Saying Goodbye to Your Adult Child

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Barb

There once was a single mom whose son joined the military. She missed him terribly, and greatly enjoyed his brief, rare visits home whenever he could get a weekend pass. He was stationed in Florida, so driving home to Chicago and back took up much of the weekend, giving this mom only a few precious hours with her son.

Then one weekend he came home just long enough to say that he was going out with a girl he’d been writing to. Leaving his bag of dirty laundry in the foyer, he shaved and changed into a new suit, then flew out the door.

Late that night, after dropping his date off at her house, he arrived home to see his dirty laundry scattered across the front yard. Some of it was hanging from the trees. He had just enough time to gather up his clothes and head back to Florida, leaving one very angry mom in his wake.

That’s a true story. I often heard both sides of it, because the mom was my grandmother, the son was my dad, and his date was my mom. Whenever my dad told the story, he always laughed about it. But when my grandma told it, anyone could see that she hadn’t completely gotten over her anger.

It wasn’t just the dirty laundry that he expected her to wash, of course. It was the idea that she was no longer his priority when he came home. The many sacrifices she’d made for him and his siblings no longer seemed to matter. All he cared about was some girl he’d met, at least as far as my grandma was concerned.

Another true story that happened to a friend of mine, who is a mom of many children: one of her middle children was the first to go away to college. He was the family clown whose sunny disposition was a bright spot in her life. But whenever he came home for the weekend, he was so busy with his friends that she hardly got to see him. Needless to say, she was very excited that he would be home for the summer, working a summer job to earn money for the coming school year.

Imagine her disappointment when he called to say that he was able to borrow a lot more than he expected in student loans, so he would be spending the summer touring Europe with friends. She barely saw him at all that summer; by the time he came home from Europe, he had to pack up and leave for the fall semester of college.

I felt sorry for my friend when that happened, just as I felt sorry for my grandma when she talked about throwing my dad’s dirty laundry out of the window in anger. But it wasn’t until I had to let go of my own kids that I truly understood how my friend and my grandma felt. It hurts, a lot, and the kids don’t notice because they’re too busy taking on their future.

That said, what’s the alternative? Do you really want to lock up that adult child and keep them close, preventing them from leaving home, finding work, finding love? A common Internet meme is the 30-year-old living in Mom’s basement playing video games and trolling forums. Is that how you hoped your child would turn out? I doubt it.

No, we have to let our kids go. It’s OK to acknowledge the hurt, and to move on (which can be even more difficult than the original letting go). But it has to be done, so that your child can become the person God intends them to become. It also frees you to embrace the next stage of your own life (which is a whole ‘nother topic.)

Educate Yourself

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Barb

Did you know that you can get so busy homeschooling your kids that you completely forget about one more person you need to educate…yourself?

Children change so quickly! That’s why it’s important to stay one step ahead of them on the homeschool journey. It’s hard to do that during the “school year,” but summertime is the ideal time for educating yourself. It’s so important to keep learning about the lifestyle your family has chosen, and particularly about the next stage in your family’s homeschooling life.

Hence our Summer Sale! We’ve just put several homeschooling eBooks on sale at great prices:

Thriving in the 21^st Century (eBook only) ~~$9.99~~ $7.99

Stages of Homeschooling: Beginnings ~~$4.99~~ $2.99

Stages of Homeschooling: Enjoying the Journey ~~$4.99~~ $2.99

Stages of Homeschooling: Letting Go ~~$4.99~~ $2.99

And for your summer reading pleasure (of special interest to Christians and those who love someone with special needs), The 40 Days ~~$5.99~~ $3.99

These eBooks are offered for Amazon Kindle, but you don’t need to buy a Kindle to read them; just download a free Kindle app for your pc or phone! (Step-by-step instructions HERE.)

Don’t Be Intimidated by Homeschooling for High School (Part 2)

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Barb

One question I’m often asked is how involved you should be with your teen in their daily work; my answer is that it depends on the teen, but that your goal should be to work towards independent study by the end of high school. This is good for your teen, but it’s also good for you, especially if you’re homeschooling younger children at the same time. If your child is college-bound, you’ll cripple her if you don’t send her off to school accustomed to independent study. And even if she’s not going to college, being able to work independently is a valued skill in any employee.

When I homeschooled my teens, I gave them increased independence each year, so that by senior year, I was giving them assignments on Monday morning and not working with them again until Friday afternoon, when we went over everything. This didn’t mean I was unavailable to them during the week. But I encouraged them to research things for themselves before coming to me with questions. This worked well for us.

On the other hand, my third child is an auditory/kinesthetic learner, so some of the advanced reading assignments I gave her during 11^th and 12^th grades were too hard for her to learn from based only on her reading of them. But we found that if I read the hardest books aloud to her while she knitted, she absorbed much more of the material, so that’s what we did. I had the time to do this because I was only homeschooling one other child besides her. Interestingly, once she went to college, she no longer needed my help in this way.

In addition to your teens’ daily assignments at home, you may find it desirable or even necessary to enroll them in outside classes. My son took a homeschool chemistry class at a local Christian college, primarily because I didn’t have the time or the inclination to teach him chemistry at home. He also took Spanish at a community college because Spanish is best learned in a group environment where conversation is emphasized. Several years later, after we had moved to another state, his younger sister took graphic design classes at a tech college near our town. We found that having our teens take a few community college classes during high school gave them classroom experience as well as college credits, and I recommend this to other homeschooling parents of teens.

As your teens get older, you’ll find that they won’t need help filling their days. When given the freedom to pursue opportunities that interest them, they do so. Our eldest daughter started a weekly Christian coffeehouse/concert series in our town after writing dozens of pastors asking for a place to hold Christian concerts. Our son joined the youth board at our church and participated in several mission trips. Our younger daughter started a small business selling her stuffed animal creations online and at the farmer’s market of the tourist town we lived in during her teen years. None of these activities had anything to do with my husband and me, other than the use of our car. Our teens pursued these things on their own, with our approval. These activities gave them self-confidence and showed them that they’re capable of following their interests and dreams. For homeschooled teens, living in the real world offers far more challenges and joys than the unreal world of football games and proms that public school teens live in.

Part of that real world living is having responsibilities. Homeschooled teens (especially younger ones who don’t have part-time jobs yet) can help with cooking, cleaning and childcare of younger siblings. Those years are also prime time for learning homemaking and mechanical skills that they’ll need when they’re on their own. It’s important to raise young people who can fix things, cook things and make things. Believe me, such people are a joy to have around the house!

(Excerpted from Stages of Homeschooling: Letting Go (Book 3), now just $2.99. Learn more HERE.)

Hot Off the Press: Letting Go

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Barb

The third book in the “Stages of Homeschooling” series, Letting Go, is now available for $4.99 at Amazon.com.

Like the previous books in the series, this book is a combination of new material and a variety of articles I wrote while homeschooling my four children. Stages of Homeschooling: Letting Go (Book 3) focuses on:

“Making the Choice to Homeschool Older Children and Teens” (Motivations for homeschooling through high school)
“Which Subjects Should Homeschooled Teens Study?” (Includes those your local high school probably doesn’t offer, but should)
“The College Decision” (Not which college to attend, but whether your teen should even go to college)
“Preparing Our Teens for the World of Work” (The 21st century world of work, not the 20th)
“Tips for Homeschooling Parents” (Hints and hope for parents of homeschooled teens)
“Books and Resources” (A few of the best)
“Personal Memories of Homeschooling Teens” (Glimpses into the life of a longtime homeschooling family)

Learn more about the entire “Stages of Homeschooling” series HERE.

The Temptation to Create Mama’s Boys (and Girls)

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Barbara Frank

Apparently there’s a new reality television show in the works called “Mama’s Boys of the Bronx.” It focuses on adult men who still live at home and allow their mothers to coddle them. According to this article,

The show follows the escapades of these men at work, at home or enjoying New York’s nightlife before they come home to their doting moms, who spend their days trying to keep tabs on the partying, dreaming and scheming of their sons.

It’s easy to poke fun at these men, and I’m sure most young women would look at them as poor marriage prospects. I mean, who wants to compete with a guy’s mother for his affection?

That said, I can see how a mom might end up in this position if she isn’t careful. It’s hard to let go of our kids, especially with so many dangers in the world that we hear about every day; it’s natural to want to keep our chicks safely tucked under our wings. Then there’s the fact that raising kids to adulthood means losing control of their lives. That’s how it should be, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.

Those of us who homeschooled our kids to adulthood spent many years in control of our kids’ schedules, their meals, their activities…let’s face it, we were in charge of them 24/7. But once they become adults, we have to relinquish that control. (It’s easiest if you start letting go, little by little, when they’re in their early teens, but that still doesn’t make it pain-free for us moms.)

But if we don’t let go, if we spend our days “trying to keep tabs” on them, or even if we just try to weigh in on every decision they make, or prevent them from achieving independence by offering free room and board, free car use, and spending money, what we effectively do is cripple them, emotionally and financially. Doing so also keeps them from enjoying their freedom (hopefully in a God-pleasing way) before they start their own families. So even though it may go against our mama instincts, we need to cut them loose for their own good.

It’s also for our own good. Mothers who spend their time caring for adult children that are perfectly capable of life on their own are crippling themselves. Once the child-rearing years are over, it’s time for these women to go back to other productive pursuits in their lives. Perhaps coddling their adult children helps them avoid the reality that their day-to-day job is over and they need to figure out what’s next.

That’s a scary thought. It requires waiting on God to show us the next thing that “He planned in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). It also means letting go of our desire to control our own lives as we wait for our next assignment. As a recently retired homeschool mom, I struggle with this all the time.