PARENTING FREEDOM

Carol | December 22, 2008

B10, C7, and L4 rolled, cut out, decorated, and ate Christmas sugar cookies the other day.

Category: Food, Holidays, Homemaking, Homeschooling Activities | No Comments »
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Carol | December 22, 2008

Category: Canadian, Global Warming, Journal 2008 | No Comments »
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Carol | December 20, 2008

I found this Science Daily article interesting. A study that shows the identical action causes more pain if it is done on purpose than accidentally.

Pain Hurts More If Person Hurting You Means It
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215111307.htm

“Researchers at Harvard University have discovered that our experience of pain depends on whether we think someone caused the pain intentionally. In their study, participants who believed they were getting an electrical shock from another person on purpose, rather than accidentally, rated the very same shock as more painful. Participants seemed to get used to shocks that were delivered unintentionally, but those given on purpose had a fresh sting every time.”

“‘Compare a slap from a friend as she tries to save us from a mosquito versus the same slap from a jilted lover. The first we shrug off instantly, while the second stings our cheek for the rest of the night.’”

…

“On the other hand, if negative events are seen as unintended, they may hurt less. This may explain, in part, why people in abusive relationships sometimes continue to stay in them. By rationalizing that an abusive partner did not intend harm, some victims may reduce their experience of pain, which could make them less likely to leave the relationship and escape the abuse.”

Category: Health, Parenting Discipline | No Comments »
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Carol | December 19, 2008

Cookies

A young lady was waiting for her flight in the boarding room of a big airport.

As she would need to wait many hours, she decided to buy a book to spend her time. She also bought a packet of cookies. She sat down in an armchair, in the VIP room of the airport, to rest and read in peace. Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, a a man sat down in the next seat, opened his magazine and started reading.

When she took out the first cookie, the man took one also. She felt irritated, but said nothing. She just thought: “What a nerve! If I was in the mood I would punch him for daring!”

For each cookie she took, the man took one too. This was infuriating her but she didn’t want to cause a scene. When only one cookie remained, she thought: “ah…What will this abusive man do now?”

Then, the man, taking the last cookie, divided it in half, giving one half to her. Ah! That was too much! She was much too angry now! In a huff, she took her book, her things, and stormed to the boarding place.

When she took her seat inside the plane, she looked in her purse for her eyeglasses, and, to her surprise, her packet of cookies was there…untouched, unopened! She felt so ashamed! She realized that she was wrong….She had forgotten that her cookies were kept in her purse.

The man had divided his cookies with her, without feeling angered or bitter….while she had been very angry, thinking that she was dividing her cookies with him. And now there was no chance to explain herself…nor to apologize.

There are four things you can never recover…

The stone… after the throw,

The word… after it’s said,

The occasion… after the loss, and

The time… after it’s gone.

Author Unknown
http://www.emofree.com/Inspiration/cookies.htm

Category: Inspiration, Marriage, Parenting Discipline, Parenting General | 3 Comments »
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Carol | December 19, 2008

One Life’s Lesson

“There was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, to hammer a nail in the back fence.”

“The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Then it gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.”

“The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.”

“‘You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out, it won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.’”

Author Unknown
http://homeholidaysfamilyandfun.com/one-lifes-lesson/

Category: Inspiration, Marriage, Parenting Discipline, Parenting General | No Comments »
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Carol | December 19, 2008

Charlie Brown Christmas

Category: Christianity, Holidays | No Comments »
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Carol | December 19, 2008

http://media.eyeblast.org/newsbusters/static/2008/12/2008-12-19MSNBCMJWarren.wmv

Ann Curry’s angry eyes turning shocked at Rick Warren’s reply, and then Willie’s “Rick got her” laugh!! Priceless.

Category: Homosexuality, Marriage | No Comments »
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Carol | December 19, 2008

Each night has its own serious thoughts that go through my mind. Every time I awoke last night, I was thinking about the contraceptive controversy. And then this morning, three online articles “just happened” to appear for me to read and post about.

I find it impossible to understand how couples make the decisions that they make about this issue. People protect their privacy and don’t readily talk about their choices. Are these secrets kept out of (perhaps unacknowledged) shame and guilt?

I do find that among the Protestants and Catholics that I know, most of them practice unnatural birth control. Following years of ‘the pill’, it seems to be very common for those with more than a couple of children to have vasectomies and tubal ligation. I don’t understand how it is so easily accepted to use unnatural methods of birth control that can be dangerous and risky, never mind biblically questionable.

I don’t understand how Christians can EVER think ‘the pill’ could be a moral choice. Who can condone something with side effects that can hurt or kill women, never mind the fact that it sometimes works as an abortifacient?

Rivers of Blood
A Brazilian pro-life Evangelical writes about the contraceptive culture and prophecies in Revelation
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/081218a.html

“In the end times, the Bible tells us that rivers, seas and the fountains of water will ‘become blood as of a dead man’ Revelation 16:3-4, explaining that because of the shedding of innocent blood (see Revelation 16:5-6), judgment shall come.”

“Today, perhaps in fulfillment of these prophesies, rivers have become deposits of annihilated lives. Hundreds of millions of women use pills and other birth-control devices that provoke micro-abortions that end flushed in toilets, and then into rivers.”

Carol’s note: When the water is recycled, wouldn’t it be cannibalism?

“How many users of ‘the pill’ know that hormonal contraception not only prevents conception, but also prevents a newly-conceived embryo from implanting in the mother’s uterus? A new human being, too tiny to see, dies of hunger, and is flushed out of his mother’s body with her next menstrual cycle. The contraceptive pill not only represents the refusal of God’s gift of new life, but it actively destroys it.”

“Christmas, which is commemorated as the birthday of Jesus Christ, is a time of joy and happiness. As Mary welcomed the baby Jesus in her womb, so every woman who opens herself fully to her maternal role is receiving not only a little child, but also the presence of Jesus himself. Jesus says:”

“Whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me. Whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” Mark 9:37

“The joy and happiness of Christmas are multiplied with each birth that we welcome in the name of Jesus. When a Christian woman welcomes her maternal mission in the name of Jesus, she is welcoming not only a baby that comes as a gift planned by God, but also more power from the Kingdom of God.”

“What we know also is that Revelation makes it clear that judgment shall come. And thousands of years ago the Bible explained that the shedding of innocent blood causes the land to be polluted:”

“You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” Numbers 35:33 ESV

“As it happened in the phenomenal technological and scientific advance of Nazi Germany, the cost of modern progress of technology and science in human reproduction is delusion and the shedding of innocent blood. Hormonal contraception has transformed modern, sexually active men and women into shedders of innocent blood, leaving society under the curse of uncountable number of murders that shall bring judgment.”

A Longer Condensation of Does The Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? By Randy Alcorn
http://www.epm.org/artman2/publish/prolife_birth_control_pill/A_Longer_Condensation_of_Does_The_Birth_Control_Pill_Cause_Abortions.shtml

The Pill: What You Might Not Know
Even With More Women on Birth Control, Many Don’t Hear About the Variety of Side Effects
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6484342

“Doctors focus on the major side effects that can pose a health risk: the risk of blood clots among smokers, high blood pressure, and stroke with some migraine headaches, for example.”

“Women on the pill may suffer a lackluster sex drive, mood swings, or even extra sinus pressure.”

“The pill may change how women find a man’s scent sexually attractive.”

“‘They may choose someone they may not choose otherwise,’ he said. In theory, Roberts said a woman may choose a man while she’s on the pill and feel fine, but subconsciously find her mate less attractive if she goes off the pill.”

“‘There is evidence that couples that are more MCH similar to each other have more difficulty conceiving, and they have more miscarriages,’ added Roberts, who has also cited research that women who marry men with similar MCH genes are more likely to have an affair.”

“Women on the pill may experience heartburn, or constipation, or sleep disturbances, either as insomnia or extra sleepiness.”

Category: Abortion, Family Planning, Parenting Pregnancy, Sex Education | No Comments »
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Carol | December 17, 2008

HOME SCHOOLING GOES MAINSTREAM
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?page=article&Article_ID=17365

“From 1999 to 2003, the number of home schooled children increased from around 850,000 to roughly 1.1 million; today, around 2.5 million children are currently home schooled.”

• “Parents with children with learning disabilities have been pulling their children from public schools, believing they can do a better job of teaching them at home.”
• “An increasing numbers of wealthy Americans are hiring private tutors for their children; in 2003, 21 percent of home schools were being taught this way.”
• “An estimated 90 percent of children involved in sports requiring rigorous training, acting and modeling, demanding arts or music programs and other time-intensive activities are home schooled.”

Home Schooling Goes Mainstream
http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/34685614.html

“‘I never really told anybody about my music at school, only my really close friends,’ Cheyenne Kimball told People Magazine in 2006. ‘Then [school officials] actually aired the show around the whole entire school, and that caused a lot of problems. I was a straight-A student and all of a sudden I didn’t want to go to school anymore because of the things people were saying. That’s why I’m homeschooled now.’ Cheyenne, winner of NBC’s America’s Most Talented Kid at age 12, recording artist, and star of her own MTV show, is just one of many high-profile Americans whose educational choice is home schooling.”

Category: Homeschooling Controversy, Public School | No Comments »
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Carol | December 17, 2008

UNICEF: Daycare is “A high-stakes gamble with today’s children and tomorrow’s world”
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08121603.html

“What we are now witnessing across the industrialized world,” says the UNICEF report, “can fairly be described as a revolution in how the majority of young children are being brought up.”

The report observes that “most children in the developed world are spending their earliest years in some form of care outside the home.” According to the organization, “80 per cent of children aged three to six are in some form of early childhood education and care outside the home,” and “about one in four under the age of three are also cared for outside the home — with the proportion rising to one in two in some countries.”

The report concludes that, “To the extent that this change is unplanned and unmonitored, it could also be described as a high-stakes gamble with today’s children and tomorrow’s world.”

“The biggest eye-opener is that the suppression of social and emotional development, stemming from long hours in preschool, is felt most strongly by children from better-off families,”

A study released in 2006 of universal daycare as currently offered in Quebec revealed that children in daycare were 17 times more hostile than children raised at home, and almost three times more anxious.

“Our analysis also suggests that the new childcare program led to more hostile, less consistent parenting, worse parental health, and lower-quality parental relationships,”

Category: Parenting Stay-at-Home | No Comments »
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