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Homeschooling: You Know Your Kids…And Like Them!
By Linda Dobson
Amazing things happen when you change the way education happens.
“Although many of first-grader Betsy [Goldman’s] friends think
learning at home is a great idea, many mothers tell Goldman, ‘I couldn’t
stand being with my kids all day.'”
This same sentiment has laced many a conversation I’ve had with
mothers whose reaction to my declaration that I enjoy spending so much
time with my children is half amusement, half skepticism. How, I see them
wondering, could any 1990’s mother subject herself to what, in their
perception, is a life filled with the needs, demands, and pettiness of
youngsters, void of the rewards (financial and ego-stroking) of life in the
work force?
Might It Be the Education They’re Getting?
What this commonly held misperception fails to take into account is
that needful, demanding, petty behavior patterns are very often created by
scientific behavior modification training used by the public education
institution. (Imagine Dr. Frankenstein’s monster here.) Parents, particularly
mothers, who voice this common judgment, fail to see that children’s
irritating behavior is a consequence of programming designed, not for the
benefit of the children, but for the convenience of the institution. Internal
messages constantly whisper to your child, “Be yourself!”
External messages consistently bellow, “Conform!” These mixed
messages create confusion and, ultimately, conflict in children too young to
reason or to defend themselves. Now you’ve got behavior parents would
rather not witness, thank you very much.
Remove your child from daily behavior modification, free him from
external messages that contradict and drown out his internal voice and,
eventually, behavior changes. Provide time, your own life, and the lives of
variously aged guides and friends as examples and, soon, your needy,
demanding, petty child becomes a self-motivated, self-responsible, kinder
individual – the kind of person with whom anyone would like to spend time.
And that includes you!
Change the Education, Change the Child
If something’s “wrong” with our children, we needn’t look far beyond
their immediate environment to discover the source of many of the
problems. In Whole Child/Whole Parent, Polly Berrien-Berends reminds
parents that “[children’s] behavior is like a windsock indicating the direction
of our own attention.” This is so hard to see when there are too many
influences blowing that windsock in too many directions.
Family centered learners simply enjoy spending lots of time with their
children. No joke. The patience you think they possess is certainly a virtue,
but it’s a practiced one. It’s practiced more at the beginning of the
homeschooling journey, I think, when all concerned are stumbling over
uncharted life paths. Then a strange thing happens: Just as you build
patience to a peak you never thought you were capable of reaching, you
don’t need it anymore. For at the same time, you become aware that that
which already exists within your children is far richer, more beautiful, and
more important than anything you or the schools have been unsuccessfully
trying to create.
Family Centered Education Changes Things
As you settle into family centered education, you will not be spending
lots of time with kids you can’t stand being around. The time you spend
together away from school’s behavior modification allows your kids to get
to know themselves as the real people they are, the “new” people you also
get to know. And respect. And trust. And like!
Our children are the most constant source of wonder, joy, and love in
our lives today. Each step of their journey toward independence strengthens
our mutual trust, increases shared respect, and daily builds new
understanding of what it means to cooperate, to support, to be a member of
the first and most important social building block – the family.
Link to this page
Wow I so needed to read this tonight. The past few weeks have been rough. I am going to be homeschooling my children this fall. I have always worked FT and now work PT until I quit my job next month. My kids have always been watched by my mom and last yr my daughter went to public pre-k. In the last year she has developed behavior problems and become excessively needy. I figure that we will sort of need mommy boot camp before we start full blown into homeschooling. Things like schedules, behavior issues, expectations are going to need to be discussed.
Hi, Kathy, Thanks for being here, and thanks bunches for taking the time to write! Actually, given your circumstances, I think what you'll need more is a "decompression" time as opposed to boot camp. I checked out your blog (very nice) and see you've got 2 very young kids and you're starting early, which is great. Many have found that if you do your best not to separate learning and life, the happier all are. May I suggest that you consider purchasing *The Art of Education,* from which this post was adapted (it's only available as an e-book, here on the blog, so it's quite inexpensive. The other books I hope you'll try to find at a library or otherwise get your hands on are *HSing the Early Years* and *The First Year of HSing Your Child.* I really think they'll help a lot. Oh, and don't buy any more curriculum stuff, you have plenty, and it will just piss you off when it sits on the shelf, unused and you sell it at a yard sale for 25 cents. [g] All best to you and yours! Linda
Thanks Linda I will check out those books. Glad I found another great homeschool website to visit
This is beautifully stated, Linda!
I watched an American Girl movie yesterday with my children, and I was shocked at how hands off Public School parents are, and how toxic that environment is for children. I spent the whole movie exclaiming, "where are the parents? How can they let their children go through this?"
I have become acclimated to homeschooling. Amen.