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The Home Field Advantage!
Offering you Hope . For a Joyful Journey
Laughter and Love . Parents and Kids . Together
Face to Face Time . Voice to Voice Time . Seeing Joy
Even in the Tough Stuff . Even Today
Stay
We love it when they stay!
and confide
and tell us many words.
We love to hear them laughing
outside
in the yard
and hear their feet
rushing
1 2 3 up the steps
and the screen door
slamming
and their words
fizzing
and flying high through the air.
We love it when they lean
against the door
and stay.
If they ask
a quiet question
or say
a quiet word
we watch
each word as it floats
like a tiny piece of diamond dust
from them
to us.
We hold out our hand
not to catch it
but to flutter
the air
just a little
till it comes a bit closer.
We love it when they sit down next to us
and lean their head
and we just sit
and hear each other breathe.
We love it when they stay!
By Virginia Vagt © 2010
The Home Field Advantage!
Offering you Hope . And a Joyful Journey
Parents and Kids . Together . Finding Joy . Even in the Tough Stuff . Even Today
Fresh Joy . . . Helping Our Kids Succeed
Do you know your child’s dreams?
What does your child like to do?
Or think about?
What would your child like to be, or become?
Bill Gates’ mom knew his dreams.
Here’s the story. . .
According to the Wikipedia article about Bill Gates, when he was in 8th grade his mom helped his school get a computer terminal and a block of computer processing time from GE.
She used the proceeds from a Mothers’ Club rummage sale to get her son’s school, and him, access to technology.
The year might have been 1969 or 1970. Back then no one had a PC or had even heard of one. They hadn’t been invented yet.
It took the time, interest and dreams of many people, including Bill Gates, to create the hardware and software so that today you and I can write words like these on our PCs, and a second later people around the world can read them . . .on their phones . . . and on their cameras . . . which are their phones!
Thank you Bill Gates’ mom! and all other moms who have not minded when their kid played for hours-on-end with markers, or Sculpey, or an old camera.
Thank you for tuning in to your son’s interest in technology, helping him turn an interest into a dream, and thank you for helping us see how we can do that too.
Dreams build on and grow from interests. Lives build on and grow from dreams.
Did your parents know your dreams, when you were 12 or 13 years old?
Maybe not. We tend to protect our dreams. We don’t want people to trample on them.
But we show our cards about our dreams in our interests.
By noticing our kids’ interests, we parents can see clues about their dreams.
Can’t we? Sure we can.
We know if our kids love video games, drawing, dance, helping people, sports, faith, fun, volleyball, water slides, eating candy, reading, texting, making things with Sculpey, telling jokes, being center of attention, playing the piano, ice skating, electronics, animals, astronomy, friends, puzzles, math . . . or any of a million other things
Whatever that is, that’s where your child’s heart and mind are located, right now.
If they love something or always notice something, even something seemingly simple like how cheese melts on pizza, then they may be cooking up a heart-dream about it, right now.
Knowing where our children’s hearts and minds are located, and fixated, is a step toward connecting them, positively, to their future.
Really and truly this is more important than knowing their test scores.
Whether you’re homeschooling your child or whether your child goes to school . . .
~ whether your child is succeeding or struggling . . .
~ whether your child has strong interests or few . . .
~ when we learn with love about our children’s dreams we gain more ways to nurture them.
Nurturing our children’s hopes and dreams helps us help them ~ far more ~ than focusing on their current crises, struggles and even on their current triumphs.
Daydreams become real dreams.
Real dreams can come true, for good or for ill.
Your child will build life, positively or negatively, through his or her dreams.
We can help our kids’ pathway through life take positive shape, when we care about their dreams for themselves.
This summer, help your child see and experience good things connected to their dreams.
Help them meet someone in a field that’s related to one of their dreams, or see something, learn something, hear something, learn a skill, find tools, or go somewhere that could build on one of their dreams, in a positive way.
Affirm and care for your child in a way that connects to their dreams.
Bill Gates’ mom did.
We can too.
from your friend in parenting, Virginia Vagt, May 24, 2010
I have a homeschool-in-my-head.
Do you?
If you don’t homeschool, maybe you have a picture in your mind of what homeschool looks like?
Funny – yet true – those of us who do homeschool also have a picture in our minds of what it looks like.
Here’s mine!
In my homeschool-in-my-head, each morning I greet my four smiling children in a bright, cheery room.
They are well dressed. Their clothes are pressed. So are mine.
Several informative and interesting posters hang on the walls.
A bulletin board is bedecked with our children’s beautifully written papers and their extraordinary artwork.
As I enter the room the children chime together, “Good morning, Mother!”
That’s the picture in my head!
Frequently, in real life, our homeschool takes place at a messy dining room table.
Currently we are ensconced in the basement family room, with outdated paneling and dark green carpet. Our room has tables, a few comfy reading chairs, over-stuffed (over-flowing?) bookshelves, and piles and stacks of papers.
In the distance (not too far, as the laundry room is nearby) you can spot the baskets of clothes beckoning me to attend to them.
More often, after nagging the children out of bed, I corral them to the basement and they slunk into our chairs. In the homeschool-in-our-home I am dressed in sweat pants and a shirt that has seen better days. The children whine in unison, “Mom, do we have to do school today?”
In the homeschool-in-my-head we have cutting-edge curriculum and materials. Each child’s laptop has carefully selected streaming video lessons for a few of their courses. The rest of the time they read (avidly!) from books that perfectly address their strengths and weaknesses. Our lesson plans encompass each child’s learning styles. We have many “Aha” learning moments and the children are always thrilled with our science experiments.
In real life, more often our books are used and tired. We have a shared desktop computer that sometimes works. Each child often struggles through a workbook or a reading selection that is less than ideal for them. We talk about doing science experiments. We realize that the frog I ordered last year has dried out and there will be no live dissection. Thank goodness there is a virtual frog dissection we can watch online – when the Internet is working well.
In my homeschool-in-my-head, field trips are delightful! The children are, as-always, carefully dressed and give me their full cooperation during our peaceful drive to the field trip site. They follow quietly behind me, studying the exhibits as they ask intelligent questions. When we get home, they can’t wait to get to their journals to memorialize this special day. One child scrapbooks the handouts she has collected during the visit.
In real life, our field trips are like cat wrangling. Each child runs in a separate direction. My son decides to try to climb the fence that runs alongside the line we must wait in to obtain admission. I try to interest them in the exhibits, but the oldest says, “Mom this is boring!” Child number two has an electronic game in her hand and bumps into her sister. It’s my son’s naptime and he starts to whine and fuss. I get a headache that does not leave me until the next day.
In my homeschool-in-my-head, my husband leads our family devotions before he leaves for work in the morning. Each child cheerfully finds their Bible and gathers around the table. Daddy reads the selection, offers his enlightened commentary, and asks questions to bring the passage to life for the children. We all pray together and he blesses each child before he leaves for the day.
In real life, we sometimes get around to devotions – often not. I bring a lesson to the basement once in a while, but it’s definitely not a regular event. The kids know the Bible stories, but clearly have not fathomed the depths of Scripture. They ask so many questions! I don’t know if I have the answers they seek and I feel inadequate most of the time to do the job I am doing.
Yet in our real lives, in each of our days, God is with us – even in our imperfection. The homeschool-in-my-home doesn’t look like the homeschool-in-my-head, but we are together each day, striving to be this imperfect thing called “a family.” My kids are not perfectly behaved and we have more than our fair share of issues and problems. Our marriage is often challenged by the stress of our lives and lifestyle.
Through it all, He is present. He is present in the arms of a sister who takes time to read a story with her little brother. He is present in the words I find to speak to the child who is discouraged with math. He is present in the interaction between two sisters as they giggle over some surprise they have planned for after dinner. He is present in the warm greeting we receive from my husband who has spent his energy providing for us. He is present in our midst every day as we muddle through this journey of the homeschooling-while-living-family-life.
Would I trade it for the homeschool-in-my-head? No thanks.
your friend,
Christine M. Field
For This Child Have I Prayed
By Christine Field
For this child have I prayed
She came to us bathed in prayer, wrapped in love – an unexpected, much-loved gift
Smiles so bright – can rival the sun
A voice so sweet like a river runs
Brought so much joy, happiness and light
Never imagining the coming fight
 For this child have I prayed
Adolescence descended like dark cover
In the fray we barely knew each other
Tears and shouting, fights and screaming
Made me wonder about Motherhood’s meaning
For this child have I prayed
A tearing time, a rendering apart
Now many miles away, where to start?
I promised I would make fly-overs
My helicopter’s searchlight panning past
For this child have I prayed
Then a sight through a cloud
A hand reaching out to touch mine
We connect, if only for a moment
Then flee the fear of familiarity
For this child have I prayed
Then you were here, sad and spent
Wondering where your life had went
We rejoiced to have you back in the fold
And laughed over pranks in days of old
For this child have I prayed
Talking mother to new-mother
Mother to friend
The conversation I prayed to have
Which seemed all so unlikely
God answers prayer – his presence hovers above
Passing over our lives, waiting for us to call to him
To cry out to him in grief and pain and
Miraculously he mends us back again
 For this child have I prayed
Breathing a prayer of, “Thank you, Jesus.”
So, this week at my church,
(Yes, it’s a mega-church. A wonderful one! Why do I feel the need to defend my mega-church? Maybe because we never hear disparaging remarks about small or medium-sized churches? But, why would anyone think a large church isn’t a good church? And anyway, descriptors like small medium and large are just relative to what’s next door. By church standards in South Korea our particular mega-church would be considered small, even cosy. And make no mistake – my hat’s off to South Korean churches and all churches everywhere! Blessings, blessings, blessings ! ! !)
. . . this week at my church I saw a waterproof Bible!
I saw it in our church bookstore.
(Our cosy-sized mega-church has a coffee shop and a bookstore.)
What’s a waterproof Bible?
I think it means I can read it on-the-run and underwater.
From this Bible I can wipe off water and mud, if they spill on the pages.
That’s nifty.
But what about the mud and muck of my real life?
What about my real tears?
Theyre salty. They flow.
Where do they go?
Are you in the mud and muck of life?
Is parenting getting you grimey?
Does parenting include many tears?
Waterproof is a good name for the Word of God.
Whether or not we have one of these new, technologically-waterproof Bibles,
when our tears roll down from the bad and sad of our lives,
the truth is . . . God takes them.
He takes our tears.
He doesn’t lose our tears or throw them away.
He soaks them up.
He preserves them in His bottle.
He takes our tears and gives us healing and joy, in Himself.
My tears are earned and redeemed,
so are yours,
by God.
from your friend in parenting,
Christine Field
BTW, here’s a link to the Waterproof Bible
 Accidental learning !?!
Q. What’s accidental learning?
A. One of the ways kids learn. But it flies under the radar. As parents we can encourage more accidental learning.
Q. Examples?
A. Think about the first words your child learned to read (not say, but read.)
The first two words my daughter learned to read were her name and the word “jewell.” Jewell is the name of our grocery store. She heard it and saw the word “jewell” in huge orange letters, all the time. She learned it accidentally. Accidental learning happens when learning is reinforced and even introduced, accidentally in a child’s life and in our lives too, while we’re doing other things. Grocery stores are great places for accidental learning.
Q. Grocery stores and learning?
A. We don’t think of store errands as learning time. So we don’t expect it. We don’t look for it. But it’s happening! We can encourage more of it – give it a boost – even reading and math.
Q. When we’re at the store I want to get it done. Seems like this would make those trips longer.
A. Let’s think about it. Why do we want those trips to get done as fast as possible? Isn’t it because errands are so tedious?
Q. Yes – not to mention that we’re all tired and the kids are begging for candy.
A. Tired and rushed. Rushed and tired. These two are like rivers that flood the banks of our lives. They do make it harder to see accidental learning opportunities. But we can shore them up and jazz our joy by expecting to engage with our children’s minds. Here’s how:
Finding learning, accidentally, can reverse the tide and bring us a surge of energy. Often during a late afternoon grocery store run our kids are learning – but they’re learning about new kinds of candy and junky stuff. How can we make the trip more interesting? We can engage their minds. What if your kids started “estimating” how much is in your shopping cart before you check out? What if each week they got better at it? What if they look forward to guessing. . .estimating. . .how much is in your cart – and so they start paying attention to all the prices as you shop?
Expecting them to learn means you’re not just doing an errand – you’re leading your kids in learning and doing your grocery shopping at the same time. (Younger kids don’t have to estimate the whole cart – help them start smaller by estimating how much you’ve got that’s just dairy, or just fruit. If they guess a million dollars – not a problem. Guessing a million dollars is a starting place. It’s an engaged place and now we can talk with them about ‘millions’ and find ways to see how much a million really is. They’ll get there. Talking and thinking together create a path.
Q. I was going to say ‘doesn’t that take patience’ – but maybe not as much as I thought.
A. Sometimes it does. Sometimes engaging with our kids’ minds actually makes more patience. Learning is fun. When we’re learning – evan as parents – we don’t get pinched for patience in the same way as when we’re rushing to get things done.
Q. So, looks like you’ve got a new book here called Accidental Learning?
Yes-indeedy! It’s a new book and full of ideas and offered at a sale price. In 43 pages Accidental Learning helps us transform a hum-drum part of life – everyday driving errands -by helping us engage our children’s minds and by helping them learn using the time we already have with them.
. . . Accidental Learning sprang from simple learning activities that our two families stumbled upon, almost by accident.
Most are so simple that at first we didn’t recognize them as actual learning strategies.
Over time that’s exactly how they work.
We offer them to you.
ACCIDENTAL Learning: A – Z
Easy Strategies To Boost Your Child’s Learning
A Guide For Learning Along the Way of Life
Tips For Busy Parents & On The Go Families
Easy Strategies To Boost Your Child’s Learning
Activities That Make Daily Life Less Hectic & More Fun
$9.95 as an electronic download. You can print it out and use it in your family, again and again and again. Here’s the link.
Link to Resource Store
April feels light and bright.
 Flowers and warmer weather lift us up.
Yet April can bring pressure and its own “edginess.”
Yard work looms and a slew of upcoming “calendar jammers” such as graduations, recitals, showers, weddings, game days, prize days all feel like extra pressure.
But we’d love to go anywhere outside. . .with our kids!
We’d love to go for walks with them or to the park.
The weather’s perfect and it’s not hot yet!
But there’s so much to do at home – so much to “get ready for.”
If you’d rather go to the park than focus on your list-of-things-to-do, consider these . . .
Resist yard pressure?
• Can you cut spring yard chores in half or even by less than half? How about picking up a few sticks, planting one or two flowers, and just washing the windows on just one of side of the house? If my yard and yours aren’t as spiffy as our neighbors’, that’s OK. We can help our neighbors by throttling down on yard-pressure.
Resist present and gift pressure?
• Can you and I both feel OK about not getting that wedding gift by the day of wedding? Let’s realize that the bride and groom will appreciate our presence more if we (and our family) arrive relaxed. The bride and groom (and the graduates) will get plenty of gifts by their big day. They’ll appreciate receiving yours, and mine, later on.
Simplify cooking? (Five minutes saved is five more minutes outside!)
• Crockpot dishes can get by with half the ingredients. Deserts can revert. Super-duper meals are more important in drab-winter than in beautiful-spring. Let’s ease into summer by using paper plates. Kids enjoy the indoor-picnic atmosphere. It feels that vacations and trips are coming very soon!
Resist saying yes? (To new big-deal-planning requests.)
• If another mom gets sick and can’t run spring Game Day or the Book Sale can we resist taking that on? If the person in charge can’t run it, suggest it be simplified even more. Perhaps every family can bring the essentials for one game. On the spot all of these families can organize the games and run them. Everyone can bring some food and a few prizes. The kids will love it!
Why take time outdoors with our kids?
On airplane trips we’re told that in case emergency we should affix our own oxygen mask and then help our children. The same applies to daily life. We need to give our own heart some help first. Then we’re better able to help our children with theirs.
As Christine Field says, kids spell ”love” T - I – M – E. When we go outside with our kids we help our own hearts – and we share ourselves and our time with them.
Blessings!
Virginia Vagt
The Home Field Advantage!
Because we’re all Every Day Parents . . .
Who need a More Joyful Journey . . .
because so often we . . .
Staying Close, While Letting Go
How to parent our college students and our grown-up “kids”
By Virginia Vagt
We want to do both, don’t we?
Yes. We want to let go and let our children grow up. And we want to stay close.
No matter our philosophy of family life, parenting young children and teens looks different than parenting college students and eventually, grown-ups.
But what does it look like?
For a Moody Magazine article in 2003, I wrote about the college transition process. For that article many parents and their college students shared their stories.
One reason I wrote the article was to begin to learn myself how to make this transition. It helped when our turn came. As we drove away from our college student all those ‘Where did the years go?” feelings still came flooding in. Yet somewhere in there we had a gladness of heart.
When a baby is born there’s an undescribable joy as we get to know a new life. Scary feelings too, for sure! What’s going to happen? Who can tell? Babies don’t come with guarantees. And when the time comes for a child to go. . .either across the street, down the aisle, or off to college orientation there’s a gladness and joy within the child and for parents, as well.
It’s normal for new parents to ask other parents how to live with no sleep and how to parent a toddler. It’s also helpful to hear from wise and loving families about these down-the-road transitions and pathways.
In a nutshell, here’s the wisdom we gained from others: When kids go off to college, or other pursuits, becoming parents of grown kids is a process. We continue to be their parents. We continue to love them and they us. But what we do changes. How does it change? That’s a discovery process that happens family by family. It’s the next adventure of parenting. And just like all the earlier parenting adventures you wouldn’t want to miss it!
Carolyn and Frank have three grown children. Their fourth is in high school. As they drove away from their first child at her college orientation, they struggled. It wasn’t easy. Along with much joy for their daughter, sad feelings about the separation also snuck in.
According to Carolyn and Frank as the months and years unfolded they also discovered good things. New joys came to them as the transition and new ways of communication took shape.
“Entrusting Sara to God when we could see her everyday was a lot easier. But the process of entrusting her to God during college helped our own faith grow. Then it surprised us that she became increasingly eager to talk with us.” Said Frank and Carolyn.
Reflecting back daughter Sara said she had felt excited and ready for college. Saying goodbye to her parents that day was not super-emotional. But after a month she realized the reality of being so far away from family and friends.
“I began to see that it takes a long time to become truly known by people; I felt lonely. What I didn’t have was anyone at college who knew me well.” Sara said.
So she sought out those who knew her best. Sara began to e-mail her dad and call her mom, often several times a week.
During that first year Frank and Carolyn took their cues from their daughter about how much she wanted to communicate.
“We wanted to be available to Sara, but not smother her, ” said Carolyn.
Their sensitive support bolstered their daughter. With her parents’ long-distance support Sara says she made it through a challenging freshman year.
“Our communication during my transition propelled us into a deep, meaningful friendship. The last three years of college became quite wonderful. Even then, my parents and I continued to talk and I continued to process life with them.”
Sara and her parents are not unique. Whether a student is commuting to school or living away from home the parent-child transition can lead to deeper connections for everyone.
College counselors offer us these observations.
Phone calls and even snail-mail letters.
“When they call home they want to hear your voice. The sound of your voice and your encouragement is reassuring. It helps them feel steady again. In addition to e-mail, we encourage parents to send physical mail. I see students opening mail from home – they devour every word. The handwriting is familiar. It’s writing they’ve known all their lives. A letter gives them a boost.” D. Rodgers, Admissions Counselor, Wheaton College Conservatory of Music.
What does encouragement sound like?
“Students can get easily discouraged, and parents are great encouragers. When parents ask students what they are learning, and not about their grades, it helps them see the big picture and why they are in college.” B. Thompson, Assistant Dean of Student Transitions, Moody Bible Institute
Dads and communication.
“When our oldest child went to college it gave me a whole new perspective on parents and students. I realized, more personally, how much students need the love and support of their parents, regardless of how far they go away, even if they are commuting to school. When my daughter went to school I made a commitment to write her a letter every week. In each letter I included a $10 bill, and three other things: a word of encouragement, a reminder to her that her mother and I loved her, and I would tell her a little information about our family and friends at home. I ended each letter with Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be given unto you as well.” a college vice-president for student development, retired
“One time I had 15 projects due. Maybe not that many, but it felt like it! He told me, in his letter, that the Lord would sustain me and that I’d make it through. Things in college can seem so traumatic and stressful. His encouragement helped me focus and see a much greater goal.” His daughter.
Parental love and support can go a long way toward helping our kids make a successful transition to college and to adulthood. While the parent-child relationship transitions – it doesn’t end.
“I found that one of the things my parents were best at during my college years was being sensitive about when to give me space and when to call and pursue me. “ Said Sara. “Now that I’m out of college, it seems we both pursue each other. We pray for each other as friends do.”
The college years and the grown up years create more parenting and faith adventures for all of us. They are opportunities. During these years we learn to trust God in new ways, bless and love our children in new ways, and we are loved by them in new and good ways.
Blessings to you and your family as you find your transition and your path.
Copyright © 2010 Virginia Vagt
Sections of this article first appeared in Moody Magazine, July-August, 2003.
How did it play in Peoria? Perfectly!
 Across the country convention season is ahead! During the past month we’ve been to three. In-Home in St. Charles, Illinois, APACHE in Peoria, and the Midwest Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati! So glad!
If you’ve not enjoyed a homeschool convention, or it’s been a long time, sign up for one.
Even if you’re not homeschooling, there’s a lot to be gained. Homeschool conventions are parenting conventions in disguise! At every convention more than a few participants are not homeschoolers.
Why attend a homeschool convention?
Conventions inspire like a sunrise.
They energize like a giant cup of coffee.
They offer the fun of a family get-together or a Fourth of July picnic.
(The fireworks take place in our hearts and minds!)
Thank you Deanne and all the APACHE volunteers for providing so much at the Heart of Illinois Homeschool Convention, this past weekend, in Peoria, Illinois.
Your goal was to encourage. That’s exactly what you delivered.
Christine Field and I were there to serve. We too came away uplifted and inspired.
The reason? Absolutely everyone!
Thank you to all who stopped to talk and share including Monica, Shari, Kristie, Angela, Karen, Tonya, LouAnna, Sharon, LaDonna, Stephanie, Charity and so many others.
Meeting other parents, hearing reality and hope, sharing practical help, talking and laughing together gave everyone a lift.
A sample of sharing from a mom who dropped by our booth to say hello.
Q. “How are things going for you?”
A. “I understand how my child with Asperger’s syndrome learns. It’s everything else in life that I don’t understand – including how my other child learns.” (From a Mom of two, offered with humor and joy, reality and hope. )
Q. “How does your Asperger’s syndrome child learn – what are you seeing?
A. “Chewing gum while he’s learning helps him. Sitting in a beanbag chair helps him. Sitting next to me on the couch, with his feet on the ground, helps him. But sitting with his feet dangling makes it hard for him to learn. Part of this is about sensory integration. What I’ve learned . . . you’ve got to be an expert on your kid. “
Thanks Mom of two, for offering your encouraging and wise words!
Thanks everyone at APACHE, for a great convention!
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