Who’s the mom here? – Page 5

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

Click “Undo” – 3

Posted on June 26, 2013December 27, 2014 by Katharine

We continue our series on breaking in the new, unsure homeschooler.

If you’ve missed parts one and two of this series, you can read Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

Fourth—deal with the feelings. Someone who is freshly released from a prison, or an unarmed police state, often will have difficulty handling absolute freedom.

Well, your child has been in an environment of rigid conformity that probably was much like a military base. Uniforms, bells, lines, roll-calls, schedules, harsh authorities, numbers, assemblies, lock-step, attention, fear-motivation, institutional colors, institutional food, lockers, compartments…how much does it take to dehumanize a person?

These tactics belong in the military, which needs to move like a machine.

Your newly rescued “cog” may balk at his new, normal life.

Imagine:

not feeling guilty about getting a full night’s sleep, while the bus rumbles by.
having time to chew and enjoy your breakfast.
being okay without shoes on.

Although it might seem incomprehensible, very much of this can make a newly freed person feel like the bottom has dropped out.

Of course, you have rules, but they may seem too lenient for this child, at first.

Alternately, he may have been starving for just this type of freedom, and decide to resist any type of boundary.

Either way, be prepared for testing, since you will find yourself a “new” authority in the eyes of your child. Rules, firmly but gently enforced, should help.

The gentle approach is very important.

One of the most comforting, uplifting, and rewarding things you can do for an unsure home school student is to point out all the objectionable activities, treatments, and attitudes, that he is missing. Smiling while saying things like, “Well, it’s time for math at the school,” will help him remember unpleasant occurrences that he was glad to leave. If you can manage to be working on a fun art project or baking bread when you drop such a reminder, he will feel doubly blessed by comparison.

Yes, “perks” are very important in a home school.

Actually, they are important to everyone, everywhere, but so few people work to provide the important things for children. This is one way that a home school can be better.

Although we do not want to give a child a demanding attitude, we can make him feel pampered or even slightly spoiled with something as simple as a small bouquet at breakfast or even just a cookie, judiciously applied.

Other perks might be:

schooling barefoot
owning a new pet
studying in a tree
skipping one afternoon per week
schooling with a new friend or at Grandmother’s once a week
having a source of income during the day
taking a week of vacation with Dad’s business trip
ice cream after every tennis lesson
expanding his personal hobby via his studies

Long recesses on a snowy day, followed by hot cocoa with a marshmallow could not fail to make the new homeschooler feel a little more human. He knows his old friends are sitting in a stale room, looking at the snow outside, and wishing.

Great field trips, even in the summer, can help him realize his importance in your eyes. He knows how tedious and seldom the field trips were, before, or he may even have failed to qualify for them.

More tomorrow.

Icon for ‘undo’, based partially on Image:Circle-contradict.svg. Intended for general use (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Homeschool home run: Education News report tells us homeschooling is thriving (eagnews.org)
Home Schooling Is Increasing in Virginia (blackchristiannews.com)
Homeschooling My Children Because I Was Bullied (therealsupermumblog.com)

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

Click “Undo”

Posted on June 24, 2013December 3, 2015 by Katharine

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

(Proverbs 22:6)

Now you’ve done it:

You have finally brought your baby (who happens to be fourteen years old!) home to live happily ever after with you.

You have planned and dreamed and now you are so excited.

The trouble is that now you do not know what to do with this child you hardly recognize and you have to deal with the years he has spent away from his loving home.

Is that how it is for you? How do I know? We have been there, is how. Because the laws in our state had not always protected home schooling, our oldest had spent six years in the public system and nearly two in a similar private system. He had much to unlearn, since children can acquire many ideas we do not want them to learn, and miss the important things.

Why do they pick up things we do not desire? It is because we have not been bringing them up in the ways they should go, according to God’s command. I can say that because if our children have been in any type of collective institution, then we have not been bringing them up much AT ALL.

Someone else has.

We only greeted them as they passed through our lives, doing the bidding of those who were bringing them up. It is so sad and so wrong that the wisest man ever, Solomon, himself, made a special judgment regarding such things. He knew that the real parent would really care. (1 Kings 3) Maybe that is one reason God commanded us to bring them up, not to send them away to someone else. The assumption is that we would truly care.

If we have missed this mark until now, what do we do?

How do we make it right?

Where do we start?

The first step is already done: Bringing your child home is the first step.

Something inside you is waking up and beginning to commit to caring for him more. You have made a good start, already, and do not forget it, because many would like to make you think that this excellent start is really the start of all your problems.

Actually, you already had problems; you are just now beginning to see them. Finding and facing the problems is a great first step.

More tomorrow.

In order to submerge the individual and develop ideal citizens, Sparta assembled the males at [age] seven into barracks and entrusted their subsequent education and training to official guardians. Although such measures have been deliberately approved by men of great genius their ideas touching the relation between individual and state were wholly different from those upon which our institutions rest; and it hardly will be affirmed that any Legislature could impose such restrictions upon the people of a state without doing violence to both letter and spirit of the Constitution.Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) at 402

How about that.

What ARE we doing?

Anyone brave enough to hazard a guess?

Whenever we hold hands with the United Nations, that is what we get. They tell us it’s all about the rights of children and other “disabled” people, but we really know what it’s all about.

Don’t we?

Read lots more here.

It’s not just the Gates Foundation, folks.

Jus’ Sayin’

Quote• Posted on June 22, 2013 by Katharine

Interesting Tidbit.

Pow.

Er … to the people, that is.

Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

Overheard: Mary Was a Mother . . .

Posted on May 13, 2013October 2, 2013 by Katharine

The preacher said:

Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother, “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Luke 2:34-35

So went the prophecy spoken over Jesus and Mary when he was presented at the temple as a new-born. A sword would pierce her soul.

We see the Cross differently than Mary did. We see the punishment for our sin, the Lamb of God, atonement, salvation, and eternal life. We look back at the Crucifixion. We gloss over the agony of the Cross because we cannot imagine such horror. Mary saw it as it was happening. She saw her child suffering.

But it was happening before Mary’s horrified eyes: Her child’s blood running down, His labored gasps for air, nails piercing his hands and feet. And there was nothing she could do to help her child.

She saw her child publicly disgraced as He hung naked on the Cross. Crucifixion was intended to be humiliating and painful as a deterrent to crime. All the pride Mary felt for her son was now turned to disgrace in the public eye.

She saw the death of her hopes and dreams. This was the son who was to care for her in old age. This was the son who had achieved so much fame. Her hopes and dreams were great but now they were crushed. Her son was dying. She felt like dying, too.

At the Cross, a sword pierced Mary’s soul. While Jesus purposely suffered to redeem us, Mary was there unwillingly, weeping over the injustice, watching her son die a cruel death. The sword was piercing the heart of a mother’s love.

Jesus was dying for her sins as well, but He also knew what she was suffering. Therefore, as her son, He provided for her future on earth, as well as in Heaven, while He hung on the Cross.

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. John 19:26-27

The cost of our salvation includes shame, suffering, and sacrifice. Willingly, Jesus walked into such a death for us, with a love greater than a mother’s.

Home School, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

Remembering a Missing Friend

Posted on May 10, 2013December 5, 2013 by Katharine

Remember this?

A dear friend of mine died during elective surgery, 12 years ago.

English: Flower arrangement for funeral Dansk:... — Flower arrangement for funeral (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A home-educating mom, she left behind two young children and their faithful dad. Last time I saw them, the kids were doing fine. Actually, they were not so young anymore, then, one in high school and the other in college. They showed many signs of good parenting. It made me glad for the memory of their mother, my friend.

She had always been so heart-felt. She and I could talk about any serious subject and seemingly always understand each other before we had completed a sentence. When a subject was especially deep or important to her, she would become misty-eyed as she spoke. That happens to me, too, and often did when we conversed. We both understood that about each other.

This seriousness in her shows in her children. Oh, they laugh. In fact, their beautiful smiles erupt at any chance, and they see the humor in life’s oddities, all the time.

They are not silly, though. They are something more like blossoming or fruitful. They have combined the gentle rain their dad always supplied into their lives with the sunlight their mother always added. They have become strong, tall trees and have dedicated their lives to doing right. It makes me glad for the memory of their mother, my friend.

Somewhere out there exists a video of her delivering an impromptu speech about her strong convictions on homeschooling. She is near tears as she speaks for the record, as I was every time I viewed it. She pleaded with parents to take their children seriously.

This distillation of her heartbeat riveted me to my seat on every viewing. She was younger than I was, then, far younger than I am now, yet her bold insistence on protecting and preparing children imparted strength to my backbone. Only a hardhearted person could walk away from the truth she expressed without pondering, at least, if there might not somehow be more…

She makes me want more, every time I remember her. More grace. More energy. More conviction. More boldness. More follow-through. More prayer. More tears when I talk.

More blossoms and fruit on my trees.

More sun and rain on my trees.

More.

Believe it or not!, Health, Who's the mom here?