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.

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.

“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!

The Bible tells fathers to teach their children the things of God - and tells the kids to be sure and ask! But even if you come from a great family, there will always be things you have to learn on your own - from the sublime to the ridiculous. For a lot of us, we're trying to do things a little (or a lot) differently than our fathers did. Hal's dad was an only child and father of two. Come hear what Hal's learned raising eight homeschooled kids of his own and laugh with him about the strange turns our lives take when we take on this adventure.

“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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!