Every homeschool parent is positive she is going to miss something along the way, and she is correct. The teacher across the school hall is also missing something as is the college professor. No one person can cover it all, but one person can know what is needed by their children. Why, when our children turn five, do we all of a sudden feel that our expertise and parent-knows-best comes to an end? Can you think of one other person more vested than you? The most vested person is the one who will do the job best. This is a rule in life and business. How do we overlook this when it comes to educating our children?
Marketed fear is crippling us. Fear is not a natural human characteristic. If you felt inadequate to teach your child to walk or talk or count or colors from the very beginning that can be a reality, but it is not the norm. We are created to be indomitable individuals geared toward creativity and risk. Something happens along the way through what we hear and see, and we buy into the common-man’s way of thinking. Boxed.
We choose on-line courses in lieu of inter-active invested parental teaching just in case. Even while we hate it and our children hate it, we feel ‘covered. The marketing appears to be complete and ‘they’, the people with letters behind their names, must know what need be covered. What we know is that our child fights against the temptations waiting behind unmanned screen pages. Let me insert that there is a growing number of live, interactive on line courses/instructors that are amazing. However, for most the answers are per-determined which means following the clicks to one, and only one, conclusion. Imagination not required. Thinking not required. Remembering not required. Inspiration not achieved. Creating not achieved. Lasting impression not achieved. We choose dull textbooks or overfull boxed curriculum sets for the same reason and wonder that lessons are not as enjoyable as we have heard they ought be.
The flip side of quieting that voice from the world in order to hear our voice from within means choosing to personally expand our academic toolboxes, to dig in alongside our children as we did when they wanted to learn to bake cookies or hit a baseball. Lessons need not be canned and professional but can be bright and on the fly. Some of my best teaching has happened as we wash dishes or float eggs. If you are intrigued, your exuberance will flow into your children. Excitement and joy are as contagious as a grumpy mood. Most of us get so excited that we share it with many children in collaborative learning situations. Imagine being eager with excitement to get to today’s lessons just to be a part of the amazing challenge of turning on your children’s brains to the beauty of learning, creating, exploring.
Gasp! Can we do that??!!! Absolutely! Go for it! God gifted you with these children to raise and mold. He has therefore best equipped you. Sure, another might be an expert in the various learning methods or reading instruction, but they are not innately educated with the Phd of your child nor will they be following them throughout life. The zeal for your child’s best future is deeply and richly inbuilt. Trusting that you are capable to carry through is the sticky part, but that can be simplified. The very first step is deciding to home educate. Then figure out your methodology and daily rhythm as you build your family’s culture of education. If you are a member of Faithful Scholars, you know that we will be holding your hand all the way from helping you settle on curriculum, how to, talking off ledges, celebrating achievements, and more.
YOU are the most vested person that will EVER be in your child’s life! In that, you will not fail. In the rare cases that life takes a swerve and you are not able to teach toward your child’s best future self, you will make a change because you love your children, want the best for them, and KNOW what is best for them.
God is up to the challenge of handling all of the things that we might miss in our children’s education. Simply among my children I could share countless examples, but they are all doing wonderfully despite my omission of teaching the names of the months or the dates of the Civil War. Fun Fact: when they need the material, it will be located and learned because you have taught them how to learn, enjoy, retain, AND apply. Compared to what we are able to do at home, outside learning pales with its ability to teach toward learning.
Another beauty of trusting that you are equipped to impart lasting education is that what might seem best for a child at the beginning of the year may not be what is best at the middle or the end of the year. When you are the lead planner and/or teacher, you are able to make changes, scale up/down, and shift gears on the fly. If you have been allowing yourself to be guided by fear, you can STILL choose to turn it around.
Education is seeking truth, creativity, and beauty in all things. Safe outside-sourced education is about facts, regurgitation, and check lists. Truth and beauty are always in motion moving us toward deeper relationships with whatever, whomever we spend our time and energy.
If you think that weaving spelling, handwriting, history, and art into one subject is appealing, figure it out (even day by day) and dive right in, the water is lovely! And I guarantee you will love it as will your children! The immediate relief of feeling that your child’s professionally developed, fully rounded, outside sourced, click-led education is often jaded by the lack of impact unless some humanity is involved. Most of these boxed plans and screen led courses come with superficial and unnecessary trimmings and trappings. Not a lovely pond in which to spend more time than absolutely necessary.
You were gifted these children for a period of time in which you are privileged to model, pour in love, and impart wisdom while guiding them toward their best future selves. The world says that school age is the time we parents are gifted with a ‘break’ AND become inadequate parents. We no longer are needed to be or able to be fully responsible for our children, No longer capable of growing them up in character AND education. I say phoo-ey!
When considering what we could be doing with eight to ten hours of wake time with any person, were we brave enough to trust that we have been imparted with everything that is needed, well, it gives pause for mindful consideration of exactly what God has put within your being that simply needs be boldly tapped in order to flow freely and wonderfully into our children and beyond.