Year end sale! 20% off and free shipping!

This is your chance to get our most popular books and CD sets at 20% off until the middle of January. This gives you six weeks to take advantage of these great buys on Christmas gifts or to present yourself with the encouragement you might need going into the rest of the home school year.

This special price includes shipping!

You can set your children free to become the individuals God created them to be. The books I SAW THE ANGEL IN THE MARBLE and I CARVED THE ANGEL FROM THE MARBLE will explain how. These books have been called, “the cream of the crop” of homeschooling books, “a tremendous blessing for me and my whole family,” “a must read,” “the best advice for schooling and parenting,” “the 1st book that any new home school mom/dad should read," and ”a breath of fresh air.” Now both books are available at 20% off the regular retail price.

I SAW THE ANGEL IN THE MARBLE is also available as a set of 6 CDs read by one of its authors, Chris Davis, a popular speaker at homeschooling events. Chris also adds some extra material that is not in the original book. You can listen to an excerpt from the audio book at this link. CLICK HERE to get your ANGEL AUDIOBOOK now!

As a bonus, we are also having a sale on the books' companion CD set TURNING HEARTS: 8 ESSENTIAL HOME SCHOOLING SEMINARS as well as our other two popular seminar sets: BUILDING THE HOME SCHOOL OF YOUR DREAMS and BUILDING THE HOME BUSINESS OF YOUR DREAMS.

How to Survive the Relatives, A Primer in 12 Lessons

by Ellyn Davis

View past ejournals HERE>> Sign up for our newsletter below.

Part 2

In our last discussion of “How to Survive the Relatives,” I shared three lessons: (1) Don’t shoot the Messenger; (2) Get the Message; and (3) Leave the policing to the cops and the judging to the courts. If your Thanksgiving was like mine, God probably gave you plenty of opportunities to practice those three lessons.

Our deepest yearning is for closeness during the holidays, says David Treadway, PhD, author of Intimacy, Change, and Other Therapeutic Mysteries: Stories of Clinicians and Clients. "But most families have underlying tensions ... creating a sharp, ruinous clash between what we yearn for and what is."

Ah, the little mini-dramas of family togetherness.

According to experts on such things, the top five most common family holiday arguments are over:

1. Food. It seems like everyone nowadays has some sort of food preference that they champion like Braveheart championed Scottish freedom. People rigorously defend their choices to eat vegetarian or vegan or sugar-free and they not only demand that their preferences be honored but they can sometimes be very critical and belittling of those who haven't yet become "enlightened" enough to watch their diet. Then there are those who don't have a choice—they have to stay on a gluten-free or lactose-free or MSG-free diet or they have other food allergies. Juggling all those different demands for food choices creates a lot of holiday tension. Remember, the point of family holiday gatherings is to be together, not to let everyone eat exactly the way they want to. Don't miss the point. Eat what's served and don't eat what you don't like.

2. Religion. Christmas has become the season of celebrating many different religious holidays—Hanukkah, Kwanza, Pancha Ganapati, and of course, the birth of Jesus. What do you do if your family isn't Christian? Try to accommodate their customs and decorations. You can decorate your home any way you want to, but don't demand that they put up a crèche and "Jesus is the reason for the season" banners.

3. Christmas presents. Some family members will be giving lavish gifts—$299 Kindle Fires all around. But you may only be able to afford Starbuck's gift cards.  The tension really boils down to this, "Are they going to think I'm a big, fat cheapskate?" There will always be relatives who can and will "out-gift" you. There is nothing you can do about it. Buy gifts based on what is reasonable to you, not based on what others may think of you.

4. Where to go? Do we go to his parents or hers? Do we try to do both? Do we spend two grand flying the whole family across the country or do we save the money and stay home? This is something that needs to be worked out with your whole family.

5. Presents vs. Money. I was raised that giving money or a gift card showed a lack of originality, demonstrated incredible laziness, and was thoughtless and socially inappropriate. But the older I got and the older my children got, the more I began to believe that a gift card or money is the way to go at Christmas. Of course a gift card doesn't seem as impressive as a big, fancy present, but you can wrap it up in a huge box with a bow so it takes up its proper amount of space under the tree and whoever is receiving it feels like they are getting something substantial. You can never go wrong with money. It's one-size-fits-all.

These arguments all boil down to the question "What are appropriate and personally meaningful ways of expressing our connection to family during the holidays?" That's a question you're going to answer within your own family.

That brings us to the next few lessons in your primer on “How to Survive the Relatives.”

Lesson 4: Being Peter Pan is no fun without pixie dust.

You know what I mean. You, like I, probably really love your relatives, but you just don’t like the fact that every time you step back into your parents’ home you feel like (and you’re usually treated like) you’re that same, goofy 16 year old kid who forgot to make sure the anchor securely dug into the sand when she left the boat out in the bay. Who would have thought it could drift five miles before washing ashore in another county? Now you’re 48, have four kids and a Master's Degree and own a successful business, but has your father ever forgotten? Of course not. And he’s not going to let you forget either—or anyone else within earshot. Your disappointing childhood and teen escapades will always be brought up at some point during the family gathering.

We probably never intended to be Peter Pan, but that is a common experience for people who moved away from their families as late teens or young adults and haven’t lived close to them since. To our parents, and often to our extended families, we are stuck in perpetual childhood and never “grow up.” Their memories of who we were cloud their ability to see who we have become.

When you go back to your family home, your parents will tend to reassume their parenting role and treat you like the eighteen year old you were when you left home for college. Their most vivid memories of you will all have been formed before you entered your twenties.

Also, if your siblings are like mine, you will will all wind up sitting around the kitchen table with your parents talking about times when you were kids. This tends to reinforce the feeling that you are still a child, even though you may have full-grown children yourself.

This doesn’t mean your parents have refused to acknowledge you’re now an adult, and it doesn’t mean you’re still as irresponsible as you probably were when you were eighteen. It’s just a common family dynamic, so accept it as that and don’t feel like you have to prove that you actually are now a responsible adult. (And be willing to consider that maybe you aren't as responsible an adult as you think you are.) 

Lesson 5: Your little light may indeed be shining.

Are you a Christian? If so, believe it or not, wherever you go you carry Christ with you. You may feel like the meekest, most ineffectual Christian on the planet. But, if you are truly a Christian, you have a power residing in you that can make others squirm and sometimes get downright hostile towards you whether or not you have been obnoxiously evangelizing them.

This means that a lot of the reaction we get from family members may have nothing to do with us personally. It may be the kingdom of darkness reacting to the presence of the Kingdom of Light. We can respond to these reactions with kindness when we realize they have nothing to do with us. And we can even be joyful that the reactions occurred, because it means that the Christ in us is affecting those around us.

Lesson 6: Nobody thinks your children or your pets are as cute as you do.

Sometimes I’m amazed at how oblivious people with small children are to the distraction and disruption their little “angels” cause when a group of adults is trying to interact. At one family gathering a cousin actually changed her baby’s poopy diaper on a table in a restaurant, much to the disgust and dismay of everyone else present.

Just because you are used to your child singing at the top of his lungs or running around the table or going through drawers at home doesn’t mean those behaviors are appreciated when your children are in someone else’s house.

It’s always a good idea to instruct your children in the way you want them to behave before you get to the family gathering. Try to remember times your relatives got upset with your children in past visits and focus on specific things you want your children to do or not do during the visit.

For example, my father has a very low tolerance for the noise and activity level that small children generate and he can only endure it for a short time before he starts getting grumpy. He also doesn’t like his grandchildren messing with his “stuff,” particularly his fishing tackle, which seems to attract them like moths to a flame. So, when the children were little, before we went to his house, we would have "rehearsals" of situations that were likely to arise. That way the children knew what they could and couldn’t do in their grandparents’ home and how they were to act around their grandfather.

Remember, your family may not be as blessed by your children as you are. In fact, few people are blessed by someone else’s children, particularly elderly people who have grown unaccustomed to the noise and activity level that children bring into a home.

Ditto pets. Few people are blessed by someone else's pets.

Ours is a pet-loving family. Everybody has some sort of pet from ferrets to flying squirrels and we often bring them when we visit each other. This Thanksgiving there were nine dogs and ten people. To tell you the truth, the dogs got really annoying, and no amount of cuteness could make up for the fact that you were constantly tripping over a dog wherever you went, especially when you tried to get in or out of the carport door. And of course, some of the kids wanted to bring their little Yorkies to the table so they could be part of the Thanksgiving Dinner. This was not well received by the grandparents. 

Until next time....Lessons 7 through 12.

Ellyn

(Note: Please understand that I’m not suggesting you stand idly by while your relatives engage in really ungodly behavior or when they try to continue abusive patterns from the past. If you find your relatives are trying to place you, your spouse, or your children in a morally compromising or abusive position, cut your visit short. You don’t have to put up with it.)

FREE e-book: A Strong Enough Why

In the twenty-plus years I’ve homeschooled, I’ve spoken with thousands of other homeschooling parents and I’ve discovered that most problems with home schooling tend to occur because parents get hung up over the HOWs of home schooling. And the reason is, they don’t have a strong enough WHY.

In Christian jargon, we might call the WHY a conviction and we could say that their home schooling efforts became a struggle because their conviction about home school ing was unclear or wavering.

Let’s be realistic. Home schooling is not for everyone. Home schooling is a massive, full-time commitment, primarily for Mom. Done well, it requires a total reorientation of your life, not just four or five hours of your day.

This e-book will help you create a strong enough WHY about home schooling to propel you through any problems of HOW. You can read it HERE.

Resources

I SAW THE ANGEL IN THE MARBLE was compiled from articles that focus on discovering who your children really are and how they learn best, creating the attitudes and environment in your home where learning and relationships can thrive; understanding the many options that are available to you when you are home schooling, and much more.

I CARVED THE ANGEL FROM THE MARBLE is the companion book to I SAW THE ANGEL IN THE MARBLE and was compiled from articles that focus on the nuts and bolts of schooling at home and the everyday aspects of teaching and learning together. It is over 220 pages and takes a deeper look at the different elements that make home schooling a successful adventure in learning. Chapters cover how to recognize your “angels in the marble” and help set them free; how to get off the “hamster wheel”of activity if you feel overwhelmed and undersupported in your homeschooling efforts; how to develop your own scope and sequence of study for each child; how to teach the major subjects such as language arts, history, math and science in your homeschool; and much, much more!

Turning Hearts: Davis Seminar Set (8 CDs)

The Best of Chris and Ellyn Davis, this set contains seminars given by Chris and Ellyn Davis of The Elijah Company at home schooling conventions. The set contains all of the favorites that home schoolers ask for over and over. People have told us this set of CDs changed their lives. Find out more about them HERE>>


Angel in the Marble/Turning Hearts Set
Order a combination of I Saw the Angel in the Marble and the Davis Seminars CDs HERE>>

Home School and Home Business


Let Your Mortgage Make You Rich. A friend in my internet marketing group discovered this technique for paying down your mortgage incredibly quickly without making an extra payment or refinancing. Using her method, people are cutting a 30 year mortgage down to eight or nine years. It’s true; without extra payments or refinancing – you could save tens of thousands of dollars - even hundreds of thousands - on what you pay for your home. And the best part is that the book comes with a money-back guarantee. If you don't save more on your mortgage than the book costs in the first 18 months of using the techniques, you'll get your money back.
Find out more about this money-saving book NOW!

SALE PRODUCTS!
Limited Quantities 30% Off!

We have the following WRITING IN NARRATIVE books available: The Reluctant Writer, Writing Man 1 & 2, and WIN Twin. GO HERE.

Home Schooling and Home Business Resources


Building the Home School of Your Dreams is a 6 CD set taken from the From Home School To Home Business Seminar and features sessions by Chris Davis and Mary Hood. Find out more HERE>>

From Home School to Home Business
(14 CD Set)

If you missed one of our From Home School to Home Business Conferences, you missed a great time.People who attended told us that it changed their lives—not only in the area of home schooling, but also in the area of creating their own sources of home income.This set is huge and filled with useful and encouraging information about how to be successful at home schooling and at home business! Find out more about this life-changing set of CDs HERE>>

Building the Business of Your Dreams (8 CD Set) We've had requests for just the business portion of the From Home School to Home Business Seminar, so have developed a set of the business CDs from that set. It contains 8 CDs and includes sessions on The Entrepreneurial Mind, Multiple Streams of Home Income, Discovering Your Ideal Life and Ideal Business (2 CDs) , Developing a Business Plan (2 CDs), and The Importance of Business Relationships. Plus, there is a very important and insightful interview on Redeeming the Marketplace. Find out about this life-changing set of CDs HERE>>

© Copyright 2011. Home School Marketplace
Any article appearing on this website may be copied or forwarded electronically provided that proper credit is given and that the article is not substantively modified. No article may appear in whole or in part in a publication sold for profit or as part of any commercial endeavor without the written consent of Home School Marketplace. Any reprint must include an acknowledgement of where it came from and the sentence "Sign up for the Home School Marketplace newsletter at www.homeschoolmarketplace.com."

View past ejournals HERE>> Sign up for our newsletter below.