discipleship

Christian Training of Children

“Christian Training of Children” by Charles Spurgeon

“Parents! Your children are as surely as grown-up people, “dead in trespasses and sins!” May no parent fail fully to realize the spiritual state in which all human beings are naturally found. Unless you have a very clear sense of the utter ruin and spiritual death of your children, you will be incapable of being made a blessing to them. Go to them, I beg you, not as to ‘sleepers’ whom you can by your own power awaken from their slumber–but as to ‘spiritual corpses’ who can only be quickened by a divine power!

If you think that your child is ‘not really depraved’, if you indulge foolish notions about the ‘innocence of childhood’, it should not surprise you if you remain barren and unfruitful.

If you would bring spiritual life to your child–you must most vividly realize that child’s state. It is dead, dead! God will have you feel that your child is dead in trespasses and sins–as you once were. God would have you come into contact with that death by painful, crushing, humbling sympathy. If you would raise your dead child to spiritual life–you must feel the chill and horror of your child’s death yourself. You must have, more or less, a distinct sense of the dreadful wrath of God, and of the terrors of the judgment to come. Depend upon it, when the spiritual death of your children alarms and overwhelms you–then it is that God is about to bless you!”

What do you think?

Fragrance of the heart of Christ

Originally found in my facebook inbox, from the group Disciple Like Jesus

from J. R. Miller’s “Our New Edens”

Parents are the custodians of their children’s lives. If they would meet their responsibility and be able to look God and their children in the face at the judgment, they must make their homes as nearly ‘gardens of Eden’ as possible.

The way to save your children from the temptations of the streets–is to make your home so bright, so sweet, so beautiful, so happy, so full of love, joy and prayer–that the streets will have no attractiveness for them–no power to win them away. “Do not be overcome by evil–but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21

The place of the home-life among the influences which mold and shape character, is supreme in its importance. Our children are given to us in tender infancy–to teach them and train them for holy, worthy, beautiful living.

It is not enough to have an opulent house to live in! It is not enough to have fine foods, and luxurious furniture, and expensive entertainments! Most of the world’s worthiest men and women, those who have blessed the world the most–were brought up in plain homes, without any luxury!

It is the tone of the home-life, that is important. We should make it pure, elevating, refining, inspiring. The books we bring in, the papers and magazines, the guests we have at our tables and admit to our firesides, the home conversation, the pictures we hang on our walls–all these are educational. As in everything, LOVE is the great master-secret of home happiness.

The religious influences are also vitally important. In that first ‘garden home’, the Lord came and went as a familiar friend. Christ must be our guest–if our home is to be a fit place either for our children or for ourselves. If there is no sincere prayer in it, it is not a true home at all–it is only a heathen lodging-place!

How can we make ‘new Edens’ of our homes? What are some of the secrets of home happiness? I might gather them all into one word and say–CHRIST! If we have Christ as our guest–our home will be happy! He must be welcomed into all our life. He must be in each heart. He must sit at our tables and mingle with us in all our family interaction. Christ can bless our home, only through the lives of those who make the home circle.

Make your home so sweet, so heavenly, with love and prayer and song and holy living–that all through it, there shall be the fragrance of the heart of Christ!

Setting Up The Schedule

Want to have a peek into one of my son’s course of study? Of course you do. 🙂 I’ve included a copy of his Daily Workload sheet and his Course of Study for you to get an idea of how I schedule. Just be mindful that this is my student, with his unique strengths and weaknesses so his schedule will look quite different to that of another 14yo boy. And that’s how it should be.

Yesterday I shared that after observing my son I realised that he was entering a new season. He needs to learn new sets of skills but in ways that fit with our goals. Our goals are process oriented, not product oriented:

Build and maintain relationships
Develop the character of his heart
Develop needed learning skills and a love for them

ACE paces are set out in such a way that the child simply picks up the book and does 4 pages per day. They know exactly what is required of them each day and they aren’t reliant on the teacher/parent to tell them what to do next. This has always been my weakest area. I’ll give the children a book to work through but when it is finished, then what? It could take awhile before I get around to giving them a new one… 😕 With this in mind, I’ve tried to set up Master J’s schedule in such a way that he can see what is required each day and each week, and which resources to use for each subject.

He has a 2 ring binder with several coloured tabs for different subjects: Bible, Maths, Copywork, Science, Church History, Compositions, Projects, in which he can find the standard sheets to fill in and/or file his completed work.

In the front of the binder he has a [download id=”23″], which outlines the subjects that he should attempt to get done each day. You may notice that I have scheduled Saturday. This is only for a time… to help him learn time management. Once he has the hang of completing all his work in a timely manner he won’t need to do any ‘formal’ work on Saturday. However, it’s there in case it doesn’t get done, for whatever reason.

Another page is the [download id=”24″] and it outlines the resources used for the subject and the course requirement.

Also thought I’d mention that this is not how our lifestyle or homeschool looks every week or month of the year. For this period of time, (a season) this is how it looks. In a few months, it may very well look completely different- but that is the naturalness of seasons. There is a time when we see lots of blossoming and there is a time where things seem to be quiet, almost still and dormant. There is a time when lots of positive, nutritional and rich ideas need to be sown and other times where we see the fruit of that. It doesn’t all happen at once.

Do you notice the seasons in your home? Do you embrace those seasons or do you find that you struggle against them?

A New Season of Learning

Ah, a change of seasons. But no, I’m not talking about the emergence of Spring. Rather, a change of season in our home, more specifically in our learning.

Just like with the natural weather based seasons the calendar doesn’t force them to begin, so it is in our home. The shape or appearance of Master J’s learning is taking on a different look. It isn’t that he is suddenly starting more formal bookwork, rather that I am increasing his workload. Not because I am trying to cram him full of information rather that I want to use the more formal learning time to continue to achieve our goals. You’ll notice that our goals are process oriented, not product oriented:

Build and maintain relationships
Develop the character of his heart
Develop needed learning skills and a love for them

Not all homeschoolers have the same goals so I’ll try to expand on how the above points are our goals and how we use academic and curriculum as a tool:

1. Build and maintain relationships
By working with the child, we grow in intimacy. Using curricula as the tool, I will demonstrate love, grace and patience, thereby building trust. Academics are not the sole priority here but I want him to see that he is much more important to me than forging through a workbook.

2. Develop the character of his heart
Through this time I hope to help my child recognise any wrong attitudes and learn how to deal with them, leading him to submission to Christ.

3. Develop needed learning skills and a love for them
I don’t adhere to any standards of school or state. I don’t follow a syllabus that dictates to me when or how I need to proceed with new disciplines or subjects. Rather, the Holy Spirit reveals my child’s needs to me and I trust that He will shape the approach and requirements for each child. I desire that Jesus Christ become Lord over our education, approach, methodology and processes of learning. Academics and education are secondary to that.

Until we come to grips with the deception that ‘content equals education’ we will never be set free to explore a better way. And what is the better way? Learning how to learn and how to think (process) rather than what to learn and what to think (product).
~Marilyn Howshall

For many years, we followed a literature based approach, then had some years of natural learning or an unschooling approach. The in an attempt to provide more self direction and structure we started to use ACE paces for a few subjects. The ACE paces served a purpose for awhile, as the boys learned some valuable lessons and also learned to work more independently than before. But the flip side of it was that they felt stifled and I found that goal #1 wasn’t being met. Recently (as in the last few months) I’ve observed my son and I sense (through the prompting of the Holy Spirit) that he is indeed becoming ready for growth in academic areas – I’ve sensed a change in seasons, so needed to reassess our lifestyle of learning and what I could do more efficiently to meet our goals.

Homeschooling is never static…as our children are never static. Parenting/homeschooling is never ending and I’m always kept on my toes. Tomorrow I’ll share the system I devised a few years ago. This system worked well with the girls (without less instruction) but it’s only now that Master J is able to keep up with such an organisational system.

Putting it together

Well, so far in this series I’ve posted a little about us and the beginnings of our homeschooling journey, how I felt something was missing despite my planning and working so hard and how God pulled me up and put me on a clearer path, with Him as pilot. I wrote about developing a family mission statement and today I would like to share just a little of our lifestyle and how it looks, what sort of books we use in this pursuit of a Bible based, Cross-centric lifestyle of learning.

There is so much curricula available (and I have owned much of it) but we have prefer to study God’s word directly rather than reading commentaries and regurgitated thoughts of man- regardless of how good or noble those thoughts. We desire that our children go directly to God’s word on matters so this means that the primary curriculum on our shelf is the Bible…it’s our main textbook. We also have a good dictionary, Bible handbook and other reference books.

Many modern publications or Bible study books are good but they may have been watered down or they omit teachings on important biblical matters. Bible study is much more than a fill-in-the-blank approach. To be truly authentic and genuine we must teach by living it, modeling it. This is much more effective than any Bible curriculum one can purchase…but be careful, it’s not for the faint hearted- it’s life changing. I have come to see that this homeschooling journey is actually about me. Not in a modern worldly “me” kind of way but by nature of the fact that God wants me to desire Him, to hunger for Him. God does have an agenda behind all this homeschooling business – That it will lead not only the children, but me, to a closer walk with Him.

God’s initial goal for Christian homeschooling families is not the raising of godly children. Instead, God’s wonderful, but subtly hidden agenda is that the homeschooling experience be so challenging for the parents that they feel the need and hunger for a closer walk with their heavenly Father.”
~Wisdom’s Way of Learning by Marilyn Howshall

The Bible is a window into our own soul and heart so that we can understand ourselves, our needs. God spiritually feeds us through the word. The Bible instructs us as to salvation, forgiveness, how to live, how to please God. It isn’t just ‘history’ rather it is His Story! It [the Bible] does more than tell us facts and figures and stories…it tells us why we are here on earth and where we are going. Many other books can point to God but only this one book shows us what God is like. Other books are helpful and beneficial, encouraging, thrilling, informative, entertaining, comforting and beneficial in other ways but only God’s word is life! This book alone can give a glimpse into the mind of God…give us a perspective of eternity. Just as the body needs to be physically nourished by good food, so our heart and mind needs sustenance. It is not simply the words in this book that satisfy the hunger in our soul rather it is God Himself. Just as regular exercise is necessary for a healthy body, so is daily exercising of the mind. What better to nourish the mind on than the message of God?

Rather than start with a state curriculum or generalised outcome based objectives (that have been decided upon by someone else) and then attempt to use the Bible to fill in any gaps, or cover Bible study as though it is just another subject, we start with the Bible and move forward from there: to learn who God is, what He has done and what He requires. This becomes our world view…and our world view will teach more than any curriculum or textbook. Yes, every subject can be taught through the Bible. After all, what is history if not His Story? What is Science? All scientists must think critically and independently. Geography is really the study of God’s created earth and so on.

We use a variety of resources and methods and they’re all good (CM methods, Classical, notebook, natural-learning, etc) but this approach has been what we have found most successful and achievable in instilling vision, purpose, self motivation in all of us. We believe this will prepare us and our children for vocational, entrepreneurial, career or ministry vision.

I don’t believe it mattered that I’d been homeschooling for a few years already. God is King of New beginnings! I asked Him to give me a vision for our family. Through studying His word I’m learning how to hear Him, how to be guided by him and how to recognise and trust the voice of the Holy Spirit. God knows my teaching style! He knows my children’s learning styles! And He has a purpose for us! He is personally directing and guiding me, as I turn to Him and submit my all to Him. This has accomplished more godly fruit that I’d been able to by my own efforts.

Am I recognising God’s call for our family? Am I seeking Him for direction…for guidance in curriculum choices? Am I resting in Him, submitting everything (academic goals and dreams) to Him? Am I listening to Him and observing my family? Am I putting wholesome, literary books filled with rich ideas before the children? I want to do these things, watch for the spark …then allow the children room and time to dig further.

Write the gospel, a chapter each day…write it by what you say and what you do. Your children read that gospel, whether faithless or true. What is the gospel according to you?

Our Homeschool Journey

The Animal School – A Parable

An old story tells of the creation of a school for the animals. In this school, everybody took the same four courses: flying, swimming, climbing, and running. Among the students were a duck, a flying squirrel, a fox, and an elephant. These four were highly motivated, and wanted to get good grades, so they all tried very hard.

The duck did fantastically well in swimming and flying, but he lagged behind his classmates in climbing and running, so focused special attention on those two subjects. However, his feet became so sore from trying to run and his wings were so bedraggled from trying to climb that by the end of the year he not only failed both those subjects, but made C’s in swimming and flying, which had once been his two best subjects.

At the beginning of the school year, the squirrel was first in his class in climbing and running and was second only to the duck at flying. But as the months wore on, he missed so much school from catching pneumonia in his swimming class that he failed everything.

To make matters even worse, because the squirrel constantly squirmed and chattered in class, and had difficulty paying attention, he was diagnosed with a learning disorder. The squirrel eventually was placed in remedial classes and had to be medicated in order to continue with his school work.

The fox was a natural in his running class and scored well in climbing and swimming, but became so frustrated at his inability to get good Grades in flying that he began assaulting his classmates. He even tried to eat the duck. His behavior was so disruptive he was expelled from school. He fell in with a rough crowd and eventually wound up in a center for animal delinquents.

The elephant, meanwhile, developed low self-esteem because he couldn’t do well in any of the subjects. When he sank into clinical depression, his therapist persuaded him to try a different school that focused on subjects such as lifting and carrying. The elephant was disappointed, because careers in lifting and carrying were not as prestigious as careers in flying, swimming, climbing, or running. Even though he always felt inferior, he managed to make a decent living and support his family.

Our Children are Individuals

The point of this silly story about a school for the animals is that modern education sends every child through a program of study that is targeted toward a “generic” child. It expects every student to be able to follow the same course of study in the same sequence, without considering innate aptitudes or individual differences that are crucial to children’s abilities to learn. Schooling does not take into account differing personality types or temperaments.

Parents who understand learning differences can be more sympathetic with the frustrations their children face in school and more helpful in finding alternative approaches. The two major learning differences among children have to do with learning styles and learning readiness.

Article used with permission from Homeschool MarketPlace
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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN7QfjIcVvA

Developing the Vision

Previously I wrote how I felt that I was in control of our homeschool and how I had planned everything out just perfectly, yet struggled under the weight of it all. God doesn’t want us to strive for cookie-cutter children, rather He would have us prepare our children for an individual, definable life purpose. We try to recognise and identify each children’s natural (God-given) strengths, weaknesses, abilities, talents, interests and passions. From there, we can lean on God for direction in devising a flexible plan for developing our children as whole individuals with a purpose, for His service.

Early on we realised the immense benefit of home education but it wasn’t until a little later on that we came to see that homeschooling is more than academics… that it is a natural extension of God’s purpose for the family.

Some points that we consider and discuss:

What is ‘family’?
What things are important to us, as a family?
What abilities and interests and concerns has the Lord given to us, as a family?
What are some skills that we want our strong, capable child to have as an adult?
What are the attitudes, character traits and information/knowledge that we want our children to have as adults?
What are our educational, moral, spiritual personal, ethical, goals for our family?
What direction has God shown us regarding us and our family’s ministry in His Kingdom?
Do our aims line up with the Bible?

Our responses to these points will look different to other families. Our thoughts and goals are based upon personal conviction, values and calling. Whilst we believe our aims (goals) should always line up with the Bible, the practical outworking of them will look different to that of other families. See this video for more information about individuality within homeschooling.

We then go on to ponder:

What is education? What does it mean to us?
What is the purpose of our child’s education?
What is wisdom?
What is more important to us: knowledge or wisdom?
How best can we meet the needs of our child?

This interesting exercise helps us to identify our family’s unique purpose. However, we’ve found that these questions really can’t be answered in quick, easy, mono syllabic words or sentences. They are rich ideas, encompassing our whole view of the world and everything in it. The ideas and thoughts meld together to form our family’s unique life purpose.

Now we focus upon each child:

Yesterday I shared how we observe each child’s:

Strengths and natural ability and aptitude, also called talents
Weaknesses
Interests; what sparks their curiosity or desire to know more
Their passions (things they would do if left to their own devices)

Now we have a big picture. We’ve identified our family’s goals and purpose. We can see what is most important for us and what is most worth our time and energy. Is it academics? Skills? Information or knowledge? Or relationships? Our family has a priority list of:

relationships (with God, others and self) first, then
skills and then knowledge.

One of our highest priority areas is to grow in wisdom, which only comes from God and falls under the category of ‘relationships’.

Now our Family Mission Statement is in place…the next step is writing it down. Have you developed your Family Mission Statement? I’d love to hear about it. Having your mission statement written down is one of the most important things I recommend. when times of hardship or difficulty come (and they do) we turn to our Mission Statement. This gives us direction, focus and motivation. We’ve also found it beneficial to include the children, especially once they are older. This in turn helps to shape their own view of the world, family and education. It’s important to be able to articulate why we do what what we do. Your family vision is part of that.

See more of Our Homeschool Journey

Getting the direction – as co-pilot

A Gospel-driven, Cross-centric, Discipleship approach simply means that we’re teaching each child what he needs to know, with a view to his/her God given strengths, weaknesses, interest, passions, and talents… their natural bents. Rather than just getting an education we can receive a balanced education through our lifestyle. We are free to seek God for each child’s purpose. This is how we can disciple our children…and prepare them for an individual, definable life purpose.

Recognising God’s Call

The first thing we had to do was recognise God’s call. This was pretty easy…to recognise that God has put me, the parent, as the responsible authority in the lives of our children. I often remind myself that when God calls, He also enables!

Prayer

Ah, I read it, thought it and said it so often that it went without saying but in reality it was at times, the most neglected facet of my homeschool and personal life. I had to acknowledge my weaknesses in order to lean on His strength. This is a walk of faith. But as I have looked to God, more and more He has taken care of all our homeschool needs. In other words, the less I have planned and struggled, the more He has been in control and provided for us.

Rest in Him, Listen to Him and Rely on Him

Listening is so important. I need to listen more to God. Once I’ve asked for His help and direction, I need to stop and listen so that I can hear.

Recognize and Identify

I watch and observe. I have sensed the prompting of the Holy Spirit (and gained help and direction) just by watching and observing the children. Recognising the individual make-up of each child and who he/she was created to be is an ongoing process. In fact, I’ve become a student…not only of the word but a student of my children!

It’s important to spend time identifying the following in each child:

Strengths and natural ability and aptitude, also called talents
Weaknesses
Interests; what sparks their curiosity or desire to know more
Their passions (things they would do if left to their own devices)

Once these things have been identified, I’ve prayed and asked God to help me as I’ve devised a plan to develop their strengths and to build up their weaknesses.

Identity

Part of a Biblical or Discipleship based education is based around the child’s identity. Identity Directed education is not child-led. It does not mean that the whim and fancy of each child is indulged. It doesn’t mean only doing what the child is good at and ignoring everything else. While we are free to explore a child’s delights and passions and interests, that isn’t all of it. I’d like to share an analogy with you. It’s my own analogy and so it will show how I think and process information.
An athlete must train the whole body. It would be detrimental to their being to only train the areas of the body that they use most in their sport. A softball pitcher must have strong core muscles, upper body and leg muscles but they risk severe injury if these are the only areas they develop. They must also develop agility and speed, combined with power and explosiveness. They are required to use the muscle which allows them to pitch underarm yet if they don’t develop the muscles that allow them to throw over arm, they risk injury. Athletes use their whole body in a natural way and they never isolate a single muscle group or joint in the competition. In training yes, in order to develop the area but, only with an aim of building a strong whole body, fit for competition. Training with balance in strengths and weaknesses is the key! Just as an athlete has a training routine, so must the education of a child have structure and routine. These things are [natural, God ordained] biblical principles just as day turns to night and autumn comes after summer.

An individual’s strengths and weaknesses and interests are part of their God given make up! By identifying and encouraging their natural bents we will be launching them toward their purpose.

Our Homeschool Journey

Mapping the course- as the pilot

Yesterday I shared how much I had learned about education and homeschooling. Today I’ll share how God tapped me on the shoulder and straightened me out a bit.

We did Bible study and had memory verses and all those right things, yet something was missing. I knew that I was doing what God wanted- after all, I was doing this for Him, for His glory! Right? Oh boy, God was to show me how wrong I had been. After a few years, in His right time, He stepped in and didn’t leave me to wander for too long.

I had mapped out a course to get to the destination; I knew where I wanted to get to. I had gathered the tools for the journey: knew how I wanted to get there. I loaded the plane, buckled everyone in and took off! I turned to my co-pilot and asked him to bless the journey and to look out for us. After awhile, things got a little bumpy and I turned to my co-pilot and asked Him to help…but He was quite relaxed and had, in fact, been waiting for me to look to Him for help. I came to see that I was trying to take on the role of pilot when instead I am only the co-pilot and God is The Pilot. God knows the destination of each journey for each child. God knows what tools they need for the journey. He knows how to fly that plane better than anyone else: all I had to do was to recognise this and go to Him. I’m so thankful to God that He called me to a process of renewing my mind…to seek His design and not man’s. I had wanted to seek God for His plan for our family, but I got lost in the myriad of information regarding homeschooling.

I experimented on my girls with all these methods I was revising my educational philosophy, my dreams, goals and ideals for the children. In actual fact, my dreams and ideals drifted away from God and more to providing a ‘superior, successful, academic education‘. But deep in my heart I knew that something was missing.

A New Chapter

So began a new chapter in my homeschooling journey: that of putting God first…depending solely upon Him. I wanted Him to show me what to teach and when to each child. I was literally asking ‘What would Jesus do? What would Jesus learn? How would Jesus teach?’ Have you ever asked who is responsible before God for teaching your child? How about searching the Bible to see what God desires us to teach them? Hmmm, how about asking the when question? When to teach them? On the weekend? After school? Next question I asked was how do I teach them this then? I’ve always been one to ask questions (it’s how I learn) and so I wanted to know a few things…things that would impact every aspect of my family and the way I approach the concept of education. I have asked and studied these questions and I’d encourage everyone to do so- it’s a great topic! (I use the 5W’s and a H to learn most things and to teach most things. See my free download here; The Observation Sheet!)

God has a special plan for our family, for each of us and for our homeschool. This will look different to other families! But it is supposed to… I’ve learned that rather than look at what other’s are doing, I need to look only to the Lord. If I want Him to guide me, then I must seek Him, not man. God placed our children in our family. He wants me to diligently teach them His commands all throughout the day, every day, using ways and means that convey His eternal truths and build solid, loving, healthy relationships between me and them. He knows my abilities and theirs. He knows my strengths and weaknesses and theirs. He also knows my needs. I’ve learned that I can turn to Him, I can rely upon Him, die to self and trust in him for peace and assurance. This isn’t just something that I’ve learned about on Sunday, it is a result of trusting in God for everything, even homeschooling. Tomorrow I’ll share the ‘how’ we developed a Gospel based, discipleship approach to our family life and homeschooling.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Our Homeschool Journey

Something missing…

Yesterday I shared how we started the journey toward home education. Today is a continuation of that story…

I bought a series of progressive workbooks, worked out some schedules and away we went! I didn’t give the girls a break that Christmas. I had them do the testing to see precisely what levels to start with. Then we started with what I knew of education– public school style. I brought school into the home. It was kinda fun…for awhile. But I started to get bored of doing the same thing day in and day out and wondered if I’d be able to do this for another 10 years or so. A few months later…

We connected to the Internet – wow, a whole huge, new world opened up for me! Even though the ‘net is a lot bigger nowadays there was still a fair amount of information on various methods of homeschooling. I started researching unit studies and we delved into them for awhile. This led me to the Charlotte Mason and the Classical approach which led me to Unschooling and Natural Learning but the CM method was what I really wanted for my family. All methods offer something valuable but as Christian parents, we wanted something more – we wanted to pass our faith onto our children…we want for them to take ownership of that faith and experience a life filled with God for themselves. Throughout the years I started working very hard to become more like a ‘proper CM homeschooler‘ but I’d fall short and then feel like a failure and well, suffice to say that this time was fairly tumultuous for me as I was caught in a vicious circle. It was a great time where I learned a lot but also had its ups and down. I wanted to ‘take the meat and spit out the bones’ but felt an internal pressure to be a CM purist yet I couldn’t attain to the CM ideals! What a quandary…it’s always going to be hard when we keep looking at others instead of God.

Anyway, as I experimented on my girls with all these methods I was revising my educational philosophy, my dreams, goals and ideals for the children. In actual fact, my dreams and ideals drifted away from God and more to providing a ‘superior, successful, academic education‘. But deep in my heart I knew that something was missing. Oh, don’t get me wrong: we did Bible study and had memory verses and all those right things, yet something was missing. I knew that I was doing what God wanted- after all, I was doing this for Him, for His glory! Right? Oh boy, God was to show me how wrong I had been. After a few years, in His right time, He stepped in and didn’t leave me to wander for too long.

Our Homeschool Journey

Our Story: Beginning to homeschool

Post updated 28-4-13

I am Susan, married for nearly 25 years to John. We have a blended family whereby we have four children together and a 26year old son. Currently, the other children are 22yo daughter,a 20yo daughter, an 18yo son and a 15yo son. This is ‘officially’ our 16th year of homeschooling although we don’t think of it that way. We believe that homeschooling is simply a natural extension of parenting. We are a Defence Force family and have recently moved back to Adelaide after several years interstate. We’ve had 7 homes in 7 years and this is the last, for awhile. This is our story.

When John and I were first married we hadn’t heard of home education. We knew that we wanted to have a good, solid relationship with our children and raise them in God’s ways but school was just ‘what you did’. We had goals for our family and our children. We wanted to raise godly adults using a healthy process. We wanted to develop in them a love of learning that would continue throughout their whole life. Our hearts were turned toward our children and we wanted their hearts to be turned toward us and God. The godly training of our children was a priority. We recognized that the family unit is God’s design. We wanted a close relationship with our children…we wanted to capture their heart but we didn’t know about homeschooling…so, we sent our eldest, Miss A, to a small private Christian school. It was a nice school. John ended up as chairman of the P&C committee and I was at the school several times a week helping with reading and cleaning and canteen.

But we started to experience a few problems. Miss A would come home from school and be very emotional. She would either burst into tears for no apparent reason or she’d be snippy with her younger sister. We’d also help her with her homework, which was reviewing the spelling words, reading practice, times tables and Bible verse. On more than one occasion I wondered what on earth she did at school for 6 hours if we needed to do all this work at home. I felt like our days consisted of getting ready for school, being at school and then being tired from school. I felt like we, as parents, were missing out. School was getting the best hours of my child’s day! School was teaching her Bible stories and her character was being moulded by someone other than us. As it turned out that there were no problems at school… Miss A was just very tired. However, the seed had been planted in my mind- I questioned the whole concept of school. I don’t recall where I initially heard about homeschooling but I do remember saying to John,

“Oh, I wish I were one of those women who could homeschool her children”

John asked me what made me think I couldn’t? I responded with,

“Oh no way, I just don’t have enough patience!”

But the question nagged at me. Why couldn’t I? So we thought about it and talked about it. We started talking to others about it. We prayed about it. Eventually, we decided to give it trial run for 12 months. We informed the school principal that Miss A would not be returning to school the following year. Suffice it to say that we were not all that popular from then on.

I bought a series of progressive workbooks, worked out some schedules and away we went! I didn’t give the girls a break that Christmas. I had them complete the testing to see precisely what levels to start with. Then we started with what I knew of education– public school style. Yes, I had brought them home from school but I also brought school into the home. It was kinda fun…for awhile. But I started to get bored of doing the same thing day in and day out and wondered if I’d be able to do this for another 10 years or so. A few months later…

“Hear, O Israel; The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.”
Deuteronomy 6:48 (ESV)

Continue reading the rest of this series:

How Do We Parent?

Do you get sick of reading parenting books? I did. I’ll be honest. They get on my nerves. There are more different kinds of Christian parenting books than coloured jelly beans. How’s a parent supposed to know what to do? Ezzo? Pearls? Tripp? Barth? Grace-based? Law based? Where on earth does it end?

Good Information – Wrong Time

Sometimes reading books will actually provide us with information that is wrong at the time. We should not read parenting books BEFORE we have gone to God. Bold statement, I know. I used to read the books, arm myself with lots of information and then go to God, trusting that He would guide me in this parenting/homeschooling journey. Pfft! Talk about putting the cart before the horse!

Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.
Ecclesiastes 12:12

Parenting Experts or The Parent?

Why do we continually go to ‘the experts’ when we can go directly to THE Expert? Why do we need a writer, an author to tell us when, where, and how to discipline? Is it because we don’t look to see The Father’s parenting in our own lives? It seems to be a superior attitude to me; that we don’t like to see ourselves as children when we are parenting our children. We separate or compartmentalise areas of our life. Sometimes we’re parents; other times we are children of God…yet the two are intertwined.

How did God treat me before I was saved…before I came to believe on His son?

How does God treat me now?

In other words…

How does God parent me?

I am His child.

When I see the way that God parents me I am more able to parent my children in love, in grace…with discipline as it should be – loving discipline. Discipline that restores, not tears down or breaks hearts. Every action the Father does toward me is one of restoration, although I don’t always see that at the time. But it is. That is His nature and I trust Him.

How do I parent my children?

How does God parent me?

The blessing of our relationship with The Father should have us teach our children in the same ways – not holding back anything that is good for them, not disheartening them with our requirements. As we are being taught by Our Father, as He disciplines those that He loves, He does not despair or get impatient when we are slow but He continues to work in our heart and mind and in our family by his grace.

Let us seek the favour of God upon our homes!