In this handy post, John Piper explains why leadership in the home means that husbands should take the lead in reconciliation. It’s a timely reminder and speaks of the sacrificial love and humility that men need to demonstrate.
Thanks to Justin Taylor for extracting this from John Piper’s sermon and posting it.
Steve
The subtitle of this book summarises it's content well: “How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)”. Skenazy challenges how much we, the parents, need to control our children’s environment in order to keep them safe; challenging the concept of “helicopter parenting”. The writing style is very easy to comprehend (something I appreciated in my sleep-deprived state) and she has plenty of thought-provoking real-life stories as well as plenty of humour.
The book is written in two parts; the first part outlines her ‘Fourteen Free-Range Commandments’ and the second addresses specifics concerns and statistics. My favourite of her ‘commandments’ was number eight, ‘Study History: Your Ten-Year-Old Would Have Been Forging Horseshoes (or at Least Delivering Papers)’. She contends that children are built to survive. Throughout human history kids and adults worked side by side, so your ability to perform a task rather than your age determined whether you could do it or not. I also appreciated commandment ten, ‘Get Braver: Quit trying to Control Everything. It Doesn’t Work Anyway.’ As a bit of a control freak I really liked her reminder that if even if we manage to solve all of our children’s problems we are actually doing them a disservice, because we are taking away their real source of confidence and independence. She also claims that worry is another form of control - ouch!
The end of each chapter has some specific ideas about how to implement the principles in your own home ranging from simple ‘baby’ steps to ‘giant leaps’ and they have certainly provided me with some positive actions to put into practice. I was reminded that I should be proactive - teaching children the things they will need to survive such as bike safety, traffic signals and how to handle disappointment, as they are an inevitable part of life.
As with most books, I don’t agree with all her conclusions and some questions were raised in my mind about her statistics. She has a whole chapter about safety-concerns around Halloween, which is mostly irrelevant here in Australia, but I don’t agree with her premise that Halloween is a “harmless” childhood activity. She also has a brief discussion about teen s*x, quoting none other than Planned Parenthood advising parents to begin talks with your pre-teens using their “Abstinence Plus” approach. I don’t agree with her advise - let’s just leave it at that! My question about her statistics relate to those which demonstrate that crimes against children have declined since the early nineties. Is it possible that the drop in crime is related to the fact that we have been ‘sheltering’ our children more?
Those objections aside, I’d recommend this book as an interesting perspective on our safety-conscious culture. Her analysis of the media, particularly TV, was especially thought-provoking. It has reminded me that in my desire to protect my children I need to focus on the real dangers that will corrupt their minds and hearts.
I love this scene from Anna Karenina, where Levin visits Lvov, and they get into a conversation about fatherhood, education, moral training and the role of religion. Lvov’s humility and commitment to the task at hand are an inspiration!
"That's what I envy you, that you are able to mix in these interesting scientific circles," he said. And as he talked, he passed as usual into French, which was easier to him. "It's true I haven't the time for it. My official work and the children leave me no time; and then I'm not ashamed to own that my education has been too defective."
"That I don't believe," said Levin with a smile, feeling, as he always did, touched at Lvov's low opinion of himself, which was not in the least put on from a desire to seem or to be modest, but was absolutely sincere.
"Oh, yes, indeed! I feel now how badly educated I am. To educate my children I positively have to look up a great deal, and in fact simply to study myself. For it's not enough to have teachers, there must be someone to look after them, just as on your land you want laborers and an overseer. See what I'm reading"--he pointed to Buslaev's _Grammar_ on the desk--"it's expected of Misha, and it's so difficult.... Come, explain to me.... Here he says..."
Levin tried to explain to him that it couldn't be understood, but that it had to be taught; but Lvov would not agree with him.
"Oh, you're laughing at it!"
"On the contrary, you can't imagine how, when I look at you, I'm always learning the task that lies before me, that is the education of one's children."
"Well, there's nothing for you to learn," said Lvov.
"All I know," said Levin, "is that I have never seen better brought-up children than yours, and I wouldn't wish for children better than yours."
Lvov visibly tried to restrain the expression of his delight, but he was positively radiant with smiles.
"If only they're better than I! That's all I desire. You don't know yet all the work," he said, "with boys who've been left like mine to run wild abroad."
"You'll catch all that up. They're such clever children. The great thing is the education of character. That's what I learn when I look at your children."
"You talk of the education of character. You can't imagine how difficult that is! You have hardly succeeded in combating one tendency when others crop up, and the struggle begins again. If one had not a support in religion--you remember we talked about that--no father could bring children up relying on his own strength alone without that help."
This subject, which always interested Levin, was cut short by the entrance of the beauty Natalia Alexandrovna, dressed to go out.
Steve
At Desiring God’s recent 2011 conference for Pastors, Joel Beeke gave an extremely encouraging and practical address on leading family worship. To date, it is probably the most comprehensive message I have heard on the subject.
Topics addressed include:
The Necessity of Family Worship
The Duty of Family Worship
The Implementation of Family Worship
Objections to Family Worship
Motivations for Family Worship
I heartily recommend this message to you: it can be viewed or downloaded (for free) at the link below.
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/conference-messages/leading-family-worship
Here are a couple of snaps of the rocking chair which my Mum recently recovered and gave to us. It’s a beauty; a family heirloom which has now been passed down to the fourth generation!
Steve
In this post at Unlocking Feminity, Gabrielle Pickle writes a great review of a new book called The Man Whisperer, and explains the difference between a Man Whisperer and a True Woman:
The Man Whisper uses her femininity for her own gain to manipulate her man into acting like a man so she can have the relationship she always wanted.
True Womanhood uses her femininity to bring glory to God which in turn serves as a powerful call for men to rise up to be who God created them to be: masculine co-bearers of God’s glory.
http://unlockingfemininity.com/2011/02/01/man-whisperer-vs-true-woman/
While there is not an extensive list of living history books suggested within History Revealed, I have found a couple of resources which have been very useful.
The first one is Rainbow Resource Centre , which was recommended by Bill Waring after I asked the Waring’s for a reading list:
http://www.rainbowresource.com/prodlist.php?sid=1296654003-1125049&subject=14&category=3949.
The other is Mary Collis’ Home School Favourites:
http://www.homeschoolfavourites.com.au/diana-waring.html.
Both of these companies sell individual book titles and packages that are relevant to all three time periods. The Home School Favourites website has a very comprehensive review of each book she recommends, along with reading ages and a mention of any questionable content. We base our purchases and reading lists on a combination of all three resources.
