“Check Out” My Book on Amazon for Free

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Would you like to read my new book for free? You can, and it’s all because of my husband.

You see, “we” bought an Amazon Kindle quite a while back but he became so attached to it that it’s now his Kindle (he denies this, but he’s always using it!) There are many things he loves about the Kindle, but recently he found out that he can check out a book for free on his Kindle and keep it checked out as long as he wants, and he really liked that idea  🙂

So we’ve decided to allow my newest book, Thriving in the 21st Century: Preparing Our Children for the New Economic Reality, to be checked out for free on Amazon because the economy isn’t getting any better and we want people to learn how they can prepare their kids to thrive in challenging times (hint: homeschooling is definitely a part of the process!)

Of course, you can read free excerpts of the book here, but if you want to read the whole book, learn how you can borrow it for free here.

“Let Them Talk” and “The Gospel According to Jazz”

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Now that I’m not homeschooling anymore, I actually had time to make most of my Christmas gifts, which was a lot of fun, and my beloved sewing machine got a workout. Since I always need music to sew by, I bought myself some early Christmas gifts: a few new cd’s.

I learned about the first cd earlier in the fall, when I stumbled onto a wonderful new show in the PBS Great Performances series called “Let Them Talk.” It featured actor Hugh Laurie, who most people know as the main character on the television show “House.”

I’ve only ever seen the pilot of that show and I didn’t care for it. However, my husband and I know Hugh Laurie from the marvelous “Jeeves and Wooster” series, which we discovered at the Door County Public Library when we lived up in Sturgeon Bay. After borrowing and watching every videotape they had, we ended up buying the series on DVD. We still love it.

While today’s Hugh Laurie is a far cry from Bertie Wooster, both shows display Laurie’s considerable musical talent. Bertie sang silly songs while playing the piano. The real Hugh Laurie took his musical talents to New Orleans, where he indulged his longtime love of the blues by singing and playing the piano and guitar with a marvelous set of musicians. I watched “Let Them Talk,” the show that documents his trip (you can watch it in full here) so many times online that I finally decided to buy the cd so I could hear the music even when I’m not near my computer. A wise decision, as I’m now doing a needlework project for someone and can listen to “Let Them Talk” while I work in my comfy chair far from the computer.

My other purchase is actually a set of two cd’s called “The Gospel According to Jazz.” I discovered one of the songs on it (see video above) last year and fell in love with it. After hearing that beautiful song I looked up Lalah Hathaway on YouTube and found her work with Kirk Whalum and his group. You can only play YouTube clips so many times before you break down and buy the music; at least that’s my experience. Hence my purchase of the two-cd set.

If you like jazz, and if you like praise music, this is the perfect combination. I’ve been playing these over and over and I’m not tired of them yet (the rest of the family may be, but too bad!)

Just last week I found out that my sister (a radio personality) interviewed Lalah Hathaway several times some years back. Wish I’d known who she was then as I would have enjoyed the interviews. Now I know that she’s the daughter of Donny Hathaway, whose work I’ve always enjoyed so much. Even if you’ve never heard of him, you’ve probably heard him sing:

Anyways, if you’re looking for some new music or an entertaining dvd set, I highly recommend these artists:

Great (Homeschool) Expectations

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Over Christmas I heard from several longtime friends who, like me, are homeschool moms. In fact, I’m the only one who’s “retired” from homeschooling. The rest are still at it with one or more younger children, but they also have adult children that they homeschooled all the way through high school.

I love talking with these women. We share a common history that most people can’t understand, and of course, that’s the main topic of conversation (besides our children, of course).

However, I have to admit that, despite being homeschooled, some of our now-adult children have disappointed us in different ways. (I can’t share too many details here, because I want to respect the privacy of these young adults.) In most cases, they’re doing great making their way in the world, but some have made sinful choices in their personal lives that have upset their parents. In one extreme case, someone chose a lifestyle that nearly killed them; sadly, they’re not out of the woods yet, after more than a year. (It really grieved me to hear about that person).

We moms openly share our disappointments with each other knowing that we can relate to each other so very well. We all had such great expectations, and some of them have been dashed.

I know this is common for parents. But I think it’s especially painful for homeschooling parents because we devoted our daily lives to raising our children, not because we had nothing better to do, but in part because we expected that our efforts would reap benefits for our children. And while the adult children I know have clearly reaped educational benefits from homeschooling, some of their lifestyle choices make it clear that not everything we taught them stuck.

I should point out that some of our expectations were created by the books we read and the speakers we listened to back when we were new homeschoolers. Even now, you’ll find some saying that homeschooling creates strong Christians, good citizens, yada yada. In fact, some people have made lucrative careers out of saying those things. It’s what everyone wants to hear. After all, why should we go through all this work if it’s not going to pay off?

But the fact is that there are no guarantees. And to those who point fingers and say, “Well, if you just do it right, your kids will turn out right,” I say “Beans!” I realize there’s no question that my husband and I made mistakes. All parents do. But when I think of how the Israelites treated God (see Exodus), why did I expect that none of my children would rebel or go in a different direction from the way we pointed them? Clearly each person must make their own way in life (and hopefully toward God). Not even the love of a homeschooling parent can overcome the effects of sin in the world.

But of course we had to try, and those of us specifically called to homeschool our children can’t regret it. (My mom friends and I talked about that a lot over Christmas!) We tried our best, but we’re learning that ultimately, our adult children’s lives are between them and God.

As for the verse in Proverbs that homeschoolers quote so often, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it,” I’ve written before that it’s a principle, not a promise, and also that we can’t ignore that phrase “when he is old.” Homeschooling doesn’t turn out perfectly formed adults at age 18. Each person is a lifelong project of God’s. We homeschooling parents were deeply involved in the first stage, but God will use all sorts of people and events to shape our children over the course of their lives. Hopefully there’s still time for each one of them to come to the personal realization that living God’s way is the only way to live.  (We talked a lot about that, too.)

If newer homeschoolers could have heard our conversations over Christmas, it might have frightened them. That vision of homeschool success is what kept us going during the most difficult times, and I hate to pop that bubble for anyone.

That said, I suspect that even if every homeschooling parent could be convinced that homeschooling is good but doesn’t create perfect adults, they’ll still be disappointed someday if their adult child makes poor choices. It’s what happens when you love someone so much. And since it’s this painful for us, imagine how God, the only perfect parent, feels when He sees us making similar poor choices.

Recognizing Your Hidden Curriculum

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At times we homeschoolers start to get a bit weary of the curriculum we’re using, so we boost our spirits by thinking about what we want to use next year. We also look forward to the next homeschool convention, where we can go on the hunt for new materials.

We put a lot of time and thought into finding just the right books and resources to use with our children, and that’s important. But we should also put at least as much effort into recognizing the hidden curriculum, the one that teaches our children every day, whether we realize it or not.

Being with our children all the time, not just after school and on weekends, means they are exposed to our behavior all the time. All kids watch their parents and learn from watching their good (and bad) behavior, but our kids see far more of us than other kids see their parents. Kids whose parents both work full-time outside of the home may only see them for a few hours a day or less, and with the hectic weekends full of sports and other activities that are often a staple in the modern family’s routine, they don’t spend all that much time with them on the weekends, either.

But our kids are with us a lot. They’re watching how we live, and they’re subconsciously taking notes on everything they see. Those notes will be the basis for how they live their adult lives….a result of the hidden curriculum that they were taught by watching us every day.

This puts an awful lot of pressure on us as parents. Since we’re with our kids so much, we need to be especially aware of how we behave, because every aspect of our personal lives is a part of the hidden curriculum.

There are many features of the hidden curriculum. Consider:

The balance curriculum How do we spend our time? Do we run frantically from activity to appointment, never pausing to take time off for rest or fun or to just enjoy our lives and each other? Are we workaholics? The popular 1970s song “Cat’s in the Cradle” illustrates the balance curriculum: a father recalls how he always put off his son because he had so much work to do, and then tells how his son now has no time for him because he learned from his father’s example and is just too busy.

The marriage curriculum No marriage is without challenges, but how do we handle them? When the kids are always around, it’s impossible to hide those challenges from them for long. Do we handle disagreements respectfully, or do we lash out at each other? Do we make time alone with our spouse a priority, or do we have a “child-centered” marriage? The way we treat each other is the marriage curriculum for our children.

The love-thy-neighbor curriculum Are we demonstrating love in action for our children? When we hear of a friend and neighbor in need, do we help them out or decide to mind our own business? Getting the kids involved in baking cookies for a new neighbor or delivering dinner to a family with a new baby teaches them that loving others is a priority.

The faith curriculum How we feed (or starve) our faith is being watched closely by our children, and sets the stage for their own faith walk. Do we make time for personal and family devotions? Which choice usually wins…attending church services or sleeping in? Are we strangers at church or do we get involved in the work being done there? We can sermonize at length to our children about God, but if we aren’t walking our talk, the lesson of the hidden curriculum is “do as I say, not as I do.”

The financial curriculum How we handle money speaks volumes about us; our children are watching and learning from what we do. Do we pay our bills on time or lie to creditors over the phone? Do we put a little money away regularly or are we caught up in impressing others by buying big-ticket items we can’t afford? Since our children are home each day, they’ll probably be there when the tow truck comes to repossess the late-model car we impulsively bought. That will be a memorable lesson in the hidden curriculum!

The grieving curriculum Loss is an inevitable part of life, but in our society, we hide our grief from others, including our children. One mom who’d recently lost her own mother found that by holding in her feelings until the children were asleep, her grief overwhelmed her, and she needed professional help getting through it. It’s hard letting our kids see us cry, and when they’re around all day, it’s almost impossible to hold our feelings in. By sharing those emotions with them, we teach them it’s ok to mourn.

The child-rearing curriculum The way you treat your children is their training for the way they’ll treat your grandchildren. A mom who was regularly beaten by her parents was able, by the grace of God, to break the chain of abuse and not abuse her own children. They know her story, and now also know that the chain of abused children can and must be broken. How you discipline your children sets the stage for what they will consider normal in discipline….yet another facet of the hidden curriculum.

These are not the only parts of the hidden curriculum. I’m sure you can think of others. My point is that while it’s good to put a lot of energy into researching and finding the very best math books and reading series and science curriculum, it’s even more important to think about what kind of hidden curriculum we are using with our children. They are with us every day, absorbing that hidden curriculum even on the days when they don’t have to “do school.” That’s why we must never forget that as their parents, we are the authors of the hidden curriculum.

(Excerpted from Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey, available from Cardamom Publishers.)

Preschool Pressure or Preschool Peace?

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I always say my kids were homeschooled from birth, because they never went to school and they were learning from the day they were born. Yet I didn’t “school” them during the years from birth to age 5; we certainly did a lot—played inside and outside, made crafts, painted, colored, I read to them—but I never considered that homeschooling.

That’s why I was bewildered when I first noticed the trend of moms joining homeschool support groups even though their children were under five years old. I wondered, what’s their hurry?

Talking with some of these moms has given me some insight into why they consider themselves homeschoolers even though their kids are so young. I’ve learned that today’s young parents are under so much pressure to not only send their kids to preschool at age 3, but to start preparing them (“readiness”) even earlier than 3 that they feel they must call themselves homeschoolers so people won’t think their little ones aren’t being educated. In this competitive society of ours, heaven forbid we should let a young child of 2 or 3 (or even 4 or 5!) just simply learn through play and experiences.

Learning about Preschool Pressure really makes me feel old. When my first child was 3 (how can that be over 25 years ago?), children of working moms were often put in daycare, but children of stay-at-home moms were home with Mom, and maybe in a park district class for an hour twice a week. Most moms didn’t think about preschool until the year before kindergarten, and even then, many chose not to send their children to it. Since I had already planned to homeschool my daughter, we never looked into preschool. Once I started homeschooling her at age 5, we liked it so much that we never considered putting any of our next three children in preschool or any school.

But while my children were growing up in an atmosphere of homeschooling families where preschool wasn’t even discussed, the outside world was changing. As more moms rejoined the workforce, the cry went out that children needed preschool in order to succeed in school. “Educational experts” repeatedly cited the success of the government-run preschool program Head Start, rarely mentioning that the kids in that program were so disadvantaged from the get go that special attention would have helped them. An average child home with an attentive parent wasn’t disadvantaged and didn’t need preschool to become prepared. In fact, even 20 years ago, studies showed that any scholastic advantage gained by preschool wore off by third grade and was even suspected of causing early school burnout. But that aspect of preschool wasn’t advertised much.

What concerns me now is that there is an entire generation of young moms out there (you may be one of them) who has been conditioned to believe that their under-age-5 children must have some kind of formal preschool program, even one at home, in order to be properly educated. Since I know from experience that this is patently untrue, I feel bad for any mom living under Preschool Pressure. I worry that finding and implementing a home preschool program for each of her little ones will result in burnout of both the child and the mom. It would be such a shame to burn out and give up on homeschooling; the thought that an exhausted mom will give up and put her burned-out child into formal schooling at an early age is heart-breaking, because it didn’t have to happen.

I wish there was an easy way to remove Preschool Pressure from each mom’s existence, and instead replace it with Preschool Peace, which is what I had, as did the many generations of mothers before me. The best I can do, however, is offer the following recipe, in hopes that you’ll read it if you need it, and share it with anyone else who needs it. Only by finding Preschool Peace can a homeschooling mom conserve her energy for the larger task of homeschooling her children for as many years as she needs to do later on, maybe even through high school. I don’t think I could have survived homeschooling two all the way through (and homeschooling two more now) if I’d had to homeschool them in the preschool years. Just the thought makes me want to go take a nap!

Recipe for Preschool Peace

Starting as early in your parenting life as possible, mix:

  • One large dollop of the works of John Holt, especially How Children Learn, Learning All the Time, and Teach Your Own.
  • Two heaping cups of Better Late Than Early by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore.
  • A splash of “Preschool Homeschooling” by Beverly Krueger.

Allow this mixture to rest in your brain for a while, then add (as your child becomes old enough to do these things):

  • Lazy afternoons at the park
  • Regular visits to the public library
  • Trips to the zoo and children’s museum
  • Work in the garden (especially making mud pies)
  • Large empty appliance boxes and markers
  • Finger paints
  • Long sessions of you reading aloud to them

Relax and enjoy!

Special note: don’t rush through this recipe—take your time, because soon enough your little one will be a “big kid,” and both of you will be ready to take on a more complicated “recipe.”

(Excerpted from Stages of Homeschooling: Beginnings, available from Cardamom Publishers.)