May 2012
Hitting The Wall
By Shirley Minster © 2012
Hitting The Wall. This runners’ well-known phrase means the person has depleted his energy and cannot go one … more … step. His energy level is sapped and he must stop. From what I understand, it happens for some very basic reasons. First, the runner does not pace himself. Instead, he runs too quickly at first rather than pacing himself. Second, he does not hydrate along the route and sweating causes his heart to not pump well. If he drinks the glucose liquids and eats the glucose-laden foods that are provided by the helpers along his route, his body will be replenished. Third, his brain and other muscles tire from this strenuous workout. That’s why eating carbohydrates is helpful. In other words, it is all in how the runner prepares for his run and what he chooses to do while he is running the course. A well-run race may not mean that he wins the race, but at least he will not hit the wall.
There are many similarities for homeschooling parents.
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Special:
Crisis in Homeschooling: Exploring Major Blindspots of Homeschoolers
by Reb Bradley
I have heard from multitudes of troubled homeschool parents around the country, many of whom are leaders. These parents have graduated their first batch of kids, only to discover that their children didn’t turn out the way they thought they would. Many of these children were model homeschoolers while growing up, but sometime after their eighteenth birthday, they began to reveal that they didn’t hold their parents’values. Read article...
Gifted Children: Life In The Asynchronous Family
by Kathi Kearney, MA.Ed.
Max has not only been highly gifted all of his life, but also somewhat adolescent all of his life...at 14, he can display a ferocious insistence for justice with the passions and tenacity of a 3-year-old...this gets confusing! We were told that at age 9 he displayed "cognitive reasoning skills way beyond his years." I wish he came with a blinking sign on his forehead to let me know just who I am dealing with: the 3-year-old, the 14-year-old, or the 25-year-old.
Last summer an ill-placed golf ball landed in the bedroom of a house adjoining a picturesque lighthouse. (Remind me to ask how this boy could ignore the physics of playing golf in a densely populated suburban neighborhood.) As glass went crashing, his highly gifted buddy was heard to have prayed, "Thank God it wasn’t me!" I hear myself asking Max, again and again, 'What were you thinking?"
That’s the thing - they think when you least expect them to, and go blank at the most inopportune times. My guess is that it’s the tension of being caught between all those ages I just mentioned. But I don’t think my theory would be supported in a textbook, even though I live by it every day in order to give some organized definition to what’s going on. (Estes, 1991, p.3) Read more...
Has Something Come Between You and Your Children?
by Barbara Frank
Where I live, at certain times of day the roads are packed with moms taking their kids places. There are young moms with one or two little ones locked into car seats, and older moms ferrying their young teens to soccer practice or the mall.
This is nothing new. Moms have been driving their kids about town ever since the two-car family became prevalent in the 1960s. The difference is that now, many of those moms are talking on their cell phones while they drive.
It’s easy to understand why. If you must be stuck in traffic, why not make some phone calls so you feel like your time in line isn’t a total waste? A nice long chat with a friend seems like a good way to pass the time.
Meanwhile, the children in the back play with toys or video games, or watch a DVD. On good days, they entertain each other. On difficult days, they fight. The one thing they can’t do, however, is talk with Mom, because she’s on the phone.
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Why Aren’t you Homeschooling?
by Jim Willson
Do you truly know what schools are teaching your children? If I wagered a guess, 9 out of 10 parents do not. The only sure way to know is to educate your children yourself. Before last month, I would have said that homeschooling was a wonderful educational option for any family; it is rewarding for both the child and the parent. Based on what I saw a few weeks ago, I no longer feel that any parent, concerned about the education of their children, can consider homeschooling optional. I now believe homeschooling is essential to both the survival of the American way of life and family values. Read more...
The Joyful Homeschooler - Chapter Four
Trusting God with the Present
By Mary Hood a.k.a. The Relaxed Homeschooler
“This is the day that the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24
Many people fail to live abundantly in the present, despite God’s clear promise, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). These people are too hung up thinking about their past or worrying about their future to enjoy the time they have now to spend with their friends and loved ones.
It might sound like a cliché, but the present is all we have. There will always be a past to think about. We will always have a future to dream about. However, the only time we have to enjoy, to do anything meaningful, or to make any necessary changes, is the time that is before us this minute, this hour.
Many home-schooling mothers allow their present to be stolen away by the demon of “busy-ness”. They go through life trying desperately to feel like they have adequately accomplished everything they set out to do. The problem is, there are never enough hours in the day to accomplish their goals. There is always another toilet to be cleaned, another lesson plan to be worked up, another supper to be put on the table, another paper to be corrected, another meeting to attend, another church service to prepare for, another day of library trips and grocery shopping and trips to the post office and the bank. Read more...
Why We Teach at Home by Jean and Donn Reed
The objections and fears many people have about home-birth are not greatly different from their feelings about home school: “Something will go wrong,” “You need the experts,” “You’re sheltering them too much,” and so on.
Our main reason for having home-birth was that we loved our children (yes, even before they were born), and we wanted them to have the best start in life. We began teaching them at home for the same reason.
In education, as with birth, it was the narrow-mindedness and insensitivity of the “experts” and “trained professionals” that led us to realize we could probably do much better without their help.
We are confirmed do-it-yourselfers in many areas of life — childbirth, house-building, food production, etc. — and so we thought about teaching our children at home, but didn’t have any definite reason for doing so, and assumed that contact with other children would be enjoyable and beneficial. Read more...
Interest-Based Groups Advance Learning & Fun
By Laura Grace Weldon
We like to spend time with people who share our interests. That might be running marathons, understanding Civil War strategy, making homemade cheese or writing mysteries. Who doesn’t love talking about a favorite topic? It’s certainly easy to build friendships that way. Shared interests also foster greater enthusiasm and motivate us to expand our knowledge. That’s why interest-based groups make so much sense for our children.
For my family, interest-based groups are an important part of homeschooling life. We have formed a number of these groups over the years. Some, like a history club made up of eager parents and not-so-eager young children, barely lasted long enough for a few meetings. Others have lasted for 10 years.
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