Monthly Archives: September 2011

9/11 And The Atmosphere of Homeschooling

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I think one thing that a mother brand new to homeschooling can hear, but not really wrap their arms around until they do it themselves, is that homeschooling is not school and that in homeschooling, the family life provides learning all the time.  Everything is an opportunity, and learning continues to happen during “school time” or not school time.

Much is being made around the Internet right now regarding the atmosphere of homeschooling – should it be an environment of learning opportunities?  grace? prayer?  Probably all of the above, correct?

But I have another idea rarely mentioned: I  suggest it be an atmosphere of love.  Love for your child and your family. Love for your Creator and a willingness to give the life of your family back to Him.    Love for your neighbors and your community.  Love for the way you homeschool and your way of living. Continue reading →

Helping A Child Learn To Rule Over Himself

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“Second only to learning how to bond, to form strong attachments, the most important thing parents can give children is a sense of responsibility – knowing what they are responsible for and knowing what they aren’t responsible for, knowing how to say no and knowing how to accept no.  Responsibility is a gift of enormous value….We’ve all been around middle-aged people who have the boundaries of an eighteen-month old.  They have tantrums or sulk when others set limits on them, or they simply fold and comply with others just to keep the peace.  Remember that these adult people started off as little people.  They learned long, long ago to either fear or hate boundaries.  The relearning process for adults is laborious.” – page177-178,   “Boundaries” by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend

“Sad at heart, the King stepped from behind the screen, took the Prince by the hand, and led him away from the school.  When they reached the royal palace, the King spoke thus to his son: “Anyone who has to be King someday and to rule over other people must first learn to rule over himself.” – From the short story “The Prince Who Could Not Read” in the book “Verses and Poems and Stories to Tell” by Dorothy Harrer

Helping a child learn to take responsibility for themselves is one of the hardest and most challenging tasks in parenting and also one of the most necessary. Continue reading →

Fearless Parenting

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Fearless parenting means seeing that the world is a good place and being able to unequivocally transmit this to our children.  Things may happen in life, things may happen in parenting, and yet things work out.  Life moves and the Creator is in the eddies and tidepools of the Cosmos.

If you think you are a fearless parent yet constantly have a barrage of how things “have” to be, if you think your child needs a perfect childhood with no stress in  order to achieve being an optimal adult, if things are so carefully orchestrated and everything has to be just so,  then  I would still say you are parenting out of fear and not being fearless.

Being fearless in parenting does not mean that we don’t protect our children, or that we throw our small children out to the wolves.  No  We do our best..  But this does mean that we establish communities of trust, that we trust and have an inherent sense that new experiences for our children will be good.  We also trust that our children will do the right thing as they grow into independence.  We are there to help, to encourage, to support, that we guide, but we cannot walk this journey for our children.  They have come here with their own gifts, their own talents from God, and He has a plan for their lives in His infinite wisdom that shall be good.

This sense of goodness is based upon reverence.  Reverence is well-established not only through a religious life, but  through the way we play out our own feelings of gratitude and our own feelings of awe and wonder at the world.  Continue reading →

The Kiss of Death In Homeschooling

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I referred to this in my last post about homeschooling struggles, but I wanted to expand on this a bit here:  the homeschooling kiss of death.  Actually, I think there are three possible kisses of death in our homeschooling experience. Continue reading →