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Discouraging Families

November 16, 2004 by Leave a Comment
Oh, give me a home where the school is my own,
Where the students are my own children,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
From my relatives, neighbors, and friends.
Is it really possible to have family members who fully support your desire to homeschool? I do not know. Maybe it is possible — if they already homeschool, too.

Most of the people reading this article are searching for some hope, some light at the end of the tunnel. You are feeling outcast, weighed down under the persecution of loved ones who just do not understand your desire to educate your children in the way you see as best. My words of encouragement may seem insufficient at this point, but I strongly urge you to “Hang in there!” It is rare for relatives to remain devoutly anti-homeschooling for a long time. Usually, family members who see you and your children with any frequency will soon begin to notice positive differences between your children and the average government-schooled children and will begin to alter their attitudes accordingly. However, there may be cases where you will need to limit your time with certain friends or relatives, steering the topics of conversation to less flammable areas, such as politics, money, or religion.

When we decided to homeschool, we only told our parents. We let them tell our siblings. Yes, it was the coward’s way out, but you probably did something just as spineless. My sister told Mom that my children would turn out “weird.” Using my nieces and nephews for the “normal” standard, my children are very weird. Using my standard for “normal,” my nieces and nephews are the weird ones. It did take a few years for everyone to “come around,” but now they all accept our homeschooling efforts — a few relatives even applaud us.

From my own experience, I can say that my children were the best “salesmen” for convincing our reluctant relatives. When we made our appearance at the family holiday dinners, even the most adamant aunts and uncles had to admit that my children did not have antennae sprouting from their heads. My offspring were able to converse intelligently with the adults, relating fantastic details of our latest field trip or interesting experiment, while their non-homeschooled cousins hid in the far reaches of the house, silently transfixed by video games and only grunting monosyllabic responses to any attempts at conversation.

When we were questioned about the schoolwork we were doing, I let my children answer as often as possible. They were perfectly capable of speech; why not let them gain a little experience at being interviewed? My husband and I were always close by to supplement the answer, if needed, but usually our children were able to give competent, first-hand testimony of exactly what they were learning. My son’s favorite question was always, “What grade are you in now?” to which he would smugly respond, “In which subject?” followed by a rapid-fire dissertation of each subject and his corresponding grade level, emphasizing the subjects in which he was ahead of his peers.

When confronted by a nosy, know-it-all friend/neighbor/relative, I was ready with knowledge of the legal requirements for homeschooling in our state and an account of how we were meeting those requirements. (Find the legal specifics for your state at http://www.hslda.org/.) I have yet to meet a parent utilizing the public school system who knew anything about the state’s laws pertaining to education. They usually changed the subject on me once they realized that I probably knew more about their children’s education than they did.

I explained what we were doing for our children’s education. I answered all the (reasonable/legitimate) questions that were fired at us. I knew legal requirements and facts, and I could throw in a few well-placed statistics for good measure. I tried to avoid arguing (not always easy for me), focusing my responses around, “This is what we are doing; you may do what you want to do.” I defended our position, but I learned not to try to recruit. When someone had specific questions about getting into homeschooling (which always seemed to be “for a friend”), they would seek us out, often in a secluded corner and speaking in hushed tones for fear of discovery. (To date, none of our extended family has tried homeschooling.)

A fellow homeschooling mom once told me about her experience at Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. When the meal was over, her children cleared their own dishes from the table and began filling the sink for the clean-up process. Her non-homeschooling siblings accused her of bribing the children ahead of time to do this chore “just to make the rest of us look bad!” Despite insistence that this was the children’s customary routine at home, the offended relatives would not be persuaded.

If you are facing non-supportive family members at this time, the most encouragement I can offer you is my own affirmation that “time will tell.” Find out for yourself exactly what the legalities of home education are in your state, comply with them, and then stand your ground, knowing that you are doing your best to educate your children and that homeschooling will prove itself. Walk away from arguments when necessary, and walk away from potential guilt feelings at the same time. Remember the old folk adage, “the proof is in the pudding” — each individual ingredient may not be tasty by itself, but when combined in proper proportions, the result is delicious. Application to homeschooling: any one lesson or subject may not make a great difference by itself, but over time, your homeschool lessons will combine to make your students into wonderful people. You still may hear occasional grumblings from outsiders, but be assured that those are probably based in jealousy.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Family Unity

You and I Drive Different Cars

November 12, 2004 by Leave a Comment

“What kind of car do you drive?” What kind of car do I drive? But I was asking You about why the world needs so many different churches… I don’t understand. “What kind of car do you drive?” Oh! Now I get it!

The dialogue occurred one day during a brief quiet time with God. I have been reminded of it in many situations since that time. You and I attend different churches. You and I utilize different homeschooling methods. You and I allow our children to be involved in different activities. You and I drive different cars.

Power windows, power locks, manual transmission, 4-wheel drive, power steering, leather seats, heated seats, DVD player, cup holders, luggage rack, dual gas tanks, automatic headlights. Some features may be luxuries; some features may be necessities. What may be a luxury in my life may be a necessity in your life. You and I drive different cars.

Perhaps I should feel guilty that I drive a minivan, because there are now rarely more than 3 people occupying it. But I know that the rest of the space is often used for hauling cargo: 1 or 2 guitars, my electric bass, my son’s djembe drum, my daughter’s clean laundry, and the furniture and household items as a child moves to or from college or apartment. Perhaps you have been criticized for driving a “gas-guzzling” SUV, but your critics do not stop to consider that few vehicles are equipped to carry your entire family of 10. You and I drive different cars.

Sometimes my “necessities” have shifted, depending on life’s circumstances. At one time, my children eagerly participated in “youth” events. At other times, we have avoided such groups like the plague. The deciding factors related to our family’s values: is this event family-friendly; does the sponsoring group try to usurp parental authority; do my children’s attitudes undergo a negative change when they are involved with this activity? Does this “car” have the features I really need?

Just because something is a priority for me does not mean it has to be a priority for you. As long as we are all moving forward in our chosen directions, we should not put ourselves under the unnecessary guilt of traveling at the exact same speed as others or with all the exact same baggage. You and I have both chosen to homeschool, and we both easily recognize the ways that make us different from those who do not homeschool. What is not so easily recognizable is how we are different from each other. You may not want to use all the same methods with your children that I use with my children, but that in itself does not make either of us “wrong.” It simply means that each of us can see what needs our families have, and you and I are each doing our best to meet those needs. Guilt-Free Homeschooling is achieved by recognizing that you and I drive different cars.

Filed Under: Curriculum Choices, Deciding to Homeschool, Encouragement for Parents

Any Dead Fish Can Float Downstream

November 3, 2004 by Leave a Comment

I love the T-shirt that says, “Any dead fish can float downstream — Go against the flow!” It shows a simple, little Christian fish-symbol pointing in the opposite direction from a slew of ugly, decaying fish and fish skeletons that are being swept along in a stream of muck-water. That pretty much sums up my faith: I am willing to swim upstream against the strong tide of contemporary thought, because it means life to me instead of death. It is usually much easier to go along with the crowd mentality, but doing so contradicts everything that I stand for and believe in.

Homeschooling can be seen as a similar undertaking: homeschoolers often feel they are swimming upstream against all the counsel of their peers. Deciding to educate your children at home may not be an easy choice for you to make. It may prompt a very dramatic change to your family’s lifestyle. You may find yourselves surrounded by friends and relatives who think you have suddenly gone insane and feel it is their duty to remind you of that fact on a regular basis. You may choose to give up certain worldly luxuries in order to reprioritize your lives, focusing your efforts on giving your children what you believe to be the best educational option available.

If you find yourselves in such a situation of “going against the flow,” take courage. Reflect on your reasons for choosing to educate your children yourselves. Then close your ears to the negative propaganda bombarding your family, and stand firm. Know that even if you feel you are not swimming upstream, you can at least hold your ground and not be swept downstream. Staying in one place for a time assures that you are not losing ground, and enables you to build up the strength and courage to move forward eventually.

Deciding to homeschool often means deciding to do what you can to change your corner of the world. It takes a courageous person, someone with the strength to stand up for their convictions, someone unwilling to follow the rest of the lemmings, someone daring enough and bold enough to say, “I’ve had enough. Let me do it my way now.” You may encounter much resistance, many dead fish floating downstream, obstructing your way and hindering your progress. Be patient, be brave, be encouraged — you are beginning the adventure of a lifetime, one that your children’s destiny depends upon. Go against the flow — you will not regret it.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Encouragement for Parents, Family Unity

Start Homeschooling for One Reason, but Continue for Another

October 28, 2004 by Leave a Comment

The “last straw” that finally convinced us to begin homeschooling was hearing homeschool advocate Gregg Harris on a local talk-radio program. He was promoting an upcoming seminar (which my husband and I quickly made arrangements to attend) and was giving myriad reasons why a growing number of families were choosing to educate their children at home.

The seemingly trivial reasons that actually caught my attention dealt with the hassles caused by public school’s time schedules. We had found that public school activities and programs frequently kept our children up past their bedtimes, causing them to be difficult to start off again the next morning. Mr. Harris touched on the rush to get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, and get to school on time — a continual struggle at our house. He light-heartedly mentioned that homeschooling removes all those rush-rush problems: if you find yourselves up too late at night, sleep in a little the next day, and then begin school on your own timetable. School lunches would no longer be offensive to picky eaters: Mom’s cooking would always be readily available. Homework would also disappear as an after-school trauma: enough time could be allotted during each subject to do all the work necessary for the day’s lesson. I found myself much more interested in homeschooling after hearing just a few of these statements by Mr. Harris, reasons that I had not personally considered before.

For many years we had known families who homeschooled. We met the first ones when our daughter was a year old. We currently had several families in our church who homeschooled, making no lack of people to turn to for support and encouragement. I had never considered homeschooling as an option for us until this point, when, suddenly, homeschooling looked like the solution to many of the problems plaguing our household.

The primary reasons for homeschooling that we gave to family and friends were health-related. They all knew that our daughter had been plagued by tremendous headaches for several years and sympathized with our need to make a drastic lifestyle change for her sake. She often could not endure an entire day at school: once her headache became intense, the noise of the classroom was intolerable and she needed to come home for relief. She was always able to do some subjects without difficulty, but others critically depended on her ability to concentrate. We had been to doctor after doctor, endured all sorts of tests, tried a variety of medicines (to no avail), and fought ten rounds with the schools over attendance policies (even though her grades never lagged). We even changed from one public school to another in an attempt to find an administration that would listen to us and help us cope. When the school nurse declared that a child who did not run a temperature or vomit was not actually “sick,” we knew we had finally reached the end of that rope. Something drastic had to happen. Homeschooling provided an ideal solution: our daughter could do schoolwork during the hours when she felt well, and she could lie down to rest when she felt ill without conflicting with anyone. She could do the easy subjects any day and save the harder subjects for the days when her head could tolerate intense concentration. (Along with our adaptation to homeschooling came a change in diet, prompted by much research into the various probable causes of headaches, resulting in success in controlling her headaches and other related symptoms.)

As our first year of homeschooling passed and we began our second year, we became more enthusiastic about learning at home. We were shaking off most of the public school trappings of schedules and preconceived ideas of what certain academic subjects should resemble. We were becoming independent in our homeschooling. We attended field trips, play days, and family potlucks with other homeschoolers. We took days off to have spontaneous family days with Dad. We drew closer as a family unit; we enjoyed each other’s company. We began to see other, deeper reasons for homeschooling.

I had read about people who said they homeschooled for “religious reasons.” I was not sure I understood that at the time, thinking they must be much more radical in their faith than I was, but now I was beginning to see their point of view. Public school had a very anti-family overtone to it that was not voiced aloud, just understood: they were the professional educators; we could not possibly pass anything of importance on to our children. Personal Christian values were pushed aside at public school, even by teachers who were themselves faithful, believing Christians. By homeschooling, we could make our beliefs the most important aspect anytime, all the time, if we wanted. We could ignore the witches and hobgoblins of Halloween. We could be truly thankful for God’s blessings at Thanksgiving. We could take time to celebrate “Christmas,” and not “Winter Break.” We could sing songs with their original words and not the carefully rewritten, politically correct lyrics we were so often forced to endure in public school programs.

Although we had begun homeschooling for the reasons of caring for our daughter’s health and adapting family-friendly scheduling, we soon began to realize that our Christian faith played a dramatic part in our reasons to continue homeschooling. We thoroughly enjoyed being able to concentrate on creation science and point out the difficulties with evolutionary theories. We could count Christian fiction as literature, not just as pleasure reading material only to be indulged in during one’s private hours. We designated a large block of time each day to Mom reading aloud from Christian books — a huge children’s book of Bible stories, the Chronicles of Narnia series, the Little House series, Frank Peretti’s Cooper Kids series, and many others. We discussed our faith, what made it important to us, and how we saw it being strengthened through homeschooling. We could tie in scripture to any subject where we saw an application, without fearing that we might offend another student or violate an administrative policy. We sadly watched public school friends become increasingly influenced by peer pressure in all areas of their lives, including Christians who made choices contrary to their faith.

We made the decision to homeschool based on one set of reasons, primarily health related. We continued our decision to homeschool based on another set of reasons, primarily the freedom to practice our chosen religion in every facet of our lives.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Family Unity, Leaving Public School

Choose Your Battles

October 22, 2004 by Leave a Comment

As a parent, you realize this child-rearing business is war. However, your opponent is not your children; your opponent is every evil influence that tries to come between you and your children. The winning strategy in this war is to choose which battles you want to fight. Some battles are much more easily won than others are. Some battles are not worth your time and energy at all.

We went to church one warm, Sunday morning. There in the entry hall was another family greeting everyone who came in, but never acknowledging the appearance of their young son. Little Man stood proudly beside Mom and Dad in his Hawaiian shirt, soccer shorts, and cowboy boots. It was a moving moment for me to watch each family walk in, dressed in their “Sunday best,” greet Mom and Dad, glance down at Little Man, and then smile at the parents with only a silent nod as they moved on into the sanctuary. When one person did finally question Dad as to the unusual attire, Dad just chuckled and said, “You have to choose your battles.” The battle over shorts with cowboy boots was just not worth fighting, especially since this was merely a 4-year-old boy.

My son (at age 14) wanted to bleach his hair. A friend from church was known for bleaching his own hair often and offered to do my son’s at no charge. I am partial to naturally beautiful hair (like my son’s) but agreed to let him do this once. (Famous Last Words — The bleached hair phase actually lasted about 3 years, then progressed into the how-long-can-I-grow-an-Afro phase, and is now followed by the hey-look-a-goatee phase.) Hair grows out. Bleach it, dye it, shave it, grow it out — hair is flexible. Piercings and tattoos are a different story. I do not permit anything that permanently disfigures. After all, wedding pictures can be humiliating enough after a few years; they do not need any help from artificial adornments.

Shortly after my son’s first bleach job (just the tips: light blond on his nearly black, oh-so-wavy hair), we were shopping in a large department store. The clerk who rang up my purchases felt compelled to comment on my son’s appearance. She did not like it. She did not think I should have allowed him to do it. Her son had wanted to bleach his hair, and she said NO. “So what did he do? He went right out and got a tattoo and two piercings!” I smiled and replied, “Hair grows out. I can live with it.”

Back when my dear son was a darling little boy discovering a mind of his own, I had daily (make that hourly) battles with him over everything you can imagine. One particular day, we were going head-to-head over some long-since-forgotten subject. I was frantically praying for guidance in this current set-to, when I clearly heard The Voice I was calling out to. “This is a critical battle — hold your ground for just 30 seconds more,” was the directive. “Yeah, like that will make a difference,” was my instinctive reply, but I hung in there. It only took about 17 more seconds, and my strong-willed son caved. Mom won a very important victory that day. It was a turning point for us in the “Who’s In Charge Here” department. All the battles since that day have been negligible.

I watched other parents interacting with their children before I had my own and later as mine were growing up — keeping abreast of what phases were coming next and how to (or not to) handle them. I watched parents draw a hard line on simple things, only to lose the battle to a much more serious attack. One teenaged boy from our church wanted very much to put gel in his hair, but his ultra-conservative father protested. The boy used every substance he could find in the house on his hair, from vegetable shortening to toothpaste. If only the father had given in on allowing what he considered a “cosmetic,” he may have saved himself from the pain to come. The father and son battled throughout the high school years, until the son finally left for college — not the college the son had chosen, where all of his supportive friends were going, but the college where Mom and Dad had attended and fell in love with each other. The son soon returned home as a college drop-out, dressed in total rebellion, and behaving in ways that put the hair gel battle in its proper perspective. If only Dad had wisely chosen his battles…

I read somewhere once that children need a little rebellion to help them discover their own identities. The secret is to allow them to have small rebellions so that they do not need large rebellions. Hair grows out — hair is a small rebellion. I allowed the bleached hair to avoid the need for any larger rebellion.

Many parents make the mistake of thinking that they have to win every battle, every time, on every subject in order to maintain their authority. I think they are wrong. All they will succeed in maintaining is a dictatorship. Surprise your children once in a while by letting them have their way in something that amounts to a small battle — it will save you from a much larger battle later on.

Filed Under: Behavior, Discipline, Family Unity, Parenting

A Valuable Jump-Start in Math

October 18, 2004 by Leave a Comment

My son continually reiterated his aversion to math: he protested over and over that he hated doing math. I saw through his arguments, though, because he had never met a math problem that was too difficult for him to understand. What he hated, in reality, was the time it took for him to do his math. To him that was valuable time that could have been spent on much more enjoyable endeavors. We tried holding math until last each day, thinking that would help him get through it more quickly. (“Ten more problems and you can go play.”) We tried skipping every other problem. We tried everything we could think of. Finally, the years rolled (crawled?) by.

We did not attempt to complete each Saxon book in just one year. I am not sure that he ever completed a Saxon book in the prescribed time, but since we had started his math career with Miquon Math, he had a jump-start on Saxon. I had found Miquon through a glowing review in Mary Pride’s Big Book of Home Learning. Miquon consists of 6 workbooks, done 2 per year for grades 1-3. Holding my son down to only two pages per day at that time, he still finished 3 workbooks per year, completing 3rd grade math by the end of his 2nd grade year. (Those books he loved doing and often begged for more.) Mary Pride had lauded Miquon for giving her children the foundation required for stepping directly from Miquon’s final 3rd grade book into Saxon’s 6/5 (6th grade) book. She was right. My son also made that move with no academic difficulty — just his personal distaste for sitting still and working problems, but this was a 9-year-old boy.

Since he began Saxon so far ahead of schedule, I allowed him to do half a lesson each day, spreading the book out over 2 years. Following that routine, I theorized that, by the time he got to high school, he would be right on track, and by then he should be well able to handle the full lesson each day. However, since he still grasped every concept remarkable quickly, we skipped over some of the repetition in the problem sets (he did often one problem instead of all 3 when they were all of the same type).

Let’s skip ahead now in this story to the point when we arrived at Saxon Advanced Mathematics — the equivalent of pre-calculus and higher math than I had personally taken. The best way for me to teach it to him was to learn it myself first, so I studied each lesson and did the entire problem set myself each day. I have always loved math anyway, so this was something I did not dread. Math class then became a race for my son, trying to see if he could get it done before Mom did. (Larger families certainly have a distinct advantage of built-in competition!) We were proceeding on the author’s recommended two-year plan through that book, right on schedule as summer approached. My daughter then found she needed pre-calculus as a prerequisite for one of her fall college classes and challenged her brother to take it with her in the community college’s upcoming summer term. He jumped at the chance to complete all of next year’s math in only one month and enrolled immediately.

Warning! The super-fast pace of college summer school is not for everyone! With barely enough extra time to eat, sleep, and shower, the two of them spent nearly every waking moment doing the homework assignments, in addition to the 5 hours of class time each day, 4 days a week. Four long weeks later, they were finished and so proud of themselves for persevering through it! My son had the added accomplishment of tutoring several other students through the tough parts, and he was only 15 years old at the time! His outlook on math was changed significantly: he was forced by the pace of that class to speed himself up, he enjoyed the competition with other students, and he finally saw himself as truly gifted in understanding math, something he had overlooked previously because he was so distracted by the time factor. He realized his “gift” when he found he could recite answers to problems done in his head (the Miquon way) faster than other students could punch the numbers into their calculators.

As you can tell, I have the highest praise for Miquon Math. I truly feel it gave my son a foundation of “thinking” math, not just “doing” math. My daughter did not have the benefit of that foundation, and although I did teach her some of the Miquon thinking processes, she still does not have the ability to see through a problem the way my son does. Please understand — my daughter has great mathematical understanding and has tutored college-level statistics, but my son has kept the definite headstart he received from Miquon. (End of sales pitch — too bad I’m not getting commissions from Miquon!)

Filed Under: Curriculum Choices, Math

Spoken Destinies & Learned Behaviors

October 14, 2004 by Leave a Comment

“I just HAVE to keep moving and making noise! That’s what my mom says.” I heard these words with my own ears. What was more surprising to me was the realization that this 10-year-old boy had taken his mother’s observation and turned it into an assignment. Moms and Dads, be careful that your idle comments and observations do not become “spoken destinies” as this mom’s had. Children will learn to behave exactly as you say you want them to, as this boy had done. Unfortunately for this family, the words were not intended to express an expectation of the future, but just to be a summation of past experiences.

“‘Turn at the red flowers’ — that’s an ADHD-marker.” Why was it not considered simply “being aware of one’s surroundings” or “noticing a landmark” since the street sign was missing? It seems apparent that the family responsible for this remark expects ADHD-type behavior and watches for any little sign that can be attributed to it. Never mind the fact that the same boy who knows the turn is marked by red flowers also can sit calmly during an entire 2-hour movie without a wiggle, and he can focus intently on a subject of his own choosing. It seems to me that this student has incredible powers of concentration — powers that simply need to be taught how to focus on different subjects at different times.

A dear “church lady” told me the following story in order to teach me, a new mom, a thing or two about raising my children. She had been the babysitter for many children over many years and had learned much wisdom in the process. I greatly appreciated her insight and put it to use as often as possible. She had one particularly ingenious little boy in her care at the time and had caught him trying to reach the cookie jar by climbing on a kitchen chair that he had pushed over to the counter in order to facilitate his endeavor. When she had removed him from the chair and replaced the chair at the kitchen table, she told him, “Do not push that chair over there again.” A few minutes later, she realized her error as she heard an extended scraping noise and concluded that he was pushing a chair from the dining room all the way into the kitchen. The woman made sure I understood that this boy was not being disobedient — he was doing exactly according to her command. The error was, in fact, hers for not telling him all chairs, stools, and other climbable furniture were not to be used; the cookie jar was off limits.

I had a similar experience in a college computer-programming class. My program would not run corrrectly, and after much frustration I finally turned to the teacher for help. He took one quick glance at my notes and smiled, saying, “Machines are stupid. They can only do exactly what you tell them to do.” I checked back through the program and soon found my error — I had told it to do the wrong thing, and the machine was merely obeying my commands.

The point of these seemingly unrelated stories is that we need to be cautious of our words and our actions, lest they work against us. Although our children are not machines and are not “stupid,” they are to a certain extent “programmable” and can be heavily influenced by our words. We can unknowingly, unintentionally fight against our own best plans by simply tossing about a few careless phrases. Our words are like bricks: they can build up great fortresses or they can become weapons of random destruction. A few well-chosen, positive words can do wonders for our children’s behavior and attitudes. Words of confidence can instill hope in a child and the strength to try a difficult task one more time, the time that results in success.

Filed Under: Behavior, Family Unity, Parenting, Roadblocks to Learning
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