Homeschooling?
This would have never crossed my mind five years ago...
Yet here we are feeling the strong call from God to do this with our own children for as long as circumstances will allow. We'll take it year by year, but the more I learn about it and talk to parents who have successfully done it - with MANY children, might I add - I become inspired and encouraged.
It's TOTALLY NOT what I thought it was as compared to intially considering this possibilty. Back then we were going off of our preconceived, misperceived and naive notions about it.
So here's to the grand list of why we ultimately are deciding to homeschool!
1. We want our children to grow up as socially awkward and unsocialized as possible.
2. We want to raise them in a bubble, separated entirely from the world, only to throw them into shock when they venture out on their own in their adult life.
3. We are not certified teachers in the subject areas of math, science, liturature, and the like. (Ok, my husband is a phys/ed and health teacher) and therefore know we will give them a poor and incomplete education.
4. We are rich and loaded with oodles of money and so therefore I can stay home and teach.
Ok, I suspect you sensed my sense of humor in that list. But I will tell you what, that list is exactly the stereotypes we had of homeschooled children before understanding more about it. And as I share with others that we are homeschooling (who are not familiar with homeschooling) , there's a sense of fear in their response:
"Oh, make sure you get them around plenty of children because that social interaction is important." (AKA "Your children might become socially awkward because they will not be surrounded by other children their age for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.")
or
"Wow, do you have a teaching degree? How are you qualified?" (AKA "Aren't you afraid you won't teach them properly because you don't have a teaching degree?")
or
"That's great you can afford to do that." (AKA "You must be rich or have a lot of money to be able to afford to do that.")
or
"Make sure you get them in different activities and bring them places." (AKA "Don't you think you're cutting them off from the real world?")
All responses are well-intentioned of course, as were our fears when we initially considered the possibility of homeschooling. But what I've learned is that those fears are nothing but MISCONCEPTIONS about homeschooling. It's a blanket stereotype that gets laid over homeschoolers. And it's unfair and untrue as I'm coming to discover.
What We Learned
So here I'll dispell those myths about homeschooling that you yourself probably believe. We think these things because homeschooling by and large is the terriroty of the unfamiliar for us.
Myth #1: Homeschooled children are socially awkward.
Ok, at best, perhaps you've met a homeschooling family or child that was socially awkward. Isolated cases don't constitute the whole though. In a counter-balance, you'll have to admit that there are plenty of socially awkward people out there - homeschooled or not. There are many children and teens that lack social skills like eye contact with a person to whom they are speaking; they don't know how to acknowledge an adult as they walk right past them (they just look down at the floor or away to avoid contact with you); they don't know how to carry on a polite conversation past "Hi, how are you?" (usually it ends there unless the adult is the one doing all the talking and questioning for the most part...but the child/teen lacks a back-and-forth dialogue); there's children and teens who don't even know how to properly address an adult. (Do adults use their last names anymore?? In our experiences everyone just uses a first name now - Miss Cherry Sue - because they all say "Oh, using my last name makes me sound so old!" There may be circumstances where it's fitting, like if you're a youth minister ...Yet I think when we neglect this - like our modern culture does - we lose an element of respect that we owe to those who are older than us or in a position of authority).
Anyway, I could go on...but you know what social awkwardness and lack of social skills comes down to? It comes down to the way a child is raised and interacts with his/her own family. Children don't naturally learn manners and etiquette. They have to be taught them (and corrected when they don't use them, or use them wrongly). I feel like such a basic thing as eye contact with the person you're conversing with - especially if it's someone you just met - is a lost piece of basic social skills among youth today. People says it's uncomfortable for children - and it is always so at the beginning, as children are like that around those they don't know. But the more you remind them of the right manners in acting around adults and other people, the more they'll do it. The more they'll do it, the more comfortable they'll become with it. The more comfortable and familiar they are in doing it, the more confident they'll grow to be....it won't feel "awkward." It will feel natural.
A homeschooled child or a public school child or a college student will be socially awkward and lack important social skills and manners if they are not properly taught and corrected in them.
...Only I am socially awkward...
Myth #2: Homeschooled children are raised in a bubble and out of touch with the "real world."
Funny because our family was just at an event last night with a whole mass of homeschooled children and they all sang and danced to the same secular songs non-homeschooled children do. They dressed very similarly with their styles (however I noticed the girls added a creative modest touch) and they were just as teenager-ish as any teenager.
If you lock your child in your house and never get out or get them involved in things, yes they may be. But I'm observing that the two most common reasons people homeschool is
They are unhappy with the education their child is receiving in the school system and so have opted to homeschool, for purely secular reasons.
Parents want to bypass the agenda-driven and political-driven school curriculums that are subtly brainwashing children with immoral ideas.
When children are spending 8 hours a day a part from their families - the foundation of society - in an agenda-driven and government-mandated institution that is currently perpetuating sins of immorality through a subtle weave into the curriculums, it WILL impact a child's moral development. It will either lean the child toward sin more heavily (because of the constant influence around him or her), or the child will become desensitized to what is right and wrong and see "no big deal" about it.
I will be blunt - there's more of an evil influence that is had upon our children in today's public school system from universities down to kindergarten. Poison seeps in slowly but constantly, throughout their entire 12 years of education. This observation may offend people because they may take it personally, but that's not what I'm trying to do. It is up to every parent to decide how they want to educate their child - that's none of my business or say. My point is that modern-day education in the government-mandated institution is driven by an immoral and political agenda and THAT'S what we don't like...not for our children when they are so young and impressionable.
I know what you're thinking: "Ok, so bubble them up and shelter them away for all that time?"
No. BUT we need to understand that children through thei teens years are VERY impressionable. They easily trust and easily believe. Hitler from his earliest years always believed that in order to change a country, you must first capture and control the minds of the youth. He did. He accomplished his immoral agenda. He brainwashed millions into thinking only their race was supreme, and Jews were inferior and must be imprisoned or exterminated. He was clever.
Satan is clever. He knows this about children too. And this same, slow effect is happening with our schools across the country and to the youth at large. Satan is subtly undermining God, Christianity, Christian values and morality through the immoral agenda that has corrupted good education.
"God is not needed." "We should really keep God out of school and to ourselves." "There is no God." "God is whoever you WANT him to be..." "Don't pray in public please." "Homosexuality is another normal sexual orientation." "Here, let us teach you exactly how to fornicate and have sex outside marriage." "Understand that two-mommy homes are very common and we should accept same-sex parenting." "Abortion is an option out of pregnancy." Oh and the list goes on! What great evils are being perpetuated! It's everywhere but is masked in various forms and subtleties, and if we don't see it, we're blind to it. Only God's wisdom and truth can enlighten us. And when we throw our children in these systems from day one, from their very impressionable years on up, it becomes very easy to create a shaky faith in God from the beginning...or one that children-growing-into-teens feel like they should hide. Satan is our enemy prowling about like a lion, waiting to devour our souls. We'll be honest - while there are definitely many good things about schools, many good experiences which we may be sentimental towards, and many good teachers - the whole system is under an agenda driven by immoral ideas and control with a specific purpose of trying to "condition" children in a certain way (and it's not a godly one). We don't want them spending 8 hours a day, for 5 days a week, in such a system.
Now to make a decision to homeschool out of a fear of what might possibly happen if we were to send our children to public (and even Catholic) schools would be no reason at all to homeschool. Choosing to homeschool out of a fear of what they are embodying within the school curriculums and the activity/school programs that support the government-driven agenda is almost as bad as choosing to not homeschool based out of a fear of feeling incapable. Fear should never have any part of our motivating factors for making decisions. Fear is a tool of the devil because it paralyzes us right where we are, rather than stepping forward with faith and trust in God. Bill and I are choosing to homeschool because we know it will give our childrens' souls the best and highest chances of being formed into strong Catholics without a lot of the unnecessary influences upon their impressionable young minds and hearts.
Bill and I feel very strongly about this which is why homeschooling is a beautiful choice and we are exercising that right. God-willing we can venture down this path as they grow, we want to establish them firmly in the ways of the Lord first. You bet we're going to get them involved in sports and activities and whatever the Lord leads us to - those things are great experiences for them! And as they encounter their battles with the world, we'll do our best to teach them how to fight and train them in those "spiritual weapons" so that as they mature into their own persons in their teen years, we hope and pray they'll use the wisdom of God and all we're endeavoring to ground them in in being disciples of Christ, in order to make the wisest choices that bring glory to God and are best for their souls. (We're pretty sure it won't always be a good outcome. But we are just trying to do our part in raising them in the ways of the Lord, and trusting in God with whatever happens, hard as it may be at times). It's all a journey. But definitely seeing families who have raised beautiful, godly children through homeschooling has given us such encouragement to see the difference in the firm foundation children are more able to be set in during their youth, without the excessive influences that would otherwise saturate them and erode their strength and zeal for God in their most impressionable years.
Father Joseph and Father John-Paul celebrating Holy Mass for us
(Father John-Paul had a melt-down in the middle of it because his violet "vestment" fell off...toddlers...)
I'm not saying our children are going to turn out as strong Catholics and are not going to fall victim to the ways of the world either. We honestly don't know what will happen as they grow. We can only do our best as parents in fulfilling the promise we made to God at our childrens' baptism: To raise them up according to the ways of Christ and His Bride, the Catholic Church. We know we don't want to bubble them up in their entire youth and teenage years, sheltered from the world only to experience shock when they set out on their own. However we do know that we want to give them a healthy balance of things in such a way that it will allow for their greatest flourishing in being formed into disciples of Christ all the while allowing them to mature into their own persons (hopefully that will grow off of the firm foundation we are setting them in) as they grow more independent, living in the world. It's about a healthy balance of dealing with and living in the real world and allowing them to bet set in a firm foundation from a young age (which this world does not allow for).
Myth #3: You need to have a degree to properly teach your children.
I know of parents who hadn't a degree while homeschooling their kids yet their children grew up entering Ivy League colleges and top-notch careers.
I once had an hour-long phone session with a homeschooling mom of 4 children. I asked her a bazillion questions. I will never forget her blunt advice: She said, "Sometimes people will ask about me having a degree to homeschool my children and I always tell them, 'I'm their mother and my degree is love.'" It always stuck with me.
She made two very important points:
Educating our children and raising them is a God-given right and responsibility. How we may do this will differ, but it doesn't exclude homeschooling.
If we are feeling drawn to homeschool, we need to remember that it will all happen by God's grace. Meaning, if God's putting it on our hearts to homeschool, we shouldn't let fear hold us back and make us say "no" because we're unequipped; God will equip us with every grace we need to make the journey. We must trust in Him. He will guide us to the right cirriculum to use, He will guide in the best choices to make for our children in their education and experiences because He is their Creator. He made them; He knows them perfectly, inside and out. We must trust and do our part in trying our best and praying.
Here's us doing one of our rare crafts....I hate doing crafts...I'm not a craft person. That's why I like the Catholic playgroup we're in because we do them often. :P
We also feel drawn to homeschool because of the freedom you have in tailoring the education of your child to his personality, abilities, and interests; their experiences with the world can be limitless because you are not in a sterile classroom for 8 hours a day. You can do a nature walk one day, visit a profession another day, take field trips to wherever you want, etc... Heck, if everyone is feeling overwhelmed and you hit a road block, you can even take a day off and do something fun together. Really, the possiblities of tailoring the education is endless.
Spontaneous nature hike in the great outdoors - the boys loved the Davy Crockett sense of adventure!
Myth #4: To homeschool you need to have a lot of money.
No you don't. You just need to live more simply if you're on a one-person income. You may have to cut out luxuries, eating out a lot, various trips and vacations that are excess; you may have to give up top-of-the-line things for a more moderate and humble version. Although sometimes there are cases where it's just not possible due to whatever circumstances, but my point is that we live in a culture of "excess" and so the things we say we "need" are not really needs at all - just wants and excess pleasures.
So that's that! Those are the 4 homeschooling myths we used to believe...and how they're not true!