Beyond Survival: A Guide to Abundant-Life Homeschooling

I am a Christian stay-at-home mother of 3, and I am new to the homeschool way of life. I love this book because it is a strong voice of encouragement to me! Diana gives lots of wonderful tips, tricks, and inspiration, as well as a spiritual encouragement - That if God has called me to school my children, He will give me the tools to accomplish the task! The Bible verses she gives are very timely for me, and have calmed a lot of my nerves. It has also made me realize that there is freedom in schooling from home, because God created every family to be unique. Thank you Diana Waring for putting your life and passion on paper as a testimony for us all to read!

I purchased this book prior to spring break and pored over it from cover to cover my entire week off! I found it to be packed with tons of good information and covered just about any question I had about homeschooling. Diana Waring encouraged me to be flexible regarding curriculum and not to get discouraged during the inevitable "valleys" of home education. I am still in the homework/ investigation phase since I can't begin homeschooling our daughter until the fall. This volume served to further confirm my decision and increase my enthusiasm for the privilege and right to educate my child at home.

This is a wonderful book for those who are considering or just beginning to homeschool. While it is a tad dated, and a little slow at times, it has been of great value to me, and our family!

This is a great book if you are just starting out.

This book does a wonderful job of inspiring a vision for what homeschooling can be like: personalized, relational, part of real life instead of school at home, etc. The author really excels at making the reader feel free to make homeschooling, curriculum, etc fit her family. There's not a ton of detailed practical how-to information on testing, planning, scheduling, adapting course materials, etc. But, in terms of giving a vision to strive toward, this book is great.

This book is full of great information, from homeschooling techniques to discovering yours and your child's personality and learning styles. Cleverly written; have enjoyed every page.

We've been homeschooling for two years. I picked this book out of our homeschool group's library mostly because the title made me smile. Survival is always good, right?! This has been a really encouraging book to read. It is like getting to sit down and talk with an experieced Christian homeschooling mom. The lists of resources at the end of each chapter that are invaluable. The "journal" entries about her family in each chapter are my favorite. My husband did balk a little when he saw the chapter titled "Blow up the TV". I promised him our TV is safe..If you are a beginning homeschooler, I think this is a great place to start. All the information I had to glean from so many different sources is all right there for you. If you are getting to be a well seasoned traveler on the homeschool journey, it is a great book for making you evaluate where you are going. It isn't a "how to guide" by any means, but I think it will make you really look at how you can make homeschooling more rewarding for the whole family.

This book came for me at exactly the right time. I was feeling like a failure because we weren't highly systematic in our homeschooling. But I'm not of the unschooling persuasion. Waring did a wonderful job of just sharing her personal experiences. No pressure to try one method or another, no forceful political undertone. Just a friendly human being setting out to encourage other's to tailor their home school to their families needs, lifestyle and interest.

Written clearly, honestly, and with humour, and with a clear-eyed awareness of the realities of homeschool life, to give encouragement and hope to those at any point in the homeschool journey.