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What Is Your “Best”?

March 11, 2005 by Leave a Comment

“Do your best!” We have all said those words before soccer games and piano recitals, and we usually have said them without any reflection whatsoever upon what we actually might mean by them. “Best” can be a relative term, meaning different things to different people at different times. “Best” varies. Apply the following line of thinking to yourself first, and when you have a handle on it personally, you can better apply it to your children for your expectations of them and for their own expectations of themselves.

Example #1: Hello, my name is Carolyn, and I am a procrastinator. (I do not seek to mock any of the stepped programs for dealing with addictions, but I am simply borrowing their easily recognizable introduction line.) I have a problem; recognizing and acknowledging the existence of my problem is the first step to overcoming it. I have realized that constantly putting things off is harmful to myself and also to those around me. However, I have further realized that I am not always able to deal with everything at the moment it arises.

“Controlled Procrastination” is my new motto — some things will be dealt with immediately, others will be dealt with in a timely manner, when I am able. When I become overwhelmed with too much to do, I try to reprioritize what is most important and decide what can be effectively put off until another time. I then make a mental “contract” with myself that I will accomplish the delayed task (or tasks) by a certain time, date, or circumstance, thereby holding me accountable for the task at another time, but relieving me from the burden of unearned guilt. Knowing that I am not over-burdening myself during times of stress makes it easier for me to accomplish more during easily productive times. I do what I can do, when I can do it, and I free myself from the guilt of trying to do my best best all of the time.

Your best is the best you can do. My best is not your best; your best is not mine. My current best, due to temporary limitations, is not the same as my usual best. Let your current circumstances determine what level of performance you will try to achieve, knowing that at other times that level may change. Trying to maintain an “ideal best” under “less than ideal” circumstances will only heap undeserved guilt upon yourself. In the case that you are surrounded by multiple children under the age of eight, you can expect your best to improve significantly as they age and grow closer to self-sufficiency.

Example #2: I have at least one over-achieving child (ok, both of them, but for now I’m only referring to one). That faithful student seemed to believe that “do your best” meant to take on more than was humanly possible. More than once, I sat down with said child for a refresher course in “only your best is acceptable.” If the student is making his best attempt at the task at hand, that is certainly all that should be expected of him — nothing more.

If my child has worked hard to master memorizing and reciting a three-stanza poem, I must not expect him to recite one of Longfellow’s book-length works. However, since this student and I both know he is capable of memorizing the three-stanza poem, we have equal expectations for his success. Never mind the fact that all the children from the ultra-super-more-than-over-achieving homeschool family will be reciting for hours at the end-of-the-year homeschool program — that is their best, not yours.

Example #3: Young students, especially those still struggling with penmanship, tend to strive for textbook standards of perfectionism. Unfortunately, their efforts are often unsuccessful and result in frustration for both student and teacher. Keep some copies of their previous work to review: seeing actual evidence of his progress will help restore the child’s confidence in himself. During their first years of schooling, children’s handwriting may undergo dramatic changes every few weeks or months. Looking back over past work will show the student how his best has changed.

We all need to recognize the limits of “our best,” whether we are temporarily restrained or continually tempted to perfectionism. If you are pregnant or otherwise constrained by health, have multiple children including toddlers, are changing houses or jobs or involved in other serious life-upheaval situations, bring your standards into alignment with your current reality. Recognize the fact that Wonder Woman was only a two-dimensional fictional character. You, my Guilt-Free friend, are much more than that.

Filed Under: Behavior, Doing Your "Best", Encouragement for Parents, Encouraging Your Student, Homeschool v. Public School, Parenting

Our Reasons for Homeschooling

March 8, 2005 by Leave a Comment

[This article is in the form of an interview simply because that is how it originated.]

When did you decide to homeschool?
Our daughter was in 4th grade, and our son was in Kindergarten. We first thought about homeschooling in March, decided for sure in April, quietly finished out the school year through early June, and began homeschooling the next September. I spent that summer reading everything I could borrow on homeschooling, took notes to keep after I returned the books/magazines, and basically over-prepared myself.

What convinced you that homeschooling was right for you?
I heard Gregg Harris speak on a local talk radio show. My husband and I attended the weekend seminar he was promoting, and we got enough answers to our questions to decide that homeschooling would remove or reduce most of the problems we were having with public school.

Did you and your spouse agree on the decision to homeschool?
We made our decision together to homeschool, but my husband said he had wanted to homeschool for a couple of years, but did not want to put that burden on me! He was always supportive of our homeschooling efforts, becoming more and more outspoken for homeschooling as we went along.

Did you have to face any objections from family members or friends?
We each told our mothers with great fear and trembling, and let them tell our siblings. My mom swallowed hard and then said that she figured I could handle it. My husband’s mother said she did not see why we had not begun homeschooling a long time before! We told all of our family and friends that we were trying this “for a year, to see how that goes.” I knew from the beginning that there would be no turning back, but saying “for a year” made it less scary, even for me. My sisters secretly told my mom that my kids would “be weird.” (Sorry to disappoint you, but no, my kids are normal.)

What were some of your reasons for wanting to homeschool?
This will be a partial list — my list of reasons to homeschool gets longer every day!

1) Our daughter’s health: she suffered severe headaches that the school nurses denied existed (no fever + no vomiting = not sick). One classroom teacher said she could tell from my daughter’s face the moment a headache began, but the nurse and the principal insisted it was just “school phobia.” (Right — the same student who later earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 20.) With homeschooling, if our daughter was not able to do math one day, but could do reading, who would care? She could later make up any missed work without disrupting anyone’s schedule.

2) Public schools (two — we changed schools trying to work things out) were interfering in parental decisions, often superceding our parental authority. Complete disregard of our request to excuse our Kindergartner from the AIDS lesson, after the school had offered to excuse any student whose parents requested it in writing. (Just the existence of a lesson on AIDS for K-students was abhorrent enough.) My daughter had been the only student excused from the AIDS lesson for her class, and she was punished for the absence with extra work in her other subjects. We also learned later that each of our children was taken on school field trips that we were never informed of (without a signed parental consent form). We also dealt with administrators who lied to our children, stole personal property from our child, and refused to allow a sick child access to the telephone to inform us of her illness — forcing the ill child to remain in classes all day. (The child’s academic status was not a consideration: even with her absence-due-to-illness rate as high as one-third of the time, she remained at the top of her class — amazing when you consider #5 below.)

3) Lack of Christian values in public school (even from teachers we personally knew were Christians). The old adage seemed to apply: When in Rome (or the pagan school system), do as the Romans (or the other pagans) do.

4) Severe harassment from other students — I phoned the principal at home one Friday night at 10pm to report the bruising I had just discovered all over my daughter’s body. She had been repeatedly punched and kicked by her desk mate for not giving him the answers in class. The teacher stopped it once, but had merely told him, “Don’t let me catch you hitting her again,” and he made sure the teacher never caught him again.

5) Poor teaching (in the state which has claimed #1 status for years) — my daughter was in 4th grade, read poorly (guessing at words), and struggled in every subject. When she had missed 5 consecutive days of school for an illness, I spoke to the teacher about picking up her missed assignments. The teacher told me there was no homework — the class had not progressed beyond what my daughter had been present for. As it turned out, the teacher spent 10 consecutive class days trying to teach the students to multiply 3 numbers times 3 numbers, failed, gave up, and moved on. The teacher could not do the math herself, and her teacher’s aide also could not do the math — so the students never learned it either. (I had taught it to my daughter in about 2 minutes at home during her illness.) This was not an isolated case: I was personally acquainted with another teacher (special ed.) in the same school system who was required to teach an elementary math class, but freely admitted that her husband paid all the bills and kept the checkbook because she was “horrible at math.”

6) I was very skeptical of one teacher’s “lifestyle choices,” made evident by her boastful reports to her students (9-10 year-olds) of her weekend activities.

7) My son spent most of Kindergarten on the time-out chair because he already knew what the teacher was teaching the other children, and he became bored and restless. He told me a few years later that he thought he was the Principal’s favorite student, since the Principal often removed him from class and took him to the office to talk or let my son accompany him on “rounds” of the building, and they spent a great deal of time together.

8 ) Public school activities (sports, music programs, fund-raisers, etc.) often kept us and our children out late at night on school nights and left the children much too excited to go right to sleep afterwards. How were they supposed to wake up refreshed and ready for school early the next morning? (The relaxed schedule of homeschooling allows you to sleep in when necessary.)

9) The food served at public school was rarely to my daughter’s liking. (Actually, it was also a cause of her headaches.) Taking lunch from home was slightly better, but eating lunch at home while homeschooling is great! (I am happy to report that home-cooked food and careful supervision of her diet brought those nasty headaches into submission.)

10) Security at the school was nearly non-existent. Anyone could enter the building at any time, unnoticed. One morning I dropped off my daughter at the school’s front door, not realizing that school had been postponed due to extreme fog in the rural areas (weather in town was a fine drizzle, not foggy, but all classes were delayed). I was not notified to come back to get my child, and she was not allowed to enter the building before classes actually began for the day, even though staff members were present. She had to stay outside on the playground — unsupervised and in the rain — until school started an hour later (or was it 2 hours?)

11) The (sexual) peer pressure was unbelievable — and I’m talking about 8 and 9 year olds!!!

12) Discipline at the school was non-existent. There was no alternative for “good” students except to put up with the disruptions and harassment from the “bad” students. If a teacher’s verbal admonition had no effect on a disruptive student, there was no recourse.

Do you feel your children missed some things by not attending public school?
Once we decided to begin homeschooling, I was often asked if I felt my children were missing anything by not being in public school. My answer was always a sly smile and an emphatic “YES! They are missing the playground vocabulary, the sexual harassment in the lunchroom on hotdog day, and the physical abuse from little extortionist in the next desk who is not interested in learning anything. And I wouldn’t have it any other way!”

Do you have any regrets about your decision to homeschool?
Only one — that we did not begin homeschooling sooner.

[The follow-up to this story may be found at Start Homeschooling for One Reason, but Continue for Another.]

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Homeschool v. Public School

Teaching Spelling (and Grammar) Through Reading and Listening

March 4, 2005 by 2 Comments

Before your children learned to walk, they spent a lot of time observing. They saw you walking around, starting, stopping, stooping, bending, turning, reversing, hopping, skipping, jumping, running, etc. That formed the basis of their knowledge of how upright ambulation is supposed to occur.

The same principle can be applied to learning grammar. The foundational knowledge of sentence structure, subject/verb agreement, pronoun use, verb tenses, etc. will be learned by example through listening to other people speak correctly. Conversely, if poor speech is modeled, it will become the standard.

Once again, apply the principle to learning spelling. Choose reading material that uses correct spelling. (I know that seems like an odd remark, but there are popular children’s books today that pride themselves on their “creative” spelling.) I encouraged my students to pay attention to the spelling of words as they read. My challenges to look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary often resulted in races and traffic jams in front of the bookcase. We discussed other forms of the words and their roots. I challenged family members to strive for correctness in emails and computer chats — I have noticed that the better my spelling and grammar are in my emails/chats, the better the spelling and grammar are in the responses that I get. Quality begets quality.

I am not advocating total disregard of grammar curricula; in fact, I put a strong emphasis on learning the correct grammar rules. I do believe, however, that any grammar program should be supplemented with heavy doses of observation and experience through personal reading.

Our hometown newspaper is valuable only in that it provides a wealth of misspellings, punctuation errors, and butchered grammar. (I do not subscribe; it is too frustrating. The shopper is delivered free twice a week whether you want it or not.) In case your local papers suffer from the same problem, you have my sympathy: it is very difficult to teach your children correctness when ineptness is published regularly by so-called professionals. However, we did manage to utilize the errors in our own “Can you spot the mistakes in this ad/article?” game. (I have also been known to shout at the television news readers, informing them of their mistakes.)

Part of the blame for poor grammar/spelling lies with allowing computers to do our proofreading for us. A machine cannot read for context nor determine the difference between their, there, and they’re. If I type “than” when I really mean “then,” my computer is oblivious. Spell-checking programs are wonderful — as far as they go, but please discuss with your students why it is necessary to proofread their work. Besides, we humans are so impressed with what our computers can do, that it gives us a tremendous feeling of superiority to know that we can still do some things better ourselves.

Perhaps it is just my hyper-picky nature, but I pointed out spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors to my students whenever I found them. We used these moments as impromptu mini-lessons to discuss what was wrong, what it should have been, and why. My students’ grammar and spelling skills improved dramatically with their reading ability and with the amount of time they dedicated to reading. The more they saw the correct forms modeled for them, the better they could remember how it was supposed to look when they tried to write for themselves.

Filed Under: Auditory Learning, Homeschool How-To's, Reading, Role-Modeling, Spelling, Visual Learning, Writing

Should Children Be “Witnesses” in Public School?

March 1, 2005 by 2 Comments

How many times have I heard the arguments? “Homeschooling is a good idea for your family, but we want our children to be ‘salt and light’ in their school.” “Somebody has to stand up for Jesus in the public schools.” “My kids want to witness to their friends about Jesus.”

First, let me say that I am a convert to homeschooling — when I still had an extremist toddler in the house, I could not see any way that I could possibly homeschool. He grew up. He spent Kindergarten in the Time Out corner with the unspoken threat of Ritalin dangling over his head like the Sword of Damocles. Teaching two children sounded easier (for some reason) than the prospect of teaching one while entertaining the other. We became a homeschooling success story.

While the quoted arguments above might make good bumper stickers, they do not convince me. I do have compassion for the souls of children and adults alike, and I do not wish to see anyone spend eternity in hell. However, I also know that American public schools today are not Billy Graham Crusades — if someone is to find personal salvation through Jesus Christ, it will probably not take place during third period history. It could happen, but it would probably be prohibited and both the witnesser and witnessee would end up in detention before they even got a chance to bow their heads for prayer.

Jesus began His own ministry at the age of 30. The men He chose as His closest companions were also adults. Jesus had great concern for children and was eager that they not be burdened beyond what their innocence could handle, but He never suggested that the children’s time would be best spent in evangelistic outreach. I am very outspoken for considering my immediate contacts to be my field of ministry, but I also feel that a child’s best witness is to grow into the most Christ-like adult he can be. “Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52) — and then He set Himself to the work of ministry. (Yes, Jesus did discuss theology with the temple elders at age 12, but that was quite different from His later ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing the multitudes.)

Early in our homeschool journey, we had close friends, a married couple, who were both public school teachers. Their children ranged in age from early elementary to middle school. The middle child was very intrigued by the concept of homeschooling and asked the mother about the possibility of getting an education at home. Mom brushed off the inquiry. As another school year began and that child moved from upper elementary into the middle school environment, the subject came up again. The tender-hearted child was deeply affected by the caustic atmosphere of the new school and proclaimed, “Being at my school is like being in an R-rated movie all day long!” Since the parents preferred PG-rated movies and only rarely allowed the viewing of select PG-13 videos, the child felt that was a legitimate argument for home education. The parents did not agree. While I can only speculate as to the parents’ motivations, the child’s repeated, tearful pleadings to be allowed to homeschool were finally turned down flat with “Don’t ever ask that question again!” This was not a whiny, immature, or troublesome student. This young person volunteered to sit quietly at home, responsibly doing the assigned lessons while the parents worked. Ample opportunities already existed for intermittent parental supervision throughout the day, interaction with other homeschoolers, and church/social engagements. This child was not looking to bail out on an education, just the undesirable situation of the public school. A parent’s insistence that children should be witnesses for Jesus becomes a choked whisper in the R-rated melee of current public schools.

Another homeschool mom took her son to the local high school to enroll him in a foreign language class. They had chosen a specific teacher for his Christian values and felt confident that this would be a controlled exposure to the public school. As she told me the details of their first visit to the school, her face revealed the shock she had felt while walking through the hallways of the building. It seems she had not seen so many pregnant females in one place since her own last session of Lamaze class. She had never considered the fact that modern high schools must include a day care center — not for the employees’ children, but for the students’ children. She had expected to see students carrying backpacks and books, not babies and diaper bags.

I have no doubt that God could or would work through Christian students in a school setting to reach other students. I have the same conviction regarding Christian adults as faculty members. However, the ones that I have personally known do not spend their time and energies sharing their faith in Christ with those around them. If they were removed from their schools, I am not sure anyone would even notice.

When my daughter was in high school and the subject of second-generation homeschooling came up, we were surprised at how many of her homeschooled friends were not intending to homeschool their own children. In praying about it herself, she came across Matthew 22:21, “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Feeling that her future children were to belong to God rather than to the government, she felt this to be Biblical support for her as a future homeschooling parent.

When I first became a Christian, a popular poster read, “Bloom where you’re planted.” My confusion ensued as I heard other new believers discussing where they wanted to be planted. When Jesus spoke His final words to His disciples (Acts 1), He commanded them to remain in Jerusalem until they had received power from the Father. He did not send them out immediately or without training. He had diligently taught them day by day for the past three years. I do not believe we should be sending our children out without sufficient training or without the Father’s blessing. If you feel you are being led by God to engage in ministry as a family to those around you, that is wonderful — but allow your offspring the same consideration Jesus gave to His disciples: they were adults and had extensive training at His side before they assumed individual roles in evangelism.

Expecting young children to stand up as martyrs for Christ in the heathen surroundings of public school is unbiblical. In my experience, the parents who use this rationale are looking for every excuse they can find to avoid the responsibilities of homeschooling. Homeschooling does not have to be difficult, expensive, or isolating. Homeschooling is tremendously rewarding, and the opportunities for focusing on Biblical principles can give your children a foundation in faith that will pay amazing dividends in the years to come.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Homeschool v. Public School, Parenting
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