Article by Diane Hopkins - the baby is the lesson

One morning on my daily walk, I was fretting and stewing over what I could possibly do with my one-year-old during school time. I was feeling some despair with a new baby on its way. I couldn't see any end to the disruption of babies in my home school for many years to come. I was praying and scheming at the same time: I could wait until the baby's nap to teach school, I could rotate the children with baby-sitting chore away from our schoolroom, I could get a playpen, etc.: all solutions that didn't feel right--babies needs their moms!

As I walked and pondered, suddenly the Lord introduced one sentence to my mind and revolutionized my mindset entirely! "The baby IS the lesson!" I thought I was trying to teach Math, but in reality I had been teaching, day by day, how an adult values the precious gift of children. My children, by watching how I deal with the frustration of a crying baby or keep a toddler happy and busy with some of his "own" pieces while we play a math game, are soaking up "the lesson". Unfortunately, I had occasionally been teaching that the baby interrupts our learning.

How to be a Christlike person is the most valuable lesson a child could ever learn! The lesson is learned moment by moment; watching a parent being patient, handling frustration with kindness, pressing on for the goal in spite of numerous interruptions, valuing each child's needs regardless of inconvenience. That valuable insight--how Mother handles the baby is the real lesson--has dramatically changed how I view my home school. I am teaching foremost my values: godly character, kindness, respect for others, individuality, sacrifice and a host of other Christlike attributes. Teaching them reading, writing, math, etc. is very important to me but my perspective has been altered. "Mimic me, follow me and I will show you the way a Christlike person acts and what he values". That is the message every parent relays to their children whether they are aware of it or not. Children try to copy everything anyway (our mannerisms, our daily activities, etc.). We must be certain that we are providing a correct pattern for them to copy, not only in our daily activities but in our attitude, our tone of voice, and our facial expression. We need to conduct our lives so that we can say "follow me". If our children are to "buy" our values, what a tremendous responsibility we have to make sure we are living our best so the lesson is clear and well learned! What more could you ask for from your homeschool than to produce Christlike people?!

Teaching your children basically means getting your own personal life in order and striving daily to be the leader for them to follow. Of course, we fall short and they must look to Christ for the perfect being but they need to see daily how one acts, speaks, lives, solves problems. We are acting as a proxy, in a sense, for Christ. Since they can't have his daily role model, then he has given his children parents to be an example, to point the way. Along with lesson preparations, we need to prepare ourselves by asking: is the pattern I live the way Christ would act? Can I say today that I have marked the path for my children to follow? Children learn from seeing their parent's role model. Watching an adult make a simple mistake (such as being too punitive with a child) and go through the process of repenting is 100 times more effective than your devotional lesson on repentance. This means children must be intimately involved with you in your daily life. A few hours a day after school won't do it.

Children should be involved in the adult's life rather than daily life rotating around the children. Research has shown that children who have grown up to be productive well-adjusted adults are those who have been drawn into the parent's world; their daily activities, work, and interests; rather than having parents who centered their world on the child. When I began home schooling, I never could find the time to do the things I felt were important for my life; such as writing in my journal, corresponding with relatives, studying my scriptures, and more. Somehow, in my busy-ness of trying to teach the kids how to write in their journals, I was neglecting my own journal writing. Thankfully, we now have journal writing time in school daily, and we write letters to relatives together as a family on Sunday. Homeschool life should help parents do the daily necessities, rather than usurp the time needed for them. Home maintenance, chores, food preparation, gardening, food preservation, budgeting, clothing care (mending and sewing), planning family social relationships, caring for small children, record keeping, quilting, wallpapering, etc. are all wonderful life skills that can be done together that enhance a child's education!

The parent's joyful task is to lead and guide the child into the real world--not set up a contrived pseudo-world to teach skills that the children would easily learn if they spent their time around adults who were striving to live good lives. What constitutes an adult trying to live a "good life"? Being a productive adult would constitute a full-time curriculum! Plant a garden, read good literature, serve the needy, be politically aware, keep a journal, vote for honest men, develop your talents, etc. The exciting part about leading a child into the real world is that they are self-motivated. The moment I sit down to play the piano, all my children want to play and want me to teach them to play something. No sooner than I begin typing on the computer, I have the whole family "needing" to type. My efforts at writing have, humorous to me, stimulated the production of "books" from my youngest children. Modeling is so much more effective than lecturing.

Studies show that the biggest determining factor for a child's success in reading in school is if they have seen a parent reading in the home on a regular basis. This is especially true for boys if the parent who reads is their father, rather than their mother. Somehow, the example says far more about the value of reading than endless hours in school reading groups.

In every area, it takes instruction to teach skills to little people. Children need to master the basic academic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic), social manners, music competence, and a host of other abilities and that does take focused concentration and time from mother/teacher to accomplish. It isn't realized just by living in a family. But shared family life practices and contributes to those skills. Having taught my little girl the numbers and the plus, minus and equal signs and how they worked, she jumped right into figuring out how many plates she needed to set the table using her new skills: ("We have 9 and the boys are gone to college so that is minus 3, so we need six").

When we think of homeschool, sometimes we get tunnel vision, and think "academics", "keeping up to speed" and other worrisome concerns that don't really tell the whole story. Homeschool is the growing and nurturing of fine, upright people. So, how we treat and value the baby really is the lesson.

Class never dismissed.

—Diane Hopkin
http://www.lovetolearn.net/policies/baby.lasso

Have I made the right decision?

I am just so tired and worn out with life. There are always too many stairs, and too many bodies (Mainly Elizabeth but sometimes Matthew) and things to carry up the stairs multiple times. There have been too many rainy days this year. Too many days of illness and boys squabbling. The baby cries. The house is a mess. My 4th pregnancy has left me with a continuing bad back, sore shoulders, headaches. I keep losing the plot in my exhaustion. I yell at the children too much. I feel guilty. I start to think there might be something wrong with Oliver - his attention and focus is not great. He still doesn't turn immediately when his name is called.

So to top it off last week the Speech Pathologist thought that there might be something wrong with him. She recommended me to put him into preschool, because that will force him out of his shell or force him to interact or focus just that bit more. I had a week of stressing about it every single minute of every single day. Because I was stressing about how 'behind' he is, I got cranky when he didn't show enthusiasm for drawing, seeing every little thing he does through the lens of a possible diagnosis of Aspergers.

Taking a step back, and trying to view this objectively, I don't think he has Aspergers. I don't think there is anything majorly wrong with him. He is probably just a slow developer/ late bloomer. Like Steve says, if there is any label that anyone would want to put on him, it would be mild. I made appointments with 2 expensive developmental paediatricians. I cancelled those appointments.

He is not going to preschool.

Why?

Because he is happy at home. He IS learning. He is improving. He is spending quality time with me & his siblings. Just this last week we caught a dragonfly. We currently have a cricket in our clear Ferrero Roche box sitting next to the children's breakfast table. He doesn't need to be doing the same things he does at home at a school environment where nobody will be paying him any attention.

I want to be the one who teaches him how to write. I want to be the one who sees his first letters. I want to be the one who witnesses the joy on his face when he can finally read.

Sometimes I so easily lose perspective.

Memory Making Days by Grace Noll Crowell

My hands swift moving through the hours
My feet that tread their daily round
My thoughts (God help me) in their hearts
Through after years will still be found.

I must walk softly, I must keep
a watch on all I do or say,
Perhaps, thus guarded, I shall make
Some lovely memory today.

I must move softly, I must keep
A watch upon my words and ways,
My children are so small, but these
are the memory-making days.

The days when their young minds will take
A clear-cut picture of my face;
Some little word I say will make
An imprint time will not erase

Reading

We're still reading heaps. Not as much as I'd like, but both boys are getting a longer attention span. Oliver is trying to read along by predicting what comes next or looking at the pictures. Matthew has a good vocabulary and knows the names of his favourite books and can 'read along'. Oliver loves 'There's an elephant on the roof eating cake' and Matthew loves 'The elephant and the bad baby'. I love the 'rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta'. Will try to get him saying it on video and of Oliver 'reading'. Steve read 'the 27th Annual African Hippopotomus Race' to Ollie and I read him 'Fantastic Mr Fox'. He loved both those books, but I haven't been able to find any other chapter books that will hold his attention. He didn't like 'Babe' and I think Paddington and Winnie the Pooh (original) are still a bit beyond him. His favourite part in Fantastic Mr Fox is the bit where Mr Fox's tail gets shot off.

The best day by Taylor Swift

Im five years old
Its getting cold out, got my big coat on
I hear your laugh and look up smiling at you
I run and run, past the pumpkin patch, and the tractor rides
Look now, the sky is gold
I hug your legs and fall asleep on the way home

I dont know why all the trees change in the fall
I know youre not scared of anything at all
Dont know if Snow Whites house is near or far away
But I know I had the best day with you today

Im thirteen now
And dont know how my friends could be so mean
I come home crying and you hold me tight and grab the keys
And we drive and drive until we found a town far enough away
And we talk and window shop til I forgot all their names

I dont know who Im gonna talk to now at school
But I know Im laughing on the car ride home with you
Dont know how long its gonna take to feel ok
But I know I had the best day with you today

I have an excellent father
His strength is making me stronger
God smiles on my little brother
Inside and out hes better than I am
I grew up in a pretty house
And I had space to run
And I had the best days with you

There is a video I found from back when I was three
You set up a paint set in the kitchen and youre talking to me
Its the age of princesses and pirate ships and the seven dwarfs
And daddys smart and youre the prettiest lady in the whole wide world

Now I know why all the trees change in the fall
I know you were on my side even when I was wrong
And I love you for giving me your eyes
Staying back and watching me shine
And I didnt know if you knew so Im taking this chance to say
That I had the best day with you today

(I love country music & this song just makes me cry. I hope that my children think that they have the best days with me.)

The Glass Castle - best book of 2009

by Jeannette Walls.

I don't know how i found out about this book, but the reviews on it looked really interesting. Like my kind of book. It turned out to be my favourite book of 2009. I found a copy at Stanton and couldn't put it down the moment I started reading. It's an autobiography and it is amazing. This girl had a very dysfunctional family life, but she relates it with such humour. As i was reading this in bed, every few paragraphs, i'd have to stop and say to Steve, 'you have got to listen to this' and I'd read it out and we'd both be laughing ourselves silly. The first half of the book is incredibly funny. It does get a bit sad once you find out more about her father's drinking problem and her mother's lack of direction and purpose in life . I watched an interview she did on youtube, and she is an amazing woman. She is resilient. How ever did her parents raise 4 kids without killing any of them is also astonishing.

I love autobiographies that are written well. This one was written well. I'd read so much of it out loud to Steve, I pretty much read him the whole book.

Animal School

This is so true!

Animal school

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.