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| The
Five Love Languages of Teenagers by Gary D. Chapman My wife and I have often done research to help us raise our five children more effectively. Now with two 14 year old teens (a boy and a girl), and a preteen (11 yr old girl), we've been hitting the books again. By far and away, the best book we've found is Dr. Gary Chapman's newest entry in his "Five Love Languages" series, "The Five Love Languages of Teens." We feel that overall we've been fairly successful in raising our children so far (our youngest is 6 yrs.). Still, raising our own teens has been, and |
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| continues
to be, no easy task! Going on instinct, we recognized early on, that you
can't treat a teen the same way you treated them as children. Remembering
how we felt and acted as teens has helped too. We reflect often on our own
teens years (which doesn't feel all that long ago...) and try to apply
lessons we learn in retrospect.
But this is a different age, with greater possibilities, and obviously, greater dangers. We insist on family time, while endeavoring to grant our children the freedom and respect each deserves. We strive to endow our children with healthy values and read and discuss stories from the Holy Scriptures each morning as part of our family breakfast. Even so, my wife and I felt we needed more help. In a parenting seminar sponsored by our church, we were introduced to the original "Five Love Languages" book and quickly read it. We loved it! Talk about eye-opening! A little more research brought us the "Five Love Languages of Children" which we also read. Still, I doubt anyone would argue that a teen is a different animal altogether. We were delighted when we got Dr. Chapman's latest book in the series, "The Five Love Languages of Teens." It has already been highly instrumental in helping us understand and effectively talk to our teens. We still make mistakes, but it's a lot easier to fix those mistakes when we know how to talk in the right language of our children. The "Five Love Languages" series have been fun to read. They are easy to understand and apply, and they wonderfully insightful. FYI: The "Five Love Languages" books are also a perfect compliment to "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" series and the "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" series. Paul Maloy |
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| The
Family Manager’s Everyday Survival Guide by Kathy Peel This book should be in every home. It is filled with great ideas, 2 323 in fact, to help you run your home effectively. A home is an "organization" and mothers are the "family managers" who decide, determine, discuss and debate, arrange, schedule and critique. This book helps the family manager organize her "team", set ground rules, control clutter and clean every inch of the house. It promotes family fitness, and addresses topics like: shopping, garage sales, homework, moving and special occasions. Kathy Peel has also |
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| written another book
"The Family Manager’s guide for
Working Moms". Bernadine Cook |
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| Bright
Shadow by Avi This book is about a girl named Morwenna who works in the palace of King Ruthvin. She meets a very old wizard in the palace hall but Morwenna doesn’t know that the wizard beholds five wishes. Ruthvin the King is after the wizard because he wants the wishes. King Ruthvin is told that the wizard is Morwenna’s dearest friend Swen. Now Swen believing he is the wizard is leading a |
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| great army to defeat King
Ruthvin.
It was a great story and I really enjoyed it! Here is a riddle from the book: When bright, its dark. when darkest, its gone. When gone for good so are you. What am I? To find the answer you have to read the book, but I warn you, once you’ ve read this book you’ll have to read all the rest of Avi’s fantastic and enchanting stories! Hanna Sevy (age12) |
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| "Families
Writing" by Peter Stillman There are more than 60 ideas in this book, all different ways to encourage your family to write together or individually. The author excites you to record special family moment and often in very creative ways. He discusses the importance of sharing stories, preserving family memorabilia and developing and strengthening lasting family ties. He encourages families to record their laughter as well as their tears, each tradition and recollection creates the history of that family. "The real family treasures," writes `Peter Stillman, "are those made of words, not dusty artifacts." If you want a book filled with
wonderful ideas and methods to accomplish your own family treasures this
book is a great beginning. I would recommend it as a great resource for
the Home schooling family as well. |
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| "The Music of Dolphins" by Karen Hesse This book is about a young girl who is lost at sea at the age of four and then raised by dolphins until she is in her early teen years. She is found by scientists and taken away from the Dolphins who raised her. She is taught the ways of humans, but the more she learns about humans the more she longs to be with her dolphin family. This book is great I couldn't put it down. It was really a page turner! Hanna Sevy (age 12) |
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| "The True
Confessions of Charlotte Doyle" by Avi, Ruth E. Murray (Illustratorby Avi, Ruth E. Murray (Illustrator) A Newbery Honor Book!! This book is about a girl who is traveling on a boat to England. She was supposed to meet two families who would travel with her but they didn't showed up. Alone, this fourteen year old will travel with no company but the captain and his crew. I think this is one of the best adventure books I've ever read! The author really captured my imagination and pulled me into the book. Hanna Sevy (age12) |
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| "The Well:
David's Story" by Mildred D. Taylor This is a touching book about the south and the trials of a black family. My children have become very interested in the Civil Rights movement and cannot understand the unfairness that occurred. It is difficult for them to understand how anyone could treat someone else so poorly, based on the color of their skin. The family in this story has a
well that doesn't dry up in a drought and so people bring their barrels to get sweet, cold
water. |
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This is not a very long book and can easily be read as a family and we highly recommend it. Bernadine Cook |
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| "You Are
Special" by Max Lucado, Sergio Martinez (Illustrator) This is a marvelous book to help you teach your children about their existence on this Earth. It teaches, with a situation and characters that they can understand ,about the essence of our relationship with others and with our maker. It reverently presents a allegory of how we, creations of our maker, interact with each other here on the Earth, how our Creator feels about us, how we should feel about others and most importantly, how we should feel about ourselves. It shows that if we feel how we should about ourselves, we are in a much better position to feel |
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| the way we should about others and our Creator. The illustrations, by Sergio Martinez, add to the impact of the lesson and
show the understanding that the artist has of the lesson. Get the book and read it with
your children often. I would suggest that your read this one on one several times so that
you back up what can be learned from this story with some focused attention from you. Jim Sevy |
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| "The Polar
Express" by Chris Van Allsburg With Christmas
coming up, I start to think of this book because it's one of my favorite Christmas
stories. A little boy boards the mysterious Polar Express, a train headed for the north
pole, where Santa is waiting with his elves. |
Buy this book. |
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| chosen,
he receives his gift and then heads home with all the other
children, only to find he has lost it. Will he find it? You'll have to read
the book to find out. The Polar Express also won the Caldacott Medal. Belinda Willis |
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| "All the
Places to Love" by Patricia MacLachlan, Mike Wimmer (Illustrator) I think if I were asked to pick out an all time favorite book, I'd pick this one. This is a book about a little boy named Eli. Eli and his family live on a farm and each member of the family has their favorite place or scene. Eli's is when he's in the marsh after a good rain, and the old turtle crosses his path and it it is a suprise to him every time. His baby sister is born. |
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This is a book about family unity and loving ones surroundings. Loving ones home and family. Belinda Willis |
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