Spend time with them; enjoy them; listen to them; and love them.
They are the most incredible people, these emerging adults,
and they can become the best friends you’ll ever have."
~Diana Waring, Reaping the Harvest. The Bounty of Abundant-Life Homeschooling~
Wow, did we have a wonderful vacation last week in Zihuatanejo, Mexico! What a beautiful village, what a beautiful state, what lovely and friendly people, and what FUN we had being part of a different culture! It came to an end too quickly, and now here we are, back home and back at the grind of summer school. But I have to hand it to the boys...they have some big goals for the next 6 months, and achieving them meant that summer school had to start pretty much right away once our spring semester ended in May. So even in Mexico...alongside of the R&R...they were doing geometry, speech, and literature course work. Here's a quick shot of the R&R, though...
I have MANY more shots of the Mexico trip to share, but we've had a very eventful return home, with wayyy too much going on, so I haven't had time yet to get the album organized. I'm trying! Anyway, the guys are working, working, working hard now...I'll update more fully in the next TTAT. For now, join the fun with YOUR GOOD WORDS about your teenagers! Have a blessed week!
Anyone & Everyone can join TTAT on any given week...here's how:
Simply write a positive post about something (or things) that your homeschooling teenager has done which impressed you this week. Keep it focused on good/encouraging/growth-maturity-related things you’ve observed about them; lessons they’ve learned, or that you’ve learned through them.
Link back to me (Lori @ Plans4You) in your post somewhere, so your readers will know where to go to join Thursday TAT. If you’d like the link-button to put on your blog and/or at the top of your post, you can get it HERE.
Sign the Mister Linky below.
Be sure to leave me a comment, and then visit the other participant’s blogs and leave comments there, as well!
To see who else has participated, simply click on the Mister Linky below...any participants names will appear for you then.
Spend time with them; enjoy them; listen to them; and love them.
They are the most incredible people, these emerging adults,
and they can become the best friends you’ll ever have."
~Diana Waring, Reaping the Harvest. The Bounty of Abundant-Life Homeschooling~
I am not available this week to write a TTAT post...but it is here for you to share yours! I'll be back again with a post next week. Until then...
May you have a blessed week! Anyone & Everyone can join TTAT on any given week...here's how:
Simply write a positive post about something (or things) that your homeschooling teenager has done which impressed you this week. Keep it focused on good/encouraging/growth-maturity-related things you’ve observed about them; lessons they’ve learned, or that you’ve learned through them.
Link back to me (Lori @ Plans4You) in your post somewhere, so your readers will know where to go to join Thursday TAT. If you’d like the link-button to put on your blog and/or at the top of your post, you can get it HERE.
Sign the Mister Linky below.
Be sure to leave me a comment, and then visit the other participant’s blogs and leave comments there, as well!
To see who else has participated, simply click on the Mister Linky below...any participants names will appear for you then.
Spend time with them; enjoy them; listen to them; and love them.
They are the most incredible people, these emerging adults,
and they can become the best friends you’ll ever have."
~Diana Waring, Reaping the Harvest. The Bounty of Abundant-Life Homeschooling~
(This article appeared in my weekly "Homeschooling Through High School" column at HSB's "Company Front Porch on June 9th, 2010.)
I have often blogged about the need for us parents to view our high school age teens as "emerging adults." I feel that more keenly than ever. We are currently watching the unfolding drama of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. I fear it is just getting started...the worst is yet to come, and will continue, likely, for decades to come, unless God Himself decides it is finally time to "clean up" the world.
Are your teens aware of the Gulf catastrophe and its murky details? If not, why not? If so, what do they think about it? And the most important question of all...the question we must train them (and ourselves) to ask about every challenging situation that comes along...how does this fit into God's eternal plan for His creation?
If you haven't figured this out for yourselves, let alone had a Biblical discussion about oil spills and a holy, loving God, then grab your teens, grab your Bibles, and open to Romans Chapter 8. Read then entire chapter, and then focus in on the sections. This wonderful chapter tells of our release from the bondage of the flesh, from the bondage of fear. It also speaks of the joint sufferings we must experience if we are to be joint heirs with Christ. We suffer with purpose!
"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." (Romans 8:16-18)
But what of the Gulf? What of the creatures living in the oily mess? What does that have to do with God's eternal plan? Read on, starting with verse 22...
"For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." (Romans 8: 22-23)
I think it is safe to say that the creation is groaning in pain. And it pains us to see it. We are all longing for our "redemption," for our release from this "alien" and corrupt world, and for our citizenship in Heaven to begin. The fallenness of this world and the consequences of sin shout loud and clear in this present darkness. Be sure your emerging adults look with joy and longing at the light beaming into their own lives, if they are followers of Christ, and understand that they can be beacons of this same light to those around them. For we know what God has promised to His children, and for the creation, in the end:
"For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." (Isaiah 65:17)
"For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain." (Isaiah 66:22)
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10)
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." (Revelation 21:1)
I like to remember, as I ponder these things with my own emerging adults, that God has given them a particular role to play in these remarkable times in which we all live. I like to ask them what they feel that they can and/or should do, as a Christian, in response to the multiple disasters (not just ecologic) around them. And then, where possible, I try to join them in their ideas and begin...by taking a first step. Maybe that means we try harder to consolidate a few car trips, in order to decrease our own personal demand for oil; that we try to buy our strawberries from the booth at our weekly farmers market, rather than the grocery store (remember to ask at that booth if they actually grew the fruit/vegetable themselves...when there are multiple produce booths, ask, and buy it from the one who actually grew it when possible); that we try hard to remember to bring our own reusable grocery bags when we go to the store.
The boys and I have discussed at length future "green energy" technology (one of Nathan's engineering interests), nuclear power plants, and the impact of more small, organic or at least "all-natural" family farms in this country, as opposed to the toxic wasteplants that now produce our nation's food. We have watched a GREAT documentary, that I recommend everyone in America (and Canada, yep, you too!) see:
At the ripe old age of 2-weeks-before-I-turn-50, it takes very little to fire off that spark of discouragement. But that is one of the wonderful things about having these incredible young-people about...they are filled to the brim with ideas, with solutions, with hope! Especially when the understand the source of these problems as sin, they look to their Creator as the beginning of wisdom for answers. But we do not tap this wealth of passion and idealism and ideas until we dive into the problems.
However you choose to go about it, the important thing with our homeschooled high schoolers and teens is this: do not be afraid to have the conversations about the deeply troubling things of this world. Your teens will rapidly turn into adults. They will be the ones who will have to take their places with boldness and complete trust in the wisdom and power and plan of their mighty God. They will not make it victoriously through the difficult days to come without it.
One last thing...I would love to hear from you on this subject, and what kind of personal action responses you and your teens have come up with! (For example, our "consolidating car trips" idea.) Take great care that no one gets into "worshipping the creation" (extreme environmentalism). We worship only The Creator. We were, however, charged with "tending the garden." God gave it to us, in part, to sustain our physical bodies.It also declares His Glory! So we must watch over and care for it.
After you've talked with them, and looked into Scripture together, please share what their ideas are. Perhaps you and/or they may be encouraged to start up their own blogs here at HSB, to share the light of Christ and His plan of redemption for mankind, during these troubling days!
May you have a blessed week!
Anyone & Everyone can join TTAT on any given week...here's how:
Simply write a positive post about something (or things) that your homeschooling teenager has done which impressed you this week. Keep it focused on good/encouraging/growth-maturity-related things you’ve observed about them; lessons they’ve learned, or that you’ve learned through them.
Link back to me (Lori @ Plans4You) in your post somewhere, so your readers will know where to go to join Thursday TAT. If you’d like the link-button to put on your blog and/or at the top of your post, you can get it HERE.
Sign the Mister Linky below.
Be sure to leave me a comment, and then visit the other participant’s blogs! (To see who else has participated, simply click on the Mister Linky below...any participants names will appear for you then.)
Spend time with them; enjoy them; listen to them; and love them.
They are the most incredible people, these emerging adults,
and they can become the best friends you’ll ever have."
~Diana Waring, Reaping the Harvest. The Bounty of Abundant-Life Homeschooling~
One of the things that I deeply desired for my sons is that they would learn entrepreneurship. I spent many weeks scouring the internet and purchased a couple of e-books, too, in the quest for the perfect home-based business that they could start. We found it in knife sharpening. It is not a cheap business to begin, but it pays for itself VERY quickly if and when they get the knack of it, and ONLY if they are very committed to practicing and doing expert work. Bryan has been sharpening now for almost 2 years, and he will do it for the rest of his life (as a side job to supplement his ~LORD willing~ farm income), because he loves it so much. He's a natural at it, and not many people are.
But now it's Nathan's turn...this last Saturday Nathan set up for his first farmers market!
When Bryan and I set up that booth 2 years ago, there wasn't anyone to help. We jumped into the deep end of the pool and had to swim or sink. For Nathan, it was a bit smoother since Bryan came along, in case any wierd implements showed up for sharpening (they did...they always do). My dh was there as well, but he's not a multi-tasker in any sense of the word, and that is what my job is (I'm the front desk girl), so we decided that this is just not going to be his thing!
Anyway, Nathan did a great job other than those odd items where he needed Bryan's help...and I think he was really encouraged by the money in the cashbox at the end of the day. :-D The first market weeks are always the slowest...by mid-July, once folks have realized he's there...it absolutely explodes. By then, I think his confidence will be much improved, as will his speed ~ speed is critical in the market atmosphere! Although the sharpening doesn't come as easily to him as it does to Bryan, and thus the speed isn't quite there yet, Nathan is a young man with an incredible work ethic, and he isn't a quitter.
Nope, definitely not a quitter! One of the many traits I admire about him, honed by years of having to deal with type 1 (juvenile) diabetes. This kid's got determination. It's really been evident during this past school year, and now it's showing up in his approach to sharpening. Oh, I pray he has a really great market season this summer!
May you have a blessed week! Anyone & Everyone can join TTAT on any given week...here's how:
Simply write a positive post about something (or things) that your homeschooling teenager has done which impressed you this week. Keep it focused on good/encouraging/growth-maturity-related things you’ve observed about them; lessons they’ve learned, or that you’ve learned through them.
Link back to me (Lori @ Plans4You) in your post somewhere, so your readers will know where to go to join Thursday TAT. If you’d like the link-button to put on your blog and/or at the top of your post, you can get it HERE.
Sign the Mister Linky below.
Be sure to leave me a comment, and then visit the other participant’s blogs! (To see who else has participated, simply click on the Mister Linky below...any participants names will appear for you then.)
