Category: Home School

Posted in Health, Home School, Wisdom

Who Should Home School?

Posted on by Katharine

Physical bullying at school, as depicted in th...
Physical bullying at school, as depicted in the film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Are you on this list?

  1. Those who think ketchup is not a vegetable
  2. Those who think ketchup is a vegetable
  3. Those who know what bullying feels like
  4. Those who don’t know what bullying feels like.
  5. Those who know there is always free cheese in a mousetrap
  6. Those who care about their children
  7. Those whose conscience is bothering them about lack of school choice
  8. Those whose minds are not concrete (mixed up and permanently set)
  9. Those whose children need to pray before an algebra test
  10. Those who have good horse sense and want their children to have it, too
  11. Those who know the best way to get a life worth living is to make it that way
  12. Those who want to guide their children’s experiences
  13. Those whose hearts are telling them things their minds are not sure about
  14. Those who realize little ones do not learn by the clock.
  15. Those who long for a simpler life
  16. Those who want everything green for their kids
  17. Those whose children have roach allergies
  18. Those whose children stay sick all during the school year
  19. Those who are at home
  20. Those who must travel all the time

You don’t have to cry over spilled milk if you own the cow.

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Posted in Home School, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

No Marshmallow Answers Here.

Posted on by Katharine
A Map of the Legality of Home schooling around...
A Map of the Legality of Home schooling around the world. Based off of Image:BlankMap-World6.svg. Green is legal, yellow is legal in most political subdivisions but not all or is practiced, but legality is disputed. Red is illegal or unlawful. Orange is generally considered illegal, but untested legally.

We were homeschoolers when homeschool wasn’t cool.

We started with no support because there was no such thing as a homeschool support group. At about the same time, Home School Legal Defense Association started. They and we did not know about each other, so we also had no legal support.

Internet was only a child, then, and had not maximized its potential to help homeschoolers. Computers had no practical applications in home schools.

All, all the curriculum available to us was published for collective institutions and often, publishers refused to sell to home educators.

Back in these very good, old days, only the driven, committed, principled, loyal, persevering, stubborn, maverick, determined, motivated, obsessed, dedicated, devoted, steadfast, unswerving, faithful, home educating parents survived. We had somewhat of a reputation for being a pain, especially among status-quo legislators. Many of us could relate to the Washington/Jefferson/Adams triumvirate, always questioned by those around us and always questioning ourselves, testing ourselves, proving ourselves. Always hunted and attacked by the government that claimed to protect us. Always in semi-hiding. Always ready with an escape plan. Always losing money on this project. Always making do with do-by-self.

We faced obstacles, penalties, hindrances, impediments, barriers, hurdles, deterrents, limitations, and interference.

We were hated. We were arrested.

I guess it’s the American way.

Now that home educating is the bright star it has become, and we have retired, after a quarter century of it, people want our opinions:

  • What curriculum do I think is best? Pick one you like and get busy.
  • What is my child’s learning style? Lazy and stubborn. What about yours?
  • Do I homeschool during summer? All parents homeschool at all times.
  • Do I think you’re harming your child? Probably, but better you, than someone who doesn’t care enough to ask.
  • What do I do about socialization? I talk to my child; I teach my child; I read to my child; I produce siblings for him; I take him to church.
  • What about computers? Teach your children to read well, spell correctly, write legibly, and type accurately, and to love English, in that order, before even thinking about computers. Then, no computers allowed until high school and no Internet until the last half of the senior year.

Does all that sound harsh to you? Does it sound grumpy? You will not get a marshmallow answer from a homeschool-callused person. We did not plant our homeschool garden with a tractor, but with a shovel and a hoe. We did not have curriculum choice unless we wrote the curriculum, which we did.

I beg you, for your own and your children’s sakes: Pick one you like and get busy.

______________________

photo credit: Wikipedia

Posted in Believe it or not!, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Sayings, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

THE Cure for “The Quits” – At LAST!

Posted on by Katharine
English: An aerial view over the north part of...
An aerial view over the north part of the Grand Canyon.

Most of us entertain a combination of all four of the “quit” reasons I gave my friend that day.

From the core of our beings, we know that the home is where our beloved children belong, but we forget, we tire, we listen to others. If we keep fighting, we succeed, but too often, we quit. Quitting is not the way of God’s people. We must press on. We must realize that any prize that includes the rescue of our children from hell is worth any effort.

Many do not realize that it takes only a tiny bit of quitting to quit entirely, because the rest is downhill. It is like walking along the edge of the Grand Canyon, where unwavering commitment to careful success is of utmost importance: One slip can spell disaster, two slips most certainly can spell disaster, and few if any have survived three slips. The difference is that we know certain death lies at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, but we do not see that danger for our children in our wavering commitments to home schooling. We absolutely must develop a strategy for the times when we are tempted to take that slippery, deadly road of ease.

What should such a plan look like? Why, it must lead in the exact opposite direction from the bottom, just as you would lift a child who was slipping down a great gulf, of course! Therefore, any plan must include the following four aspects:

Keep the vision constantly before you. Pray that God will renew your vision for your children, in your heart. Make a list of all the reasons He gives you to home school, and READ it. Add to it often. Decide, forever, that home schooling is good. Read good home school magazines. Read good home school books. Read good homekeeping blogs. (Oh. I guess you already are doing that!) Remember all the upright people that home schooling has contributed to this world. Read the scientific statistics that prove the benefits of home schooling. Find a good support group and be involved in it, making good home school friends. Connect with Home School Legal Defense Association for wonderful confidence boosters. Wake up!

Determine that any cost is nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed in the end. Eighty-five percent of the children who attend worldly schools grow to deny their parents’ faith. That does not happen with home school. What are a few moments of sleep compared to their lives in heaven and a “well done” from our Lord? What is a new car? What is a worldly friendship? What is a college education? What is a second income? What, on this earth, is worth the loss of even one of your children? Pay up!

Commit yourself to your children, as unto the Lord. People hear calls to all sorts of missions, all the time. Churches have “charge conferences” to determine what each one’s job should be. Tithes and other resources are pledged all the time. You have been called to your children, just because you bore them. They are your charge. Pledge your life, before God, to be what they need, so they can grow up right in this wrong world. Join up!

Do not slink back and let the enemy succeed with you and your children. Your enemy is looking around for whomever he can devour, just like a roaring lion. Learn to recognize his roaring for what it is. Set your face like a flint. Grit your teeth. Exert yourself. Protect and defend your children, as any good parent should. Provide for them. Pray for them, for yourself, and for all home schoolers. Stand up!

And do not give up.

__________________

photo credit: Wikipedia

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Posted in Home School, Inspiring, Sayings, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

A Cure for “The Quits” – Part 3

Posted on by Katharine

bunsen burnerOkay, we’ll take on the last two reasons for quitting today.

Another reason we sometimes feel like quitting is that we grow weary and faint. (Hebrews 12:3)

Let’s face it: to work at home is work. When someone asks me if I work, I tell them, “All mothers work.” Perhaps that is not universally true, but I am persnickety enough to make the point.

Yes, I work, and so do you. Therefore, it feels like work.

Not all people are accustomed to real work. Being breathless or perspiring can make some of us have panic attacks because we think it is unbearable.

It wears us out, sometimes.

It makes us feel like escaping, sometimes.

It leaves us depleted, left over from yesterday, sometimes.

We want to relax. We want to play hooky. We want to read novels and eat chocolate.

Sometimes, we just weary of the discipline.

We are doing well when suddenly, out of nowhere, we find that rebellion is not only for children. We simply do not want to be sober-minded and take leadership over a pack of unruly ones. We feel like going on strike. Sometimes we act on all these feelings.

Last, but not least, we ignore our enemy. (1 Peter 5:8)

This is, possibly, the most dangerous reason for quitting that there is. Our enemy is looking for someone to devour. He tells us ridiculous things that we are dumb enough to believe.

You are ruining your child’s potential. You did poorly in math. You cannot provide a Bunsen burner. You will lose the love of your child. You will get arrested.

So run the insidious remarks of the enemy of our souls, of our children’s souls, and of our entire existence.

He stands to gain if he can make God’s people look ridiculous, so he does all he can to make us do the ridiculous.

We do not realize how ridiculous it is to be able to home school, even to have begun, and then to fail to reap the benefits in our children’s lives.

To hear, to believe God, to have the means, and to know better, and then to quit is just beyond explanation, beyond understanding.

Of course, someone may have a unique circumstance (although I have never met that one) but almost all do not. Most are simply listening to the enemy without even knowing that he exists. Most are simply quitting because of the dark things they heard whispered into their ears, dark things that they failed to negate, failed to fight, and failed to turn over to the Lover of our souls.

Okay, now we have examined the four main reasons we quit. Tomorrow WILL come the answers.

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Posted in Home School, Inspiring, Sayings, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

A Cure for “The Quits” – Part 2

Posted on by Katharine

tons of fast food...Related to losing the vision, yet distinct in a way, sometimes we know what God has said and we determine to do it, but we fail to count the cost. (Luke 14:28-30)

If we do not count the cost, we can find ourselves unprepared to pay the cost. This can make the cost seem too steep, although in our hearts we know that no cost is too much for our children’s welfare.

Still, we pause.

We think of quitting.

We fall back to some degree.

By cost, I do not mean only monetary cost.

Although with homeschooling there is a little cost, it is also possible to homeschool without spending very much money at all.

No, the cost I mean is often in the realm of social connections. When we begin home schooling, often we lose old friends, or so it seems. What truly may be happening is that we finally discover who our real friends are. We discover, also, how much loyalty our family members feel towards us. Sometimes it is appallingly little.

It hurts.

It is a lot to pay.

We feel like courting the approval of man.

Sometimes, the cost can be in the realm of lost second income, too. We find ourselves in the position of having to sew our own clothes, clean our own house, or cook our own food. The fact that we are, at last, able to do so, because we at last have the time for it, does not seem to soften the reality, sometimes.

Or the cost could come in units of time, itself. Without the usual eight-to-five pushing us ever onward, we may discover sleep. This can also feel like lost time, lost time for ME, but time we willingly gave, perhaps, to an employer, when it was for money.

Therefore, we may just keep insulting our family with the same old expensive fast food, in favor of staying in that warm bed.

Is this you?

Do you wonder how I know?

Are you beginning to guess at the cures?

More tomorrow!

Posted in Home School, Inspiring, Sayings, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

A Cure for “The Quits” – Part 1

Posted on by Katharine

English: The fable of the fox and grapes: a wo...

I was discussing abandoned projects and lagging schedules with a friend, one day, when the question came up: Why do we start things that we think we will finish, and then not finish them?

Well?

Why do we?

I assuredly offered a quick-fix list of answers and then several days later, I had one of those “uh-oh” moments.

I saw how well these answers applied to me and my own projects.

It then occurred to me that these answers fit many occasions, and might explain to you why you have given up, or why you feel like quitting on home schooling.

I hope it also will help you to keep on keeping on.

The first reason in my pat answer was that we lose the vision. The Word of God tells us that we perish for lack of a vision (Proverbs 29:18). That is so sad because it is so unnecessary: God can give vision to His people, and wants to do so all the time.

What does it mean to lose the vision?

An example I often think of is what the old-timers used to call a “sour-grapes” attitude. This refers to Aesop’s fable about the fox and the grapes. Basically, when the lazy fox was unable to obtain some grapes that it wanted to eat without expending some effort, it decided that the grapes must be sour, after all.

Some people do that. For instance, they tell everyone, including their children, that God has called them to homeschool. Of course, their homeschool friends are excited for them and their children are filled with nearly uncontainable excitement.

As they investigate how to carry out this calling, though, they encounter some difficulty or other, and immediately decide that God had not called them, after all.

They tell their friends to quit harassing them (their term for what we intended as shared joy) about the issue.

They tell their children to learn to think of the public schools as their friend.

So much for God’s call.

The same problem can come when we envision a beautifully harmonious setting for our home school and then realize that we are working with unskilled, unharmonious human beings.

How easily we decide that loud and wacky is wonderful!

It is “just the way we are”; forget that vision of quietness and peace, of tidy readiness. Lower the standard!

The vision has evaporated and folks will just have to accept us the way we are.

Home schoolers have rights, too, you know…

Sound familiar?

Part 2 tomorrow!

____________

photo credit: Wikipedia

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

If Only They Were Perfect — If Only WE Were!

Posted on by Katharine

Toothbrush, photo taken in Sweden

If a child is non-compliant on purpose, he needs far more than another reminder.

This is the hardest part: Requiring.

Children do not automatically walk in goodness, contrary to popular opinion. Some want to stay in bed in the morning. Some want to skip brushing their teeth. Some want to play during chore time. Dogs eat a lot of homework.

We know it is better for them if they have good sleep, health, and work habits. Our good plans for them must cross their wills.

That is why God put them in homes with parents. Parents can place requirements on children for their own good. This is common knowledge in all cultures, except the current permissive. People who follow the original ways of requiring children to act sensibly, have produced sensible offspring.

Stating the obvious is necessary, these days.

I believe my children will always practice brushing their teeth daily, because they are accustomed to having white, clean-feeling teeth, so brown, fuzzy teeth bother them. The same is true for bathing, eating healthful foods, and Bible reading.

Oh, they may experiment with departure from the absolute best, but they also will sense a difference, a loss, and choose the right way. For instance, my daughter became a ramen junkie during college, but the other day she said, “You know, I am just starving for a good, crisp salad.”

Yes!

They were not born this way. We required it of them.

The child who habitually eats cake and cola will not sense the ill feeling from it in adulthood.

The child who habitually reads everything but the Word will not miss the Word as an adult.

The difference between those generalities is most usually the differing requirements they faced as children.

Who wants to raise a loud, interrupting, unhealthy, illiterate adult with crumbling teeth and no knowledge of the sacred?

Draw your lines.

Repeat.

Remind.

And require your children to heed.

Help them have the excellent gift of good habits.

_____________________

photo credit: wikipedia