Growing Up God's Way

   Cross Focused Reviews came across with the opportunity to review Growing Up God's Way for Girls & Growing Up God's Way for Boys by Dr. Chris Richards & Dr. Liz Jones and we were excited to have the opportunity to use it with our kiddos.  Bubby is 11 and Mookie is 9 and while we have been answering their questions generally about babies & life changes, we haven't had "the talk" per se.  This was a great motivator to get us going on that!  My hubby read the boys book and I read the girls.  Hubby has also been reading on Time for the Talk by Steve Zollos so he could initiate discussions with Bubby.

  Hubby read over the Growing Up God's Way and then passed it to Bubby who then read it all the way through.  I love how these books are set up.  Easy to understand, not too technical, but not too young in their descriptions.  The chronology of the books is great. They walk you through an intro to puberty and then right into marriage and its importance, and then into the body changes and why those are important.  These books focused on alot of the issues that were important to our family: a foundation of marriage that is between a man and a woman, the Biblical importance of it and its structure, and when physical intimacy should take place.  In other words, our kids were not shocked by what was presented.  This was so refreshing when a person can hear all the horror stories of things that can be taught in sex education classes.  This book helped open up some channels of discussion about the hows and whys.  For our scientifically minded Bubby, he thought it was interesting learning how life is created. 

  For Mookie, we took a little different approach.  She's about 17 months younger than Bubby, and while we find ourselves treating them alot like twins because of the closeness in age, we didn't have her read the whole book for this one.  She and I had talked a couple of weeks ago about some of the body changes that would occur, so after I read the book we had her read through the intro, marriage, and body changes parts.  There wasn't anything that she hadn't already been told, it just gave her a little more in depth description about how the body works when its preparing for adulthood. 
  The great thing about these books is that they are pretty much mirror images of each other.  They cover the same things, just highlighting the boy issues for the boys, and the girl issues for the girls. 
This is especially great when your kiddos are close in age like ours, they can discuss with each other what they've learned.  One of the notable things that I found lacking was in the "Going Out and Beyond" chapter.  Our family has decided that courting will be the best for our family.  Don't get me wrong, Hubby and I dated, and it all worked out ok for us, but I think society is lacking a sense of commitment because of the "dating" of today.  The book does stress commitment and the benefits thereof and references the Bible, however it has a section that describes the different forms of "going out" and one of them is "committed (at least for a time)". My question is if we are training our children to be committed just for a time, won't they carried that through to married life? 
  One of my favorite quotes from the book is about modesty and respectfully discussing the topics in these books "It is because of this need for modesty, that God has made us tend to feel embarrassed when we think about these things...such feelings may make you uncomfortable, but they are actually helpful in protecting you against wrong thoughts or interests".  What a wonderful way of putting it. I remember our sex ed classes in public school.  Full of lots of nervous giggles and sending us boys to one room and girls to another.  I am sure enjoying using these books with our homeschool curriculum.  It has helped us to generate great discussions in our family and shows very well that sex is not shameful and therefore must be hidden, but is to be treated with respect and modesty and should remain hidden.
  Thank you to Evangelical Press through Cross Focused Reviews for this chance to write a review on these books. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

 

In Our Own Backyard

  Friday was "Field Trip Friday".  Let me tell you, with all the running around we've been doing as of late I was hard pressed to go and do more!  Bubby came to the rescue!  He had spotted a nature trail on the edge of town that was created on the old railroad track land.  We ended up going in pursuit of an adventure in our own town:) 

  While I did not keep track of the length of our portion of the Landon Trail, it was definitely long enough to tire Shorty out.  He was ready to be carried by the time we had reached the end & made the return trip.  The start of the Overbrook portion begins right across from the grain elevator & continues to a county road that cuts across it. 
 

 

  The area was heavily wooded, but we were afforded temporary views of the area beyond the woods, including a pond with ducks on it.  We also saw a fox run across the path, as well as a rabbit and heard numerous birds. 
  This is definitely something we are going to work into our schooling.  In addition to our town's wonderful lake, walking down the Landon Trail is going to be a great way to be out in and study nature!
   Another way our family has been getting out into nature is getting our garden up and running!  We've planted most all of our crops & and are almost ready to get the rest into the ground.

  The kids have their own little plot of ground and this year they are doing a fairy garden. 

Mookie's fairy on the left & Bubby's gnome on the right

  The miniatures for a fairy garden are pretty expensive, so I think the kids are going to improvise & create most of their own.  We did get them some starter pieces to get the ball rolling though:)