Category Archives: Activities to do with Children

Activities to do with Your Children this Summer, the 250th anniversary of Liberty in the United States

Leave a reply

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:44 — 18.0MB)

Subscribe: Email | TuneIn | RSS | More

Our most popular topic: activities to do with your children this summer.

This year, we focus primarily on activities that go with our 250 anniversary of Independence Day.

It was to Mrs. Elizabeth Willing Powell, a Quaker “hostess with the mostess,” that Benjanim Franklin said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Whether we have the intelligence and character to keep a democratic republic as opposed to some form of slavery is very much in question. What we can do as mothers is to be sure that our children know history and have some exposure to proper civics.

freedom250.org

Lots of ideas. Please contribute some more.

An example: learning about Richard Henry Lee, founder.
https://x.com/publicschoolext/status/2062677814802059437

What Childhood Could Be – and What it might be

Leave a reply

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:34 — 11.9MB)

Subscribe: Email | TuneIn | RSS | More

Simon Okwayo has visited Austin a couple of times that I know about. The first time, I was able to prevail upon him to come to the studio.
He told some stories of his childhood. Amazing. Now, he grew up in Africa, in a situation with a lot less material abundance than we in the States had then and have now. But he and his family were believers. And as a young boy, he moved out on that faith. Very surprising result. Very inspiring. And it turned out that he was indicative of his life’s work. He is known as an apostle because he has started many churches, including in the Middle East.

I am sure you will enjoy hearing Brother Simon’s history. It is a great story to contemplate as you plan the summer for your children. Think what childhood could be. Think what youth could be.

The last time I saw Apostle Okwayo was at a house church meeting in Lake Travis. We were packed in. Before he started his comments, he challenged us, where were the children? We should not leave our children behind. The one father who was there who was young enough to have a child (by our expectations) pointed out that he had his son right there with him. The rest of the crowd didn’t respond, even with their faces. You see, there in Austin, everyone in the room was old enough to have any children that they may have had be old enough to be out of the home. YOu see, no one in the room expected ever to have more than at most maybe 4 children. Probably poll the room and find an average of 2 children a piece, and since everyone was over 50, no one had “left children at home” to come to a church meeting.

Why the challenge? Really, it was a correction. At some length. But no one was at all convicted. Blank faces, because I think no one understood. Conceptually, “Okay: children should come to church not left at home. What is going on? ” That is what they were thinking if they were even awake enough.

From an African point of view, anyone over 20 is probably married and starting to have children. So anyone over 50 should have a houseful. Maybe 10 children. So, any Christian meeting would be on the whole, mostly people less than 18 years of age. Okwayo had concluded that since there was only one child, everyone had left their children at home. No, he was assuming there were many more children than there were.

You might think through why they are not. What are the downsides of that which have not been recognized? What might we do to make for at least choice? Please recognized that our ideas so far have not worked well. Check out an old book The Government is Not a Village. What might be done differently? Maybe more like the Bible? Stop thinking in judgmentalness of what others should do. What might we do?

Think what childhood might be. Think what youth could be. We have great preachers who credit their parents. We have youth who are overcoming what their parents gave them. What could be from here?

The Window is Closing on College Applications for September

Leave a reply

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:27 — 6.5MB)

Subscribe: Email | TuneIn | RSS | More

The Window is Closing on College Applications for September. Those really up on it started the application process in October of the senior year. For those who did not, it is time now. For those who did, it is time now to apply for scholarships. Most scholarships will want to see the parents’ tax return, and so today is the day to start (assuming your tax return was filed on time.)

Is college important? Certain credentials are important in the world of work. Others are not. Choose carefully. For those many students who just do not know their calling, I do have a Destiny Discovery seminar, intended for juniors in Christian high schools, but that could be administered to an individual. See www.info@orgstrat.net It is a whole lot cheap to pay for help in hearing reasonable vocational plan than sending a student to college only to have changes in majors, and thus wasted time and money. Good advising also helps. The journey thru the credentials can be made faster and more secure; and college “advisors” sometime don’t advise at all, and even in colleges where they might, they are not primarily focused on the same things that the student or parents would focus on: quick, frugal, and remunerative passage thru school

Isn’t college just silly? More of less and less? Just ideological indoctrination. No, not unless you want it to be. Every course have information about it, as does every professor. Choose the school for its philosophy and choose the course of study — and choose individual classes and sections that will help the most. In Texas every course must have a summarized syllabus within one click of the college homepage. Every accredited school will have a course catalog. What you get depends upon what you choose.

There are colleges that specialize in every flavor of Christianity (altho nearly every one is more liberal than the grandparent generation of the same denomination.) There are colleges that specialize in conservative political views. There are colleges that are free (usually to residents of the state and/or for some work.) Every college has some scholarships and work/study arrangement. There are libraries of scholarships at every school. Do your own research — or pay someone who already has.

Homeschoolers are probably thinking about curricular choices now, even if they don’t buy until the summer. People should definitely be checking out private schools now, if that is the route they want to go. www.powerlearningcenters. If you are a homeschool grandmother, sad that your teaching days are over — contact me, but first, take a look at www.teachachildchangeanation.org

How to Have a Smarter Baby

Leave a reply

Today, a replay of How to Have a Smarter Baby. Still true. Although today, the first advice would be not to destroy their brain with medical grade bio-weapons! I am sure you have heard enough about that. If not, connect with me on X.com (formerly Twitter) and you will see a couple of years of posts of scientific data.

However, you can have a smarter baby by better nutrition, basic safety and an enriched environment.

An enriched environment means an attentive mother giving the child brain stimulating, interesting things to play with.

Many young women today misquote *It Takes a Village* in which H. Clinton says that if you take a baby from the worst environment and put them in the very best childcare center, then the IQ may be raised as much as 18 point. This may be true. She does not give citations. However, this scenario never happens. Poor children tend to go to poor daycares. Rich mothers think they MUST send their children to group care because group care is necessarily better. It is not. This claim never even said that. Now, on the contrary, Prof. Abraham of University of Chicago had a study some time just before 1983 that showed that middle class children tended to do better academically and otherwise if they stayed home with an educated mother. I have tried and cannot find that citation. But I did have that study. I remember having it in my hand and discussing it in 1983 with my ECD professor at Red Deer College. Studies since then consistently show that children in daycares are stressed out. Further, other studies consistently show that stress reduces learning and harms brains. So daycare is NOT the means to smarter babies!!!!!

We need to also talk about how to be smarter. How to stay smart. I see such a need for this. It breaks my heart. However, my daughter tells me that people are not walking around asking how they can be smarter. The intimation is that I am wasting my time trying to teach that. Is there no market? Maybe not; I see such bad judgement all around me. Complaining, and then blocking the very information that would be relief. Misjudgement about real authority. On and on. If you are one of the few, willing to swim against the stream, and want information on how to be smarter as an adult or senior citizen, let me know at info@greatshalom.org

The Government is Not a Village by Sharon Sarles: an orderly rebuttal of H. Clinton’s disorderly, ill-concieved book, It Takes a Village The retort, “No, it takes parents” is cute and makes people feel superior, but it doesn’t help a great deal. It certainly helps neither societal problems nor struggling parents.