Nothing pulls at my heart strings more than my children. Or induces more guilt. I want to do everything I can to ensure their safety and well-being. It's easy to be guilted by well-meaning but misguided sentiments of the day. Which, if you're a homeschooler, you hear a lot. "They'll be deprived of so many social experiences." "You wouldn't want them to be weird and unsocialized, would you?" The socialization misconception runs deep, y'all. Even among Christians. There seems to be a lot of concern that our kids won't fit in if they aren't forced to interact with other children their age. People say they won't be normal, or relatable. In other words, we're afraid of them being unlike everyone else. I want my children to be ... Read More...
Why You Should Homeschool When It’s Hard
I almost had a meltdown over a bottle of apple juice. Lunch was very late that afternoon, and I had already been feeling behind from the minute I woke up. The clock I was trying to beat all day declared its victory over me as I struggled to transition my kids out of "school and play mode" to sit down at the table for a hodgepodge meal I wasn't particularly proud of. Even though I had spent an hour before breakfast trying to catch up on laundry from the weekend, there were still three more loads in various stages of doneness. My efforts to teach that morning had been met with resistance and frustrations over seemingly small requests. And then, then I couldn't twist off the cap on the container of apple juice. As I stood there ... Read More...
Why We Should Rethink Our Children’s Education
A mother from my church recently asked me about the pros and cons of homeschooling. Her son will be entering Pre-K in a few months, and while he is still over a year away from starting Kindergarten, she is starting to consider schooling options seriously. Moms usually take factors like high test scores, lots of extracurricular activities and nice, caring teachers into consideration when making this important decision and call it good. But think about it. We all go to great lengths to make certain that our child's pediatrician's practices correlate with our values. We interview several preschools, to ensure their philosophy of learning matches up with our desires. We even read food and soap labels, on the hunt for "parabens", "thiamin ... Read More...
4 Reasons You Think You Can’t Homeschool
Before I started homeschooling, I had all sorts of doubts about my ability to educate my own children. I thought I would single-handedly be responsible for messing up my kids' future since they would be unprepared for real life. Even though I had managed to parent two pretty decent small human beings, using only common sense and a whole lot of prayer, I still felt I was unqualified to be their teacher. There are still plenty of days where I feel I'm not cut out for this. I've described myself as an unlikely homeschooler, since it wasn't my original plan to educate my children at home. But the truth is, there really is no such thing as an "unlikely homeschooler". Every one of us has already been given everything we need to teach our ... Read More...
Why The Public School Shouldn’t Be Your Child’s Mission Field
"Where will the light be if all the godly kids are pulled out of public schools?" That question seemed to settle the argument. An old friend from college had responded to a comment I made that it is unwise to place children in an environment that teaches a humanist, anti-biblical worldview for 30 hours a week. She seemed to agree that the public school system today is a rather ungodly one, but then asked the loaded question above. It is one that many Christians have wrestled with over the past several years, as American schools continue to deteriorate both in morals and academics. In 2002 the Southern Baptist Convention, even armed with the research saying that 70-75% of Christian youth leave the church after high school, couldn't ... Read More...