Homeschool Hints Podcast · Midwest Parent Educators - MPE

5 Skills To Help Our Children Reach Their Full Potential: Monica Irvine

·44 min·3 clips

Monica breaks apology into five steps: recognize, admit, apologize, commit, and keep your word.

Shansi Amaniyi introduces Monica Irvine, who will be one of the vendors at the homeschool conference April 4th through 5th at the KCI Expo Center. Monica says she is glad to be coming back because she missed last year and likes seeing family while she is in town. The conversation centers on five essential skills she believes every child must be taught. She treats them as part of helping children live more honorable lives and reach their full potential. Again and again, she brings the focus back to mom and dad. Parents, she says, only have so much control over who their children are. What they do have is the chance to model the habits they want repeated. Love for others sits near the center of that work. Service does too. She says children have to learn to fight selfishness because selfishness shows up in everyday wants and moods. That includes small things like what someone wants to watch or how someone wants the room set. The ordinary examples matter because they sound like home. She uses holding the door for someone as a picture of what respect looks like in motion. When a child pauses to help, the message is that another person has been noticed. The act is small, but the meaning is not. She argues that behavior often has to be required before it becomes understood. Practice comes first. Understanding follows after repetition and, in her view, can grow into a testimony that the habit is good. She also talks about chivalry and says society has stopped purposefully teaching it, which she sees as a problem. Near the end, she points listeners to three program areas on the Etiquette Factory website, including life skills, chivalry, and parenting essentials.

As heard by us

Practical, faith-centered guidance on habits, service, and family modeling.

Homeschool Hints keeps its focus on practical character teaching. Monica Irvine of the Etiquette Factory centers the discussion on five skills every child needs to live more honorable lives and reach their full potential.

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Why you'd press play

You want a gentle push toward teaching character without turning it into a lecture or a checklist.

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