An Essential Step for Your Homeschooled Teen: Getting a Checking Account (and a Debit Card)

Posted on May 20, 2017 by Barb

If you’ve decided to homeschool your teen for high school, I hope that in addition to all the educational products you plan to use, that you’ve considered getting your teen set up with a checking account and a debit card.

That thought might scare you, but learning to responsibly use a checking account linked to a debit card is an essential part of your teen’s education and something they should be comfortable with before going on to work or college post-graduation.

There are definite hazards in having a debit card, but it’s important that you help your teen navigate that path now instead of waiting for them to naively run up the inevitable overcharges and fees once they’re away from home.

On June 1, the updated and expanded third edition of Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers will be available for purchase at most online and brick-and-mortar book sellers and from Cardamom Publishers. It includes six new projects. Two of them, the Checking Account Project and the Debit Card Project, will teach your teen how to keep a checking account balanced while avoiding hundreds of dollars in fees due to debit card usage errors.

More details about the latest edition of Life Prep will be forthcoming. If you have questions, please let me know!

More Jobs Not Requiring College

Posted on April 8, 2017 by Barb

My kids are grown and my grandkids are little, so college isn’t really an issue in our family right now. But for homeschoolers, it looms large, so I like to share news of what’s going on in terms of whether or not teens can or should go to college.

Lately I’m seeing more articles about companies no longer requiring new hires to have a college diploma, like this one and this one.

I see this as a good sign. I have nothing against going to college; in fact, my college experience was a great one. But I think that requiring every potential employee to have spent (probably borrowed) six figures to get that diploma is ridiculous, and I’m glad to see the landscape slowly changing.

Colleges = Snowflake Protectors

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Barb

Dr. Walter E. Williams shares his observations on how colleges are protecting and encouraging today’s student snowflakes; sad but enlightening!

College Advice from a Ph.D.

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Barb

In Thriving in the 21st Century, I described how to assess whether or not your teen is “college material.” In this video, a man who holds a Ph.D. and has taught at several universities explains just how crucial it is that parents ask the right questions before sending their sons or daughters to college. This is well worth watching:

Happy 2016!

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Barb

I spent much of the last part of 2015 working on two quilts that were Christmas gifts (photos to come). I managed to finish them in time but I must have been crazy to put myself under such a deadline. There were several interruptions, including emergency surgery on one of my kids (she’s OK now, thank God), the purchase of a car and a broken part on my sewing machine.

The Christmas season was full of surprises, the best of them being the announcement by our daughter and son-in-law that they’re expecting their first child this summer. We are very excited about this wonderful news! This will be our third grandchild; we were blessed to spend some time over the holidays with our first two bright and gorgeous grandchildren, and they are a delight 🙂 We Skype with them every week and love it, but there’s nothing like being there in person.

The holidays gave me an opportunity to reconnect with some old friends, which is always nice. Some were also homeschooling parents, so we have much to talk about. I continue to find it interesting that some of their kids are doing very well as adults while others continue to find their way. I mean this in terms of their faith lives, not their work or personal lives, as all seem gainfully employed and/or busy raising their own children. These things are also true of my own children. It appears to me that homeschooling creates wonderful family lives and good educational experiences, but cannot create an adult who handles everything perfectly, no matter what the speakers at homeschool conventions may tell you! That said, it’s a privilege to watch our adult children navigate the world with all of its joys and challenges.

In 2016, I hope to update Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers with additional projects and information. We also have a couple of eBooks in the pipeline at Cardamom that will hopefully be published this year. And of course, there will be more quilts….and a new baby to love!

Wishing you a blessed 2016,
Barb