast. Wise parents, whose children sit with big eyes pondering the oft-told tale, could tell us about this.

Volume 5, p. 216

Allison’s book provides the tools a parent needs to begin to develop that repertoire of stories in an age in which storytelling is not a common skill.  She provides sample stories, songs, rhymes–material to help you get started.  She also provides tips on how to present this material and make it your own.

The material in the book is aimed at preschool-age children and younger.  However, while the stories might change for older children the tips would still apply.