Hal & Melanie Young

Boy Parent, Hero Parent

Hal and Melanie

The Bible says that children are a gift from God – but why is parenting a boy such a challenge? They live in constant motion, unending distraction, noise without limit and curious to boot. Yet there’s a purpose behind the uproar, and if we seek out God’s aim for our sons, we take part in something incredible! Hal and Melanie have six grown sons, and in this workshop they will encourage and help you to reach the hearts and minds of your own young men.

Parents love this workshop!

No Longer Little

Hal and Melanie

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!

People LOVE this workshop. They have a high felt need coming in and hope walking out!

Middle School Madness

Hal and Melanie

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.

(Choose either Middle School Madness or No Longer Little)

How Not To Lose Your Teens

Hal and Melanie

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.

Relax Your Homeschool for Academic Success

Hal and Melanie

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.

This is a very encouraging session that parents thank us for with tears in their eyes.

Your Marriage and Your Kids

Hal and Melanie

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.

Boy-Schooling

Hal and Melanie

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 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!

Boys and Media

Hal and Melanie

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.

Freedom from Fear

Hal and Melanie

Fear-based parenting drives us to make bad decisions despite the best of intentions. We choose curricula based on what our friends 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!

A keynote full of hope and encouragement, hitting parents right at their pinch points.

Getting Kids to Work

Hal and Melanie

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!

Never Give Up

Hal and Melanie

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.

A wonderful, laughter-filled keynote, particularly for the last day of the conference!

Passing the Baton

Hal and Melanie

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, building relationships that will last a lifetime, and discipling our sons and daughters to be servants of the Most High, even when we can't make them anymore!

A good keynote or workshop

Finding a Mate in a Messed Up Culture

Hal and Melanie

With the average age of first marriage approaching thirty and the majority of people living together before marriage, our adult kids are trying to find a mate in a different world than we did. How can we prepare them for marriage and parenting, but also for the years they may live single before they get there? How can we help them to be strong to resist the sexual sin all around them? How can we advise them in the confusion and fear of missing out of social media and dating apps? It doesn't happen overnight. Should young men and young women be friends? Will I ever get married? Will my children ever marry? Get practical encouragement from the parents of six adult kids.

Parents, teens, and singles all LOVE this workshop because of its focus on honoring God without extra-Biblical checklists.

Homeschooling Young Children

Hal and Melanie

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.

Great for parents of preschoolers and new homeschoolers with young children.

Romance for the Exhausted

Hal and Melanie

(For married, engaged, and nursing babies only) 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.

Schedule on Saturday so husbands can attend. For the married, engaged, and nursing babies only.

Sanity's In The Freezer

Melanie

Learn how to have real meals again! Don't worry if you have tried once-a-month cooking and didn't like the mess. Melanie didn't like it either! Find out how to feed your family well on less money and how to serve great dinners with minimal time in the kitchen. This is a real favorite of attendees!

Always packs people in. Schedule a little larger room than you might think.

Surviving Struggling to Read

Hal and Melanie and when available, Samuel

What do you do when it’s not that easy? When reading isn’t happening when you thought it would? Our son Sam didn’t learn to read well until he was eleven and to spell and write until he was older than that, but he’s succeeding in college now. This encouraging session discusses how to keep hope alive in you both, how to help them through the social struggles and embarrassments that come with being a late reader, how to know when and how to get help, and how this trial can ultimately bless your child. We’ll talk about the struggle and give you hope for the future!

What Gifted Kids Really Need

Hal and Melanie

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 his needs or would he be better off with professionals? How can you help him fit in socially? What about the future ? should he 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!

Struggling Learners in High School & College

Hal and Melanie

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 is on the Dean’s List at his college and getting accommodations that really help. Find out how!

This session addresses something seldom talked about--how do we help our struggling learners launch?

Christ and College

John Calvin Young

Can a Christian not only be faithful to God in college, but spread his faith, too? What are the biggest spiritual challenges? How can you prepare to stand your ground for Christ? Learn about the traps, how to avoid them, and how to live like a believer in the refiner's fire of university life. John Calvin Young graduated from a very secular top 20 college and studied at Oxford University.

Great for teens and their parents who are wondering if a Christian can keep the faith in college

Playing In The Big Leagues

John Calvin Young

Ever wondered how the homeschool experience transfers to college? Worried about how to make the best of your next four years? John Calvin graduated from one of the most selective private schools in the nation, and will share hard-won practical advice and encouragement for the college-bound student. Learn how to win over hostile professors, prepare for finals, and manage the stress and intensity of college academics successfully.

Great prep for kids heading to college!

How To Write Your Own Book

Hope Auer Peterson, author of A Cry From Egypt

As a thirteen-year-old homeschooler, Hope started writing her own book. Now she’s an award-winning author whose books are required in several homeschool curricula. She knows that the process from having an idea to publishing can be overwhelming, especially for a young, first-time author writing for God’s glory. She’ll inspire and encourage students who are just starting their own writing journeys.

Teaching Boys to Love Reading/Writing

Hal and Melanie

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. 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!

This can be one combined workshops, a double workshop, or you can choose one of them. The writing workshop can be combined with spelling, too!