Mike Smith -- ICHE Convention Keynote Speaker

J. Michael Smith is the President of Home School Legal Defense Association, an organization which he cofounded with Michael Farris in 1983 to protect the right of parents who choose home education as their way to satisfy the compulsory attendance law in the various states and Canada. Home School Legal Defense Association now represents over 80,000 member families.

Mike and his wife Elizabeth began homeschooling their four children in 1981. Their oldest daughter, Kari, is a paralegal in San Francisco. Their next daughter, Chrissy, was their first homeschool graduate and is a graduate of UCLA. Their two youngest children, Andrew and Erin, were also homeschooled and graduated from George Mason University.

His columns on home education appear regularly in the Washington Times, and he has been a guest on numerous television and radio programs, including Focus on the Family with Jim Dobson and Hannity and Colmes on Fox News. He believes that there is a revival taking place in America through the homeschool movement and that, through the second and third generation of homeschoolers, there is great potential to return America to its moral and religious foundation.

Mike will give four workshops, including one keynote address.

Here is just one of those workshops -- don't miss this one:

The Power of Praise with Our Children

Life and death is in the power of tongue. Deep scars can occur as a result of negative, condemning words and withholding of praise and affirmation. The goal of this talk is to ensure that our children do not grow up feeling rejection from us as parents because of bad communication. This talk uses James 3:1–10 as a model for how we use words to edify and build up rather than to tear down. The talk will explore some ways that we use our tongue to injure our children and how we can use our tongue as an instrument of blessing. The talk’s goal is to develop a relationship with our child that lasts forever.