It’s finally here!
YSS is our answer for training parents to coach and mentor their kids combined with hands-on project-style content for Love of Learning and Transitioning to Scholar Phase!
For years we’ve talked about what a perfect fit The Young Statesmen/Stateswomen Society [YSS] was for helping our pre-teens to Transition to Scholar Phase.
For years we’ve hinted at sharing the YSS special sauce with you via an online coaching and content service.
Well, it’s finally here, and after a few weeks of delivery, the reviews have started to flow!
What are people saying?
“I loved the idea of the Young Statesman/woman program, but previously lacked the follow through to pull it off myself. When I saw this offered I wanted to give it a try to give me the added help, nudge and accountability to follow through and actually do YSS. Boy, has it delivered!
“YSS is a now a doable, actionable, exciting program in our home giving my 8, 10 and 13-year-old direction AND ownership of their learning pursuits. They spend their days working on projects they are excited about and are great learning activities.
“This Week in History has also added so much to our days! It has been the magic ingredient of Love of Learning in our home (and I thought we were doing decently before), but so many fun things have come about with TWIH/YSS combo! We have made life timelines, drawn vision boards (while watching a great movie about the Constitutional Convention), played fun online games about the Constitution, explored the actual flag the Star Spangled Banner was written about through an online interactive site and are now working on memorizing the Constitution preamble, the fun way with song. 🙂
“No way could I have pulled off all of these activities in the span of 2 weeks myself!!! Maybe one or two of them, but not all of them! TWIH/YSS made it easy, super fun and possible (not to mention stress-free!) as all the ideas and resources are already compiled and ready for you and your kids to pick your favorites and run with them.
“Thank you TJEd team!! This has surpassed all my expectations and been a huge blessing in our lives in just the first 3 weeks of use!” ~Sarah Teichert
And here is another one:
“Oh, man, I am loving YSS! It was exactly what I needed for the next step in our family. It’s helping me get my feet on the ground with my LOLers. I’m so grateful to have something that is organized to feed me little bits of information at a time as to not overwhelm my mind. Sometimes I would go down to many rabbit holes and get lost and overwhelmed then just not do anything about it.
“With the YSS program I know when the information is going to be coming on each day and I can get inspired and prepare myself for the next day or week to teach the kids what I’m learning and inspire them to do something about it.
“As an example: I would have never thought I or my kids could do the “puff binder” project until I watch the video and got excited about how easy it actually was and how fun it would be for the kids. Then I went all out.
“I noticed that when I was just trying to wing it on my own I was way less motivated to inspire. Now I got people from around the world on my team and personal one on one mentoring from the TJEd team helping me with ideas and getting excited and inspired each time I watch the next video or read the next mentoring helps.
“When I was winging it on my own there was no structure or organization and then I got lazy and ignored my kids more then I would have liked.
“Now there is just enough structure to inspire me to help individualize my children’s education and help them really gain wisdom and understanding as to how they can own their own education and love what they are learning.
“This YSS program came out when I needed it most. It was perfect timing for me and my family and now I feel I have guidance as to how I can create a great leadership education community with those of my friends around me who also homeschool. I get to tell them about all my kids goals and what they are accomplishing to inspire them to help their kids too and we have a great place (the binder) to help my kids record all that they do and really show that each thing they learn matters to who they are and what they become. Love love love the forum!!! I can’t thank you enough for sharing your experiences and mentorship with me YSS/TJEd!” ~Kenzy Christensen
For more reviews – scroll to the bottom….
Want to learn more?
Click here to preview our sample course to get a “feel” for what the actual week-to-week offering looks like.
Ready to begin?
Go to the YSS Purchase Page >>
The Coaching and Content Subscription includes your binder insert. Available Club Pricing can be quoted on request.
We couldn’t be more thrilled about this! Join us!!
Love, Your YSS Team:
Rachel (with Buttercup)
Emma (with Anna)
More Reviews:
These reviews are quite a bit longer, so I hesitated to share – but for some who come here looking for information they might be just what you’re looking for, so… here you go!
YSS Recommendation/ TJEd wins
In January, we dropped LA for my oldest with a requirement of daily journal writing that would not be edited, madlibs, and a few other things, but it was still a constant fight. The 8-year-old then jumped on the no more TGTB LA bandwagon and I was really struggling at the beginning of this school year to figure out what on earth I was going to do.
I approached [the TJEd Online] convention with this thought in the back of my mind. I had read/ listened to all the convention material and all the posts about YSS, but was still hesitant. I was a little off by the $37 a month fee, purely from the fear of spending that much for something we might not end up using (we all have those subscriptions lol) but continued looking into it. At the end of September, I bit the bullet and signed us up.
It has been amazing! The first week was all about conflict resolution and learning love languages of family members and service. We had really been struggling with constant fighting and it was great to jump right into tools and tips for solving conflict. From there it’s been diplomacy, hero projects (learn about a hero and then do a presentation), cooking, penmanship, and more. There is history and activities, goal setting and self-improvement, and coaching/mentoring for the parents or whomever is doing the teaching in your family. It sounds like a ton, but you can keep simple or complicated and if you know me personally, you know I like simple when it comes to school stuff.
So now that I’ve told you a little about it, let me tell you why I recommend it. My 10-year-old has ALWAYS fought me on writing, even back in first grade. He hated it, even when I offered to transcribe for him. Well, one day in YSS, there was a link for an interactive writing prompt generator. We played around with it and every one got a prompt. The 10-year-old decided he didn’t like his but started writing something else. Over the course of 1 week, he hand wrote 4 pages himself!
Reason 2: The conflict resolution. For two or three weeks after learning about 6 different tools or steps that could be taken to prevent/resolve conflict, my children were each reminding each other of the tools/steps and were resolving their own conflicts. They still need reminders now, but it has improved things and gave all of us great ideas on how to fix our problems.
Reason 3: Hero projects. There are 12 specific heroes that the children can choose from. The 12 are exemplary people who did great things. Some of the heroes are Sacagawea, Gandhi, Winston Churchill, and Benito Juarez. My kids picked Sacagwea and Gandhi this time around. They spent two months reading and trying to decide what to do for their projects. One decided to attempt fasting like Gandhi and the other chose to retrace some of Sacagwea’s steps with all the wonderful local history we have along the Columbia river. They then prepared their own presentations guided by my husband and myself. Today, they gave those presentations to our online YSS community.
Reason 4: My 6-year-old has become fascinated with the different folks we are learning about. He can tell you all about Yo-Yo Ma and his cello. He now appreciates string music.
Reason 5: It can work easily for the whole family. We sit down together and read the prompts for the day and then explore the links. The 3-year-old can stay and participate or go play with toys while we spend our time learning. Though the older two work on some things separately, we are all still learning together and encouraging one another.
So if you are like me, and like simple school yet overthink everything, YSS is the solution to your struggle. Rachel does so much footwork so you can relatively open and go. It has truly been a blessing for us!
~Patricia Alder
Shout Out!
After reading Patricia Alder’s post about YSS I thought I would share my experience as well.
I had known from when my kids were very little that I wanted to homeschool. I went through the school system and left feeling “schooled” but not “educated” and not all that “equipped.” So I started exploring and even though we were what seemed like really far away from it with my kids both still being toddlers at the time I was getting me ready.
I met many amazing homeschoolers, came across a lot of great resources, and was really intentional with my kids and focused on raising great souls. When I came across TJEd it resonated with every fiber of my being. It was what I wished I could have been exposed to when I was younger. My kids were both in CORE phase so I joined [Mentoring in the Classics] and started there with my own education. I felt like my brain turned on. I was such a surface thinker and I actually started to think and discuss.
When I heard about YSS I couldn’t wait till my kids were old enough to participate but for the time being I didn’t want to lose focus on giving them a great CORE phase. Well this year had A LOT of changes in store for us and I ended up having to put my kids in the school system (I greatly struggled with this decision) but for the time being it is serving our family. However, I did not lose one ounce of my desire to homeschools and provide my kids with a leadership education (or do everything I can to give exposure to it and hopefully inspire them to choose it).
Now my son is 7 and transitioning into Love of Learning phase and my daughter is 6 (core phase). I wasn’t sure if I was jumping in too early but he loves doing projects and I heard on one of the videos from Emma and Rachel that just like they transition into scholar phase they also transition into love of learning phase and I just new that was what I needed to hear to give it a shot.
It has been an answer to prayer. My approach to it is a little different than Patricia’s, I go through all the content first and pick what I want to share with the kids. Since our time is limited with us apart from each other during school/work hours we have late afternoons/evenings and weekends. My focus is on what do I feel is the most important and relatable to where they are at.
My daughter is included in all we choose to do with YSS and enjoys participating though she hasn’t wanted to be part of the online meet up yet and that’s ok. My son enjoys that part and finds it inspiring to see and hear what other people are working on and sharing.
We end up doing the majority of it because the content is so relevant, fun and engaging but still totally manageable for us to fit into our life. It allows me to spend very intentional time with my kids learning about and discussing so many topics in such a fun way. Areas that I have little to no experience in (i.e. music), or just plain terrible at (i.e. cooking, penmanship) have become simplified, doable and enjoyable and all with my kids.
I feel so equipped by the content provided. I love the book club element and hearing the introduction mentor prompts and debrief. I always grow in my learning and my ability to lead and discuss with my kids because of these.
The Hero Projects I think are our favorite part so far. With the ages of my kids I have decided to do them as a group project that we all contribute to and hopefully I can be inspiring in the learning, creativity and presentation of the projects. After our second project (so far we have done Casper Ten Boom and Benito Juarez) my son said as I was tucking him into bed how much he loves doing those projects together.
The quality of our discussions and time spent together I wouldn’t change for anything and what I’m taking away from them have truly changed me and it’s inspiring my husband! He was out of town when we did our first project but got to be on the receiving end to hear all about it and he fully participated in the second. He was so inspired by both he started researching Casper and Benito and we were able to have such an enriching conversation and he asked me about the book The Hiding Place! (He has never picked up one of my books before on his own. He has had to hear a lot about them and he participates in family read aloud but he hasn’t yet been pulling books off my shelves for his own personal reading so this is a huge win and he is already asking about who we are going to do as our next project!)
Thank you DeMille’s and Cox’s for living out your mission. You all have been such a blessing to our family!
~Tanya Bowen
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