My New Book is Almost Ready!

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Barbara Frank

Last year I wrote about how I was buckling down to finish the book I’ve been working on for a long time. Well, it was worth it: the book will be out next month!

It’s called Thriving in the 21^st Century: Preparing Our Children For The New Economic Reality, and I wrote it to explain what has changed in our economy and what specific things we can do to help prepare our children for a world of work much different than the one we grew up in.

Here’s what it will say on the back cover:

Today’s children will reach adulthood in an economic environment unlike anything the world has ever seen. The 21st century global economy is powered by an increasing rate of technological change as well as growing foreign competition; both are contributing to the high U.S. unemployment rate and stagnating American wages. How can we as parents prepare our children for success in this growing maelstrom that many are now calling “the new normal”?

In Thriving in the 21st Century, Barbara Frank demonstrates that we must move beyond the common wisdom of the 20th century that emphasized a college diploma and lifelong employment with a large company as the only way to success. Instead, we need to set our children on a new path, one that will help them not just survive, but thrive in the 21st century.

In this book, you’ll learn:

The Seven Strengths your child will need to prosper in the 21st century, why they’re needed and how you can develop them in your children

The most efficient (and increasingly popular) way to give your child those Seven Strengths

Why public education has failed to prepare our children for the 21st century

How we can help our children become the lifelong learners needed in a rapidly changing global economy

The surprising truth about today’s colleges and universities

How economic change is affecting a variety of career areas, and which of them are projected to grow dramatically in the coming years.

This book is packed with ideas and resources for raising our children to become adults who respond proactively when faced with economic challenges, and who can prosper during times of great change. We can help our children reach young adulthood ready and able to tackle the future with all its challenges. And that, of course, is the key: we must prepare our children for the future…not the past.

The book’s website is www.Thrivinginthe21stCentury.com. There’s already a lot of information there, and more to come in the near future.

I hope you’ll find this book inspiring and informative.

Let Girls Be Girls

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Barbara Frank

One of the greatest blessings of homeschooling for our family is that it let us give our daughters a girlhood.

I think girls in our society are increasingly pressured to be women before they’re ready, which is a very dangerous thing. By raising our girls at home, my husband and I were able to let them become who they were meant to be without the world’s emphasis on becoming Lolita.

I was reminded of how messed up the worldly attitude toward girls has become when I read this article about companies promoting the celebrity lifestyle to young girls, complete with limo rides and fake champagne, tattoos and opportunities to strut their stuff on the catwalk.

Of course, these companies wouldn’t even be in business if it weren’t for parents who pay for these services. And while it’s every parent’s right to make that choice, it’s my right to think they’re fools. The last thing young girls need is to be pushed toward early maturity.

Our girls rode bikes and roller-bladed, played at the park and had fun with their friends outside. They read books, sewed and made crafts, cooked and baked and played with their siblings. It was our goal to give them that kind of life, and it was well worth the sacrifices it took, personally and financially, to have them home all the time instead of going to public school, where the declining morals of our society proliferate like a noxious mold.

Sometimes I had to be the bad guy. I remember one new girl in our neighborhood who became friends with one of our daughters. She was 9 or 10, and greatly delighted to own Janet Jackson’s latest album that included a lot of music with strong sexual references completely inappropriate for young girls. When I found out this girl’s mom was just fine with that music being played by the girls when my daughter visited, I intervened. This did not make me popular. So what? I was trying to protect my daughter’s innocence. I was doing my job.

Things have gotten worse in our culture since then. I’m glad I’m not raising young girls now. The other day I saw a girl of 8 or so trailing along behind her mother in the grocery store. She was busy texting someone and completely oblivious to her surroundings. Just what a little girl needs…..24/7 contact with her peers.

Texting is just one more way that young girls can act like adults today. But they need to have a girlhood first. Surely I’m not the only mom that thinks so….am I?

Schools and Chicken Legislators

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Barbara Frank

The highway that runs through the town we live in is the one Democratic members of the state legislature took recently when they ran like cowards from the state capitol of Madison to cross the Wisconsin/Illinois border so they wouldn’t have to vote against the teachers’ unions.

That event was still fresh in my mind this morning when I heard on the radio that Indiana legislators are now copying the Wisconsin chickens by crossing the border into Illinois to avoid voting on school vouchers.

How interesting that they’ll go to such lengths because they don’t want parents to be allowed to direct their tax dollars to the educational institutions of their choice.

The reason, of course, is that if all parents were to do that, the already shaky public school system would weaken, private schools would thrive, and homeschoolers would be able to use tax dollars to pay for the cost of homeschooling their children.*

I know many parents would still send tax dollars to the public schools, and that would be their right. It would also force public schools to cut back on the ridiculously high administrative costs they incur; I’m betting that the current $10,000+ per student per year average cost would drop dramatically. And that would be a good thing.

After all, when I was a kid, and we Baby Boomers clogged up schools all over the country, a school could be run with just a principal, a couple of secretaries, a librarian, a gym teacher and a few custodians. Also, there was no huge bloated district office running our school district; just a superintendent with an office staff. Why can’t this happen again? It should happen again, because in this economy, who can afford continually rising property taxes to pay for schools that can’t even teach most kids to read well?

*Personally, I wouldn’t take money from the government to homeschool my kids, because I don’t want them telling me what to teach. But all homeschooling parents should certainly have that option.

A Delightful Young Lady

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Barbara Frank

I was flipping through a quilting magazine the other day while waiting in line at the grocery store when I happened to see an article about a young lady with Down syndrome whose mother taught her to sew.

The article mentioned this young lady’s blog. Since I refuse to pay $6 for a magazine, I memorized the blog address and actually kept it in my brain until I could get home and type it into my browser. (If you know anything about menopausal brain fog, you know that was an accomplishment!)

I was rewarded with a peek into Sarah’s world. It’s a lot of fun. Whether or not you know and love someone with Down syndrome as I do, I think you’ll like this blog.

Barbara Frank Online

Author Archives: Barbara Frank

My New Book is Almost Ready!

Let Girls Be Girls

Schools and Chicken Legislators

A Delightful Young Lady