Celebrate Kids

Home School Topics

Dr. Kathy and some of our other speakers enjoy teaching parents who home school their children. The topics are important for these parents and are consistently well received. Several make good convention keynote topics while others will be excellent workshops. Bringing two or more of us to your event can multiply our positive effect. As you’ll see in the descriptions below, some can be given from our Christian-faith perspective. Most can also be presented at community events. And, children and teens can attend some of the seminars with their parents. Our speakers’ upbeat style and problem-solving approach is well-received by home-school parents and their children.

Click on your audience below to see associated topics.

Parents & Families

Dr. Kathy Koch’s Seminars for Home School Parents

A Heart Like Mary: Responding to God’s Call

Authentic Answers to Life-Changing Questions

Children of Character: Increasing Children’s Self-discipline (PreK-5th Grade)

Conversational Parenting: Talking with Your Kids about the Important Things of Life

Decisions for Disciples (Includes Net-Dropping and Holding His Hand)

Dominant Donna and Silent Sam: Successful Discussions without Hand Raising

Eaglelike Excellence: Flying High for God

Fabulous Feedback: The Art of Complimenting and Correcting Students

For the Sake of Others: Living a “One-Another” Lifestyle

Got Hope? Optimistic Living during Challenging Times

Hold His Hand: Walking with Your Father

How Am I Smart? A Teacher’s Guide to Multiple Intelligences

Inside Out and Right-Side Up

Is Anybody (Learning) Out There? Improving Grades by Focusing Students’ Thinking

Jesus IS . . . Jesus DOES . . . Recognizing Him in My Everyday

Leadership Teams: Change Agents for the Future

The Master Method: Teaching Jesus’ Way

Miracles Matter: You Are Who You Are Supposed To Be

Mordecai: A Model for Mentoring

Net-Dropping: The choice to Become a Disciple

No Two Alike: Teaching a Group without Losing the Individual

Psalm 23: A Psalm to Live by

Put Off/Put On: Renewing the Mind for Permanent Change

Strong-Willed? A Focus on Solutions

Teach Them, Don’t Tell Them: Study Strategies that Work

Under the Influence: Followership, a Prerequisite for Leadership

What’s That Word? Developing word analysis skills and vocabulary

Where are Today’s Geniuses?

Wired for God: Using Multiple Intelligences to Get Closer to God

Associate Speaker - Dr. Linda Page's Seminars for Home School Parents

Dealing with the D’s (ADD, ODD, and LD)

Understanding Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome: What’s a Home-School Parent to Do?

(Read about Dr. Linda Page)

A Heart Like Mary: Responding to God’s call

Jesus Christ’s mother, Mary, obediently and humbly responded to the angel’s news that she would give birth to the long-awaited Savior. How do we respond to what God asks us to do? Let’s learn from Mary’s life and choose to develop a heart like hers. (1 hour)

Authentic Answers to Life-Changing Questions

One of the most important things parents do for their children is to help them meet their basic needs of security, identity, belonging, purpose, and competence in healthy ways. When this occurs, your children will be more fulfilled and successful in all of life. They will be less likely to experiment with drugs, alcohol, and sex outside of marriage. You’ll have fewer behavior, motivation, and academic problems. When parents understand the Authentic Answers Model, they’ll be able to determine why some children engage in unhealthy behaviors and how to help them change. In addition to learning why the order of these core needs is significant, we’ll learn the power of their interactive nature and some of the best answers to the corresponding life-changing questions: Who do I trust?, Who am I?, Who wants me?, Why am I alive?, and What do I do well?. Click on Authentic Answers for more information on this topic. [Community or Christian (titled “Authentic Hope”), children and teens may attend with parents, 1-hour overview to a 2-day seminar with many details and small group applications included.]

Children of Character: Increasing children’s self-discipline

Kathy will begin by defining discipline, examining goals of discipline, and discussing advantages of children being self-disciplined. We will consider prerequisites and characteristics of discipline that dignifies children; some major causes of children's misbehavior; the use of consequences, rewards, and punishments when dealing with misbehavior; and ways to teach appropriate behavior to especially increase children's self-discipline, self-respect, and respect for others. (3-6 hours)

Conversational Parenting: Talking with your kids about the important things of life

Simple conversations are one of the best ways for children of all ages to stay connected to their parents and grandparents. Conversations also inspire, motivate, and teach. But, it’s challenging. Busyness, cultural clashes, and misunderstandings can undermine our best intentions. Let’s learn how to ask questions children and teens will willingly answer and how to answer theirs so they’ll talk and keep talking. (1-2 hours)

Decisions for Disciples (Includes Net-Dropping and Hold His Hand)

Jesus Christ calls to each of us, “Come, follow Me.” But, some of us think more about following God’s commands than following God. That’s a mistake. Jesus says, “Follow Me.” But, how? In rich detail Kathy will explain three decisions that must be made in order to fully follow Christ. This relevant and important message will meet needs wherever you are on your spiritual journey. You will be encouraged and challenged to further spiritual maturity. (3 hours)

Dominant Donna and Silent Sam: Successful discussions without hand raising

Do you set out to have quality discussions, but find yourself having question-answer interrogations instead? Are only some students involved? Are you frustrated by the hand-raising “games” your students play? Students’ passivity or domination is frustrating. Therefore, practical, realistic, and fun methods to increase thinking, involvement, and level participation will be fully explained and demonstrated. They can make an immediate and positive impact on attitudes and abilities. (1 hour)

Eaglelike Excellence: Overcoming Mediocrity

Setting and maintaining high standards can be difficult as it’s easy to become satisfied with mediocrity. From the study of eagles, teachers will be reminded that they need eaglelike energy, strength, and vision in order to achieve excellence. We’ll discover who have been “eagles” for us and how we can be “eagles” for others – caring with eaglelike energy, strength, and vision. (1 hour)

Fabulous Feedback: The art of complimenting and correcting children

Compliments and corrections have the power to increase or decrease children’s self-esteem, self-discipline, intrinsic motivation, and learning. Therefore, they’re a very important communication and teaching tool. In addition to other points, the value of specific and focused compliments and corrections vs. general statements such as “good” and “that’s unacceptable” will be emphasized. Differences between corrections and criticisms will be explained and modeled. (1 hour)

For the Sake of Others: Living a "one-another" lifestyle

Relating to family members, coworkers, friends, and acquaintances can be challenging. Have you wished for an operations manual for friendship? The Bible is it! The many “one-another” passages from the New Testament offer us specific and practical instruction on how to best relate to others. Let’s learn the list of 34 and discover what it really means to honor, submit, greet, bear with, … and forgive one another. You’ll be refreshed with this hopeful look at relationships. (1-2 hours)

Got Hope? Optimistic living during challenging times

When the going gets rough, pessimism and discouragement can set in. Hope is essential. Despair doesn’t inspire. Pessimism doesn’t expect. Optimism does. Hope happens when our basic needs of security, identity, belonging, purpose, and competence are met in healthy ways. We’ll be more fulfilled and successful in all of life. Because of our focus and joy, we’ll be less likely to experiment with drugs, alcohol, and other high-risk activities. There will be fewer behavior, motivation, and academic problems at school, work, and home. Learn the best answers to the core needs’ questions and how to help others believe them: Who do I trust?, Who am I?, Who wants me?, Why am I alive?, and What do I do well?. You’ll have hope for today and for tomorrow! (1-6 hours; Kathy’s approach and exact content will depend on the audience and the event’s goals)

Hold His Hand: Walking with your Father

God created us to have a relationship with Him. We don’t have to go through life on our own. Rather, we can respond to God’s offer and hold His hand as we walk through our valley experiences and celebrate on the mountaintops. How do we keep Him that close? Why would we want to? What difference can it make? Whether you’re new to the family of God or a longtime member, you’ll be refreshed. Those who haven’t yet made a commitment to Christ may learn something new so they can say “Yes” to Christ! (1 hour)

How am I Smart? A practical guide to multiple intelligences

All children, teens, and adults have eight different intelligences that can be awakened, strengthened, focused, and trained (e.g., word smart, nature smart, self smart). These intelligences will be defined and explained so parent educators can determine which ones are strengths for their students and how to use them when teaching and leading discussions. Specific ideas about how students think with each intelligence and how each is expressed will be shared (e.g., word-smart children think with words and learn well by reading, writing, speaking and listening; logic-smart children think with questions and learn well when using cause/effect and comparison/contrast thinking). Children, teens, and adults will self-identify their strengths and weaknesses, learn ways to maximize learning while minimizing distractions, be empowered to be smart with their smarts, and discover they have been made uniquely smart. (1-6 hours)

Inside Out and Right Side Up: Heaven's kids in a Hollywood world

Shows like Extreme Makeover and The Bachelor; magazine issues like People’s “50 Most Beautiful People;” and endless news reports about obesity and dieting can cause people to judge themselves and everyone else by their outward appearances. There is so much more to us! In this message, Kathy will encourage us to examine our internals – e.g., our heart, emotions, beliefs, thoughts – and whether our priorities are “right-side up.” (1 hour)

Is Anybody (Learning) Out There? Improving grades by focusing students' thinking

All students think all the time, but they don’t necessarily think about what you want them to think about. For example, rather than being able to answer your questions, were they thinking about what you were wearing or the places in the history lesson rather than the people you were going to emphasize? Were they surprised you used the verb “compare” in a question? When you asked for an opinion, how many didn’t have one? Or, is that all they had when you tried to discuss facts in the chapter? Focusing thinking is essential if you’re going to improve learning and increase test scores. Learn how! (1-2 hours)

Jesus IS . . . Jesus DOES . . . Recognizing Him in my everyday

When we know Jesus well, we have a better idea of what to expect from Him. Expectations help us find Him and praise Him day by day. In turn, when we recognize Jesus has done something for us, we can learn something about Him. Jesus is actively involved in our lives because of WHO He is and because of WHAT He does. Praise Him! (1 hour)

Leadership Teams: Change Agents for the future

When putting together leadership teams, it’s essential that we involve future-oriented change agents. These team leaders can be identified when we think about different types of influencers (five E words) and different types of workers (five I words). Because individuals are identified through their team strengths, focus and productivity will increase. As you listen, you’ll be able to identify who fulfills these roles in your life, which type of influence and/or worker you’re without, and your influence and work strengths. (1-2 hours)

Master Method: Teaching Jesus’ way

What does it mean to share the career of Christ? What contributed to His teaching effectiveness? Can we really teach in the same ways? By examining Jesus’ teaching methods, we will learn much about effective teaching. When we teach like the Master Teacher our learners can be master learners. Come to learn something new about Jesus, teaching, and learning. This fresh look at effective teaching will inspire you. (1-3 hours)

Miracles Matter: You are who you are supposed to be

Every child is a unique miracle who matters. Children who understand their uniqueness believe in themselves and are more willing to strive to develop their talents. They’re able to keep believing even in the midst of challenging circumstances. The illustrations shared bring this meaningful and upbeat message to life! (1 hour)

Mordecai: A model for mentoring

Because of Mordecai’s mentoring, obedience, and courage and Queen Esther’s courageous and obedient actions, the Jewish people were saved. Seeing their God-given opportunity, Mordecai and Esther seized it! Their lives made a difference. Today’s precious children need adults to come alongside and instruct and guide them much like Mordecai did for Esther. Let’s examine Mordecai’s methods so we can use them effectively to transform children we know and, through them, the world! (1-2 hours)

Net-Dropping: The choice to become a disciple

Jesus Christ says to each person, “Come, follow Me.” But, some of us think more about following God’s commands than following God. That’s a mistake. Jesus says, “Follow Me.” But, how? In rich detail Kathy will explain a key decision that must be made in order to fully follow Christ. This relevant and important message will meet needs wherever you are on your spiritual journey. You will be encouraged and challenged to further spiritual maturity. (1 hour)

No Two Alike: Teaching a Group without Losing the Individual

Have you noticed learning differences among your children? What one enjoys, another might find boring. What helps one understand something might confuse another. Some grasp details well, while others do better with main ideas. (Have you ever told children to do four things, but they only do one?) Some remember best by seeing, others by talking, and still others by moving and doing. Some concentrate well in formal, well lit, and quiet settings and others concentrate well in the middle of what looks like chaos to us. Understanding learning styles can help us individualize our communication, discipline, and teaching. You’ll get a practical overview of three different learning styles. The models include environmental preferences (how students concentrate), modalities (how students remember), and cognitive style (how students understand). The ideas will help you determine and communicate to strengths, discipline with these strengths in mind, and teach to the strengths. More success and less stress is the outcome.
[community or Christian, 1-1½ hours, The “How Am I Smart?” seminar is an ideal companion.]

Psalm 23: A Psalm to live by

Like others, you might think you know Psalm 23. But, do you really? Perhaps you’ve memorized it, but do you understand all the rich messages that are relevant for today’s quick-paced times? The Shepherd makes us, leads us, restores us . . . the verbs are so vivid and comforting. And, have you paid attention to the places? The sheep don’t just spend time in a valley! You’ll enjoy and greatly benefit from Dr. Kathy’s dynamic, practical, and accurate phrase-by-phrase teaching of this Psalm to live by. (1 hour)

Put Off/Put On: Renewing the mind for permanent change

Change is not only possible, it’s essential if our children are to mature into excellence. But, change isn’t easy. What can help? We’ll look at the role of “power thinking,” the “application arrow,” and the “stop/learn” principle. We’ll also learn to put off qualities of our old self and what to put on instead. The steps will be practical and the examples will guide you as you apply the ideas to yourself and individual children who need to change beliefs or behaviors. (1-3 hours)

Strong-Willed? A Focus on Solutions

Are you raising strong-willed children who always want to get their way? In this practical and encouraging session, we’ll examine why strong-willed children behave the way they do. Then several strategies that can immediately improve your relationships and lead to peace in your family will be clearly explained and demonstrated. More importantly, perhaps, strong-willed children will be more able to thrive when they learn first-time obedience through these strategies. [community or Christian, 1-1½ hours]

Teach Them, Don't Tell Them: Study strategies that work

Most teachers expect their students to study, probably remind them to study, and tell them to “study hard.” But have we taught our students HOW to study? Strategies that teachers can use to facilitate teaching and students can use to facilitate learning will be clearly explained and modeled. Motivation, comprehension, retention, and application can all improve when strategies and skills from all eight studying categories are modeled, taught, and used. Ideas will be practical and easy to implement. (This seminar can be shared with teachers from many grades at the same time [e.g., K-5, K-8, 6-12, K-12] so teachers can see the benefits of developing a scope and sequence chart for study strategies. It’s also very appropriate for teachers from just a few grades and/or teachers from just one or two disciplines. (1-3 hours)

Under the Influence: Followership, a Prerequisite for Leadership

Although it's easier to find books and classes on leadership, studying "followership" may be more important. We become like those we follow so we should be strategic in deciding who to listen to and who to be influenced by. We must be the best people we can be! What would you benefit from learning? Who has God given you who can help you learn this? You'll learn a very practical, revealing, and enjoyable method of regularly asking and answering these key questions. Kathy will explain why she listens to the voices she listens to and people will be invited to share, as well. Following equips us to lead. (1-2 hours)

What’s That Word? Developing word analysis skills and vocabulary knowledge

Learn 15 strategies to transform struggling readers into confident readers. Children who don’t think they’ll ever be able to read will read. Those who have given up will try again. You’ll be able to stop pulling your hair out as you apply these easy-to-use ideas. The strategies will be explained and demonstrated so you can confidently use them with your children. (1 hour)

Where are Today’s Geniuses?

All students think all the time, but they do not necessarily think about what you want them to think about. For example, rather than being able to answer your questions, were they thinking about what you were wearing, what they would have for lunch, or the places in the history lesson rather than the people you were going to emphasize? And, do you set out to have quality discussions, but find yourself having question-answer interrogations instead? Are only some students involved? Are you frustrated by the hand-raising “games” your students play? Students’ passivity and a lack of purposeful thinking should concern all of us. Therefore, practical, realistic, and fun methods that will increase thinking, involvement, and participation will be fully explained and demonstrated. They can make an immediate and positive impact on attitudes and abilities. [Community or Christian, 1-1½ hours]

Wired for God: Using multiple intelligences to get closer to God

A companion session to “How am I Smart?” or other teaching about evangelism or discipleship, “Wired for God” will equip leaders, teachers, and parents to introduce adults, teens, and children to God through the multiple intelligences. As a result, people who already know God may know Him more completely and connect with Him more personally. Those who don’t yet know Christ, may discover truths that motivate them to humbly trust Christ alone for their salvation. Nothing is better! This unique presentation is very eye-opening! (1 hour)

Associate Speaker - Dr. Linda Page's Seminars for Home School Parents

Dr. Linda Page - Dealing with the D’s (ADD, ODD, and LD

You perhaps have all kinds of D’s in your family – including children/teenagers labeled ADD, ODD, and LD. Do you want some new realistic ideas for positively meeting their needs? Who doesn’t? Linda will present specific and practical strategies to increase the likelihood these children/teenagers will be successful. You will also come to understand how the world looks through an ADD, LD brain. [Community or Christian,1-1½ hours]

Dr. Linda Page - Understanding Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome: What’s a Home-School Parent to Do?

Does one of your children have Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome? What do these two terms really mean and what do you need to know as you teach? This workshop will enable you to approach children with Autism or Asperger’s with confidence and understanding. Strategies and accommodations will be offered as well as encouraging words for addressing children with these special needs. [Community or Christian, 1-2 hours]

Dr. Kathy promotes positive relationships and builds confidence in children, parents, and educators.

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