Category Archives: Home & Family

Homemaking, parenting and special needs

Blast from the Past: Woodworking with Dad

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Now that our son is not a little boy anymore, we’ve been getting him involved in useful projects that require him to work with his hands.

A few weeks before Christmas, my husband asked dsds15 if he’d like to make his gifts for family members in the workshop. Of course, he got a big yes, because what boy doesn’t like working with his dad?

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The project my husband chose was a pencil holder (link includes plans) made of pine, a soft and pretty wood that’s easy to work with, which is especially important if you’re new to woodworking. The two of them spent several afternoons working on six pencil boxes, which turned out very well. The recipients were quite pleased, and our son was so proud!

In difficult economic times, working with your hands is quite the skill to have, making a person more self-sufficient as well as more useful on the job. I think we homeschoolers need to make sure our kids can work with their hands so they’re prepared for whatever our economic future holds.

(Originally posted 1/13/09. Our son is now in his 20s and still enjoys working with his dad in the shop. They even built a desk for his room together.)

Blast from the Past: Another Milestone

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Happy 2009! It’s a banner year for us, as we will be graduating our third child from homeschooling this year.

It’s a bittersweet time, of course, because I have so enjoyed the years dd17 and I have spent learning together. It’s been quite a ride, too.

She officially began homeschooling at age 4, when I bought her a set of preschool workbooks from Rod and Staff. This was her idea, not mine, of course. She had seen her older siblings doing school and wanted to be just like them. I acquiesced, but we never worked together formally until she got a bit older. The main reason for this was that I had a hard time juggling her, our toddler with special needs (and many medical and therapy appointments) and our older kids, 10 and 12, who were also homeschooled.

Around that time, my husband came home to work, and my own workload lightened up with his help. As the chaos lessened, I found that working with my daughter was a nice daily respite from Algebra and other challenges that come with homeschooling pre-teens.

The years flew by, and before I knew it, our two older kids had graduated from high school and homeschooling. Now my daughter and I could work together interrupted only by her little brother; the big kids were at work or college.

These were fun years. She was in a homeschoolers’ Girl Scout troop, and we baked and sewed together, too.

At age 11, she decided to study the violin (she still does). Soon she asked me to teach her to make quilts, and she helped make them for a mission project with our church. She made and sold crafts, and began writing novels.

Before long, she was the favorite babysitter of our neighborhood (as her elder sister had once been). And through it all she was her younger brother’s favorite playmate, and his primary translator (he’s speech-delayed).

This past year she began driving, and started her first and second jobs, both in the tourist town in which we now live. She’s working on her second novel, and is thinking she may go to college to major in criminal justice, but not right away. She’d like a year off first.

She’s a joy to live with: generous, loving and kind. She’s not as eager to live on her own as our eldest was, and for that I’m grateful, because we’re really not ready to let her go yet.

So this year will be her last as a homeschooler. I will miss “doing school” with her. Over the past few years, we’ve slowly weaned ourselves off of our daily work together by increasing her independent work. Ideally, that should make it easier for me to let go. But it’s still going to be hard, come May.

(Originally posted 1/2/09. Our daughter did end up going to college and earned an Associate’s degree in Criminal Justice. She worked for a couple of different local law enforcement agencies before deciding it wasn’t for her. She now works as a nanny, runs her own sewing business, and is married to a young man she met in college who was also homeschooled. And she is still a joy to be around  🙂   .)

Blast from the Past: Fix the Real Problem First

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Lately I’m hearing from people who might stop homeschooling because something unrelated to homeschooling is making it too hard for them to teach their children.

For example, a woman is grieving the loss of her mom, and is taking it so hard that she’s just not up to working with the kids. So she’s wondering if she should just put them in school.

I’m not sure the answer is to stop homeschooling. There’s nothing wrong with taking some time off of homeschooling and even her normal routine if she’s too upset to do those things. Grieving is a natural part of life, and her kids are grieving, too, I’m sure. The whole family could benefit from a break. When they’re up to it, they can pick up their studies again. (Here’s more about grief and homeschooling.)

The bottom line: if you figure out the real problem, you may not have to give up on homeschooling after all.

(Originally posted 10/31/08)

Blast from the Past: Preschool is Not Necessary

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Recently, I was approached by a journalism student working on a project who wanted my opinion on preschool. Here is part of her email along with my responses to her questions:

I’m working on this article and I want to focus on why enrollment in preschools
has consistenly gone up, especially for children that are 3 and 4 years old. I
also am looking at whether preschool is a necessary step for children and why
or why not. Below I’ve listed a few questions for you. Please feel free to
elaborate on anything as much as you feel necessary and if you can send your
answers back to me as soon as possible, that would be great (my article is due
at the end of the week)!

1. In the article by Diane Laney Fitzpatrick, you were included because of
your blogging about the necessity of preschool. Tell me more about this – what
influences your opinions about preschool?

Actually, I blogged that preschool is not necessary and can be harmful. I think the primary influence on my thinking about preschool is that my generation did not have preschool and we’ve done just fine, and none of my own children went to preschool (or to school at all), and they are doing very well. Ex. My son graduated from college last year magna cum laude.

2. Do you believe that preschool is more beneficial for children than staying
at home with mom? What sort of things can a child gain from each? Do some
outweigh others?

Heavens, no. I think being home with a parent or someone else who loves you very much (i.e. grandparent) is far superior to preschool. Also, I believe children of all ages need freedom to learn, and the classroom is not a place of freedom. I see no advantages to preschool except for the child who is living in neglect, and the advantages to him/her, besides being common sense, are well-documented.

3. What do you think is one of the biggest concerns for mothers that sways
them one way or the other?

I don’t think it’s just mothers; dads care, too. I think most parents believe the hype that preschool is necessary so the child doesn’t fall behind his peers. Most studies refute this, btw, and in actuality you often see the child who was in preschool burn out in school by about the third grade.

4. Even though preschool may not be necessary, is it actually beneficial? Can
children benefit just as much when they stay at home with their mothers?

Again, I see no benefits of preschool for most children. Interested parents, plus sibs, neighbors and extended family for socialization did just fine for generations and will continue to do so.

5. What sort of background to have with children? How does this background
impact they way you think about this issue? Any specific occurences that
influence your opinions?

I’ve homeschooled my four (inc. one with dev. disabilities) from birth. They are now 15, 17, 23 and 25, so I’ve seen the results. Also, the kids I’ve known who went to preschool tended to become very peer dependent, and not as self-motivated as other kids. Take our next-door neighbors. The boys who lived on one side of us did not go to preschool. Great kids…one is now a music teacher, the other an optometrist. The girl on the other side was in daycare from six weeks on, preschool for two years before school. Flunked out of high school. And this from a more affluent family.

6. Is there anything else you feel is important for me to know about this
issue that I have not asked about?

You’re probably out of time, but it would be interesting to examine the vested interests of those who promote preschool so hard in the face of so many studies suggesting it’s not working. My guess is they have a certain mindset they want to inculcate, and that kind of thing works best when started very early on.

Thanks again and can’t wait to hear from you!
Sincerely,

Her deadline was fast-approaching, so I don’t know if she had time to read an editorial I shared with her about preschool from the Wall Street Journal, but I hope she did because it’s well worth reading.

(Originally published 10/20/08, and I haven’t changed my mind!)

Blast from the Past: Must Homeschool Success Equal Homeschooled Grandchildren?

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It alarms me when I hear someone say (usually in a homeschool convention speech) that our homeschooling efforts will prove successful only if all of our children homeschool their own kids someday.Yes, I think it would be wonderful if that happened, but I’m not going to hold my breath for it. And we have not told our children that they must homeschool our someday grandkids. For one thing, God called us to homeschool. It wasn’t a decision we made because someone here on earth expected us to do it (back then, nobody expected us to do it…they were all pretty surprised, actually.) So how can we demand that our kids do it? That request has to come from God.

I don’t believe the goal of homeschooling is to perpetuate it. I think the goal is to allow children to grow up naturally within the protective circle of the family, to live in the real world (as opposed to the unreal world of the classroom) and to learn what they need to prepare them for life. Once they’re adults, they should have the freedom we have to make their own decisions, with God’s direction.

(Originally published 10/11/08. We now have one grandchild and another on the way. Our grandson is in full-time daycare. He is sweet, bright and we are all quite smitten with him!)