Tag: relationships

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

All Parents Home School – 3

Posted on by Katharine

Still No Escape

No matter which decision we make, we teach them.

Mussolini (left) and Hitler sent their armies ...
Hitler sent armies to North Africa into Egypt against the British

When we keep our children with us so that we can manage their social learning, we teach them that socialization can be done in right or wrong ways. Using the Ten Commandments (talk about mandates-based education!), we instruct as we model for them the only way that works: God’s way.

When they are teens and actually need to socialize, they will walk in right habits of socialization, while turning to us and ultimately, to the God Who guides us, for further instruction.

If we abandon them to learn socialization willy-nilly from the same-aged social misfits that become increasingly more abundant in this world, we still teach them—that no matter how they socialize, that is how to socialize. They will learn that whatever is socially acceptable to their peers is the social lesson for today, and to abandon any semblance to their parents in their quest for some socially “caring” model. They will learn that it is okay to have two mommies.

When we take time to reveal to our children the glories and the tragedies of the history of man, we teach them that we can and must learn from our actions. From Genesis to Revelation, we help them see that God knows the end from the beginning and always has His way.

When they are teens, and learn to care about things on the outside, they learn that today many make the mistakes that wise ones will learn from in the future.

If we trust worldly institutions to handle their history lessons, we still teach them—that the past is unimportant to us. They will not care much about history, either, and in anger, will care even less once it conflicts with God’s Word. They will believe that they came from slime and that the future is debatable, at best, and purposeless at worst and will wonder if Hitler was not right, after all.

When we continue their health classes and physical education into the rest of their childhood, we teach them that our bodies are temples for God. They learn the good stewardship that gives careful attention to the feeding and care of our bodies.

When they are teens, strong and healthy, excited about expending their energy for good purposes, they will be able to say to God, “Here am I…”

If we thrust them into worldly lessons about the body, we still teach them—that the purpose of exercise is to be famous or formidable, and that ketchup is a vegetable. They will converse casually about euthanasia, believe that hormones are insurmountable, and toil under assignments to pretend to be married or expecting. They will grow increasingly comfortable with those conversations, beliefs, and pretenses, too.

More later.

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photo credit: Wikipedia

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

All Parents Home School – 2

Posted on by Katharine

No Escape

No matter which decision we make, we will teach them.

English: A young girl kisses a baby on the cheek.

When we keep them at home to educate them, ourselves, we teach them one thing.

If we send them away to receive their education elsewhere, we teach them another, ominous thing.

When we bother to keep our children with us where we can smile at them and watch over them daily, we teach them that we value them.

When they are teens and begin seeing many childhood things from the outside, they learn how important they are to us. They learn how much we cherish them. They learn the value of a child, the value of a parent, and apply this value to their own children, to all children in general, and to themselves, someday.

If we ditch this responsibility along with our children at the front door of some worldly institution, we still teach them—that they are important to the world, which has bothered to take up our slack. They learn to measure the value of a child with the only measuring stick that we have given them and to translate this to the value of all children, foreign, handicapped, and unborn.

When we keep our children with us so that we can give them the gift of reading, just as we gave them the gift of speech years before, we teach them the importance of literacy. When we carefully couple that with reading Scripture, we teach them the reason for literacy.

When they are teens and can read like adults, they learn how important and valuable literacy is, in God’s eyes, and how blessed they are to have Scripture to read.

If we turn them loose to acquire their literacy lessons from the world’s schools, we still teach them—that we do not mind if they learn to read in order to escape reality, to investigate immorality, or to accumulate prosperity. They will read things we do not approve, indeed, do not have a chance to approve. They will not read anything Godly coming from these people who value them enough to educate them.

More tomorrow.

(Photo credit: wikipedia)

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

All Parents Home School

Posted on by Katharine

Have you been thinking about the future?

Homeschooling - Gustoff family in Des Moines 023

Have you been wondering about beginning or continuing to home school your children?

Allow me to let you in on a secret:

You have to.

Yes, whether we like it or not, we have to home school these little blessings with which God has blessed us.

How do I know? I know it simply because all parents home school their children.

Actually.

You home school yours already.

Think for a minute:

  • Who taught your darling that Mom is the best in the world? Did you take him to a state institution to learn that?
  • Who taught him to walk? Did he receive private lessons on that subject?
  • Who taught him to stay seated in the high chair and grocery cart?
  • Who toilet trained him?
  • Who succeeded in teaching him to pick up after himself?

Trust and obey: This duo is one of the most important lessons in all of life. We have taught these most important lessons. Yet, do we somehow feel we would not be good teachers of minor things?

We have taught our children nearly to master speaking the English language, one of the toughest on earth, as if they were natives, and yet, do we somehow feel that we are inadequate to teach the ABCs?

Or is it only that home school seems like too much work? Were we ready to be at ease and to pass them on to some other mother (oops—I mean, teacher)?

More tomorrow.

_________________

photo credit: Wikipedia

Posted in Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – Wrong.

Posted on by Katharine
Guido Reni - Joseph and Potiphar's Wife - WGA19310
Guido Reni – Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife

Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”

But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.

One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.

When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.

 — Genesis 39:6-20

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photo credit: Wikipedia

Posted in Inspiring, Photos, Scripture
Posted on by Katharine

I’m not a tat kinda girl, but . . . get you some tissues and GO READ THIS. It’s not what you think.

Tiff Miller's avatarThe Faery Inn

One of my sisters and I were able to go to the doctor’s office with my parents for the latest MRI results.

They’re not good.

The cancer has spread to the meninges (the membranes that cover the brain & spinal cord).

Okay – backing up just a bit.

For the last several weeks, my Dad has been struggling with pain from an extruding disc in his back, which has nothing to do with his cancer. He can’t sit or stand for very long, and spends most of his time lying down. He has also been dealing with nausea, headaches, and lack of appetite that he thought might be related to pain meds. It’s not.

So the MRI this week. The cancer in the meninges. Those symptoms are directly caused by his cancer. It’s all throughout a good part of his brain & spinal cord, and that is very concerning. The…

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Posted in Inspiring, Who's the mom here?

Sylvia

Posted on by Katharine

鞋 拖鞋 時尚 塑料 卡駱馳 Crocs

A Great Loss

Today, at about 06:00 Central Daylight, my good friend, Sylvia, died.

She was a very sweet, elderly lady who never did really grow old.

She had the loveliest natural silver hair and pale skin, which made her look really good in pastels. She wore pink a lot, long before it was the current fad .She wore lots of modern fashions, including Crocs shoes on her tiny feet, in pink or powder blue.

She lived quite a life. Being only about 5 feet tall and sweetly quiet in personality, she married a lumbering guy who had many long, loud opinions, and whom we all, also loved. I am sure he is devastated, right now, although we all knew Sylvia’s time was at a close.

A teacher by profession, Sylvia never backed down from imparting proper English upon anyone who needed it (with an appropriate Southern drawl, of course.) Long after her retirement, she was still at it, peppering conversations at church with corrections of our grammar. Somehow it never felt like correction; more like a blessing. I guess that was a sign of her closeness to Jesus.

However, she also taught Spanish, and would greet anyone in that language, once she learned they had even a smattering of a grasp on it. “Hola, Catarina,” she would greet me. “Como estas, hoy, mi amiga?”

And we would have to answer in Spanish.

Since I majored in languages, we could converse a long time before one of us got stumped.

Sylvia was a people lover. She always believed everyone was innocent. Of course, while she could rationalize with Lizzy from Pride and Prejudice that we can’t ALL be good, she ignored that rational thought as much as possible. It was so easy for her to love anyone, and for anyone to love her. Even those who felt silly mispronouncing Spanish in the aisles of the church just loved her. My daughter, who knew ASL and some French, would answer her in one of those, and Sylvia was delighted to learn “just a bit more — you never know when you might need it.”

And because she was a lover of all people and thought all people innocent, she loved me when others thought me guilty. She had no evidence. In fact, the evidence made me look mighty guilty, but she refused to believe all that, and just loved me. I want to be like her, some day.

Her funeral will be huge.

I toy with not going. I don’t want to see her dead. It’s too late to hug her one more time. Her husband’s tears will cause mine to drown me. I don’t like some of the people she loved and who loved her in return.  There won’t be enough room in the church for us all, anyway.

Besides, I just want her back. Selfish, I know.

Posted in Home School, Inspiring, Wisdom

All Children Home School: The Rest of the Story

Posted on by Katharine
A Map of the Legality of Home schooling around...
A Map of the Legality of Home schooling around the world. 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.

My friend’s teen children were tired.

I had always thought they were shy children because they hardly said much in church. I learned though: If anyone spoke first, these children politely carried on an adequate conversation. Then they would drop back into their tired mode, like a trance.

My friend, their mother, was tired, too. I had noticed signs of it: late (or absent), hastily coiffed, testy—all out of character for her and all beginning when school began each year. I understood it more after we had the “school” conversation. 

I think she was just using me for a sounding board, not realizing that I have feelings, too. Most people in a State school need to verbalize their convictions to home educators. They subconsciously need our quiet endurance of these conversations, I think, to help them go on.

Since I believe that, I usually do not listen altogether mutely. Usually I say things like, “I am so sorry,” or  “I know it must be a real burden,” or  “Perhaps a different teacher (grade, school, district, etc.) would make a big difference?” 

I am not being sarcastic when I say these things, although the temptation is sometimes there. No, I truly am sorry to see my friends suffer so because of their State education choices. Too, because of my own mistakes in the State systems, I know it truly is a burden.

Of course, I know a different spot within the State school system does not usually make much difference, but I also desire to help them see something: To me, their situation sounds burdensome. I hope to cause them to have second thoughts, if possible, within the context of friendship.

Therefore, I tried to listen gently to my friend’s tiring tedium of tasks. I am sure my eyes widened.

She wound up with, “but I just don’t see any other way to make sure they are doing well . . .”

I said, “Sandra, I know you are tired; anyone could see it in your eyes.” She dabbed at tears. “I don’t know what to tell you. If the teachers and the coaches will not do it, I guess you must—someone must.”

I hesitated, then went on, “The reason your children excel and the reason you are tired is that you are homeschooling.

“For most home educators, it is not so tiring, though, because they homeschool from 8:00 a.m. until early afternoon. You are homeschooling a lot, during those hours, but also during the hours from 3:00 until midnight and beyond. Add to that the fact that you are worrying, and you could not HELP but be tired. You are volunteering at the State schools, and then conducting your own homeschool afterwards.”

The things I said did not help her. She was convinced hers was the only way to send her children into law school.

The entire conversation did help me, though.

It gave me several more reasons that I would never go back into the State institutionalized education program.

You can learn from it, too, perhaps. Perhaps you can see why people should stay out of that system. 

Failing that, at least you will have a list of things you must do (should you decide to quit home schooling) to cause success in State-educated children.