Matthew asks:
I’m curious: What is the attitude of Christian unschoolers to religious education? Do you think it is important for children to be taught about religion, or do you think their moral and spiritual education should be self-directed?

I responded with the following:
A lot of it depends on who you talk to. I can’t speak for everyone else (though I know I do speak for most of the people here and in the yahoo group where born again Christians who unschool gather). In our case we, as a family, spend time reading the Bible together daily and pray about everything (from lost keys to the “big stuff”) as needed. It isn’t a “rule” it is just something we do together, just like eating together. We personally don’t do “religious education” as most people see it. No Sunday school though our oldest chooses to join her grandparents for church and Sunday school, and in our case we don’t even have formal worship. In fact, you may say that we personally are not “religious” (and I know most of my Christian unschooling friends aren’t either). Instead just like unschooling is a lifestyle of learning, we have a lifestyle of following God. Christianity as we see it is not a thing to do but a relationship, and our children naturally join in that relationship. If you are asking whether our children go and find their own religion, maybe Buddhism or whatever the latest trend is, no, most of us don’t allow for that just like someone who believes firmly in global warming and is sure that it is true and we need to do something about it would not allow their child to all the things that they feel are going to destroy the earth. We do however give them freedom to look into other religions, discuss them, and know about them.

On the other hand, our children have their own relationships with Christ and because of that they have the ultimate freedom to learn and grow. Christianity, that of the New Testament, is so much freer and akin to unschooling than most people realize. We are not called to follow a pile of rules, we are called to love Christ, who died for our sins and rose again because God loved us so much He was willing to give us freedom from our sins through His son. Our only real rule is to love the Lord our God with all our mind and all our heart, and to love our neighbor as our self. Everything else is extra. And each person is free to choose when and if they enter into a relationship with Christ and each grows in his or her own way and in his or her own time. And the same goes for our children and their relationship with Christ. Each grows and learns what they need, when they need it.

WOW, what a great kid you have there. And you know great kids come from great parents. Good job!!! I am trying really hard to be a family of reading. My daughter Genesis (9 years old) use to love to read, but now she dreads it. I keep getting books for her hoping that one will spark her interest. I’ve made it a requirement that she reads a chapter before getting online or TV. I just don’t want her to hate reading, which right now she does.
Any tips?

This is something that’s brought on a lot of thought and prayers for me over the years… years that I sure didn’t feel like I was doing a “good job”! This question of how to go about nurturing readers, especially when a child doesn’t seem very prone to reading on his own perplexed and intimidated me. Yes, I can honestly say that teaching our oldest son to read was like this big hurdle in my mind… I just knew that if I could get him reading well, the rest would come! It didn’t even occur to me then that he might not like reading much, once he’d learned. I too bought books that laid around unread for years before they were *discovered*, which yes, eventually… they have been!

OH! … and what an insurmountable task it seemed to me, looming before me like some mysterious quest that I didn’t know exactly how to embark upon, to teach my oldest child to read. I think the simplicity of it really eluded me… that teaching phonics, and then nurturing a genuine love for reading, isn’t really so difficult as I’d inadvertently built it up in my mind as being, and so in many ways discouraged myself before I’d hardly begun. That however, is the curse of a perfectionist, and I digress… Yes, this journey has definitely taught me as much as it’s taught my son, about perseverance. It really does simply take a little bit of consistent effort, and time set aside every day.

Our son was not always nearly so enthusiastic about reading as I was, nor as he is now, unlike his younger sister, who’s been a bibliophile from the time she was five and started reading on her own, stressing me out over on the opposite end of the spectrum because I hadn’t taught her those phonograms yet and she might get all mixed up!

Yes, with all of the fumbling, planning, worrying and learning that I’ve done over the years, I think that I’m finally starting to realize that my kids are learning not because of me, but rather in spite of me. Laughing… Seriously though, there are a few things that I do believe I’ve done right in the way of nurturing our up and coming readers, which may even warrant my passing along to you, and so I shall.

Nathan used to moan when I’d give him a book for required reading that seemed to him like it would require too much effort, or didn’t catch his attention immediately by way of its title and cover. Oh, how often I did fret over his seemingly delayed readiness to even learn how to read. And I emphasize seemingly because I soon learned that I was gauging his readiness by the wrong standards: I was judging where we were by my own preconceived expectations and self-imposed time-line, rather than by his…

I do believe that starting with a solid phonics program is the key to giving your children a strong reading start. However, at the same time, I also think that it’s important that we don’t rush them, forcing something before they’re ready. If we want our children to love reading, we should be sensitive to their readiness, because they will eventually be ready and want to learn!

We took it slow, beginning to learn basic phonics when he was six, and progressed steadily from there. Let’s just say that it was not his favorite thing to do, and so I persisted at an easy pace, sometimes only five minutes a day (per what I’d learned from my plethora of reading teacher materials), and eventually I turned it into game-time, which he responded most readily to (in second grade). That’s when it all begin to click for him…

Here is an excerpt from an article that encouraged me immensely in the earlier years, to relax… to pay more attention to him, than to my own fears of failing him.

Better Late than Early
An Excerpt from: Homeschooling for Success
How Parents can Create a Superior Education for their Child

For younger children, the emphasis is usually on building a solid foundation in reading, writing, and basic math. Where schools believe in starting formal learning as early as possible, most homeschoolers believe in delaying formal studies until the child is seven or older. This allows the child to mature physically and emotionally before she is asked to sit down and study.

Dr. Raymond Moore and his late wife, Dorothy Moore are probably the best-known advocates of the later-is-better approach. The Moores’ 1975 book Better Late Than Early summarizes research supporting their contention that children are not psychologically ready for formal learning until age eight to ten. They suggest that waiting allows children to gain the maturity and logical skills necessary for formal work and prevents them from becoming frustrated and discouraged by attempts to handle material they are simply not yet ready to understand.

It is quite common for homeschooled children, especially those using a flexible homeschooling approach, to learn to read as young as three or to delay until age eight or nine. This may seem like a shocking idea, but boys in particular are often not ready to read until they are seven or older, and they quickly catch up to the early readers.

Because of the individualized nature of homeschooling, late reading is not a handicap as it might be in a conventional school setting. Schools rely on text-based instruction, but “late” readers at home simply learn through other means, like watching educational TV and videos, asking questions, and observing the world around them. Also, since the child is not labeled as “slow” or put into the slow reading group, their self-confidence and self-esteem does not suffer. The child will grow into an enthusiastic reader, and thus view reading not only as a tool for obtaining knowledge or keeping up with others but as an enjoyable activity.

Raising a lifelong reader is very different from just teaching a child to read. Approximately twenty million people in the United States can’t read. Another estimated 40 million read at a fourth-grade level. While these are unacceptable numbers, there is another reading epidemic in this country. We’re a nation of “alliterates’”, which means we know how to read but we don’t read. A 1999 survey showed that only 45 percent of citizens read more than a half-hour every day—that would include all reading from fiction to newspapers to work-related materials. While the two hours of television the average American watches each day factors in here, could our nation’s lack of interest in reading have something to do with the way we are taught to read in school? Is it because we assign reading (instead of letting the child choose) and require book reports? Book reports in the second grade? Record numbers of children are forced to read before they are developmentally ready. Thus, reading continues to be an unpleasant experience for most of their school career. Unless a reading problem is involved children learn to read when they are ready. It is developmental and not synchronized to meet an educator’s timetable.

The best advice is to teach your child to read when they are ready, regardless of how young or old they may be. {emphasis mine.} Reading specialists have observed that children display certain behaviors when  they are read to read.

Click here to read the rest: Better Late than Early: An Excerpt from: Homeschooling for Success, How Parents can Create a Superior Education for their Child

Also see: Better Late Than Early: A New Approach to Your Child’s Education

I won’t bore you (well, not in this post anyways) with a list of all of the reading curricula that I read for my own edification, some of which I then *used* on him as I designed my own eclectic reading program! However, I will share with you what I think nurtured him along the most regarding his going beyond merely learning how to read, to his eventually becoming a real READER: someone who picks up a good, living book, of his own volition, and reads for his own pleasure and edification… often. {Oh, GLORY day!} This didn’t happen really until he was about 11 years old. Don’t get me wrong, he’d read a few good chapter books before then, but only because I’d required it.

I’ll never forget the day that Nathan actually thanked me for making him read a chapter book on his own, which “turned out to be interesting, after all”, but only after he’d done a lot of grumbling before starting it. Imagine that?! This was also when he got his “don’t judge a book by its cover” lecture. Good times!

He was nine, turning ten years old that year. That was also the year that I started having him read a harder, more challenging book aloud to me regularly as well (both were required reading for our AO, Year 3 program). Actually, we took turns reading it, and it was divided into short portions, scheduled out over a period of many weeks, which kept us both plugging away at it together, without being overwhelmed. That was all that I required of him though at that time, reading-wise, besides some short, regular poetry readings, and occasional read-aloud sessions from his McGuffey, both of which he actually loved! Over the years, he’s learned to trust my selection of books, and isn’t so quick to snub a book I require or merely suggest.

I will say that besides the Moores, the writings of Dr. Ruth Beechick and Charlotte Mason offered me the greatest encouragment regarding the teaching (or rather, facilitating of) reading at the time. Now I’d like to offer a few tips for nurturing your own readers, much of which I think is somewhat intuitive.

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.  ~James Bryce

Nurturing Readers~ Some tips from our Reading House to Yours!

• Make reading to your children often a priority, from the time they’re babes, even on into their teens. Be selective with this reading time, choosing quality, living books full of great ideas, worthy of your child’s imagination and ever growing curiosity regarding their world.

• Make a point of incoorperating narrations into your daily reading routines early-on, and continue as the years progress. This, in our experience, has been an area that easily gets neglected. Every day, we begin again… I have fond memories of Nathan and Tabitha spontaneously planning and reenacting quite a few tales with their stuffed animals. There are so many creative ways to include narrations in one’s reading routines. Narrations often happen naturally as my kids’ enthusiasm for something they’re reading about just spills over naturally, and they want to tell me all about it. I’m often having to consciously set what I’m doing aside to tune myself into what they’re saying. These spontaneous narrations often will then turn into great discussions too!
• Require fifteen, then twenty, and eventually thirty minutes of comfortable (reading level-wise) silent reading each day, from a book that’s part of your “studies”, literature supplemental to your history studies maybe (what we call our “school books”- which are simply the ones I’ve scheduled). Now that they’re older, my kiddos read more, but this was a good starting point in their early elementary years. Practice, practice, practice… a little bit each day, just like the phonics lessons that got them there.
• Require your children to read aloud to you each day as well. I cannot overstate the value of this discipline enough. It’s not only provided hours of wonderful memories for us, but also allows me to hear what we need to work on, clarify phonetic mispronunciations and gives your children needed practice with enunciation and elocution, an invaluable skill.
  
• Be patient. Continue to read good books to them, even once they’re reading fluently on their own. Keep your shelves stocked and tables strewn with more of the same, and they will read… when they’re ready, what they want to (along with a few things you’ve *suggested*, or required via their other studies, to challenge them).
• Be a discerning reader yourself. They will learn by seeing you, and eventually will emulate you and will even want to read what you’re reading- just last week Nathan asked me if he could read my book when I was finished. He’s also forever reading news and geo-political stuff over his Dad’s shoulder. Get yourself some good book lists to refer to over the years, as you make purchases, create a PBS wishlist, or go to the library. I had to learn what books I was even looking for, since my own education (unfortunately) didn’t include much in the way of good literature. I’ll include some of my favorites at the end of this post.
• Provide plenty of *easy* books for them to read, along with magazines, with lots of engaging pictures. These will nurture that symbiotic relationship that’s just beginning between your children and their books early on. I must admit that though we avoid it for the most part, I’ve even allowed a bit of twaddle over the years (Magic Tree House series comes to mind here- I think the kids checked every single one of those out from the library one summer), as well as some of those Illustrated Classics. Catherine Levison has a great article here defining twaddle, which is the literary equivalent to junk food, and you want to avoid, for the most part. My son read and re-read a huge collection of Ranger Rick mags that a friend’s daughter had given us. I remember him piling a new stack of these well-read, falling apart magazines on our bed each evening… Nathan has also LOVED the Usborne World History and Time Traveller books, BIG time, and has read them front to back many times over the years! Last year he devoured Oxford’s First Ancient History, which we’d bought him as a gift, seeing as it was a step-up from the Usborne history books that he’d loved so much. He’s also enjoyed Hakim’s History of US series, which we’ve gradually attained via paperbackswap.com, and has led to some interesting discussions. Nathan will often choose history books for his evening free-reading time, and it has been a joy to see this interest of his grow and blossom over the years. His other all-time favorites have been our myriad collection of picture Bibles. In the last couple of months I have been thrilled to find him snuggled in bed with his grown-up NIV, “reading about David”! It was really hard to tell him “lights out” those nights.

• Allow your children an extra 30 mins. to an hour of time after “bed-time” to sit up and read, before “lights-out” time. It works! Our kids have been doing this for years, and it’s become a very important time to them. It’s also a time that Dad will often snuggle and read to them, or myself, once the baby’s in bed. I’ve also allowed them to do drawing or copy-work (yes, per their request) during this “quiet reading time”. Since Chris and I usually stay up well after they’ve gone to sleep, we’ve often allowed this time to be in our “big bed”, which enabled Nathan and Tabitha to be together, and facilitates snuggling so well. One year we read through The Chronicles of Narnia together, a chapter or two a night. It all started when I announced that we had to read the book before going to see the movie, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when it came out in theatres. Once we finished that first one, the kids just wanted me to keep going. Now that they’re older though, and their baby sister is sleeping in our room, this time is spent in their own bedrooms. Everything in it’s time. You will find what works best for your family.

• Don’t over do it. Remember that you want them to enjoy reading. Less really can be more, in the long run. If your children seem sincerely overwhelmed, lighten their load a little bit, so long as you’re confident they are putting forth their best efforts. That’s all that matters, that they’re learning, growing… paces will vary.
  
• Help them find good books (and/or articles online even) about topics that interest them.

• Don’t be afraid to tell them no, and make them wait for some books. I did this with The Hobbit, a book that Nathan wanted to read for years before I’d let him, before he was ready. The cover jacket of this book tantalized him to no end, and the inadvertent anticipation this created was worth its weight and wait in gold. When I did finally relent, a couple of months before he turned twelve, he gobbled it up within three weeks, over our winter break, right before starting the LOTR trilogy. Yes, I’ll never forget that holiday break, when I did the homeschool-mama-happy-dance all around the house, while he spent the month immersed in mature books, of his own volition, and *off* from school-work. Now, he’s reading The Hobbit again (per his own request) at a much slower pace, as it’s scheduled into his weekly AO readings.
• Allow them to take their school-work/reading books outside. A change of pace is always nice, and the outdoors invigorating… especially when one has good company.
  

• Get an iPod and load it with lots of great audio books! We’ve done this for the last couple of years, and it’s been such a blessing, not only in catching my slack (having had a baby has really cut into our read-aloud time!), but in providing constructive listening time on long road trips, or as a reading aid for more difficult books. Librivox.org is my favorite place to download free podcasts (chapters) from. We’ve found many of our schoolbooks (classics, in the public domain) available there.

• Siblings reading to each other and even helping with the teaching is also a great reading encourager. How blessed I’ve been to awaken in the mornings to find my son reading to his younger sister, all quiet and snuggly in his room. These are wonderful, precious times and my two older ones are already anxiously working with reading to our toddler!
• Watching the movie made from a book is always a treat around here too. My kids love to critique movies according to their books! Recently they were very impressed by a documentary that we watched, “Exodus Revealed” which incoorperated a lot of archaeology verifying the Israelites’ being in Egypt and their Exodus, which we’d just been reading aloud about again. They were fascinated! We watch a lot of documentaries around here, and I highly recommend Netflix as a great educational supplement. We supplement much of our history and literature readings with great movies.
• Last, but certainly not least, is the fundamental importance of LIMITing screen-time for your kids! At our house, this “screen-time” includes tv, computer and video-games time . In the past this has been fairly simple for us, since we haven’t owned any gaming devices, besides a few educational pc games, and our *vintage* atari game(s) that Chris bought off of ebay years ago. This will be changing soon though, since the kids’ major gifts year will be gaming devices. Yikes! We’ve limited screen-time to the point that it’s just an understood fact of life around here, and will remain so even (especially) once they get their new gaming devices. Chris and I are looking forward to all of the many educational aspects of the gaming world too. We haven’t had cable tv either, except for a year that it was necessary for our high-speed internet connection, and then they had to ask permission to watch certain shows, didn’t have free-reign of the remote, and tv time was limited. Period. They have a set amount of computer time to use each week, and we have a system where they sign in and sign out, so as to keep track of time they’ve used online. Thus, when our kids get “bored”, or have down-time, they often reach for books, rather than vegging out in front of a screen… It’s worked for us. Just last night Nathan was wanting to start a movie at 10:00, and I said “no, it’s too late, but you can read…” So he chose to start the book he’s “been meaning to read for awhile now”, The Swiss Family Robinson, and is immersed in it today, grabbed it and snuggled up on the couch first thing this morning. Thoughtfully placed boundaries are beneficial for our children.

I do hope and pray that you are encouraged! Even as I did these (mostly mundane) things that I’ve listed, and we plugged away little by little with our humble reading routines over the earlier years, I often felt defeated and discouraged, like I wasn’t doing enough… However, now that my older children are ten and thirteen year-olds who relish reading, I can see that it was all just a matter of t.i.m.e., and their being individuals who progress at their own rate, in their own time. There is no formula, because homeschooling is living and learning together, daily. We are not educating with a cookie-cutter mentality, therefore I do believe that the reading journey’s dynamics will be a bit different for each family, and even with every child within that family… naturally.

Book Lists from which to glean~

1. Ambleside Online (see book lists under each year)
   
2. 1000 Good Books List
3. Simply Charlotte Mason
   
4. TruthQuest History
5. Twaddle-Free Literature by Grade Level
6. A Book in Time
   
7. Sonlight
8. Veritas Press

And lastly, I’d like to leave you with a little nugget of advice from my 13 year old homeschooled kiddo, when asked during his interview what changes he might suggest to homeschool teachers,

I think a lot of parents over stress themselves, thinking they have to be up to standards or up above public schooling when they first begin home schooling because they hear that home schooling is better. This makes it to where there is too much stress when they try to teach just like a public school. That is the glory of home schooling because that most of the time the student gets to choose some of his or her assignments and subjects for the day, to have input.

So, there you have it folks… Relax, read with your kids, and enjoy the adventure, since it’s every baby step along the way that will get you there!

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and a tired man who wants a book to read.  ~G.K. Chesterton

Please share with us what you’ve done to nurture your own readers and any tips you’ve picked up along the way in creating a reading house within your own home.

Embracing the adventure,

A lovely photo journal of what looks like an incredible educational trip over at Growing Urban Wildflowers:
“…or, there and back again”

A great post about a duck and a boy over at Life-Led-Learning: Wild Duck Rescue

A review of a book series that I have never read but which we will definitely be checking out at Seeds and Dreams: Why We Love Gregor the Overlander

And a continuation of the discussion of Children’s Church over at Crunchy Christian Mom:
Children and church

And finally a great general unschooling article that I found to be an excellent reminder of how to keep the spark of interest alive: keeping the cart behind the horse

I know there are some others out there that I missed–if you see a great one post it in the comments please (including if it is your own).

Penny over at Seeds and Dreams just wrote about their recent experiences with the changes they have made to their homeschool style in happenings of life and love learning

Christy over at Growing Urban Wildflowers shared a wonderful specific experience that is the perfect illustration of how unschooling works and why in On Tying Bows.

This is a one-week unit on missions, done in unschooling style. It’s pretty laid back and flexible, but covers a lot of territory.

Day 1 Collection and Reading: Choose a country, go to the library and check out several books about the country and its people. Children’s books are best, but also look for large “coffee table” books in the adult section. Check out or borrow a missionary biography or missions/related fiction that takes place in your country of choice. Don’t forget to look for ethnic music and nonfiction videos. When you get home, enjoy looking through all the books and begin reading the biography to your children (this will probably take longer than a week).

Day 2 Geography Day: Find your country on a map or globe. Talk about bordering countries, climate, natural features (rivers, lakes, mountains, deserts). Ideas: work a puzzle that includes your country, create or find a coloring page that is an outline of your country, make a relief map out of clay. Talk about how long it would take to get to your country. What time is it there? How do time zones work? What kinds of animals and plants would you find there? Older children could have a list of questions to research from the books you got yesterday at the library, then give a little oral report.

Day 3 Cultural Distinctives: Find information about your country’s native clothing, food, language, writing, homes, games, sports, government, celebrations, festivals, religion. All this will probably be in your library books. Ideas: look for a native game to play, try to recreate their clothing, find recipes you’d like to try on Day 5, make a model of a typical home, learn a word or two in their language (Voice of the Martyrs activity books are great for these).

Day 4 The Church: How many Christians live in your country? What is the major religion(s)? When did missionaries first come to this country? What Christian organizations would you find there? What are the greatest needs? Look at the book Operation World or go to their website for easy access to this information. Make prayer cards for the people of your country. Cut out pictures from missions magazines or print them off the Internet. Glue the picture on a 3×5 card and write a prayer request and fact on the back. If you make several, punch a hole in one corner and attach them all with a key chain ring. Use these cards to remind you what to pray. Make a plan to come up with some extra money to send a missions organization that works in your country.

Day 5 Celebration Day: Plan a special meal to show off what you’ve learned. Find recipes to represent your country, dress like them, play ethnic music in the background, make name cards with a fact and prayer request on each one. Display any coloring, drawings, posters, crafts or reports you did this week. Take the library books with the best pictures on the fronts and stand them up around the room and/or on the table. Use mealtime to talk about the most surprising, funny, interesting thing you each learned, and talk about the physical and spiritual needs of the people you studied. And of course, pray for them.

Everyday: In your personal prayer time, ask God to give your child a love for the people they are studying.

This is just the beginning. Who knows what this experience might lead to!

]]> http://christianunschooling.com/2009/03/13/help-your-child-develop-a-heart-for-the-world/feed/ 1 http://christianunschooling.com/2009/01/26/facing-resistance-from-your-kids/ http://christianunschooling.com/2009/01/26/facing-resistance-from-your-kids/#comments Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:43:43 +0000 Jena http://christianunschooling.com/?p=235 A few people have asked me about dealing with resistance from kids. We all face it, and it’s not fun. Dealing with a bad attitude or a straight out “NO!” is really a relationship issue. What do you expect from your kids and how much do you respect their opinions? How much do they respect your guidance? What are your non-negotiables and are they necessary, reasonable, and understood? I wrote a post called “Setting Boundaries for Kids” that talks more about this.

Being a child’s parent AND teacher puts a lot of pressure on us. We panic when we think our kids have to be doing as much as those kids in traditional schools, so we start to get demanding and that relationship thing falls apart, and for what? Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Albert Einstein:

It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom, without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe that it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness if it were possible with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly.

But that doesn’t mean we parents just let our kids go and do whatever. In the quote above, Einstein admits that curiosity needs “stimulation,” and he lists “seeing and searching” as a description of learning. Give your kids lots of opportunity and time to do just that. Keep the goal in mind and guide without them even realizing it.

If you value the model Jesus gives in the New Testament, it’s interesting to note that he was always down on the Pharisees–leaders who continually laid heavy burdens on the people. After all, there are only ten commandments, and even God is not coercive. We may suffer the consequences of poor choices, but he never forces us to obey. One of my favorite verses is “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people,” (Romans 10:21). As we disobey, God is continually holding out his arms to us like the father of the Prodigal Son. One of my guiding principles has been to parent my children like God parents me.

But some of the most popular parenting advisers (especially in the Evangelical Christian world) tell us to insure immediate and cheerful obedience all the time or we are shirking our responsibility as parents. Now that’s a heavy burden. I say choose your few rules and make sure they are really necessary (see “Setting Boundaries for Kids“).

But what about school things like reading, writing and math? A lot of us fear that if we don’t force our kids to do school work, they’ll never make it in life. Here’s my advice: Between the ages of zero and twelve, teach your child to read when he is ready and wants to do it, then do “school” stuff when he shows interest. That gives you a lot of time to relax and watch your child. What is he interested in? What is his learning style? What motivates him? What de-motivates him?

Sure, you can dangle the carrot, like make brownies and talk about fractions as you cut him a piece. Or you can choose games that naturally introduce math because you have to keep score and count money. Or you can check out colorful and interesting books from the library. You can even start a contest with other home schoolers to see how many books each child can read in a month (we did Pizza Hut’s Book It). As far as writing goes, you can make greeting cards as a craft project together, or you can buy her a beautiful journal and matching pen. The computer is great for encouraging writing–open a MySpace, create a blog, or simply leave comments on blogs. I have more about these practical things in the post “My Education Philosophy.”

My point is, notice your child’s interests and build on those. Practically everything in life requires reading, writing, and math, so you just have to encourage those activities in the context of her interests. When you face resistance to “school” things, back off. Ask yourself why she doesn’t like to do that and you might learn a lot about how she learns and what motivates her.

Then, when your child hits 12 or so, take stock of his skills and abilities as they relate to the future. If public or private high school is the plan, what do those schools require? But in the meantime, you and your child can relax and together experience the joy of childhood and the joy of learning.

First, for those who don’t know the above is an xkcd comic.  Perl is a programming language with many uses. The comic reminded me of my husband and got me thinking about the really important things and the things that are not so important.

As most of you know my husband is a self taught programmer who learned everything he knows about programming from his time spent working on his own projects at home NOT what they taught him at school.  School, in fact, proved useless for the most part since he didn’t learn to spell until he started using a computer and spell checker, nor did he learn higher level math until he needed it for a programming project (taught himself trigonometry when he was 22), reading you could arguably say he learned from school but only just since most of his actual reading and writing was done outside of school since he never did any homework or paid attention in class, just took the tests.  On the other hand, he has, in the course of his 37 years, taught himself to play the piano (and write music), taught himself to program in C, html, php, C++, Visual basic, and some other languages I have forgotten, written a full length novel–for fun,  written a gaming engine–for fun and to see if he could do it, designed multiple levels for other people’s games, taught himself how to do photography and then edit those photos, read multiple history, political, and religious books (the big heavy ones, not sweet little ones like Max Lucado) so he could better understand what he was reading about elsewhere and form his own opinions on the subjects instead of taking other people’s word for it, and a whole slew of other things I can’t think of right now.  I am not bragging on him I am just making a point (or reminding those who needed reminded or just possibly preaching to the choir.)

My point is that this man went to public school.  He was the kid who was always in trouble for not paying attention and not knowing what was going on around him.  He never did homework, never paid attention in class.  He was the kid who ALWAYS lost recess or computer or whatever the teacher thought might motivate him to do what the teacher wanted.  He was awkward, he was even in special ed because they didn’t know what to do about him.  He didn’t go on to college (well he tried, twice, but got so frustrated the first time that he wasn’t learning anything he wanted to learn that he dropped out after one semester, and then the second time he signed up to take one class, paid for the class, got the book, went a few times then someone stole his car and burned it, including the book and he never went back. )  He may not be successful as others consider it (he doesn’t make a ton but we get by) but he has worked as a programmer for over 14 years, writes a successful blog and web comic, and best of all he gets to do what he loves. None of this is because of his schooling, if anything he spent years afraid of trying because of his education and failing over and over.  All of it is because he knows what he loves and what he enjoys doing and does things with all his heart.

And who knows what experience in your (and my) children’s lives will most influence their future.  For my husband it was programming his best friend’s computer then saving up for his own.  In fact, for a lot of other programmers it was the same way. (The link is to my husband’s blog, read through some of the comments on this article to see what I mean.)

Only God knows what experiences may be most important.  For myself it was drawing lesson in Girl Scouts when I was 10–I found out I could draw–I hadn’t realized before that.  For my mom it was baby sitting as a teen, for my dad it was working with his excavator/workaholic dad as an 8 year old.  What experience most shaped YOUR life as a kid?

The other day the antique appraiser I help out, remembering how in the past I have needed to work less in order to spend time teaching the kids, asked when I needed to change my schedule and be less available.  It caught me off guard because I have gotten so used to our lifestyle of learning.  It took me a moment to come up with an answer that would avoid getting into this whole unschooling business but also satisfy her.  I said that the kids had, for the most part, taken over their own learning and listed quickly off all the projects they have done in the last few months, being careful to point out the expected learning that has occurred in this unexpected way.  She was satisfied and moved on to the project at hand while I got to be completely honest without going into a detailed explanation.

The funny thing is that it caused me to realize how comfortable it has become, so comfortable that I don’t even think about “school”  anymore.  For a former public school teacher and child of public school teachers this is shocking.  My brain has forgotten “schooly” things and is focused on life and relationships.  I no longer think of what the kids are doing in educational terms unless someone asks (though I have also learned to quickly sum up the most recent educational things going on).  It is funny how quickly it occurred and how easy it is to see all the play for what it is–God-given life training.

As I write my oldest is composing a song and has figured out how to record it on our spare keyboard.  She recently figured out a numbering system to write music notes, using the electric typewriter she bought with her own money at a yard sale, to see her through until she has taught herself how to read music.  My middle child was last seen reading a factual book about Russia and my son was building an articulated robot out of Construx and card board. This morning we spent an hour playing together on the newly floored living room–me showing them ballet from my childhood and them trying to hold each position then sliding around the room in break dance type action (which they learned from Youtube) in their footy pajamas.  Yesterday during an impromptu trip to IKEA my son and I talked about God and being thankful for ALL things, months, days, and the calendar, multiplication, telling jokes, and reading Bible names.  Earlier in the day Rachel and I watched my favorite fight scenes from several old Kung Fu flicks which prompted discussion of the culture surrounding those movies.   She has also been watching Jane Austen movies (her favorite being the 5 hour BBC version of Pride and Prejudice).  Esther showed up at one point with her favorite insect guide explaining to me her theory of why bee colonies are disappearing (she was reading about a kind of mite that kills honey bees.)  Rachel spent an hour reading Crafty Crow and Skip to  my Lou looking at and trying out various craft ideas, including making leaf people outside which turned into a game of tag.   The kids used the laminate flooring boxes to make robot costumes and sandwich board card costumes like those in Alice in Wonderland.

Who knows what they will be into tomorrow though I can predict to some extent because I know my kids and what each of their interests are.  Likely my middle child will draw some more pictures to add to the hanging art gallery she has developed on her ceiling over her bed (she gives “tours” and has it set up in rooms).  My oldest will probably add to the doll house she has created of small wall shelf she bought at a yard sale–the furniture is made of drawings on paper and bits of this and that from around the house. My son will come down and help measure the linear footage of trim we need for the downstairs (the girls will probably help–they love measuring and adding it all up.)

The thing is, this is WHO they are and who God created them to be.  Because they have plenty of materials on hand and the freedom to do and make they will run with it.  They are allowed to watch as much tv and play as many video games as they like–which they do (unless of course they have a job they need to do like their dishes or someo ther parental request) but it is not nearly as much as one might expect–they watch, in general, much less than they would if I limited the time spent.  Because they have freedom and materials on hand, they have TONS of movies and lots of video games, plenty of arts and crafts materials and the freedom to use scrap paper and other random bits of stuff they have much more interesting things to do than sit and watch DVD’s.  We are also blessed because we live in an old house where it is not the end of the world if someone draws on the floor  or forgets to use tape and glues their awesome drawing of a boy with a kite on a rope or hot air balloon to to the wall.  Sometimes things get messy (okay, usually–5 people at home all day means no house beautiful), sometimes too much is enough, and sometimes they fight, but in general it is a peaceful life overflowing with learning and activity, and we all are learning daily.

Instead we need to be with our children, be willing that they join in with us on our projects, and be willing to take part in theirs.  We need to work hard and do our best at it without complaining but also knowing when to quit and relax so our children can learn.  We need to gently show them the right way to do something without frustrating them.  We need to think of work as a blessing so we can show our children this blessing from God.