Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I am a homeschooling mom of 4 [so far]and I got this book because I felt like our family would benefit from a schedule to help us get everything done we have to do in the average day.
There were some good ideas in the book. The idea to schedule the older children to have playtimes with the younger children while mom is making dinner or teaching another child is something I had never thought of but I think it might make a big difference. I also agreed with what the author said about order being important in running a Godly household. She has some good information on how to manage chores and teaching children how to handle their chores.
But there were some really bad ideas in the book too. Her ideas on infant training and only feeding a newborn baby every 3-4 hours [6 feeds a day she had scheduled] are just scary. She says she never had problems with supply or sick babies, but I work in a hospital in the mother/baby area and we see a lot of babies on a 3 hour schedule that come in with failure to thrive or even die. 4 hours between feeds for a 2 week old [which is what she does to try to encourage a longer afternoon nap!] is just plain dangerous - a lot of babies would literally die on that kind of schedule.I did like the idea of scheduling the baby's day and nap times and such, but the breastfeeding advice was scary in my opinion.
I also thought she was a little over the top on how to create the schedule - while I did [and do] pray about my schedule, I just couldn't imagine taking a week or two or three of just praying about it before I even start trying to do it. The idea of every single year spending an entire day away with my husband just to discuss the schedule also struck me as a little... um... odd. I want to get it done and jump in and then make changes as I need them.
I also did not enjoy the "tiny little pieces of paper" thing she includes where you are supposed to cut out little pieces of colored paper representing half hour time blocks for every moment of every family member's day... that made me feel neurotic just thinking of dealing with all those scraps of paper everywhere. :) Instead I got on my computer and used MS Word to come up with a schedule that I can change easily and update/revise as necessary without having to manage a zillion teeny papers everywhere. But maybe that's just me - a really visual person might find the little papers more helpful.
The other objection I have to this book is that it is relatively "lean" on content - its really a very short book that is heavily padded with dozens of pages of copies of other people's schedules and a running commentary from her test mothers going on and on through the whole book about how great the book is. [I get the point already ...sheesh!]. The actual "content" is less than 100 pages and those pages have huge margins filled with other people's comments and gushing about the book - not actual content. So, quiet honestly, for the hefty price tag attached to this book, I felt a bit ripped off. Its a paperback spiral bound with less than 100 pages of real content - for me, I would say that was worth something more like $9.99 or so - not the hefty price I paid for it.
Overall, this is a book with some good ideas and it is written with absolute good intentions on the author's part. But I think it is also lacking in several areas and light on content. I wish I'd borrowed it from a friend rather than buying it myself.
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