To Train Up A Child

"Mom, this stuff is BORING!"

That's what more than one homeschooling parent has heard when a student encounters a challenging task. So much of learning is fun, but there comes a time in every student's career when there is some hard work involved and some self-discipline.

It's true for all of us, really. We all know what we OUGHT to do, but the temptation when things become difficult is to look for a shortcut or quit. It's just easier to do the heavy lifting when the rewards are immediate . . . Who wants to bloom when there is no promise of spring? When you can't see the finish line? When you don't know for sure that the outcome will be to your personal benefit?

When the only reward is knowing that you did the right thing for the right reason in the right way?

The people that have been inspired. That's who. When you are working towards a higher goal, when you know your purpose is righteous and when you know there is something bigger than your personal comfort/discomfort at stake. When you have a dream.

That's why it's important for children to have heroes. They can learn about the childhood adventures of men and women that later went on to make a difference and change history. When students feel overwhelmed, they can remember how great figures in history had to struggle for the opportunity to learn so that they might one day stand and defend a righteous cause.

Debi Pearl's newest book LISTEN TO MY DREAM is a wonderful tool to help give students an inspirational hero and encourage them on to do the hard work of learning -- on those days when it's not necessarily fun, when the finish line seems so far away.

In LISTEN TO MY DREAM, Debi takes the reader through the childhood of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She tells how he worked to develop skills that would one day help him to inspire people to call for change in the laws that allowed citizens to be mistreated. Click on the image to see more pages from the book and purchase a copy for your own students.