Lifeschooling with Boys – Hal and Melanie Young

On this episode of Life as a Lifeschooler, I talk with Hal and Melanie Young about their homeschooling/lifeschooling journey and about what that looked like with boys.

Hal & Melanie are the award-winning authors of Raising Real Men, My Beloved and My Friend: How to Be Married to Your Best Friend Without Changing Spouses, and several other books. They are publishers, writers, bloggers, and popular conference speakers internationally, known for their Christ-centered focus and practical, real-life stories. They are the parents of six real boys (four grown!) and two real girls and live in noisy, messy happiness in North Carolina.

Here are some of the questions I asked in our interview:

I’m sure many of my listeners have heard you both speak, but tell us about your background. How did you start homeschooling?

Many homeschoolers bring the school model home because we all tend to just do what we know. Is there anything in particular that helped shape your educational philosophy?

The definition of lifeschooling is “the individualized process of discovering your child’s God-given gifts and talents primarily through real life experiences that happen within the context of your family’s unique situations and missions.” In your family, I know that mission aspect plays a large part. Can you share with us how your mission in encouraging homeschoolers played a part in your homeschooling? (In particular, with regard to technical skills, etc. that were learned in that context.)

How has homeschooling strengthened your relationships with your children?

What has been one of the most difficult times of homeschooling in your family?

What are some of the gifts that you saw early on in your children and how were you able to tailor their education around the development of those gifts?

When it comes to raising boys, tell us some practical tips, especially for those of us with very active young boys who can be hard to homeschool.

Hal and Melanie Young can be found at HalAndMelanie.com and their podcast can be heard at HalAndMelanie.com/radio. You can purchase their books and also find many other wonderful homeschooling books and resources, as well as gifts especially for boys in their online store at RaisingRealMen.com/shop.  Or if you need ideas, check out their special gift guide for boys at RaisingRealMen.com/giftguideforboys. (I mentioned Christmas gifts in the podcast, as this was recorded earlier, but there’s always time to shop for next year, right?!)

And that’s Life as a Lifeschooler! Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Hope you’ll join us next time!