I went to a our local homeschooling conference this weekend. The keynote speaker was Carol Barnier and she was wonderful to hear speak. I got to all of her talks that I was allowed to. There was one that was for teens only that I would have had trouble sneaking into. I did attend two other speakers but all of these are from Carol’s talks. Ok my wife just added one from the RightStart presentation that she attended.

1. I am not insane. There are other families out there like mine.
She had me laughing so hard at one point that she actually noted it in her talk. She had our family so accurately that it was like she was in our house but she was describing her own family. Check out these quotes from other parents of highly distractable kids.
2. Allow Philip to dictate his writing to a mp3 and then having him type from his own dictation.
It will allow him to get his thoughts out without worrying about the writing and writing without thinking about what to write.
3. We have influence over our children, not control.
4. I need to more tightly control Philip’s music.
I have had great result in keeping Philip on track by allowing him to listen to music. Recently it hasn’t been working as well. I am going to limit it to our classical mp3s.
5. I need to find other ways for Philip to demonstrate his knowledge
I need to spend some time thinking about this one. At this point we are just going to push through to the end of the year.
6. I need to think about and accept some God questions.
What qualities did God give them?
What are God’s plans for my kids?
7. Math Manipulatives are not just for primary grades.
My wife went to this one with the intent of learning something for Ian but ended up with some ideas for the older two.
These are not in any particular order just the order from my thought process and the order of the notes I took. I plan on writing a more thorough report later. I had a wonderful time and will certainly be back next year.
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