Obeying Parents-Story for Kids

Posted on January 4, 2022 by Marilyn — No Comments ↓

We all struggle as parents to know how to best teach our kids obedience. We’ve all felt the embarrassment when a child pitches a fit in the grocery store over wanting some item you don’t want them to have or when they ignore the direction you give them in front of your friends at church. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to teach academics to kids who just won’t listen and cooperate with us. We’ve all been there.

It’s easy to react to our kids instead of remembering what our God-given responsibility is. It’s not just to get them to be more compliant to us and thus make our life easier, but to teach them to recognize and deal with sin in their hearts. When they learn to obey us as parents, it is training them to have obedient hearts to the Lord later in life and THAT is why it’s so crucial.

Kids learn so much more effectively when they are given a story to help them relate to the experience of others. Kids will forget information, but they won’t forget stories. Over our many years of training our 14 kids, we’ve found stories to be super effective in teaching obedience.

Here are some examples of obeying parents that we found worked:

Bible stories: I Corinthians 10:11 in speaking of the Israelites, it says, “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” In other words, events/stories from the Bible were written so that others coming later could learn from the consequences, experiences, and lessons that God used to teach the Israelites.

Psalm 102:18 says, “Let this be written for the generation to come, so that a people not yet created may praise the LORD.

“We are to teach our kids lessons from people’s stories from the Bible, moral stories from our lives or lives of people we know, and true stories of obedience from history-real people who made real choices to be obedient. This was our aim with our kids and we have created resources with stories that do just that for you to use with your kids. It wasn’t easy coming up with stories as we were raising the kids at the same time. I would have loved to just be able to pick up a book to help me out, so that was our intent on creating these resources to make your job easier with lessons we knew to be effective.

Examples of Obeying Parents – Stories for Kids

So, I’ll briefly share some examples of those stories with you so you have a better idea of what I’m talking about.

•Crossroads of Character: Learning to Make Wise Choices contains everyday life stories covering 12 basic character qualities EVERY child needs to know. One of those is obedience. For this, we tell the story of two of our grandsons who went with Granddad for a fun day at the farm. They grapple together with a moral decision to obey or disobey as they wait for Granddad to come back with the tractor. They face the temptation to go feed the horses’ grass but have been warned not to go close to the horses as the fence is electric and may shock them. When they choose to cheerfully obey, they are later rewarded by Granddad taking them for a ride on the horses. This story provides you with a simple kid-friendly definition for obedience and a Bible verse as well as a real-life example.

Also in this book are 11 more examples of character choices. (appropriate for ages 3-12)

Purchase Crossroads of Character

•Character Trails: Learning to Walk in Paths of Righteousnesscovers

12 more character qualities providing for each a story from the Bible, a moral story from real life, and a true story from American history. For example, they learn joyfulness from Paul and Silas and Fanny Crosby, compassion from David and Mephibosheth and Florence Nightingale, and attentiveness from Samuel in the Bible and Lydia Darragh during the War of Independence as well as real-life stories from kids their own age.(appropriate for ages 5-12)

Purchase Character Trails

Here are some more stories we provide about obedience:

•Portraits of Integrity-A Family Treasury

contains a story about Sergeant Alvin York during World War I who started out as a conscientious objector and ended up receiving the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the Legion of Honor medal for silencing 35 German machine guns and capturing 132 prisoners in an amazing and heroic way thus illustrating obedience in a way kids won’t forget. This is one of 45 true stories illustrating character to kids and adults as well. (ages 7-adult)

Last, but not least we tell the story of Judy the English Pointer( and only official canine prisoner of war) who because of her obedience to her master in World War II saved the lives of many men as well as received the Dickin medal after the war.

Purchase Portraits of Integrity

Kids of Character Bible Study

offers youth devotions providing short answer questions to look up the answers from the Bible to see what God’s Word has to say about obedience. It’s not just something mom and dad are telling them to do -see what God has to say about obedience (and 44 other character traits)and the blessings of choosing it. This study also gives you several application questions we called “If”s” to prepare your kids in advance for real-life situations involving obedience that they will face, guiding them to choose wisely.

Purchase Kids of Character Bible Study.

So, I hope this provides you with the practical help you need to teach your kids why to obey and how to obey and concrete examples of those who have made the hard choices and received the blessings of obedience in their lives. Enjoy the stories!!

Bundle Gift

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Marilyn — No Comments ↓

Here are your Mega Bundle Resources:

Just click on these links to access them and then you can save them or print them.

Who We Are:

Rick and Marilyn Boyer are true pioneers of the home education movement. They began teaching the eldest of their fourteen children at home in 1980 and are still actively home schooling their three youngest children today.

Rick and Marilyn have authored several books on home education and Christian parenthood and have spoken at conferences all across America and in several foreign countries. Their books have been translated into a number of foreign languages and have circulated around the world. Their ministry, Character Concepts, encourages parents through the resources they publish, their speaking ministry, this website, regular newsletters, and their articles, which have been published in several leading homeschooling magazines.

Marilyn is always appreciated for her keen and warmhearted insights into parenting while Rick, with his humorous, folksy style has been called “the Will Rogers of the homeschooling movement.”

CharacterConcepts.com grew out of the day-to-day life of Rick and Marilyn Boyer. The Boyers wanted their fourteen children to have fun-to-use, Bible-based character training materials but couldn’t find an organized character curriculum. So they designed fun projects to teach character lessons from Scripture. As time went on, they began to combine their ideas into an age-appropriate curriculum so that other parents could have the benefit of their experience. Now, the Character Concepts Curriculum and the Boyers’ large selection of parenting and home schooling books and recordings give parents the hands-on tools to train up “kids of character!”

Rick and Marilyn Boyer Then:

Rick and Marilyn Boyer Now:

Character Trails Anniversary

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Marilyn — No Comments ↓

The Character Trails Book is…

It’s A Big Anniversary

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since we released Character Trails, the second book in our Character with the Cousins series, but it has!

We know many of you have followed the ‘cousins’ through the 4 books in the series. SO, to celebrate we thought first of all, we’d catch you up on what those cousins have been up to the last 10 years and some of their goals for the future. Ten years makes SUCH a difference.

Discount for November:

Also, for the month of November, we are offering you a 30% discount on Character Trails: Learning to Walk in Paths of Righteousness. AND, I asked the cousins to recommend some of the Character Concepts and Uncle Rick Audios that have been their personal favorites through the years and we will offer weekly specials on those throughout the month.

Be sure to listen to this week’s podcast where I interviewed the cousins (Lauren was out of town, so she wasn’t able to be present). Cassidy, Luke, Anne, Adam, and Melody were all available to share a little bit of their lives with you.

Boyer Cousins Then and Now:

Just for fun, we had Cass stage a photo like the one on the cover of Character Trails, ten years later. The actual log they sat on for the cover picture is now thoroughly rotten, but we found a similar one in our same patch of woods. Hope you enjoy it.

Character Training Curriculum:

Character Trails teaches kids 12 basic character qualities, providing stories from the Bible, history, and everyday life for each one as well as suggestions for practically implementing each one as they learn it. Our aim was to put character definitions and implementation on a level kids approximately ages 6-10 could understand.

So for the entire month of November 2021, get 30% off the Character Trails book. It would make a great Christmas gift for other families.

Purchase more Character Training Curriculum at www.CharacterConcepts.com

Bundle

Posted on May 13, 2021 by Marilyn — No Comments ↓

Conference Special #1

We are excited you have been a part of the Conference. We love sharing with homeschoolers and we pray these resources will be a blessing to your family. Click below to download them.

I want the Mega Bundle Resource

Conference Special #2

“We absolutely love the Uncle Rick audios! My three youngest listen to them at bedtime many nights a week. I love his gentle reading voice as well as explanations along the way. What a terrific way for my children to hide God’s Word in their hearts!” Happy Listeners

Our special promo includes a bundle of products worth $130!

Details: Sign up for the Uncle Rick Audio Club Subscription.

For $10 a month, you get to download and keep any two audiobooks each month. ($30 value)

For this special promotion, when you sign up, you will receive the bundle of digital products below. Our complete satisfaction guarantee is always in place – if you’re not happy, neither are we!

Uncle Rick Holiday E-book $15
Cowboy Sam E-book Collection $55
The Runt AudioBook – $15
Dynamic Stories of Great Trailblazers Series- Discovery Readers ebooks- $45

Sign Me Up for Uncle Rick Audio Club

Bundle Download

Posted on May 8, 2021 by Marilyn — No Comments ↓

Here are your Mega Bundle Resources:

Who We Are:

Marilyn is always appreciated for her keen and warmhearted insights into parenting while Rick, with his humorous, folksy style has been called “the Will Rogers of the homeschooling movement.”

Rick and Marilyn Boyer Then:

Rick and Marilyn Boyer Now:

Activities to do in Autumn

Posted on October 24, 2020 by Marilyn — 2 Comments ↓

Fun Activities to do in Autumn

Looking for some fun activities to do in autumn with your kids? I had a couple of the grandkids over last week and here’s what we did. These are perfect for even preschoolers- short enough to hold their attention and easy enough that they can handle the skills.

Lion pictures with autumn leaves

First of all, we made lion pictures with autumn leaves. Here is the link we used to download the lion’s face. Instead of using real leaves, I used color copies of leaves we had collected. They are easier for little people to handle than the real thing and oh so pretty!

Directions are easy peasy. First, the kids colored the lion faces while I cut the leaves out. Then I got out glue sticks and showed the kids how to turn leaves upside down and cover with glue. I glued the lion face to the middle of the paper but at first just placed glue in the middle of the face so we could tuck the colored leaves under his face to create a mane. The kiddos learned to glue each leaf and tuck under the face to create his mane.

2. Acorn cookies

This was a fun, simple, and yummy project. Here is a picture of the ingredients needed:

I had the kids unwrap the Hershey kisses while I melted some chocolate chips in the microwave. Then I showed them how to dip each kiss in the melted chocolate and attach to one of the nutter butter cookies. That’s it! If desired you can dip a mini chip in the melted chocolate and attach it to the top of the cookie. I chose not to, because of the skill level of the preschoolers, but older kids could manage.

3. Painting Pumpkins

Then we took a trip to the neighborhood fruit stand and the kids each picked out a pumpkin. They got a ride in the little wagon with their pumpkins

Then we brought the pumpkins home and I let the kids paint them with washable paints.

4. Rice Krispie Pumpkins

Our last project for the day was making Rice Krispie pumpkins. I had picked up some orange food coloring.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp butter

10 oz package mini marshmallows

6 cups Rice Krispie cereal

Directions:

In large saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and orange food coloring and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.
Add RICE KRISPIES cereal. Stir until well coated.
Form into round pumpkin shapes and place them on a cookie sheet. I let the kids unwrap tootsie rolls and I cut them in half. Push the tootsie roll (stem) into the top of the pumpkin and voila, there you have it. The kids took all their treasures home to share with their brothers and sisters. It was a fun day. Hope it makes your fall more pleasurable too!Enjoy these fun activities to do in autumn with your family!
Other articles you might enjoy:

The Irritation List (or Keeping Your Sanity)

Teaching Your Kids to Care

If you have fun autumn activities that are family traditions we would love to hear them. Share them in the comments below!

12 Ideas for Fun Summer Days at Home

Posted on July 19, 2020 by Marilyn — 1 Comment ↓

Fun Summer Days at Home

When my kids were young, I liked to try to do some fun things that weren’t a part of our normal school year- to make summer days more fun. These are simple, inexpensive or free ideas that really just let kids be kids. There’s no need to get fancy or expensive. Kids’ imaginations are the best toy, when encouraged to be used, and simple fun is usually the most fun!

So- before summer bids farewell for another year, here are some simple, yet fun ideas you can enjoy with your kids.

Continue reading 12 Ideas for Fun Summer Days at Home→

Ideas for Easy Family Devotions

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Marilyn — 2 Comments ↓

Ideas for Easy Family Devotions with Kids.

In raising our 14 kids I can’t say we’ve always been consistent in family devotion times with the kids. It actually got much harder as the kids got older and had so many out of the home commitments. But before we got to that stage, we had fairly consistent family Bible times.

In the next couple of posts I plan to share some of the things we did that proved successful but not overwhelming to accomplish, as well as some of the resources we developed that can be picked up and used without prep time on Dad or Mom’s part. Rick was a dad who had a physically intensive job so he would come home very tired and not at his creative best, so something that did not require a lot of preparation was important for that reason. Perhaps you find yourself in a similar situation.

Family Devotions don’t have to be in-depth, or extremely time-consuming. They don’t have to follow a particular formula, and you don’t have to have visuals and activities planned out to accompany your time together in order to “make it work”. What is important, really, is that you try to set aside some time to simply lead your family in listening to God’s word and discussing it together. If you want to do more, great! But, if you cannot- don’t lose heart! Do what you can. Little is MUCH when God is in it!

Here are Easy Ideas and Resources for Family Devotions:

Continue reading Ideas for Easy Family Devotions→

How to Teach Your Children to Spend Time in the Word

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Marilyn — No Comments ↓

How can you instill the practice of studying God’s Word into your children? Well, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. But, let me share with you what we did with our own children….

From the time our children were babes in the bassinet, we played Bible audios for them at sleep times. It would be a comfort to them and help them to settle down to turn on their Bible CD’s. Pretty early on, Rick recorded audios for them and explained difficult words and meanings to them which was actually teaching them how to meditate on God’s Word. This also served to show the kids that God’s Word was practical and interesting to listen to.

We read Bible stories to our little people and had a Friday night Bible quiz each week asking questions from our reading during the week. We would reward them for answering questions, and it encouraged them to be attentive during reading times- to want to “pay attention on purpose.”

Continue reading How to Teach Your Children to Spend Time in the Word→

Tips for Teaching Preschoolers

Posted on March 17, 2020 by Marilyn — No Comments ↓

Preschool is one of my favorite ages to teach. The love of learning is so strong. Everything is so exciting and fun for this age. With my own preschoolers, my goal was to be sure not to squelch but enhance that God-given love of learning. These tips for teaching preschoolers is from personal experience.

I do believe a schedule benefits children by building in them a sense of security. For this reason, I scheduled times to work with my preschoolers so they knew what to expect and what was expected of them.

Tips for Teaching Preschoolers:

1. Keeping Preschoolers Occupied

I found early on that to a large degree, my success in home schooling many ages at one time was dependent on how I managed my preschoolers. Preschool children have the potential of being a major distraction to the learning environment and must be handled wisely.

Continue reading Tips for Teaching Preschoolers→

Marilyn is wife to Rick, Mom to 14 children, Nana to 19 grandchildren (and counting!) and homeschooler for 37 years.

She and her husband own Character Concepts which they started for the purpose of helping others raise children with a strong, godly character and Biblical worldview.

They have developed character curriculum from preschool through high school, based on what they found worked when teaching their own 14 children over the years.

Her passion is to help young moms raise kids of character and enjoy the journey!