Knowing When to Back Off

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Barbara Frank

Sometimes new homeschooling moms ask me when they should teach their kids to read, or when to sign their children up for music lessons. These moms naturally have a lot of questions, and many of them are “when” questions.

I think one of the most important questions a homeschooling mom can ask is when to back off, because sometimes we moms are so eager to do everything right that we overdo it.

For example, let’s say your child is learning how to subtract fractions, and it’s not going well. You can see that he’s coming close to the point of losing it. You try to explain the concept in a different way but he’s still not getting it. Instead, he’s getting teary-eyed.

No matter what the “experts” say about what grade a child should be in when he learns how to subtract fractions, if you’ve got a child on the edge, you need to back off. He might not tell you this in words, but you know him well enough to see that he’s hit the wall. Trust your knowledge of your child. Take a break from fractions for a while. You can always come back to it later.

Knowing when to back off doesn’t just apply to a child who’s overwhelmed by his schoolwork. Sometimes, we need to back off when our child is enthused about something. Years ago, I recall getting all excited over my kids’ enthusiasm about frogs. It started when they found a frog in the basement window well and requested a container to put it in. I gave them an empty coffee can, and they caught the frog, named it, carried it around in the coffee can, and showed it to their friends. They gave it some grass and learned it wasn’t interested in grass. They put a little water in the can in case it got thirsty. They were really into this frog.

Being a proactive mom who couldn’t wait to capitalize on their newly discovered interest in frogs, I brought home a stack of library books about frogs, expecting them to pore over them in their excitement over their new pet. But they ignored the books. So I had them sit down with me so we could read about frogs. And you know what? That pretty much extinguished their interest in frogs. I didn’t even get a chance to do the art project about frogs that I found in one of the books. In fact, I had to let the poor frog escape from his coffee can after his young captors forgot about him.

Over time I discovered that I had to let my kids learn freely instead of jumping in and turning an interest into a learning experience. This wasn’t easy for me. My own reaction to something new that interests me is to investigate it by reading about it. But I needed to let my kids learn in their own way. I had to learn when to back off.

You can see where we often need to back off even though our intentions are good. But what if it’s not a matter of intentions but instructions? For instance, the guide to the curriculum we’re using has a timetable that’s been tested by the experts. We won’t complete the curriculum by the end of the year unless we stick to the timetable. And yet life keeps intervening, and we fall further and further behind, until it becomes obvious that we’re never going to finish this curriculum in time.

What to do? We could:

institute seven-day-a-week school in order to catch up (that’ll go over well, won’t it?)
cut out something else that the kids are doing to leave more time for the curriculum.
just back off of the curriculum.

You knew I was going to pick #3, didn’t you? Remember, curriculum is meant to serve you; you’re not supposed to serve the curriculum. When you fall behind on a curriculum, something is wrong. The timetable might be too ambitious for your family. You might want to stretch the program over a longer time period, or combine lessons where possible. Or perhaps it’s just not the right curriculum for you and your kids.

It’s OK to admit that, by the way. Yes, I know you spent good money on it, but most of the time, you have no way of knowing how a curriculum will work for your family without actually trying it. Also, the curriculum might have been written for actual schools, which are very different from home schools. Such programs are more appropriate for captive audiences (i.e. schoolrooms) than people having a life.

Whatever the problem is, back off of the curriculum and come up with an alternate plan. Expect that this will often happen to you when you homeschool. If you’re not already a flexible person, you will become one!

Of course, backing off isn’t something that comes naturally to most homeschooling moms. We’re used to being proactive when it comes to our children’s education. But if we can become aware of situations where backing off is the smart thing to do, we’ll see that homeschooling becomes easier for us. And that’s always a good thing!

(Excerpted from Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey (Book 2), just published by Cardamom Publishers. Available HERE for $4.99.)

Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey (Book 2)

Posted on March 24, 2012 by Barbara Frank

I’m delighted to announce that the second eBook in our Stages of Homeschooling series has just been published at Amazon.com. Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey has over 200 pages of encouragement and information for the homeschooling parent with a few years of experience under her (or his) belt. And it’s a bargain at just $4.99! (I think eBooks should cost less than print books, don’t you?)

Here’s what you’ll find in Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey:

Have you got a few years of homeschooling under your belt, and you’re looking for practical information and encouragement from someone who’s lived the homeschooling life?

If your answer is “yes,” then this is the book for you.

Barbara Frank just wrapped up 25 years of homeschooling four children, including one with special needs, and wants to share her experiences with those currently on the homeschool journey. So she’s combined new material with some of her articles and blog posts into a series of four books called Stages of Homeschooling. Enjoying the Journey is the second book of the series.

Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey is divided into eight sections:

“Working with Your Children” (Curriculum and its place in your homeschool, specific ideas for working with your children, and tactics for avoiding homeschool burnout)

“Raising Children You Can Live With 24/7” (An especially important consideration for homeschooling parents)

“Self-Care for the Homeschooling Parent” (How to keep yourself strong for the important job of homeschooling)

“Homeschool Challenges and Issues” (Handling difficulties that might crop up for you personally or for the homeschool community at large)

“Books and Resources I Have Known and Loved (and How to Find Them)”

“Homeschooling and Holidays” (A look at holidays from the vantage point of a homeschooling parent)

“For Girls Only” (A few thoughts for those of you raising daughters)

“Teaching Practical Skills” (Ideas for including this increasingly important topic in your homeschooling plans)

This book will encourage and enlighten you as you homeschool your children. It’s the second book in the Stages of Homeschooling series:

Stages of Homeschooling: Beginnings (Book 1)

Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey (Book 2)

Stages of Homeschooling: Letting Go (Book 3)–COMING SOON!

Stages of Homeschooling: The Empty Nest (Book 4)–DUE LATER IN 2012

Learn more about this new title HERE. Don’t have an Amazon Kindle? No worries; just download one of their free apps, found HERE.

Why Public Schools are “Old School”

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Barbara Frank

Parents choose homeschooling for many different reasons, but one common reason is that they’re unhappy with their local public school, or with public education in general.

Here’s a question to think about. What is the purpose of public school? Most people would answer that it’s where children get an education so that they graduate prepared to go out into the world on their own and support themselves.

Let’s take a look at what children experience in school on a daily basis:

They have to be there at an official starting time.
(If they don’t show up, they’ll have to explain their absence and might be penalized if they don’t have a good enough excuse.)
They’re to go to a certain room where they’ll depend on the teacher to give them their work.
They’re told what kind of work they’ll do; most of the time, they cannot choose what they want to do.
They cannot get up and leave the room; they have to stay put until an official release time.
They have to ask permission to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water; if they do either of these things too many times, they’ll be reprimanded.
They’re expected to stay in their seat and not wander around.
They’re regularly assessed by the teacher, who rewards those with good reports and penalizes those with bad reports.
They can’t eat until the prescribed meal time.
They can’t take a break whenever they need it; they have to wait until recess or lunchtime.
When they finish their work, they have to wait for the teacher to give them something new to work on.
They can’t go home until the bell rings.

Schools aren’t the only place where you’ll find this kind of environment. There’s another place where the daily routine is almost identical. Rereading that list (this time replacing the word “teacher” with the word “boss”) makes it clear that the school experience is designed to replicate the experience of the workplace; that is, the workplace that was common during the 20^th century. Children in school were and are trained to be “good workers”: to get to work on time, to do what the boss says, and to accept the lack of autonomy inherent in the traditional hierarchical work environment. They experience this indoctrination for the bulk of childhood; thus it will be hard for today’s children to shake off their school-induced dependence on authority once they have to make it on their own in a world where all the rules have changed, and where self-sufficiency is back in style out of necessity.

(Excerpted from my book Thriving in the 21st Century: Preparing our Children for the New Economic Reality.)

When Grandparents Don’t Understand

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Barbara Frank

You’re all pumped up about homeschooling, you love seeing your kids learn new things, and you love having the time to learn together. Yet there’s a fly in your ointment—your parents or your in-laws are opposed to what you’re doing.

This hurts. You want them to be happy for your family, to appreciate what you’re doing, and you certainly don’t want them to make trouble for you. Maybe it would help to look at the situation from their point of view.

I’m not saying they’re right…I’m just suggesting you put yourself in their place for a few minutes. Chances are good they’re in their 50s or 60s. That means they started going to school in the 1950s or 1960s. Their memories of school took place in a much different era. Teachers’ biggest concerns back then were kids chewing gum in class and running in the hallways, not bringing guns to class and ducking gang members in the hallways. Many of today’s grandparents picture school as the experience they remember, not the one that exists now.

Your parents or in-laws may also view your choice to homeschool your kids as a criticism of the way you or your spouse were educated. They probably chose to live in an area where there was a decent school, and they believe you got a good education. But to them, your choice of homeschooling may feel like a rejection of your education, and they’re taking it personally.

Another possibility is that they truly believe the only place a child can learn to read, write and do math is in school. They became parents during an era when so-called experts, like Dr. Benjamin Spock, were almost worshipped as parenting gods. What people like Dr. Spock said was practically gospel to some people back then. Your parents or in-laws may view teachers as experts, but they still see you as their child (or the person their child married). They may like you, but that doesn’t mean they think you have the expertise to teach your kids.

There may be other, more personal, reasons your parents or in-laws would object to you homeschooling your kids; only you would know if that’s the case. But the fact remains that it hurts if they don’t support your decision. That discord may simmer under the surface, or it could result in outright hostility.

In most cases, the solution to this problem is time. As your children grow up to become happy, independent and smart young people, their grandparents will see that they’re doing fine. You can help this along by inviting them to your support group’s Project Night or science fair, sharing your children’s test scores with them, and involving them in field trips as well as projects you work on at home. Remove the mystery of homeschooling so they can see that it really is just a loving and involved family life. People fear what they don’t know; help your parents or in-laws to understand homeschooling, and show them the fruit it bears in your children’s lives so they can understand exactly why you would make such a choice.

(Excerpted from Stages of Homeschooling: Beginnings, my new eBook available only at Amazon.com for the Kindle. Learn how to use the free Kindle app on your pc HERE.)

Why Steal Tide?

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Barbara Frank

So the laundry detergent Tide has become a popular target for thieves. Who knew? Seems to me that Tide’s neon orange bottle would be hard to hide, but apparently people are making Tide disappear quite easily, even stealing multiple bottles at a time.

My favorite part of the article describing this trend is the quote from the manufacturer:

“We don’t have any insight as to why the phenomenon is happening, but it is certainly unfortunate,” said Sarah Pasquinucci, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble.

Guess I’ll have to clue P&G in so they can solve this mystery: You charge too much for Tide! No one likes spending $10 or more on a bottle of laundry detergent. Hence the increase in theft and the use of Tide as payment for drugs and other illegal activities.

Those of us who aren’t inclined to steal have a different reaction to the ever-increasing price of detergent: we’re making our own. And it turns out that it not only saves us a bundle, but it’s healthier for our families because it doesn’t have all those unpronounceable chemicals in it.

A quick search for “homemade laundry detergent” will net you an amazing number of results on the search engine of your choice. I like this one.

I’ve been making my own liquid laundry detergent for a few years now and love it. Recently I began making powdered detergent in my food processor and I like that, too: now I use liquid for cold water loads and powder for warm/hot water loads. My current homemade powdered detergent is lavender-scented. It makes me smile every time I use it. And now that it’s warm enough to hang out the wash, my laundry joy is complete. Take that, Procter & Gamble!