Schoolhouse Review Crew: Leadership Garden Legacy

When I first saw the notice go up about reviewing the Growing My Leadership Garden series, I was intrigued. In the course of homeschooling the kids, I have watched them as they tried their hands at leadership, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not so much, but always putting in the effort. They've made me proud to watch them, my kids have, but was I doing enough to help them learn skills that would help them be good and effective leaders? Maybe. But I'm always looking to learn something new to share with them, so I asked if I could be one of the Crew to try out Leadership Garden.

Let me start by saying that I made a snap-decision on what the books would be about without really looking at all of the website's pages, and this was a mistake because in the end, the book was NOT was I was expecting. Kind of like taking a bite of a cookie. If the cookie looks like its chocolate chip, and your mouth is all ready to taste chocolate chip, and then it turns out to be raisin?? The cookie is not bad, but it's not what you expected to taste!

So when the "taste" is not what you expected, do you finish the cookie, or do you discard the cookie in the hope and expectation that a choco-chip will present itself for consumption soon? Well, I chose to finish the cookie.

One of the things about these books is their emphasis on emotional self-reliance and on building your own sense of confidence and self-worth. Hugh is a lamb who runs from his own pasture due to fear of wolves, and self-imposed shame at possibly abandoning his mother to the wolf pack. As he stumbles about, lost in the woods, he comes to the Leadership Farm, where he meets a series of other animals who have mini-lessons to teach him about building your "leader".  A "leader" in this sense is referring to the first - and strongest - shoot on a new plant; the book is encouraging readers to build their own strong "leaders" as they learn new lessons, and to let go of the negative thoughts and feelings that we often allow to drag us down in life.  We are a military family, with four very rough-and-tumble boys, and so "touchy-feely" tends not to be our go-to reaction for things. So just reading the book made me a little uncomfortable. Having written a book of my own, I know what a labor of love that is, and can appreciate what the author was trying to do, but the book itself was just not my style.  However, the book also came with a DVD that has an audio version so I didn't have to read it all aloud, but could listen to some with the boys, and it also came with a story/book for the parent as well as a workbook with exercises to do alongside the story. THAT workbook made the series worth the time and effort. I suppose that I must be a workbook geek, because I did enjoy the exercises that came from it, and learned some things that I think will ultimately help me to be a better mom.  The kit retails anywhere from $8.95 for a digital format to $18.95 for hard copy. The author sent out a generous offer to readers who would like to try Growing My Leadership Garden. Here is what she wrote:

Leadership Garden Legacy is offering the TOS Community a “Spring Special Discount” of 20% on all our Empowerment Tools. This is in addition to our already discounted Tool Kit bundles. To receive your discount, enter the discount code: TOS-SS20D upon checkout. This is a limited time offer and the code will expire on May 31, 2013. Preview the bundled Tool Kit Discount options at: http://www.leadershipgardenlegacy.com/catalog/tool-bundle Preview all product tools at: http://www.leadershipgardenlegacy.com/store Visit the Leadership Garden Legacy to learn more at: http://www.leadershipgardenlegacy.com With the bundle price of the Family Empowerment Tool Kit and the TOS extra 20% discount this is a $28.70 TOS savings off the retail price of the products.