We Choose Virtues - Youth Virtue Journal Volume 1 Review

Product:  Youth Virtue Journal Volume 1
Vendor:  We Choose Virtues
Cost:  $17.00
Ages: 12 - 15

Sometimes there is an little "magical age" where are sweet children are hit with a brick by their hormones.  It causes our polite children to forget all that they had learned in the past about the proper way to act.  They forget to be thankful, polite, respectful, obedient, and basically everything they should be.  We Choose Virtues has created a special journal to help those older children to remember how we should act.

The Youth Virtue Journal Volume 1 ($17.00) has been designed for a student and either a parent, youth leader, or other mentor to go re-visit character qualities in a non-childish form.  The Youth Virtue Journal Volume 1 looks to be designed especially for older ones, without all the cartoon-looking characters that will cause them to not want to use it.  By working with others, it helps to reinforce the character qualities that helps them to make the best decisions possible throughout their teen years and into adulthood.  The more it's reinforced, then it will help them into their adult life.

The Youth Virtue Journal Volume 1 was actually created for the youth in the Idaho Court system, so the journal itself does not contain any scriptures.  But along with your purchase, you will also receive a downloadable Mentor's Handbook, Character assessment chart, and a list of Bible scriptures that are appropriate to use with the program.

How did we use this program?  Well Joey did like the illustrations, so he was drawn in to the non-cartoon look of it.  The journal is broken down into two sections.

Section 1 features a look at each of the nine virtues that are concentrated on in this volume.

• Attentive
• Content
• Forgiving
• Gentle
• Helpful
• Honest
• Obedient
• Perseverant
• Respectful

Each chapter encourages the child to dream about the future, look at their life now, look around about how their actions are affecting the people around them, and some good advice on how to make changes.  It encourages the child to really reflect and look at their lives, something we as adults do not do often enough.   There is room all the way through the journal for the child to write their thoughts and a special section for writing down their dreams and thoughts when they are reflecting.  

Joey has been using this journal for a few weeks now.  The trouble he has is writing, so after struggling the first week, he started keeping his journal in a word processing document.  He feels more comfortable typing.  After going through a few of these character qualities, it has been a great refresher for him.  

This has been a wonderful program that we spread throughout the week.  With Joey's diagnosis, he is on a lot of medications to help control extreme behavior issues that he cannot control on his own or has trouble trying to control.  So small reminders about using these better qualities are better for him.  

We did use the Biblical suggestions while using the stories.  We talked about the Biblical person who showed this quality and then how we could show the same quality.  So we used this not as a full sit-down session.  It worked better for him to break it up.  You could easily cover this topic in under 10-15 minutes each day (depending on how your conversations are with your child) and then they could work on their journal.  That time is only restricted by how long you want them to work on the journal.  Some kids will reflect longer on certain characteristics than others.  It really is designed to have a mentor or trusted adult to cover material with the student so that you can assure they are getting the most out of the material presented.

The Youth Mentor Journal download has some great ways to encourage your child to continue to show these qualities and help them to really reach their full potential.  It is a great addition to the Youth Virtue Journal

We are going to continue Youth Virtue Journal and in fact we will be ordering the Youth Virtue Journal Volume 2 to continue Joey's studies.  We are also going to continue to include the younger girls and Brayden in some more of the discussions we have.  But I want to continue to encourage Joey in his journaling of his feelings and actions, so he has a written record of his actions to take a look at.

We Choose Virtues is offering our readers a great special!!!

JUNE-AUGUST 2014 - Use *Promo Code BTS20 for 20% off anything in the We Choose Virtues store.  This includes any product  for kids or youth.  

You can check out We Choose Virtues on social media by visiting these links:

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Several members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew were given the opportunity to try out the We Choose Virtues choices to help their families with character quality training.  See how they used the products in their homes.