Wise Words for Moms is a five-page booklet by Ginger Plowman. It’s primarily a chart that is designed for addressing each of 22 offenses (i.e. lying, complaining, whining, disobedience) done by the child.   When a child does something wrong, you first identify the problem under “Child’s Behavior” column, then you look under the “Heart Probing” column for questions to ask your child. An example of lying would be “Do you know who the father of lies is? Who do you want as your Father? Do you think lying honors your Father (God) and your family?” After asking such questions, you move on to the “Reproof (“Put Off”)” section where you address the specific sin.

As an example, in the case of lying/deceit, the reproof is “Lying damages your relationship with your family and God hates a lying tongue – so you must ‘put off’ lying. Ephesians 4:25, Proverbs 6:17.” We then move on to the next column of “Encouragement (‘Put On’)” where you encourage your child to put on what is acceptable to God. The example is “Truthfulness. The Lord delights in those who are truthful. Proverbs 12:22.” If you wish to look up more verses addressing this specific sin, you can reference in the “Additional Verses” column.

This booklet is especially helpful to remind me that we should work hard at employing God’s Word in our discipline, and not merely correct errant behavior but encourage God-honoring behavior and heart attitudes as well.  I heartily recommend this helpful resource.

A month ago, I was intrigued by Dr. Albert Mohler’s review of The Dangerous Book for Boys and knew that this was a book I would want for my boys. Before I could obtain a copy, Tim Challies wrote another review. While shopping at my local Costco the other day, I saw it on the book table. I was excited and bought a copy. So, what do I think of it?

First off, I really like the cloth / hardback binding and the golden letter etching. It reminds me of a very old and treasured book. I browsed through the entire book and was quite impressed by the wealth of information it contained. It is no wonder that it’s a bestseller in Britain and in the States. Not only did the authors write about making go-carts and tree houses, they insisted that boys need to know some of the fine arts such as grammar, Latin phrases, poems, and Shakespeare.

The authors explained that this is a “dangerous” book only because it required the boys to get up and do something instead of sitting on the couch playing video games. This is a book for boys and the recommended age is eight and up. Even though my oldest is only five, we were able to do some of the activities in the book such as playing a round of table football and making paper airplanes. My son was very excited about this book and kept on asking me to do more activities. He told his father that he wanted to make a catapult and a go-cart. One caveat of purchasing this book is that the parents have to be involved. As much as we want to encourage our kids to love the outdoors, we need to be involved in the process as well. Many of the activities require parental partnership. I am all for it because it builds relationships. When the boys get older, I am sure my husband will love to build something with them. I recommend this book without reservation.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Gary Thomas’ Sacred Parenting. His writing engages the reader through various stories and examples. This is one of those books that I want to read in one sitting, but can’t due to lack of time. The book is appropriately subtitled: “Sacred Parenting: How raising children shapes our souls.” This is exactly what the book is about. If I could sum up the book in a sentence, it would be: Parenting is a sacred task by which we may learn how to be holy and sanctified.

When it comes to parenting most of us think about how we can help shape our children’s souls, and while this is a proper perspective, we often miss the other side of the coin where our children can help shape our souls as well. This is precisely the author’s point. He encourages parents to think of our children as little teachers. Thomas isn’t arguing that children are our authority or that we are equal. Parents are still their children’s authority figures. Rather, the work of raising children has much to teach us about love, sacrifice, self-denial, God’s love, patience, etc. With gracious instruction and helpful stories, Thomas does a good job of setting the reader’s mind and heart in the right direction of looking at how she can parent not only for the sake of her children’s soul, but her own as well!

If you’re looking for a book on how to raise your children, this is not that book (as Thomas freely admits). However, if you’re searching for a primer on ways that God can use your experience as a parent to grow in understanding and living in His will, I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

I was rather surprised to learn that one of my favorites, theologian/pastor/professor Bryan Chapell, wrote a children’s book titled I”ll Love You Anyway and Always. It is a story about a father taking the time to explain and correct his daughter when she disobeyed. The father went on to explain that no matter what she does, he will always love her, just like how God loves his people despite their repeated failures. The phrase “I’ll love you anyway and always” is repeated throughout the book. This book is very heart warming, especially for the children as they are reminded that they’ll always be loved, no matter what they did or will do. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

Ray Van Neste writes another helpful review on his excellent The Children’s Hour blog.

My oldest son has shown some interest in drawing and it has taken me a while to tap into his interest. I borrowed several Draw Write Now books from the library to see if they are suitable for him. I was pleasantly surprised that Matthew demonstrated some drawing abilities right off the bat. Here are some samples of his drawings from his very first lesson:

After perusing through the books, I think these are great drawing courses for young children. There are eight books in the series with various themes such farm animals, Christopher Columbus, Native Americans, The Polar Regions, The United States, Animals & Habitats, Animals of the World. The drawing lessons are very appealing to the young children and their interests are most certainly peaked as shown by my son who kept asking for more drawing sessions. Each lesson is designed to teach both drawing and writing. The child follows a easy step by step drawing method, and after he finishes the drawing, he is to write a short paragraph about the picture. As an example, the writing lesson for the blue whale is as follows:

Whales live all over the world. In summer, something happens. Whales swim toward the poles. We call it migration.

If you wish to study the topic/theme of each book further, the last three pages of the book contain some information and recommendations.

I read Noël Piper’s book Treasuring God in Our Traditions several years back, and just now I’m perusing through it to look for ways to incorporate special traditions for our growing family. This book is beautifully laid out, and in it contains Noël Piper’s family traditions, stories, and recipes.

Piper draws from Deuteronomy 11 and establishes three ways of defining traditions (p. 26):

1. A tradition is a planned habit with significance.
2. Tradition is the handing down of information, beliefs, worldview from one generation to another by word of mouth, and by regular repetition of example, of ceremony, of celebration.
3. For a Christian, tradition is laying up God’s words in our own hearts and passing his words to the next generation.

After defining the meaning of tradition, Piper goes on to explain how to celebrate “everyday” traditions (daily prayer, devotional, reading, and singing time) and “especially” traditions (birthday, wedding, adoption, funeral, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter). What impresses me the most is Piper’s heart to honor God and make Him central in whatever tradition we celebrate.

This is a wonderful book and I would recommend it whole heartedly. As my family grows, it is my heart’s desire to establish meaningful traditions so to treasure God in various aspects of our lives.

Last month I started my son on Jessie Wise’s First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind for his grammar lessons. I have waited for a while to start on grammar because I wanted to establish fluency in reading first, as well as a love for reading. Seeing Matthew’s marked progress, I commenced the grammar lessons with excitement. He is quite enjoying each lesson. Thus far he has memorized “The Caterpillar” poem and the definition of a noun. Every time I open the book, it is quite encouraging to have him tell me, “Mommy, ask me to tell you ‘The Caterpillar’ poem and the meaning of a noun.”

What I really like about this book is its short lessons and numerous reviews. Each lesson takes us about five minutes to complete and I think Matthew does well partly because it isn’t too long. Another advantage is that there’s little or no teacher preparation needed prior to each lesson.

This book is based on the “Four Strand” approach where Strand 1 is the memory work, Strand 2 is copying and dictation, Strand 3 is narration, and Strand 4 is grammar. This book covers first and second grades.