Teach Your Students to Teach Themselves

September 1, 2004 by 1 Comment

Believe it or not, there are (so-called “successful”) students in the government system who do not know that a dictionary contains word meanings, word forms, and pronunciation guides. These students have no clue what an atlas is or how/why to use one; they are clueless at map reading. They would never guess that the lesson concepts are fully explained in the textbook — they assume that only the teachers’ books have the explanations in them. If someone does not tell them what to do, they cannot decide what to do on their own, and even then, they only do exactly what they have been told, and no more. They possess no “critical thinking skills.”

When a student can teach himself, there are no limits to what he can learn. When a student can teach himself, learning becomes a life-long endeavor. When a student can teach himself, you (as the teacher) are then freed up to attend more to younger students, household duties, or even (dare I say it?) spare time activities of your own choosing.

The biggest hurdles for any student learning to teach himself are:
1) How do I know what to do in this lesson? (reading & understanding directions)
2) Where should I look for more information? (research skills)
3) What should I do when I “get stuck”? (problem-solving skills)

So how, you are now asking, do you teach a student to teach himself? Refer to The Biblical Model of Discipleship: “Let them watch, let them help, help them do it, watch them do it, leave them doing it.” As you are teaching him to read, also point out each word of the directions on any workbook pages or math papers that he is doing as you read those directions aloud and then explain what the assigned task is. That will begin to make the connection for him that those words mean important things, too. We need to convey the concept that the words in storybooks are not the only words in life that count. The same thing can be done with the Sunday comics, captions for interesting photos in newspapers and magazines, and even the cooking instructions on convenience food packages. Gradually, the idea will be grasped that with reading ability comes the knack for finding the necessary words to read. (Newspapers, magazines, and the adult world in general can be overwhelming to a new reader: so many words and no clue for how to navigate through them.)

As the student gains reading ability, he will begin to be able to read those directions for himself. If he is still not able to make the transition from reading the directions to understanding the assignment, have him read the directions aloud to you. Then discuss the meaning of the sentences with him until the student understands how they are explaining what is expected of him.

Begin to slow down your response time in explaining the assignments, allowing the student plenty of time to think about what he is reading and process the information. Remember that this is a new task for your student, and like any new task, it takes time to learn.

With more complicated instructions, such as those found in upper lever math lessons, point out to the student that everything needed to understand the lesson is found in the book. The complete explanation is in the lesson (some details may have been covered in previous lessons). The most important concepts will be in bold print, italics, underlined, or set apart in a box to capture the student’s attention. Example problems should not be merely looked at (unless the student is especially gifted in math), but copied step-by-step into the student’s math notebook (noted with page and problem numbers), in an effort to understand what is being done and why. (We remember more of what we do, than of what we just see or hear.) All math problems should be written in a notebook and kept, so they can be referred back to when necessary for additional help — problems written on a chalkboard or whiteboard are lost forever once they have been erased. When a student encounters a math problem of a type that gave him difficulty before, he can then look back through his notebook to find the previous example. Studying its completed form will help the student see what step comes next for the current problem.

I have sometimes questioned my own performance as a homeschool educator — did I do a “good enough” job? I see things that my children “missed” and wonder why I did not press those lessons more. Then again, I realize that I learned as much as they did during our homeschool career, and they will learn more as they begin to homeschool their own children in a few years. My students did learn how to read and how to understand what they read. My students learned how to do research. My students learned how to solve problems, often coming up with unique ideas that I would not even have considered. My students have become young adults who will continue to learn for their entire lives, because they learned how to teach themselves.

Filed Under: Encouraging Your Student, Homeschool How-To's, Scheduling

Using Your Household Staff

August 25, 2004 by Leave a Comment

“She gets up before dawn to prepare breakfast for her household and plan the day’s work for her servant girls.” (Proverbs 31:15) I do not have a staff of servant girls (and I am rarely up before dawn!), but I do have household servants. So do you, although yours may differ slightly from mine. I have a crock-pot, a bread machine, a clothes washer and dryer, a dishwasher, etc. These make up my household staff. If I have a load of laundry in the washing machine, another load in the dryer (or on the clothesline), the dishwasher is running, and the crock-pot is crocking away, I know I can sit down for a few minutes Guilt-Free, because tasks are being taken care of for me! Clothing and dishes are being cleaned and food is being cooked, enabling “me” to be in several places at once.

I try to get “my staff” working as soon as possible each day, because then I can feel quite productive — even if I am having a rather “slow” day personally. I can sit down with my students to practice their reading or play a game, knowing that chores are getting done.

Back when my children were small, I used a cassette tape recorder to capture my voice as I read favorite storybooks to my toddler. Later, when Mommy just could not be there, that tape could be replayed — allowing Little One to spend time with Mommy, hearing those favorites over and over again, making the tape player another valued member of my helpful staff. Incidentally, my daughter got as much enjoyment from hearing her own reactions on the tape as from hearing me. I had also tried just reading stories into the tape recorder — without the child on my lap — but the result was undesirably flat and just no fun to listen to.

My children are also valuable members of my staff — Mom should never be working alone when all others are recreating! I enjoy free time as much as the next person does; I just seem to get less of it. Kids can fold towels, sort underwear, scrub potatoes, and do plenty of other simple jobs so that Mom can be freed up for higher-skill jobs. Many times I have agreed to make a costume or other special request for one of my children only after they agreed to take over specific Mommy-tasks in order to give me the time required. Barter is a great tool — use it to your advantage!

Many years have passed, but I still remember the shock on my friend’s face when her daughter wrote a paper for school about the hobbies her family members pursued. The daughter had listed Mom’s hobbies as cooking and cleaning. I knew that woman as being a very artsy person who loved craft projects, decorating, sewing, and scrounging through garage sales. We had great fun together going to those garage sales and parks with our children or at couples’ parties with our spouses. I knew she had many interests — why did her own daughter only see the cooking-and-cleaning side? Perhaps it was because Mom had never pointed out what leisure time activities she did enjoy. Perhaps a little job-trading activity would have helped to clarify the fact that some chores benefit the entire family and can therefore be accomplished by anyone in the family with the required skill. More than once I have accepted the offer of kid-prepared scrambled eggs for supper in return for mending something that child wanted to wear the next day.

We all need to re-examine how and why we do the things we do. Are perfectly folded towels really all that important once we close the linen closet door? Will my family notice (or even care) if the cake they eat after supper has been imperfectly frosted by the Junior Chef or will they just be grateful for the rare treat of dessert? How much better will I feel at the end of the day knowing we have clean underwear for tomorrow AND Little One got to snuggle on my lap through several storybooks? Making use of timesaving appliances and a little work-together time can also save me some sanity and let me get on to enjoying some Guilt-Free activities that I have previously only dreamed about.

Filed Under: Family Unity, Home Chores, Homeschool How-To's, Preschoolers

Teaching with Preschoolers Around… and Under… and on Top… and Beside

August 19, 2004 by Leave a Comment

“How can I find time to teach the older child when the toddler needs my constant attention?” That is The Big Question that prevents many families from beginning homeschooling — in my mind, it is probably even a bigger concern than What To Do About Socialization! It kept me from diving in for several years. I had known about homeschooling and known many homeschool families before our first child began school, but it was the dreaded Active Toddler who took center stage and made me fearful of my ability to juggle all the homeschooling responsibilities. Once my youngest was also in school, I had no more fear — for some reason, it finally looked do-able, and we finally began homeschooling.

If I had bothered to think things through better, I would have realized that I had many options for homeschooling around a toddler. For some unknown reason, at that point in time the homeschoolers we did know were not willing to share their techniques for getting through the daily grind. They seemed to think I would be better off inventing my own wheel than to adapt their prototypes to suit my needs. Therefore, I now willingly and openly share my trials, tribulations, successes, and failures for your benefit. Learn what you will.

Spend some time with Junior first, then teach the others when Junior gets bored and leaves to play on his own. Indulge the preschooler with his own set of “school supplies” — Laurie puzzles, workbooks of pre-writing skills, washable markers, etc. and allow him to “do school” along with his older siblings. Also provide safe, quiet toys nearby for when he gets bored with sitting still. Nevertheless, be encouraged: Junior will be learning HOW to sit still and be quiet and pay attention for those short periods when he does stay with you. He will also be learning how to entertain himself when he leaves the table. (Keep those “school toys” as a special treat to be used only during lesson times, otherwise they will lose their appeal.)

Use Baby’s naptime for working with the older children. “School” does not have to take place during the same set of hours each day. (see Every Day is a Learning Day) Lessons can even come in spurts — do one or two subjects in the morning, take a long lunch and play break, then do another subject in the afternoon. Teach the older children to work by themselves when they can, giving you more time to attend to Baby’s needs. Save especially-Mom-intensive subjects for Baby’s naptime.

Apply skill-level discretion to teaching tasks: does this need Mom’s personal attention, or is someone else capable of handling it? Older children may practice their reading skills by reading to the toddlers or by listening to beginning readers. A great-grandmother shared with me how she was raised in a large family where each older child was always responsible for a specifically assigned younger child. Child #1 cared for Child #3, Child #2 cared for Child #4, Child #3 cared for Child #5, and so on. That system removed the possibility of anyone “slipping through the cracks” — no one could claim, “I thought YOU were watching him.” A similar approach can be adapted for scheduling the homeschool lessons: student-works-alone time (perhaps for math), group lessons (maybe a family read-aloud book), read-to-the-toddler time (as reading skills reinforcement), help-the-kindergartner time, etc. Remember, the best way to learn a subject is to teach it to someone else, so pairing up older and younger learners helps them both. If the lessons are scheduled so that Student #1 always spends the same time slot working with Student #3, and so on, all students will benefit, and Mom gets to be in more places at once through the added helping hands. The young ones will also learn to respect individual lesson times, knowing that their share of time is coming, too.

Now let’s all repeat the Guilt-Free Homeschooling motto: The “right” way to homeschool is the way that fits my family best — our schedule, our needs, our desires, our abilities. You are free to adapt your schedule to whatever fits your family’s needs. If you need extra time to tend to Little One, you may take it. If you need to wait until 1:30 to begin lessons each day, who cares? If you need to breastfeed while teaching math class, go for it! (Let’s see them try that one in government school!)

Filed Under: Homeschool How-To's, Preschoolers, Scheduling

Bells on Their Toes and Other Means of Keeping Toddler Safe

August 18, 2004 by 2 Comments

Since when is just keeping track of your children considered to be child abuse or being “over-protective”? Is it child abuse to stop your child from running out into the street? NO! Is it being over-protective to teach your child not to touch the hot stove? NO! It is also not abusive to want to keep your child safe from any other significant dangers that may lurk just outside Mom or Dad’s line of sight. It is also much less stressful to have your child standing or walking close by your side, safely connected to your wrist by a “child leash,” rather than have to fight endless wrestling matches because the toddler simply wants to exercise the legs God gave him. Hot weather is the most obvious argument for letting the child walk on his own — it gets sticky here in Iowa in July, and both parent and child gain blessed relief from being able to be safely separated by a few inches. And yet, Moms and Dads know they will receive condemning stares from the general public if they seek to use a safety child harness or other such connecting life-line.

Attach bells to the little ones’ shoes so you can tell which direction they have wandered or put a leash on their arm and yours or whatever it takes to keep your child close to you, but safe. I got the same nasty stares from people that you are afraid of getting, but I held my head high and reassured myself that I was doing the right thing. I knew I was treating my child like an autonomous human being and not like a less-than-submissive domestic animal.

I bought tiny brass bells (not the round, miniature sleigh bell style) at a craft store and looped the bells over the shoelaces with small-size ponytail elastics (1″ diameter) the way you would loop rubber bands together to make a chain. The covered ponytail bands were stronger and longer lasting than rubber bands and allowed the bells enough room to flop around and jingle effectively. The bands could be quickly looped around shoelaces, Velcro straps, or sandal straps. The tiny bells gave off a quiet jingle that most people did not even notice, but our trained ears readily tuned in to.

My son wore bells on his shoes until he was five. For him it meant freedom: Mom and Dad could tell where he was or if he was wandering off. We actually bought a little device once that would sound an alarm if the child got more than a certain distance from the “base unit” attached to Dad’s belt. We returned it to the store after only one weekend’s use — we could not tell which way the toddler had wandered. The ear-piercing shriek told us he was gone, but gave us no clue which direction to start looking. The bells went back on the shoes and stayed there for several more years.

We also purchased a “leash” and developed creative ways to use it. It was the coiled “telephone wire” type with Velcro straps to fasten around your wrist and the child’s wrist. That worked wonderfully until I needed to hold onto two children at the same time. Then I attached the “child-proof” end to my younger child and the “parent” end to my older child (with an appropriate explanation of why it was important not to remove it), and I held onto the middle of the stretchy cord. At least if I needed to let go momentarily, my children would stay together.

I only had two children to worry about, and many readers are now wondering how they can deal with their “added blessings.” It is a technique that is too often overlooked: teach your older children the importance of being Mom’s helpers. You are not doing yourself any favors by permitting the “I don’t want to touch him/her” frame of mind. I recently observed a Mom-of-three walking out of a store, clutching the hands of her two youngest and casting worried glances over her shoulder to make sure Child #1 was still following behind. That oldest child also had hands and was therefore sufficiently equipped to hold onto either of his siblings, but Mom was allowing him to poke along by himself, slowing down the whole family. (That allows Junior to set the pace and call all the shots — Mom is no longer in control, Junior has now become The Boss.) Mom, make that child hold onto his sibling’s hand and keep up with the rest of you! The fenced-in backyard is your child’s safe area for running around free — shopping trips are a different story.

One more important note: hiding in store clothing racks was not something I tolerated! I went through enough panic the first time that happened to know I never wanted a repeat occurrence. Children do get bored when shopping and see ducking inside racks as a harmless distraction and a delightful game. Take the time to explain to the child why you cannot allow them to sit underneath the clothing where they cannot be seen by an adult. Also, offer an alternative to them: show them where they can sit on the floor so you can see them, lift them into your shopping cart for a rest, or start an observation game as a distraction while you quickly finish your shopping (I see something green and square… do you?). Incidentally, I have found that for most discipline problems, a little explanation goes a long way! Once the child understands the reason for the rule, it is much easier for them to obey the rule.

The people who would consider us “over-protective” are those who grew up in a different world from the one we now live in. Unfortunately, we cannot go back in time to a day when Opie and his friends would ride their bicycles out into the country unsupervised, or when Beaver would walk across town to the movie matinee and get distracted for hours on end exploring construction sites. Although those were fictional scenarios, we must face facts and realize that our children are children, and children need parents to guide them, protect them, and watch over them. We should not allow anyone to make us feel guilty for doing our job to the best of our ability.

Filed Under: Discipline, Parenting, Preschoolers

What Didn’t Work for Today Can Be Changed for Tomorrow

August 13, 2004 by 2 Comments

Some of you are beginning your first attempts at homeschooling right now. My first word of advice is: breathe. Homeschooling actually gets easier with each passing year. (Those of you who are approaching your second September of homeschooling are beginning to realize that you have done this before, and suddenly it does not seem quite so awkward; you’re a veteran now who has a better idea of what to do.) Remind yourself that even though you have never homeschooled your children before, your children have never been homeschooled before either — and you can learn this new thing together. Look upon homeschooling as an adventure that all members of your family undertake as a team. All members have something to contribute, large or small, and it would not be the same without the participation of all.

The primary blessing of homeschooling is being able to adapt all your plans to your family’s needs. If today’s lessons just did not get through to your students, you are free to change your lessons in an attempt to find what will penetrate. Government schools either do not have that freedom or cannot afford the time to exercise the freedom to explore lessons in multiple ways.

We had days when Grandpa needed the assistance (or maybe just wanted the company) of a small boy on a carpentry project. Grandpa became a valuable member of our teaching team on those days. One time he took my son along on a trip to another city to pick up supplies, and they stopped at a large hydroelectric dam on the way home just to enjoy the view. As they arrived, a large group was beginning an organized tour of the inner workings of the dam, and the tour guide offered to include Grandpa and my son on the tour. Grandpa was just as thrilled as my son was at the opportunity of a spontaneous bonus on their field trip! Those are the “adaptable moments” of homeschooling that are just not available in other situations.

“What didn’t work for today can be changed for tomorrow” became our motto for our first year of homeschooling. “Adapt daily” was the battle cry of encouragement I repeated over and over to myself as I struggled to find my way through the curriculum maze. I gradually realized that the “right way” to homeschool would be the way that was comfortable and relaxed and best fit my family’s lifestyle. I could not take this business too seriously; it had to be enjoyable, or we would never survive. I was sure that even my feeble homeschooling attempts would far exceed the twaddle offered by government schools, so I was encouraged that at least I could do no worse.

I had my share of moments (days/weeks?) when I really questioned my ability to educate my children sufficiently. Were we truly doing the right thing? When I would stop listening to the pity party going on in my head and listen instead to the voice of God encouraging my heart, I would hear His gentle reminders of how He had answered our prayers for “the right teacher” for that year of school. He had led us into homeschooling, away from the government institution’s one-size-fits-all approach. Those moments of reflection would give me the confidence to try again, one more time, with yet another method, until finally the lessons would “click.”

Do not be discouraged if today’s lessons did not seem to accomplish anything. You may feel that you spent the entire day talking to the walls, because your students just did not seem to understand any of it. However, you now know what does not work! Remember Thomas Edison’s persistence in trying to invent a light bulb: he tried over 600 filaments that did not work before he hit upon the one method that did work. If Edison had given up after one or two tries, our lives would be incredibly different today. Instead, Edison (whose teacher had kicked him out of school and called him unteachable) considered each “failure” to be a positive experience — he now knew one more thing that did not work, and eventually he would find something that would work.

If today’s plan accomplished nothing, change your approach for tomorrow. If you are really desperate, perhaps you may want to change the curriculum in a subject or two: when the student and teacher are both always on the verge of tears, it is never the fault of either of them; it is the fault of the curriculum. The curriculum itself is probably not bad, just not suited to the needs of you and your students. Talk to other homeschoolers to find out what they have liked or disliked and why. You can glean valuable ideas from other families, even when their children are not the same ages or grade levels as your children. Start fresh with a new vision or a different approach. There are times when we all benefit from a day off — have a video day with movies that fit in with your lessons. Take a field trip, build a model, do some experiments, play games, find a new way to look at the lesson. Be flexible — it is the only way to achieve Guilt-Free Homeschooling.

Filed Under: Encouragement for Parents, Homeschool How-To's, Homeschool v. Public School, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle

Guilt-Free Lesson Plans and Scheduling

August 5, 2004 by 1 Comment

Each state has its own requirements for homeschooling accountability, so please check out your state’s legal requirements and be sure you comply with them. That said, let me share a few tips from my own homeschooling career that may help to make your homeschool planning a little more Guilt-Free and easier to handle.

My “lesson plans” consisted of a check-off sheet for each subject, with numbered blanks for each of our 150 days of school. The minimum requirement in our state (Iowa) is 148 days; 150 is a nice round number. If we exceeded that number — it was not a problem; we did not have to feel compelled to keep schooling until we knew we had reached 180 or 200 days. As I have stated before, every day is a learning day, not just the days spent with noses in books, so I knew my children were getting a well-rounded education, regardless of the time occupied in tedious lessons.

My uncomplicated system for planning lessons consisted of dividing the number of pages in each book by the number of days of school we did. The resulting number was how many pages were to be done per day. Often it resulted in a fraction (such as 2.8 or 3.2), which I just rounded to the nearest whole number, rationalizing that extra pages would get done some days and some pages (such as full-page illustrations) could be skipped. It did not matter if we ran out of work before the year was up — either the students moved on to their next book or they got to relax and rejoice in free time.

Once I had divided each subject into daily segments, I penciled in the corresponding page numbers for each specific day on those 150 blanks of the check-off sheet. I had also numbered school days on a blank calendar, planning time off for holidays and birthdays, so that we knew which day of school we were on. We crossed off lessons as they were done and crossed off day numbers separately as they passed. Sometimes lessons were done ahead of schedule and sometimes we fell behind, but with this system, we always knew where we stood in every subject. An assigned number of pages to do each day does not mean the child should not be allowed to do more if he is motivated to get ahead. Getting ahead in any subject is only a bad thing when the child does not want to do his other schooling as well. When that happened, I required them to do today’s assignments in all subjects first, then they could work ahead in the desired subjects as well.

Begin your school year after Labor Day if you need extra time for a family vacation or to settle into your routine. Start the Christmas break early enough to allow time for housecleaning, holiday baking, even the shopping that may never get done otherwise. My planned schedule would end in early May, meaning that we had “wiggle-room” for illnesses, spontaneous vacation days, and the odd family emergency that was bound to arise every year. Field trips did not have to be organized to be effective. Many of our fondest memories are from taking a day off with Dad and doing something just as a family: visiting the state Capitol and the State Historical Museum, going fishing and taking a nature walk, finding a blacksmith shop or a museum open on our way home from somewhere else. Antique shops can be just as educational as museums, especially if the attendant sees well-behaved children and gets talkative. (Many small towns have museums open during the day with no one else stopping in but your family.)

Yes, I did actually make separate lesson plans for each child. My students were far enough apart (3 years in age, 4 grades in school) that very little applied to both at once, the only exception being books I read aloud to them while they did simple seatwork. My state-required “Plan of Instruction” looked similar for each child (except for time allowances), but my actual lesson plans varied. I was able to write up the Plan of Instruction with a daily, weekly, or yearly schedule, depending on what time segments worked best for the ages of the students.

The Plan of Instruction was a yearly form listing what subjects I would be teaching each child, the books used, time spent on each subject, etc. Guided by suggestions from Home School Legal Defense Association and other homeschoolers before me, I became increasingly vague in my reporting. (The whole concept of “precedent” is very helpful here — what has been accepted in the past sets a precedent for those who follow.) I only listed academic subjects, not Bible or extra-curricular activities, and merely checked boxes indicating that we would participate in sports, music, etc., rationalizing that things like children and sport-activity usually go together like butter and toast — homeschool activities do not have to be formally structured to be educational and/or beneficial. The few years that my children spent in government school clearly showed that those institutions obviously did not take great pains to inform me of everything they were teaching my children, so they had already set the precedent for me — I do not have to tell them everything I am teaching my children either.

I had begun homeschooling by giving too much information on the legal forms (a common mistake made by eager-to-please-with-nothing-to-hide types). Then I found myself caught in a back-order nightmare one year and was not sure which books we would even be able to get. The deadline for filing reports came and I did not have all the books yet, so I cautiously filled out my form with “weasel words” — “This subject will be taught from a variety of sources.” I was sure I would get a phone call from someone checking the forms who would reject my vague “plan,” but the call never came. My plan was accepted. The next year, I bravely expanded my fuzzy wording to cover more subjects, a technique I found extremely helpful in broad areas, such as history or language arts, that can encompass wide-reaching scopes. Math was much simpler to define: this book, this number of lessons.

This is your family, this is your school, and this is your schedule. Make it work to your advantage. Use the schedule as your tool, do not become its slave. Reflect on your reasons for keeping extensive records and simplify if you can. Your time will be much more valuable as a teacher for your children than as a recording scribe, making endless notes that will never be read.

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Filed Under: Legal Records, Scheduling

Role Modeling: Who’s Who — Otherwise Known as Teaching by Example

August 2, 2004 by Leave a Comment

If I do not preach a sermon with my life, why would anyone ever listen to my words? That thought occurred to me one morning as I cleaned my kitchen and listened to Christian radio. It is true, you know: if my life and my words are in opposition to each other, my students will notice it long before I will myself. Therefore, I must “mean what I say, and say what I mean” (thank you, Horton) and “do as I say” before insisting anyone else do it also.

When an educational question arises in our house, such as “what does that word mean” or “where is that country/city,” I have taken the lead, grabbing the dictionary, atlas, or other appropriate reference material, proclaiming “Let’s find out,” and then sharing the resulting facts with my students. Over the years, this habit has had a profound effect: my children are not afraid of the dictionary! I have observed them voluntarily grabbing the dictionary and checking proper plural forms for themselves. They have even been known to browse the dictionary just in the effort to learn new words. I have also caught them with the atlas, comparing the population figures for cities around the globe, attempting to gain perspective on relative sizes.

You are your children’s role models. Children will learn by example: speech patterns, manners (including apologizing), stewardship, decision-making (including TV and movie choices), prayer, reading as a general habit (Bible-reading in particular), driving habits, etc. Your children will become like you in more ways than you or they would ever imagine. People of integrity come from seeing integrity walked out before them. If I expect my children to behave a certain way, be it with honesty and courtesy and manners, or with a spirit of giving, or speaking the truth and not lies, I must model that behavior for them. I cannot expect my children to be a better person than I am willing to be myself.

One day when my children were getting early lessons in proper speaking manners, we happened to be babysitting a neighbor girl for a few hours. As I gave them all a snack of graham crackers, I was encouraging them to ask “May I have another cracker, please?” When the neighbor child balked, repeating the question with emphasis indicating she had never before heard such language, I joyfully gushed, “Of course, you may!” to her utter astonishment. I can only imagine the dinner-table conversation at her home that evening.

My personal philosophy on public behavior is: If I do not want to accidentally do it in public, I had better not incubate the bad habit of doing it in private. Case in point, many years ago, when my husband and I had just moved to this house, I was frustrating myself with trying to get the washing machine to cooperate with the mountains of laundry we had accumulated during the packing and moving procedure. As I took the machine apart to find the drain hose twisted beyond usefulness, I heard a knock at my back door. Never expecting a welcoming committee from my new neighborhood, I answered the door wearing the worst possible charity-bin-rejects, my hair messy and dirty from handyman-duty in the basement laundry area, and emitting the nasty aura of a not-so-recent bath. Those dear ladies were very cordially trying to invite me to a welcoming tea, even though my unexpected appearance was certainly not what they wanted gracing their living rooms. I made a conscious decision that day to rid my wardrobe of anything I did not want to be caught wearing — even on laundry day.

On another side of the role-modeling coin, consider for a moment what types of posters are most frequently displayed in college students’ dorm rooms. How do the stars look in the music videos watched by most teens? What are the lifestyles of the heroes and idols of today’s pop culture? Are these really people we should respect and look up to? Do their lives reflect the values we embrace? If not, then why would we want to emulate their standards in fashion? Look intently at the message being sent by the clothing available right now in the stores near you. Even if it was not overtly intended by the designer or not intended by the person purchasing the garment, the message still comes across loud and clear. Allow me to step up on my personal soapbox to say that no one’s daughter, regardless of her age, should look like a junior streetwalker, and yet many of the garments for sale right now create just that look.

I have watched public school teachers mimic their students in language and dress in an effort to “identify” with them, only to wonder later why their students showed no respect toward them. The respect vanished because the model switched roles: the teacher began copying the student, sadly making the student the role model for the teacher.

It is a fundamental principle of human nature to look to those in leadership for cues in how to handle life. Therefore, children will naturally strive to look, act, talk, and behave like their older peers. If you are homeschooling, you are essentially part of their peer group — an older peer. Take care to set the standard yourself that you want to see in those around you: your children, their friends, your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers, etc., and be very careful from whom you are taking your cues.

Filed Under: Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Parenting, Role-Modeling
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