Tag Archives: homeschooling

Homeschoolers and College

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Homeschoolers and college have been an item for quite some time. As soon as the first crop of homeschooled kids burst on the scene in the 1980s, astounding bystanders with their intelligence, diligence and social skills (!), homeschooling parents gained the confidence to expect their children to go to college without a public high school transcript.

And go to college they did, many doing so well that colleges began to (and still do) seek out homeschooled kids. One of ours went to college and graduated with honors, so I guess we’re part of that trend.

But I think homeschooling parents should be aware that it’s not just a matter of sending your child to college and watching him or her thrive. College has changed. There are things going on at colleges and universities today that we parents never would have dreamed could happen. Knowledge of these things is necessary before you and your child make the college decision.

I’ve got three examples of why you must be extremely knowledgeable about colleges:

College and university staff sometimes lies to parents in order to push a certain social agenda.

Colleges and universities are more than happy to take your money in order to prepare your child for a career in which your child probably won’t be able to find employment.

Many college administrators believe that stopping alcohol and drug abuse is the responsibility of the student, not the college.

First off, colleges sometimes lie to parents.

The Imperfect Homeschooler Newsletter….

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….went out earlier this week, but the online version did not become available until today.

Learn how to work with your spouse, where to find an awesome free history resource, what happened when the substitute teacher showed the class what she thought was going to be a geography movie, and much more. You’ll find the online newsletter here.

Have a great weekend!

How to Help Your Children Write Clearly and Concisely

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Many moms say that just the thought of teaching their children to write overwhelms them. I don’t think they fear the teaching of words and sentence structure nearly as much as teaching their children how to write long essays and (eventually) term papers.

I assigned all three of my older kids to write term papers over the years, and I’m not sure how much they got out of it beyond learning to organize information in a logical way that flows. That’s an important skill to have, of course, but it’s certainly not the only hallmark of a good writer.

Perhaps because of my own training as a reporter, I’ve tried to stress to my kids that it’s important to be as clear and concise as possible when you write. That can be a tough goal to attain when you’re writing term papers because they usually include a minimum page requirement. But I think that most of the writing activities they’ll face as adults will require clear, concise writing as opposed to organizing 30 pages’ worth of facts in an understandable manner.

So how do you teach your children to write in a clear and concise manner? Recently, while flipping through a writing book my daughter requested from the library (The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier, see link below), I found this statement:

The best writing teacher I ever had limited us to one-paragraph essays. We had to fit lots of ideas into our paragraph, so we learned to use words sparingly. You can too. Simply distill in your mind the essence of what you want to say, and then state your ideas in simple, clear sentences. You don’t need to dress up your thoughts with extra words.

This sounds like a great way to teach your children to write clearly and concisely. Ask them to write about your family vacation, or a book they read, or an event that occurred in the neighborhood. Challenge them to fit as many ideas as they can into one paragraph.

A benefit for you: correcting a paragraph is way easier than correcting a term paper!

For more ideas, download Cardamom Publishers’ free special report, “Teaching Your Children to Write.”

It All Started with a Check

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I’m still going through stuff from the storage unit, and am embarrassed to admit that I have boxes and boxes of bank statements with cancelled checks dating from the year we got married. Considering that we’ll be celebrating our 30th anniversary this summer, that’s a lot of checks!

My defense is that I was too busy raising kids to go through all this financial detritus sooner. Whatever. The fact is that I have to go through this stuff and shred the checks because our SSNs and credit cards numbers are all over them.

Yes, it’s time-consuming. But I’m determined to get rid of all this before we move again (which may happen this summer, but that’s another story).

One good thing about doing this is that it’s like a walk down memory lane. I’ll find a check for the ob-gyn from when I was pregnant with one of our children, or the big check we wrote for the down payment when we bought our first house, and it’s like reliving those wonderful times.

Today I found a check that really got me thinking about how we can do something very little or ordinary without knowing that the repercussions of that action will be enormous in our lives. Here are the details from that check:

Date: 3/1/84

Amount: $25.00

Pay to the order of: Moore Seminars

Memo: Homeschool Seminar – Wheaton

Who knew that my curiosity about homeschooling would still be affecting our lives 25 years later?

Holidays, Families and Breaking the Chains

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Just got back from a four-day road trip that included an Easter visit with relatives in Chicago. One highlight for me was Friday night, when our immediate family got together for dinner: my husband and me, plus all four kids, our daughter-in-law and our daughter’s boyfriend. It’s so nice to have everyone together! I’m sure grateful that we had all those years of homeschooling. My memories are a comfort to me now that my adult kids live in other states and it takes planning to put us all around one table again, if only for a few hours.

If you’ve read The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling, you’re aware that I came from a pretty messed-up family. Lots of dysfunction there. In fact, when my husband and I were raising our own kids, I chose to maintain a certain distance from the chaos of my family, in an effort to keep the latest generation on an even keel.

My relatives can take the most innocent holiday plans and turn them into a fiasco, even before the holiday arrives. That happened again this year. While most of the fuss occurred before I arrived in town, and all of it happened without my participation, it did change some plans I had made.

When I tried to explain the dust-up to my kids, they didn’t get it. That’s a relief! That tells me that they’re still not used to the dysfunction, that it doesn’t make sense to them. We may not be a perfect family, but at least we don’t operate the way my birth family does.

Many years ago, I heard someone say that a person who’s been abused as a child has to “break the chains” of abuse by making sure they don’t abuse their own children. It really struck a chord with me, and it was only due to the grace of God that I was able to break those chains. I’m not a perfect parent by any means, but I do believe that God enabled me to keep from doing what my parents did. He did so by bringing people and books into my life that gave me a vision for what to do.

He’ll do that for you, too. Just ask Him! That’s what I tell the homeschooling parents I meet at conventions or who write me and ask how to break those patterns of the past, the ones you don’t want to repeat but somehow find yourself doing just the same. Ask for help. You can’t do it alone.