A House NOT Divided: Practical Ways to Build Family Unity

You’ve heard the verses and caught the vision, but what can you do to get your children on your team? Stop the bickering and rivalry and begin making memories! In this idea-packed workshop, Hal and Melanie share how to tear down obstacles and build up family unity in fun, memorable ways.

Aiming for College

We’ve all been asked, “But can they get into college?” The answer is a resounding yes! Homeschoolers not only get in, but they are often highly recruited and are offered scholarships as well! Come find out how to : choose colleges, make a college visit count, apply for admission and scholarships, demonstrate your record, get financial aid, and decide on a college. Get filled in on all those mystifying things: ECs, FAFSA, PROFILE, ACT, SAT, AP, CC, and CommonApp. Melanie Young has served for many years on scholarship committees and has spent the last few years helping her son and others through the admissions process. Now she’d like to help you!

Ballistic Homeschooling: Teaching and Appreciating Boys

The wildly popular workshop that started it all. Have you ever had a war break out in the middle of history or had a math lesson last three hours? Homeschooling boys can be a huge challenge for those of us raised in our feminized schools. Come hear from a mother that has taught six boys at one time from Kindergarten to 12th grade share how to turn wiggle worms into scholars and boys into real men!

Developing the Next Generation of Leadership

Don’t wait until you are so burnt out that you quit cold turkey and your support group dies as leaders we know have done. Learn what to look for in potential leaders, how to recruit them and how to disciple them to take over and keep the ministry going for your children’s generation.

Diapers, Playdough, and Microscopes: Homeschooling All Different Ages

Sometimes homeschooling feels like one of those plate-spinning acts and you wonder how in the world you are going to meet everyone’s needs. The baby needs to be changed, the toddler is playing in the toilet, your high schooler is impatiently waiting for you to help with his biology experiment, and two other children say, “I can’t do anything else without you, Mom.” Melanie Young, mother of eight (ages 19 to infant), shares encouragement and ideas for how to keep all of those plates spinning at once without your life spinning out of control. Learn how to raise independent learners, how to keep the household moving, and how to make sure the little ones get enough attention.

Getting Started Right

Really basic and practical, aimed at the brand new or those considering homeschooling. Includes choosing curricula, what homeschooling looks like, getting support, telling the children, getting parents on the same page, and dealing with unsupportive family.

Hard Times Homeschooling

Homeschooling is a challenge at any time. Sickness, job loss, learning disabilities, business travel, and relocation are just a few of the extra stresses that can derail our best efforts to teach at home. Hal and Melanie Young have seen God’s grace in all of these situations 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. Come for a frank and encouraging look at what God can do through difficulties, and why it’s so important to keep homeschooling in spite of the challenges.

Homeschool Leadership

Encouragement and admonition for support group leaders. Leadership looks like a lot of glory from the outside, but behind the scenes it's not nearly as pretty. Self-sacrifice, hard work and difficult decisions can lead to burn out if you aren't prepared for the fight. History shows that often, victory is just a little push more, a little longer endurance. Get the encouragement you need to keep going.

Homeschooled from the Beginning–What to Do When Your Children are Young

You’ve made the decision–your child will be homeschooled from Day One. Good for you! But should you start at a young age? Is it wise to even try? How do you know when to get started and what to do first? Melanie Young has raised precocious readers and late bloomers, but every one of them has benefited from being homeschooled from the beginning. This session can give you a new perspective on how to relax and introduce your little ones to the joy of learning in a gentle and realistic way.

Homeschooling and the Pursuit of Happiness

Homeschooling is a task that demands dedication, discipline, self-sacrifice and time. According to several research studies, though, homeschooling parents and their students are finding significant happiness and satisfaction in the experience. What gives? Find out in this unusual session.

Homeschooling High School and Transcripts: Getting It Done and Getting It Down

Thoughts of high school tend to make even veteran homeschoolers shake in their boots. Scary memories about confusion in algebra class and dissecting frogs make you wonder if you can really do this. Come learn how to plan it, how to do it and even how to tell the rest of the world with a top notch transcript. Melanie Young will help you figure out what they need to take, how to do the classes you are not so sure about (or are sure you can’t) and what records you need to keep. High school can be the most important formative years for your child. Don’t give up now! This workshop will leave you prepared for and excited about high school at home!

Is That a Pony or a Trojan Horse?

This workshop will help you understand educational alternatives and how they relate to homeschooling. Once there were three educational options–public, private or homeschools. In recent years, though, the number of alternatives has exploded. Virtual high schools, online academies, Early College, and other programs are now available and they are actively recruiting homeschoolers, whether or not they can meet their needs. Is one of these right for your family, or would it prove a costly mistake? This session by an educational policy journalist takes an honest, objective look at these new educational alternatives. (Will be customized to specific state situations in consultation with your board.)

Public Policy Implications of Homeschooling

First presented for the John Locke Foundation, this is an overview of the positive impact that homeschooling has on society at large. Home education is a movement that is growing largely in spite of regulation and without significant incentive beyond the decision and commitment of the families that do it. Learn how the community benefits from the freely-given sacrifices of homeschoolers and their parents. The legislative question should not be how to better monitor and manage homeschoolers, but how to set them free and promote their continued expansion.

Raising Real Men

In a culture that is intent on bending the definitions of male and female, it is crucial that Christian fathers and mothers make an intentional and counter-cultural move to raise real men to serve God, family, and country in the challenging years ahead. Hal and Melanie explain both the threat to our boys’ masculine identity and the Biblical way out — and the opportunity that gives us to train real leaders for the next generation. (Great for Keynote!)

Raising Real Men Weekends

These workshops can also be offered separately (expanded descriptions available). Hal and Melanie are available for weekend seminars or retreats focused on parents of boys and based on their new book, Raising Real Men: Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys. Workshops include: Someone to Look Up To — Finding and becoming real heroes for your sons; Love and War – Making it through the battle for purity to courting his bride; Your Own School for Boys — How to not only live through homeschooling boys, but to love it; Becoming a Good Steward – Setting your sons on the path to financial freedom; Who’s in Charge Here? – Disciplining, discipling, and preparing sons for leadership; and First Things — Because none of it will matter if they don’t follow Christ.

Sanity’s In The Freezer: Bulk-cooking to Save Time and Money

Learn how to have real meals on the days your science experiment eats the kitchen! Don’t worry if you have tried once-a-month cooking and didn’t like spending a whole day in the kitchen. Melanie didn’t like that either! Find out how to feed your family well on less money and how to serve great dinners with minimal time in the kitchen. Convert your favorite recipes to bulk cooking, take shortcuts in meal preparation, and bulk cook even if you have a house full of little ones or can’t spare a day out of your schedule. There is something in this workshop for everyone – those who love to cook and those who are clueless in the kitchen.

Stop the Presses! Or Start Them Up: Practical Media Relations

What do we do when the news is bad? Do we always have to play on the defensive? The answer is a firm NO -- with a proper understanding of how the media operate and a strategic approach to dealing with them, it is possible not only to minimize the impact of bad news but to actually generate positive news for homeschooling and our organization. Hal, speaking as both a veteran homeschool leader and an experienced investigative journalist, explains how to handle print and broadcast interviews, write effective press releases, and cultivate relationships with the media. Micheal Smith of HSLDA said every homeschool leader should listen to this workshop. This workshop was presented at HSLDA International Leadership Conference

Strengthening The Homeschooling Marriage

How can homeschooling be such a blessing and so stressful at the same time? Where do you find hope for frustrations that only a homeschooler would understand? Learn about the special stresses that homeschooling places on your marriage, and how to use them to grow a stronger family from the top down. Hal and Melanie will help you turn your homeschooling marriage into a happier and more Christ-centered one. (This is a practical, workshop version of the keynote above, “Strengthening the Seawall”)

Strengthening the Seawall

In many cases the decision to homeschool our children is a protective move — we want to defend our children from the crashing waves of secularism, materialism, and other human philosophies that would swamp their developing faith. We try to prevent shipwreck by making sure their boat is sound before they launching out to sea. There’s a critical part of this, though — is our home, especially our marriage, strong enough to withstand the buffeting we will face even as we protect our children? Hal and Melanie speak candidly about the special challenges and temptations of a homeschooling marriage and offer hope and guidance for strengthening the seawall that secures our children’s harbor. (Great for Keynote!)

The New Generation of Homeschoolers

For support group leaders — understanding the increasing diversity of belief and practice among homeschoolers, coping with the change in social and communication styles in the next generation, and learning to minister to their needs.

The World, The Flesh, and The Young’uns: Protecting Your Wife in the Homeschooling Life (Hal) For Fathers

Studies show that nearly all of the active homeschooling task is done by the mother – which makes sense, because most fathers spend the majority of their days earning the family’s living. While the teaching may be delegated to Mom, Dad needs to be aware of her critical need for more than financial and moral support. She needs protection from things that may not have occurred to either one of them. Hal Young points out where some of the hidden land mines lie, and offers suggestions for how husbands can protect their wives.

Three Simple Goals for Your First Year

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. They must fostore or restore a love of learning in their children, develop discipline and respect in the family and get the basics done. Learn how to get through your first year without jerking anybody bald-headed, including yourself!

Yes, We Know What Causes That: Being Open to the Blessing of Children

Why in the world do so many homeschoolers have huge families? What’s up with that? Hal and Melanie both came from typical one boy and one girl families. Hear their testimony of how and why they’ve chosen a bigger adventure.

You Can Rest When You Get Home: Incorporating Travel into Your Homeschool

A fun and practical workshop with great ideas for enlivening your school on any budget by getting out and seeing the world. We'll share our experiences in all sorts of situations from taking free "day vacations" to traveling in China for a month. Something for everyone that's ever had homeschool cabin fever.

Raising Real Men: Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys

”A Practical Guide to Equipping the Hearts and Minds of Boys Without Breaking or Losing Your Own” "Six boys!" folks say in mock horror, "Well, better you than me!" We answer them cheerfully -- we love our boys and they're a gift from God... a reward. Privately, though, we admit to ourselves it's not always rosy. Teenaged boys put away a startling amount of groceries. Young boys can be downright destructive. They're noisy, unconcerned with personal hygeine, and the dog has a longer attention span -- or so it seems, some days. If this is God's chosen gift to us, then why does it seem so hard? How can we prepare these boys to serve God when we can barely make it through the day? Isn't there a better way? The answer is yes. Raising Real Men looks beyond the untied shoes and dirty jeans to what the Lord means boys to be. Learn how to help them focus on schoolwork, find real heroes, stand alone when they need to, and become a real man one day. Don't just survive raising boys, succeed at it -- and learn to love them as they really are.

Great Waters Press 2009

Carolina Journal

Hal is a regular monthly contributor to the journal of The John Locke Foundation on education, policy, government, culture and occasionally investigative journalism

The John Locke Foundation 2009

Homeschool Publications

Hal and Melanie have separately and together been published and/or interviewed in The Old Schoolhouse, Homeschooling Today, Homeschool Digest and state homeschool organization magazines throughout the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand over the last several years.

2009