Parenting Pinnacle

Our Family Values

Our family values are both descriptive and aspirational. They’re a contradictory mixture of idealism and authentic personality.

Love & Intimacy

To receive and to offer love is core to our family, as it is to all humanity made in the image of our loving Creator. We value our limited deeply intimate and committed relationships to dozens of shallow connections. The essential ingredient without which none of the other values will be realized are faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of all is love. Therefore we will know the love that the Father has for us and in that freedom of His love imitate His own love towards our family and neighbor.

An environment of love necessitates interdependence. We pursue strong attachment to the Father and diverse mutuality in our relationships. We foster independence where it builds competence and dependence where it develops humility.

Art & Resistance

The Arts; music, drama, painting, design, are a central value to our family. Through art we experience what is true, bear witness to what is good and confront that which is evil. We create art, even if we have no talent, because it enhances our appreciation and generates treasure to share with others. Good art wars against the enemies of risk-taking and intimacy: perfectionism and comparison.

Ambition & Authenticity

Our family aspires to greatness in the Kingdom of the Servant Son. Whether our temporary labor is in the spotlight or obscurity, we seek to live as ones who will receive commendation from our King on the Last Day. Above all visible, external success, we believe that greatness lies in having been our truest selves and not ending our race to find we lived someone else’s life. Therefore we favor interior transformation over external conformity, and partial obedience from the heart over perfect and pressured compliance.

Generosity & Humility

We favor a generous spirit in giving and receiving. When we are in a position to offer gifts, we give more than what is expected and renounce any expectation of return. When we are in a position to receive, we do so with grace and humility. We recognize that all have needs and resources, and we will neither store up our resources to the detriment of our neighbor nor discount our limitations and deny joy to those who offer us assistance.

Hope & Remembrance

We are light-seekers in the darkness. We acknowledge that evil is blaring and good is quiet. We seek lives of enough silence to notice the strain of quiet good in the cacophany of evil. We express our gratitude for the good in others to their face and before our Father. We remember the stories of redemption in our lives and others to tend to the flickering hope of restoration.

Empathy

Advice

Miscellaneous

Theses

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This is an experiment to try a new organizational form for motivation and collaboration. I'll call it thesis design. Thesis design begins with a thesis question, then one or more thesis statements will be developed in answer.

What conflict resolution steps can be integrated into a child’s habits in early childhood?

Where do I go to find the latest research on early childhood development?

Working Bibliography

How do childhood education approaches shape children? What characteristics differ between a public-school-educated child vs. a home-school-educated child?

People who may have insight:

Home School

Public School

Private School

What effect would teaching phonetic reading to children before Kindergarten have on their long-term reading comprehension?