No Longer Little: Parenting Tweens with Grace and Hope is YOUR Way of Surviving the preTeen/Teen Years! (review)

I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

If you're a homeschooler, you may know the authors of the book that literally saved my sanity this past month, No Longer Little: Parenting Tweens with Grace and Hope: Hal & Melanie Young, from Great Waters Press.

No Longer Little by Hal and Melanie Young

After listening to their conference speech at the recent Homeschool Moms

Conference, I knew that they had been where I am now, and that reading their upcoming book would be imperative! So when the option to review came up shortly after, I couldn't raise my hand enough!

Their new book is for parents of boys and girls ages 8-14. Though I would suggest that parents of even younger children read it as well, as you never know when it (that evil known as puberty) will strike YOUR child, and it is better to be prepared, than behind! As they ahve 3 boys to 1 girl, obviously their experience is mostly with boys, and the book is as well. But if you have a girl, don't let that discourage you from the book.

One nugget they share is priceless: "Don't let their emotional roller coaster be your own". So often it is easy, especially when we are tired from working all day, to react to our child's cuurent drama, in a negative way, as we jump on their roller coaster. But better is to take a step BACK and acknowledge that the issue is PUBERTY drama, and seek a work around WITH our kids, but avoiding the tracks of that coaster! Just that one step is HUGE! When girls hit the early stages of puberty the DRAMA hits, and as mothers, especially, it's hard not to react to doors slamming in your face, screams of 'I hate you', etc. We've been there, but like childbirth, the hard stuff has faded from our memories! Hal and Melanie offer some really great things to try with your kids to help keep your connections open and to spot the DRAMA at 50 yards and avoid it!

I love that book covers ALL aspects of puberty- from emotional, to education, to interests. So much changes in our kids' brains during this time period and if we KNOW what to look for, we can be better at directing them to different things that help not only bring their interests to life, but provide learning and joy. Ultimately our wonderful kids will turn back into the loving children they were before puberty, but how we help them through the period, is they key.

I've already shared my copy with a couple of friends, who were having the same issues, and they've also started calling the book the sanity saver too! Hal and Melanie are like your close friends, offering greta nuggets of wisdom, from having been in the trenches already. But they also give you sound reasoning for why certain actions work better, and how your child's brain is now working. It's hard with all the modern media exposure to keep your kids on God's path, and Melanie and Hal offer some great ideas for seaking to them about sexuality and how the media twists God's words! I also really liked their idea of a ceremony noting them moving into another stage of life. Some cultures already have that, but if yours doesn't, why not have one? They give you some great ideas to help honor the change your child has experienced!

If you bought a new car, you'd look through the manual and see how to use everything in the car, right? Well when your child hit's puberty, it's like you have that new car. Only there is no manual with them, and everything about them is now foreign to you! So you have to go by trial and error. And there is a LOT of error usually! But No Longer Little: Parenting Tweens with Grace and Hope gives you a manual that works for any 'car/child', so you can use it for any one you have! And once you have the knowledge, number 2 or 3, is a lot easier to handle! So if you have preteens or teens, GET THIS BOOK!

If you are already dealing with teenage boys, then their book, Love, Honor, and Virtue: Gaining or Regaining a Biblical Attitude Toward Sexuality, will be of interest to you as well! Written for boys ages 12 to in their 20s, it gives a Biblical perspective to help them understand God’s design, from biology to morality, navigate the cultural minefield (especially that of modern gender issues), build a foundation for Christ-honoring relationships, and find hope for recovery if they’ve stumbled. You can see what my fellow reviewers thought about that book, by clicking the banner below, and reading their reviews!