It’s easy to get burned out, tired and overwhelmed as the years pass, but the reasons we are homeschooling become even more important as our children grow up. How can we press on through the challenges of hormones, struggles with learning, and fear of the future and do what we know is right? This funny, hopeful, and encouraging session looks at the importance of finishing what you’ve started and making it all the way to graduation.

We may hope our kids will be really smart, but what do you do when they are? It can be intimidating to think about meeting the needs of a kid who’s blowing the curve, racing ahead, and seems to need more. Can you really meet their needs, or would they be better off with professionals? How can you help them fit in socially? What about the future? Should they graduate early or on time? Hal & Melanie went through both innovative and traditional gifted programs in school and after parenting and homeschooling several precocious children, they have a lot to say about challenging these kids academically, helping them to thrive socially, answering their spiritual questions, and knowing when to push them ahead and when to broaden out their education instead. Learn how to meet the needs of your bright child and enjoy doing it!

Is it possible to have well-educated kids without drowning in a sea of drudgery? All six of Hal & Melanie’s homeschool graduates were offered academic scholarships to great colleges, even though (once Melanie got her feet under her) they’ve been very relaxed homeschoolers. Learn the difference between learning and schooling—hear what’s important that you get done and what’s not! This workshop will lift your burdens and free you up to enjoy these years with your children and prepare them well for their future.

When our oldest was eight, we thought we were pretty great homeschool parents. Then he hit nine or ten and the wheels fell off his educational train! Another child did pretty well until he was eleven, then all-of-a-sudden he couldn’t focus at all or remember things he’d learned last week. Others didn’t struggle until twelve or thirteen, but there seems to be something that makes middle school just plain hard, for nearly everyone. How do you live through it? Is it possible to make the middle school years great? Join Hal & Melanie for doable ideas and real hope for getting through the challenging tween/preteen years and laying a foundation to make high school even better.

Have you ever had a war break out in the middle of history or read aloud to a child sitting upside down? You may be teaching a boy! Research shows that boys and girls learn differently. Understanding the differences can help to preserve the love of learning and the academic confidence of our sons: the early birds, the late bloomers, and the boys who would really just rather not. Understanding what they need at different ages – before school, as young learners, in the middle school years, and in high school can make us better homeschool parents and make them better students. Come and hear from parents who’ve homeschooled six boys from the beginning and graduated four so far, the award-winning authors of Raising Real Men, as they share solid research and practical advice on how to turn wiggle worms into scholars – and enjoy doing it!

People complain all the time that their children are lazy and unmotivated, but only 28% of American families give their children any chores at all. At all. We teach our children right from wrong, we teach our children to read and write but forget to teach them how to work. God gave us no choice. With eight bedrest pregnancies and then a full-time ministry and business, we had to get the kids on board or drown. Come get practical strategies for teaching your children to be diligent – to get their schoolwork done, to do chores, to take initiative, and to be confident in their abilities – at all ages. Help your kids to get out of the wagon and start pulling it, cheerfully. Really, you can do it!

Does your marriage affect your kids? You bet. It affects them profoundly. It impacts their security, their identity, and their sense of worth. Beyond that, our marriage toolkit will be the one our kids reach for in their own marriages. Come take a look at your own marriage toolbox, pick up a few new tools, and learn five ways to tune up your marriage to make it even better for you and your children. Give them a legacy that will help them build a good marriage.

How do you teach a young man to keep his way pure when the red-light district is riding around in his shirt pocket – or his friend’s? How can you help a boy think about the future when all he wants to do is game all day? Media addiction and porn are derailing young men at a rate that is hard to even believe. Learn how to teach your sons a healthy, Biblical attitude toward entertainment and sexuality. Prepare them to make it a matter of honor to practice self-control, do what’s right, and have healthy relationships with girls. Get them in the fight because there are no bystanders in this battle, and we don’t want our sons to lose. The stakes are too high.

Homeschooling while dealing with challenges – learning, health, or more – is challenging! Seriously, it can be tempting to quit and let the “experts” take over, but homeschooling offers some benefits that no school can match at any price. Hal & Melanie have homeschooled through learning disabilities, children with chronic medical conditions, and bouts of serious illness themselves. They’ll give you hope and practical encouragement to leverage the flexibility of homeschooling to bless your family.

What do you do when you know your child is bright, but school is way harder than it ought to be? We’ve been there! One of our boys didn’t learn to read until he was eleven, but he’s a very successful college graduate and entrepreneur now. One of our kids had migraines that lasted weeks, sometimes making school impossible, but is able to use her God-given gifts in amazing ways. This encouraging session discusses how to keep hope alive in you both, how to adapt your homeschooling to the child in front of you, how to help them through the social embarrassment that can come with being a struggling learner, how to know when and how to get help, and how this trial can ultimately bless your child. Get hope for the future!

We may hope our kids are really smart, but what happens when they are? It’s intimidating homeschooling a kid who’s racing ahead and seems to need more. Can you really meet his needs or would he be better off with professionals? How can you help her fit in socially? Should he graduate early or not? Hal & Melanie both went through gifted programs in school and now, having raised precocious children of their own, they have the insider’s perspective about the academic, social, and spiritual needs of talented kids. Learn how to teach, parent, and enjoy your bright kids!

At eleven, one of our boys was just learning to read and at fourteen he still struggled to spell three letter words. Little did we know that he’d be reading ancient philosophers for fun at seventeen and that he’d go to college on a full academic scholarship! In this workshop, we’ll talk about how to help your struggling learners through high school (and give them a love of learning!), how to get accommodations on the SAT and ACT, and how to find out what help a college can give them – and you’ll be surprised just how much they can do! Our struggling learner was on the Dean’s List at his college and getting accommodations that really help. Find out how!

The turmoil of the tween/preteen years between nine and thirteen usually catches parents by surprise. Diligent students become addled and distracted. Kids raised in church start questioning the existence of God. Sweet children seem to climb on an emotional rollercoaster – and then invite you to join them. Don’t get a ticket for that ride! Instead, learn to resist the temptation to lose it yourself and to shepherd our children through this challenging age at this funny and all-too-real workshop — and lay a foundation to make the teen years great!

“What’s your secret for staying together?” That’s the number one question younger couples want to ask veterans of long-term marriage, according to a recent study. There are bonds which are tighter than the strongest glue, and they’re not dramatic – just very, very powerful, and what’s more, Biblical. Join Hal and Melanie as they share what they’ve learned in 38 years of marriage and years of talking to other couples about the things that stick us together - and help us enjoy it!

So many parents ask, “Why doesn’t my son enjoy reading? I want him to love it!” We look at ways to help your boys read better (because it’s hard to love it when it’s hard!), enjoy reading more, and find joy in stories and in research. From the parents of six adult sons, all of whom learned (eventually) to love reading! Many boys struggle with writing, too. They complain that it's too hard, that they can't think of anything to write, that they don't know why they have to do it anyway. Hal & Melanie homeschooled all six of their boys all the way through. Their boys learned to love writing and won writing awards. You can pull it off, too!

Preteens and teens crave connection and acceptance, while media of all kinds are telling them that identifying as a different gender or sexual orientation will solve all their problems. Even kids not tempted by these things are affected by the kids and culture around them, sometimes believing their parents are hateful or unloving in their response to that culture. Find out about the influences reaching out to our kids, learn how to respond in a way that will preserve your relationship, and get practical help in guiding them through the clamoring voices of our society.

“He never talks to me.” “My teens are so disrespectful.” “I have no idea what she’s thinking.” “They’re so ugly to each other.” “I wish we could just talk.” We hear these things all the time from families. It’s easy to get into a cycle of communicating badly with each other, but it doesn’t have to be that way! The Word of God gives us a lot of really practical advice about communicating with one another, but it’s hard to know what that looks like in real life. Come learn how to turn that advice into action, change your family culture for the better, improve your other relationships, and laugh a little, too.

Fear-based parenting drives us to make bad decisions despite the best of intentions. We choose curricula based on what our friends are doing, not what our kids need, because we're scared they'll miss something. We micromanage our teens because we're afraid they'll make mistakes. We stress and worry and can't sleep at night. Why do we fall so easily into the what-ifs? God has not given us a spirit of fear. This eye-opening session will point you to the real source of security and hope and free you to do what is best for your children no matter what anyone else is doing. Step up and take courage!

Does your marriage affect your kids? You bet. It affects them profoundly. It impacts their security, their identity, and their sense of worth. Beyond that, our marriage toolkit will be the one our kids reach for in their marriages. Come, take a look at your own marriage toolbox, pick up a few new tools, and learn five ways to tune up your marriage to make it even better for you and your children. Give them a legacy that will help them build a good marriage, too!

When do you get started, and what do you do first? We've had precocious readers and late bloomers, but every one of them has benefited from being homeschooled from the beginning. Find out how to know when each child is ready for formal academics, how to get started, and what homeschooling looks like for young children. Learn to relax and introduce your little ones to the joy of learning in a gentle and realistic way that will prepare them to succeed academically.

The turmoil of the tween/preteen years between nine and thirteen usually catches parents by surprise. Diligent students become addled and distracted. Kids raised in church start questioning the existence of God. Sweet children seem to climb on an emotional roller-coaster—and then invite you to join them. Don't get a ticket for that ride! Instead, learn to resist the temptation to lose it yourself and to shepherd our children through this challenging age with this funny and all-too-real workshop—and lay a foundation to make the teen years great!

When you get to the end of your homeschooling, and your child leaves home, things get real. At that point, the only thing you'll have is relationship: their relationship with God and their relationship with you. Learn about encouraging research that highlights the critical importance of relationships in the spiritual life of our children, find out how to rebuild strained relationships, and get practical help to build the kind of relationship that will last through adulthood. Hal & Melanie's six oldest children have grown up and left home, and are their best friends.

So many parents ask, "Why doesn't my son enjoy reading? I want him to love it!" In this session, we'll look at ways to help your boys read better, enjoy reading more, and find joy in stories and in research. What's more, we'll talk about ways to help your son over his hurdles with writing assignments. Melanie homeschooled all six of her boys from the beginning, and all of them eventually loved to read and won awards for their writing, too.

Homeschool veterans toss around terms like unit studies, classical education, Charlotte Mason, and more, never dreaming how confusing it can be for someone new. Understand the different approaches available and get practical help in making this next year of homeschooling enjoyable and effective!

Most purity resources these days focus on girls, but purity tends to be a much larger problem for young men, and many seem hopelessly naive about the battles our sons are facing. Today’s young men grow up with challenges to their purity on every side. In a time when over 90% of teens have been exposed to Internet pornography, how can we teach our boys to keep their way pure? What can we do when temptation is lurking on friends’ phones and beckons just a click away? How can we give them a Biblical context for sexuality–from their toddler years to adulthood? Come hear the parents of six sons give you frank, practical advice on raising your son to be a virtuous knight.

Find out why Thomas Jefferson wrote at a standing desk, how a whiteboard can turn on a light bulb, and why your son does the things he does. Boys and girls really do learn differently! Make school more fun for everyone and equip your boy with the learning he needs for manhood.

In spite of what the culture is telling us, boys and girls are different. Have you ever had a war break out in the middle of a playdate or had a single math lesson take three hours? Then, you’re probably raising boys! If the world seems intent on gender-bending and forcing our sons into a feminized mold, Hal and Melanie, parents of six boys, explain the Biblical way out – and a better way to turn wild little dirt-lovers into strong Christian men!

No matter how much we avoid it, we’re surrounded by the messages of media, from our computers to songs on the radio. Learn how to teach your children discernment, protect them from being manipulated by the messages around them, and instead to engage their culture for Christ.

The years from 9 to 12 can be some of the most challenging of all. Long before peach fuzz or body changes, you have to cope with distractedness, tears, outbursts of anger and the “Nobody loves me” blues, but somebody’s got to be the adult around here. Learn how to survive, and make the teen years great!

Christian marriages are breaking up everywhere. How can this be? What is wrong when a family at the forefront of the culture war spins apart? If you homeschool, you know you are in a spiritual battle. Don’t let your marriage be the weak point in your armor. Find out about challenges your marriage may face, and how to work it through, not just to stay together, but to find joy and strength in each other as you mirror the relationship of Christ and the church to your children — and the rest of the world.

In the flurry of work, homeschooling, church, and extracurricular activities, romance and physical affection can sometimes seem like unattainable dreams. How can you find the energy for romance? Revive your marriage and enjoy your relationship more every year.

When do you get started and what do you do first? We’ve had precocious readers and late bloomers, but every one of them has benefited from being homeschooled from the beginning. Learn to relax and introduce your little ones to the joy of learning in a gentle and realistic way that will prepare them to succeed academically.

It makes no sense to pour our lives into homeschooling, only to stumble at the finish line. We’ve got to pass the baton of Christian adulthood to our children and it can’t happen overnight. Hal and Melanie talk about this critical time in our children’s lives and how to transition from the benevolent dictator our 11-year-olds need, to the trusted advisor of our adult children. Let’s all finish well and prepare our sons and daughters to be servants of the Most High, even when we can’t make them any more!

Many purity resources these days focus on girls, but purity tends to be a much larger problem for young men, and many parents seem hopelessly naïve about the battles their sons are facing. In a time when over 90% of teens have been exposed to Internet pornography, how can we teach our boys to keep their way pure? What can we do when temptation is lurking on friends’ phones and beckons just a click away? How can we give them a Biblical contact for sexuality–from their toddler years to adulthood? Come hear the parents of six sons give you frank, practical advice on raising your son to be a virtuous knight.

Find out why Thomas Jefferson wrote at a standing desk, how a whiteboard can turn on a light bulb, and why your son does the things he does. Make school more fun for everyone and equip your boy with the learning he needs for manhood.

In spite of what the culture is telling us, boys and girls are different. Have you ever had a war break out in the middle of History, or had a single math lesson take three hours? Then you’re probably raising boys! If the world seems intent on gender-bending and forcing our sons into a feminized mold, Hal and Melanie, parents of six boys, explain the Biblical way out – and a better way to turn wild little dirt-lovers into strong Christian men!

With the average age of first marriage approaching thirty, how can we make sure Christian young people are really prepared for marriage and parenting? It doesn’t happen overnight. How can we navigate the confusing years of singleness and honor God and each other? Should young men and young women be friends? Will I ever get married? Will my children ever marry? Hear Hal and Melanie’s own courtship story and get practical encouragement.

Over years of calls from brand new homeschoolers, Melanie learned that there were really three things that needed to be accomplished the first year in order for new families to succeed at homeschooling. Learn how to get through your first year without jerking anybody bald-headed, including yourself!

Christian marriages are breaking up everywhere. How can this be? What is wrong when a family at the forefront of the culture war spins apart? If you homeschool, you know you are in a spiritual battle. Don't let your marriage be the weak point in your armor. Find out about challenges your marriage may face, and how to work it through, not just to stay together, but to find joy and strength in each other as you mirror the relationship of Christ and the church to your children – and the rest of the world.

Homeschooling is a challenge at any time. Hal and Melanie have seen God's grace in stage IV cancer, a baby with a heart condition, job loss, relocations, and more! The good news is that God can enable you to teach and learn more through the hard times than you ever thought possible. Find out why it's so important to keep homeschooling in spite of the challenges.

Sometimes homeschooling feels like one of those plate-spinning acts, and you wonder how in the world you're going to meet everyone's needs. The baby needs to be changed, the toddler is playing in the toilet, your high school student is impatiently waiting for you to help with his biology experiment, and two other children say, "I can't do anything without you, Mom!" Melanie Young, mother of eight, shares encouragement and ideas for how to keep all those plates spinning at once without your life spinning out of control. Learn how to raise independent learners, keep the household moving, and make sure the little ones get enough attention.

In spite of what the culture is telling us, boys and girls are different. Have you ever had a war breakout in the middle of history, or had a single math lesson take three hours? Then you're probably raising boys! If the world seems intent on gender-bending and forcing our sons into a feminized mold, Hal and Melanie, parents of six boys, explain the biblical way out - and a better way to turn wild little dirt-lovers into strong Christian men!

When do you get started and what do you do first? We've had precocious readers and late bloomers, but every one of them has benefited from being homeschooled from the beginning. Learn to relax and introduce your little ones to the joy of learning in a gentle and realistic way that will prepare them to succeed academically.

In spite of what the culture is telling us, boys and girls are different. Have you ever had a war break out in the middle of history, or had a single math lesson take three hours? Then you’re probably raising boys! If the world seems intent on gender-bending and forcing our sons into a feminized mold, Hal and Melanie, parents of six boys, explain the Biblical way out – and a better way to turn wild little dirt lovers into strong Christian men. This session will make you appreciate your boys as never before!

Because none of it will matter if they don’t follow Christ. Many homeschoolers hope and pray that because they’ve homeschooled, their children will turn out all right. But unfortunately, we are seeing a number of homeschooled children turning away from God in rebellion. We can’t make our children serve Christ, but we can make sure we aren’t standing in the way! Find out about the power of delighting in your children and loving them as Christ loves us. Hear how to point them to the Savior and teach them to serve Him!

Most purity resources these days focus on girls, but purity tends to be a much bigger problem for young men and many seem hopelessly naïve about the battles our sons are facing. Today’s young men grow up with challenges to their purity on every side. In a time when over 90% of teens have been exposed to internet pornography, how can we teach our boys to keep their way pure? What can we do when temptation is lurking on friends' phones and beckons are just a click away? How can we give them a Biblical context for sexuality—from their toddler years to adulthood? Come hear the parents of six sons give you frank, practical advice on raising your son to be a virtuous knight.

Everyone says homeschooling is a lifestyle, not just an educational choice. If so, then why are we surprised when it affects our marriage? Come to this funny and practical session to find out how wives can have something left for their husbands by the end of the day, and how husbands can understand the burdens their wives face. Let’s make sure homeschooling makes our marriages stronger - and more fun, too!

It makes no sense to pour our lives into homeschooling only to stumble at the finish line. We’ve got to pass the baton of Christian adulthood to our children, and it can’t happen overnight. Hal and Melanie talk about this critical time in our children’s lives, and how to transition from the benevolent dictator our eleven year-olds need to the trusted advisor of our adult children. Let’s all finish well and prepare our sons and daughters to be responsible adults and servants of the Most High, even when we can’t make them anymore!