Posted on 07/23/2007 8:57:03 AM PDT by DBCJR
Thinking about home schooling your kids? ...
Establish a vision for your family. Why are you doing this? What are your goals? You need to have this before you start. This will sustain you during rough times. If you believe you have God's direction in it, this establishes faith to make things happen when, at times, it seems impossible.
Raising relaxed, well-adjusted children is one goal you might want to consider... Classroom education must address the learning style and pace of the majority. This creates stress in a child that learns differently...
For such children, classroom education can be destructive...
A growing trend in public education is the dumbing down of the mean to prevent the poor performing from dropping out. Such trends can make regular classroom experience boring, and the gifted child susceptible to all sorts of negative influences. A similar trend of cultural permissiveness and aversion to asserted authority allows a plethora of such negative influences to abound in these settings... Homeschooling protects our childrens self-esteem and confidence to learn. Children struggling to learn are often the butt of jokes, as are children who are gifted and frequently give the correct answers. Either incidence impedes the childs motivation and confidence to learn. A home environment provides a consistently supportive, can-do environment that builds your child. And who is it that is building your child? You, the parent. Can you think of anyone more qualified for that role?
Conquering mountains together is a family-building exercise as well...
Homeschooling affords flexibility and choice, and choice fuels motivation to learn. Pursuing your childs strengths and interests at various stages of thier development is much more motivating than a mandatory curriculum...
(Excerpt) Read more at searchwarp.com ...
You posted: I am sorry that your child has less than an idea home/educational situation, as described by you. It is a shame, but in these circumstances, your child will need to be institutionalized for her education.
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Huh? First, I have two children, not one, as my post made clear. Second, what is “an idea/home educational situation”? Our educational choices are just what we intended them to be. We are fortunate that we could have home schooled or sent our kids to private or public schools, as we wished. We honor and respect those who choose to home school, but our choice was to send our kids to public school and to supplement their education by staying involved at home with them, and providing other learning opportunities.
My wife and I both attended public schools. My mother would have STUNK as a home school teacher, and my wife’s mother WAS a public school teacher. But here in less poplulated areas of North Carolina we don’t face some of the problems big city public schools face. We both succeeded despite/because of our public school education. The key is parents being involved and concerned.
I like your method. We will probably incorporate something similar with our future kids... But maybe a little more formal. I definitely think it depends on the kids - Kudos to you guys for figuring out what works with your kids! :) Keep up the good work!
I thank you. It surely worked for us. And my husband is a geoscientist from Caltech. He only prints, except for his signature, when not on the computer. Legible, after all, counts for a LOT when you are communicating.
hahah, ok, Truth is out. I NEVER taught grammar. Oh, we read Shakespeare and he wrote a lot, and often. But he graduated before I got to the nitty-gritty things like grammar and term papers. He learned grammar when he took Russian at 15, and he writes beautifully.
My friend who teaches at a university near here said all the research shows that ‘good readers make good writers.’
Interesting thread. Thanks for all your guyses posts (speaking of grammar). So very interesting.
I am sorry, that some home circumstances are less than ideal. In situations such as this, institutionalization for education is needed. orphanages are often the best option for some children as well, but no one is advocating orphanages as being normal or ideal.
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We disagree. Had we been so inclined, we could have homeschooled. We determined that that was NOT the best way to proceed, given the state of our local system and our willingness to be involved in our children’s education. Your characterization of public schooling as institutionalization is rash and not always correct, as in our local schools.
That is exactly the approach we took with our two children, 1 who is a rising college sophomore and one is who is a rising high school senior. Now that we have many years behind us, every now and again, I will have younger parents ask me how we turned out two polite, intelligent young ladies and I answer the same way. We kept talking to them about what was going on at school. We provided a time and place for homework. We made education a priority with the scheduling of doctor/dentist visits and never, ever took a vacation during school. But I think most importantly, we made church attendance a priority, not just something we did if we had the time. Even though my younger plays on a competitive softball team, we still found a way to attend, even if it meant she would miss a game.
I think some of the problems that some have with their kids is that they send them off to the public schools, breathe a sigh of relief that the school will take over, and then are surprised when the kids don't reflect the family values. They don't reflect them, because they weren't taught them. Never for one moment did I assume the schools would teach my girls about morals or Christianity, or even sexual education. We, the parents did all of that. In 10 years, neither of my girls attended FLE (Family Life Education or Sex Ed here in VA). We opted them out because it wasn't the schools job to teach that to our girls.
All that being said, we were also fortunate enough to raise them in a household with 2 same religion parents, one that was financially stable, and in a good school district. It seems the chances for success go down when any one of those four supports are missing. Was it a great deal of effort on our part? At times it was, but it led to two fine young ladies of which I've very proud.
Successful home schools generally imbed some or all of these elements, such as a stable home, and a 'good school district' via the home schooled curriculum. Although I've heard of home schooling being done by single parents, the overwhelming majority are 2 parent families, and it's very common for home schoolers to be active in a church. Once again, in these cases, 4 good supports are in place and success is not a surprise, but the expected outcome.
Wow, I respect the work you have done with your children. We have boy/girl twins, rising 10th graders. We don’t take vacations during school either, and we do attend church each Sunday. So far our kids haven’t rebelled against that and we just treat it as a given. They are both pretty involved in church activities and are turning into leaders in that regard. We considered home schooling as well as private school, but elected to go with public schools. We had the “sex talk” (or, rather talks) before the schools’ program, and let them attend it. We actually WANT them to hear some of the wrong information out there so that WE can correct it, which, I believe, provides stronger results than just hearing us alone. There is sexual activity and, I am sure, drug use, at the high school they attend. They are both athletes, and so far drug use doesn’t even appear to tempt them. They don’t hang out with those groups. Our daughter is more open about her hoped for romantic life, but we keep pretty good tabs on our son as well. They will get driver’s licenses in January, and our monitoring will have to be stepped up, I guess. We want those temptations to be dealt with now, however, instead of when they are out of town, in college, and less subject to our immediate influence. During that time we will be doing lots of praying...
Prayer - you bet - that's a given. Sounds like you have two terrific kids also. I know you are proud of them and it sounds as if they are deserving of it!
Good luck with those licenses - I've found Tums to work best for acid reduction, although my husband prefers Maalox :)
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