Our Parental Rights in Jeopardy?

Posted on February 17, 2009 by Barb

Back in the days of the Clinton administration, an ugly idea was born, and it grew. It was called the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The stated purpose of this, as posted at the U.N.’s website, is “to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential.”

Sounds good, right? No sane person wants to see children hurt. But, in this case, there’s a catch. Again in the words of the U.N.:

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights-civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights….By agreeing to undertake the obligations of the Convention (by ratifying or acceding to it), national governments have committed themselves to protecting and ensuring children’s rights and they have agreed to hold themselves accountable for this commitment before the international community.

Here’s where things get sticky. By ratifying this, the U.S. would be handing over its authority to the U.N. Their rules would supersede our laws.

To make matters worse, those who are the driving force behind this often view children’s rights differently than we do. Parents who spank could be found in violation of it. So could parents who homeschool.

Bottom line: this stinks. It first reared its ugly head during the Clinton administration (new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a big proponent of this). Fortunately it was not ratified by our Congress at that time. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration did nothing to promote it.

But now the Obama administration is in charge, and many of its members are on the U.N.’s side on this issue. In fact, the Senate is scheduled to vote very soon on the confirmation of Deputy Attorney General nominee David W. Ogden, who actually believes we should already be following the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Learn more about him here.

As parents, we need to stay on top of this, and to call our legislators as the need arises.

HT: Kim D.

What Kind of Homeschooler Are You?

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Barb

Recently, I added an article to my site in which I posed the question you see above. My thought was that there are really just two kinds of homeschoolers, “proactive” and “reactive.”

Ann Zeise had another idea. She wrote:

It strikes a chord, as I was one of the reactive ones. Then I went to an elderly friend’s memorial service Saturday, and they said his favorite saying was:

There are three kinds of people:

Those who make things happen.
Those who watch things happen.
And those who wonder “What happened?”

You forgot that third type: the ones who want to start homeschooling in the spring of their teen’s senior year, because they are then suddenly aware of “What happened!”

Awesome, Ann!

(BTW, Ann is the creator of the homeschooling site, A to Z Home’s Cool, which has an amazing amount of information for homeschooling parents.)

They’re Indenturing Our Children….With A Bill They Haven’t Even Read

Posted on February 13, 2009 by Barb

This is wrong on so many levels. The stimulus bill (or “Porkulus,” as it’s been more appropriately declared) was rushed through the House today because Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in a hurry to leave on a trip. At least that’s the excuse they’re giving. But the bottom line is that they’re handing out pork left and right and claiming it will help the economy. But how can they know this when they haven’t read the bill?

I’m proud to say that our former congressman, Illinois representative Don Manzullo, voted against this bill and the bailout bill that was passed in the fall. Rep. Manzullo was a homeschooling dad, btw (his kids are grown now). Wish we had a lot more like him in the House and Senate.

This bill, btw, hands out money that the U.S. does not have. But we’re printing it as fast as we can. Meanwhile, our founding fathers spin in their graves.

The Key to Learning Easily

Posted on February 13, 2009 by Barb

Early on, I discovered that my older three children learned the things that interested them much more easily than the subjects they didn’t care so much about.

For one, writing came easily while math was a much slower process. For another, vacuuming the living room properly (i.e. in more than 30 seconds) was far too difficult, while learning to design a Web site based on a much-loved hobby was fast and easy. For yet another, reading Shakespeare was a piece of cake while reading history from a textbook was torture.

Then there’s #4. He’s the one with Down syndrome, and homeschooling him has been a much slower process all the way around. He’s had a particularly hard time with reading. We continue to review words that he learned years ago; if we don’t, he forgets them. I got kind of depressed the other day when he blanked out on “is” and “find,” because they’re easy and he’d known them for a long time, up until then.

However, my husband discovered something that same day which reminded me that dsds15 can easily remember the words that mean something to him. He loves video games and movies, and one of his favorite subjects in both categories is “X-Men.” He especially likes to pause the game whenever it displays a character so he can write down the character’s name. He will often print long lists of these characters as he plays.

My husband took one of these lists and asked my son to read the names on it. These are names like Professor Xavier, Mystique, Magneto…..15 or 20 of them on a page. And he could read every name we pointed to! That stinker…..like his older siblings, if something interests him, he has a much easier time with it.